The following morning, I put on my few usual runes then head down to the kitchen.
"Morning," Alec says from a table in the side of the room.
"Hey," I say while yawning and stretching my arms up over my head.
"What's that?" he says while pointing to my stomach.
Aw shit. "Nothing," I say as I put my arms down and hide my rune.
"Looks like a rune."
"Yeah I-I put that there."
"Which one is it?" He walks over to me.
I shake my head. "Not any of the important ones, stuff about my family."
He nods. "That's all you need to say. You hungry?"
I nod. "Yeah, starving."
He gestures to a few boxes of donuts sitting on the counter. "Got no clue who brought them, but once it's out its fair game. Have at it."
I chuckle and walk over to the counter, taking one of the donuts. "Anything interesting planned for today?"
"Izzy, Jace, and I were gonna go head over to Pandemonium tonight, hunt some demons and do some clubbing. You interested?"
I chuckle. "You guys go clubbing?"
"Sometimes. You in?"
I shrug. "Sure, why not?"
He smiles slightly. "Dress for demons."
I nod. "Got it." I take a bite of my donut.
"Just do me a favor?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't give every dance to a demon you wanna kill, save one for me?"
I chuckle. "Cool your jets, we're not even at the club yet."
His smile gets a little bigger.
"Hey," Jace says as he walks into the room.
"Hey," I say while turning my attention to him.
"You busy later?"
"Not until Pandemonium, why?"
"Wanted to know if you wanted to catch up?"
"Sure, sounds great. We can talk over training."
He chuckles. "You haven't changed a bit, have you?"
"Did you really think I would?"
He laughs a little. "You've got quite the catch here, Alec. I know you're my brother but hurt my sister and I'll crush you like a bug."
Alec chuckles. "I'm not gonna hurt her."
"You'd better not, I'd hate to have to kill my parabatai."
"You guys are parabatai?" I ask.
Alec nods. "You have one?"
I shake my head. "But I did."
"Friend from Idris?"
"Something like that. I don't really wanna talk about it," I say as I take a bite from my donut.
Izzy walks into the room while running a hand through her hair. "Morning everyone."
"Morning," I say with a yawn.
"You coming to Pandemonium?"
I nod. "Alec already asked me."
She looks at Alec, a much more interested and awake look on her face. "Is that so?"
"Because I was in here first," Alec sighs.
She smiles a little. "Okay, okay."
I finish my donut, then wipe my hands with a napkin. "Okay, I'm gonna go train."
"I'll be there in a few minutes," Jace says.
I nod as I walk out of the room. I go to my room and quickly change into black leggings and a white t-shirt that I cut the sleeves off of, then go down to the weaponry with my throwing runes in hand.
"There you are," Jace says while turning to face me with a blade in his hand. "I've been here for like, five minutes."
"I was getting changed," I say as I put down my runes and grab my dagger from my boot.
"I can tell. You ready?"
Instead of saying something or giving him a signal of some sort, I charge at him.
He swings his blade at me, but I jump back and tear the handle from his hand.
I kick his legs out from under him, and he falls to the ground. I put my foot on his chest as a smile creeps across my face. "Looks like I win."
He chuckles. "Guess so."
I help him stand up and hand him the blade I ripped from his hand.
"So, what's happened in your life since I left Idris?"
"A lot."
"Anything you wanna talk about?"
I shake my head. "No, not really."
"You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"Jace, I don't even know you anymore. I'm sorry."
"You can get to know me now. What do you wanna know?"
I shake my head. "I don't wanna get to know you through questions, I wanna get to know you by being your friend. Like when we were kids."
He sighs. "Can I get one question without declining an answer?"
I sigh. "Why?"
"Because I wanna know something." He puts his blade down and pulls out a blue slip of paper. "I remember, when we were like, eight, you gave me what you called an anything dollar in replace of a birthday present. I could get anything I wanted without retribution."
"Why do you still have that?"
"I took it with me when I left Idris, figured it'd give me a memory of my old friend."
"How did you not lose it within six years?"
He shrugs. "Don't know. I saw it this morning and figured it'd be a way to get an answer for a question I really wanna know."
I sigh. "What is it?"
"What happened to your family?"
"Please ask me something else."
"I want to know."
I sigh again and sit down against a place on the wall where there are no weapons. "When I was thirteen... I met this guy. His name was Jake. We started going out, hell we were parabatai. And about a year later, I found out that he wasn't who I thought he was. He'd been bitten by a werewolf and neglected to tell me. And one day he pissed off some vampires, killed a few of them with his pack. They came after him while he was at my house, and they killed everyone. Except for us. He and I survived. But I was so mad at him, I broke our parabatai bond and told him to get out of my life."
"They got killed by vamps?"
I nod while choking back a small sob. I always cry when I tell the story.
"I-I'm sorry."
"I don't want your pity."
"If the last guy you trusted broke your heart, why are you trusting Alec not to? I mean, he wouldn't dare break your heart, but why so willing?"
I sigh. "Jake left a huge hole in my heart, a huge hole in my life. Ever since then, I've been looking for something or someone to fill it. When I first saw Alec... it kind of felt whole again."
"Are you already in love with Alec?"
My eyes widen as I shake my head. "No, no god no." I look down at the ground and sigh. "After they died, I was alone for so long. I eventually tried to find Jake, but he was gone."
"You're not alone anymore. You've got us."
I take a deep breath and nod. "I know."
We sit in silence for almost a minute, until I speak up.
"We're here to train, not tell sad stories."
"Right, right." He stands up and holds out his hand to help me.
I grab his hand and stand up as I take my dagger out of my boot. "Let's do this."