When I finally wake up in the morning I find myself tangled between the sheets on the edge of the bed.
I slowly start to remember the events of last night and a smile creeps in on my face.
Alec must have woken up earlier and left, or he didn't stay at all and just left after I fell asleep.
And for a strange reason I silently pray for the first option.
I decide to stay a bit in bed and just enjoy the last moments of happiness of today before I'll have to get up and deal with my life.
Unfortunately my plan quickly fails, judging by the nock on my door not even a minute later. The person outside doesn't wait for an answer before barging into the room.
"You're still sleeping?" I don't see Alec but I only hear his voice since I am laying with my head facing the pillow. "Cmon we've gotta move." I groan and dig my head under the pillow refusing to make the slightest move. I hear a sigh coming from Alec. "Okay, but remember you brought this to yourself." He says and before I have the time to consider the meaning of these words a hand grabs my foot pulling me down, and I fall on the ground.
"What the heck?" I murmur laying now on the floor with my head pressed on the cold ground aware of my heart banging in my chest, the sound of it reaching my ears.
"For fucks shake sky get up, we have things to do. The others are waiting." Alec insists causing me to sigh.
"I hate life." I groan but I get up anyway. "And by the way this is not a way to treat a lady." I say looking at the older boy with my eyebrows raised, now on my feet.
He gives me a sarcastic smile. "Well let me know if you find one." He remarks causing me to turn the other way and give him the middle finger over my back as I head to the bathroom.
^^^^
When I go down to find the others, they are all gathered at the foyer sitting around a table. There seems to be a disagreement judging by the look on their faces and their movements. When I approach them the conversation stops and everyone turns to look at me.
"Well good morning." I say sitting there awkwardly since everyone's gaze was on me. "Um...will you like, continue to look at me like I grew another head or...?"
The group snaps out of its daze and Jace is the first one to talk. "Good morning." He starts. "We would like your opinion on something." He says only to be interrupted by my brother.
"No, we don't need your opinion cause there is not even discussing it." Completely lost I'm ready to speak up but Isabelle beats me to it.
"We should at least ask her if she wants to."
But my brother isn't taking any of this since he stops her. "She doesn't."
"Hey!" I snap at them, "can someone explain me what the fuck are you talking about? Do I want to do what?"
Now they look at me with guilty expressions, no one making the move to talk. I look at my brother but he doesn't budge, so I turn to Alec. "Well?" I insist and he sighs.
"We were thinking of going to your house...to search for any trace of the cup. After the box we found in Clary's apartment we think it could be possible that there's something at yours too."
I stay looking at him for a moment before Adam breaks the silence. "I already told them no." He says and I think about it.
Do I wanna go? Like, I get it it could help, but that means not only being in this place again, but also searching through everything in there, and I don't know if I am completely positive with the idea of them seeing things they shouldn't.
"Um...I.-" Jace interrupts me. "Look, Adam and Alec aren't really into the idea. But we think it could help. " he gestures between him, Isabelle and Clary. "Just think about it, it could lead us to, even the cup. Isn't this the whole point? To get the cup and save everyone, your mother included?"
I know that he is right, but I still can't get myself to agree on it. I run a hand through my hair and turn to look at Adam. I'm not the only one who has a say on this. I ask him a silent question with my eyes. What do you say? He shrugs, and gets up from his sitting position, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the room.
"What are we doing?" He asks me.
"I don't know, I get it, I mean I know they're right, we have to do it...." he sighs and looks at me, concern feeling his eyes.
"I am worried about you. I mean are you sure you're okay with this?"
"No...but, I'm not okay with many things Adam, but they have to be done, that's how life works." I say, playing the philosopher, too early in the morning for my liking. He nods his head at me and looks me carefully.
"Okay." He says and we return to the rest of the group, all sitting silently at the table.
"We're in."announces my brother and while Jace Isabelle and clary seem happy about it I can't help but notice Alec looking at me with a worried expression.
"I'll drive." I announce and everyone turns to look at me wide-eyed.
"Heck no!" Objects Alec and Isabelle nods agreeing with him.
"We'll walk." She announces and I look at them dumbfounded.
"Are you kidding? It's like half an hour from here. We will walk?"
Alec shrugs. "Still better than your driving." I scoff turning to the other shadowhunters offended.
"Oh c'mon I'm not even that bad." I say but nobody seems ready to support me, as they all face the floor.
"You are worse." Agrees Alec and I turn to glare at him over my shoulder.
^^^^
After half an hour of walking through the streets of Brooklyn, since everyone refused to get in a car with me, we finally arrive at our destination.
My breath hitches at my throat at the side of the house that I haven't seen in months. I am too afraid to get in, terrified of all the memories that are already starting to resurface.
Jace pushes the metal door and we step into our garden walking towards the entrance.
Something is off. There is no green left here, it looks like someone burned it. The house itself isn't in the best condition ever. Walking in I realize that that was an understatement.
The whole place is destroyed, like there was some big fire in here. There's nothing left.
I stand there quietly observing the torched place that I once used to call a home. There have been like years since the last time that it actually felt like that. But seeing it in this condition...isn't exactly easy for me.
I turn to look at my brother whose eyes have tear up. He holds my hand in his as a sign of compassion and I gently squeeze his back.
"Your mother must have done it." Starts Jace breaking the silence.
"She did it to protect you." Alec jumps in with a gentle voice.
"How?" Asks Adam voicing my thoughts. "She was taken."
"She probably knew a warlock, she should have been ready for a kind of attack. She had many things up her sleeve." Explains Isabelle and we nod.
We make our way upstairs to check the other rooms. Adams room is in the same state as the rest of the house, nothing left of him or me. And then there is mine. Or the room that used to be mine and May's before her death. I couldn't stand living in the same room that she did. To know that she once existed in this place, alive and happy and magical. I couldn't stand remembering the way she roamed around, dancing, singing, all over the place. Her smell, the two bottles of cologne left on the nightstand, the brush, still with her hair on it. Her clothes in the closet, her teddy bear that she kept even though she was eighteen. It was just too much. So after like a few months I decided to go to Adams room. No trace of her.
When I walk in a crushing fear overwhelms me. The room is in a similar state as every other room in here, just burned. The pink on the walls is barely recognizable any more, if I didn't know it I could miss it. All of our thing have been destroyed. All those things left untouched after her death, no one daring to move them. To erase the last trails of her. I think that no one of us was ready to admit that she was gone forever. And when we finally did, the aftermath was a big explosion. Destroying everyone in this house.
I don't know for how long I have been standing here but I notice everyone is gone now. I am standing alone in front of the door, not daring to place my foot in the room. There is no point anyway.
I hear footsteps and Alec approaches me.
He comes and stands right beside me looking at the room like he knows. "Was that your room?" He asks me and I nod.
"Mine and May's." My voice barely above a whisper. "I haven't been in here for like years."
He looks at me confused with his eyebrows raised. "years?"
"Yeah, I moved to Adam's after...."
" Oh. I get it." He reassures me and I avert my gaze to the torched room again. "Why don't you see if you can...you know find anything? Adam found a few items in his room that survived the fire."
I don't reply. Do I want to? Will I be able to take it? I take a step forward, stepping carefully in the room like it's a war zone. I roam around for a while looking for anything that could indicate that there's something left of me here. But maybe there hasn't been anything since the very beginning.
I open the drawers, with great struggle, and in the first one there are some clothes, completely destroyed. The second one contains some make up, which has melted and a few burnt books. Okay harsh. And then, in the next one, I find some photos. Family ones framed, all bunched up here together. I haven't seen these in like forever. The frames are a bit destroyed but when I open them, the photos are mainly unharmed. I observe them, my eyes filling with tears. There are from vacations, mostly the five of us, in some kind of beach or mountain. Others are from Christmas, under the Christmas tree we used to decorate in the living room, a tradition long forgotten.
I hit the wall with my back and slide down , tears threatening to run from my eyes. I close them tightly. I don't cry. I haven't done it in so many years, I'm not breaking now.
Alec approaches me and sits down next to me, causing me to turn and look at him.
"Is this you?" He asks pointing at a small girl with a bikini in the beach.
"Yeah." I reply quietly.
It was me. I was probably nine back then. I am standing with the beach as a background next to Adam, May and behind us are our parents. Smiling at the camera. God, I haven't seen them smile in so many years, I had actually forgotten how the looked like when they did. I look at them. They don't even seem like the same people. Adam is so cute here, wearing a hat and smiling at the camera with his crooked teeth.
And May, always the beautiful one in the family, like my mother, they look exactly alike. You could see the similarity in this picture. It was clear. They both were greened eyed beauties with their perfect hair down in soft curls. May's black, mom's blonde. Their only difference.
And then it was me. With my own black hair, shorter at the time, and my grey eyes, standing out from everyone else's. I am smiling and I look so happy. Wearing a big hat like in those movies I look almost beautiful myself. I don't even bother to take a second glance at my fathers figure. I can't.
Alec interrupts my thoughts.
"You know, you and May, you look alike a lot. " I frown.
Everyone used to say that, but I don't see it. Except from our hair everything else was different. It was also the aura of us. I looked null and boring and she looked endlessly fascinating. We were complete different people. And maybe that's why I can't see it. Because I know us.
"Maybe." I reply back.
"You looked very cute," he starts and I'm thankful for my ability not to blush. "What happened?" He finishes. I should've guessed.
"I became hot." I reply jokingly making him laugh and shake his head.
"Can't disagree with that."
My heart stops for only a short moment and then starts it's function again, banging in my rib cage with force.
Come again? The boy said what?
"Okay I'll pretend you didn't just lie to my face, and made fun of me." I say laughing and he shakes his head.
"Why is it impossible for you to believe that?"
"Because I know that it's not true. And even if it was, hot is a very lousy and lazy way to describe me." I say and he smiles at me.
"I only agree on your second statement there. It's true hot isn't the correct way to describe you. You're way more than that." He says and I stay there dumbfounded looking at the older boy.
I can't breath.
I feel like I'm going to faint and I thank god that I'm sitting right now. A strange feeling tugs at my stomach, and all I can see right now in this room is Alec. The smell of the fire fades and my nostrils are filled with his smell, coffee and vanilla.
And I can't breath.
God, stop Sky, stop just stop. No.
" You shouldn't say those things." I whisper to him. "I might actually believe you." I finish and he looks at me intensely in the eyes as we stand there sitting on the floor with our backs pressed on the wall.
"Guys, we have to move. Sorry to break your little moment over there but it's no longer safe here, and clearly there's nothing that could help us." Suddenly interrupts us jace from the doorway and we awkwardly look away getting up and walking towards the door.
My breaths are still irregular but no one seems to notice.
Halfway there Alec stops and turns around to face me. "You should take these you know." He says gesturing to the pictures that I had left on the floor.
Should I? I don't know. I look at them skeptically for a moment or two before deciding to follow his advice. I approach them gently taking them in my hands and making my way towards the living room.
When we reach the others I notice that Adam is holding what he managed to find in an unburnt state too. He sees the pictures in my hands and like me he takes his moment analyzing them, looking ready to sit down and start crying. I place my hand on his shoulder to show my support and he closes his eyes for a second before opening them again announcing to the rest of the group that we are ready to leave.
That's when I notice the picture frame on the floor. Inside a photo of our family, taken a few months before her death at her birthday party. The frame is shattered in the middle where we stand smiling hugging one other. And in this moment, I realize that there's nothing that describes our family better. And this realization leaves me with a heavy feeling on my chest, but it's not like I didn't know it all along.
Not taking another look at the photograph I turn around and walk for the last time out of this cursed building that I once considered a home. Closing the door behind me, I am relived that at least, I manage to leave this place and everything that happened in there behind.