16Clary
Escape, escape, escape, escape.
Mud is sloshing between my swollen toes, leaves and twigs catching in my knotted hair. My feet thud onto the forest floor, their pacing uneven and fast and scared like a broken heartbeat. I can't breathe quick enough; my lungs are burning inside me. The forest around me is a blur of ridged brown, harsh sunlight, and the overwhelming green of the bushes, leaves.
And mortification has me in a deadly headlock every time I hear their thundering footsteps behind me, crisp, cruel. Tactical.
One misstep, and I've lost the wisp of freedom I've managed to grab onto. Yet, I know I'll never fully taste true freedom, even if I manage—by some godly miracle—to escape them. Not with these damned iron cuffs chafing my wrists.
Acutely, I feel the trees mocking me, the birds laughing at me, at how foolish I must be to try to escape from them. How foolish we all must have been, the three of us. Simon, Emma, and I. We've all fled in different directions, Simon to the east, Emma northwest, and I, southwest.
I refuse to tell myself that they've caught Simon and Emma, that my two dear friends have been dragged back to that god-forsaken hell.
I begin to wonder—after realizing I've been running long enough that the greenery has masked Valentine's Keep, where they chained us—why they're not using their guns, their clever traps and tricks. They must be confident.
If I ran faster, would I make it far enough to find a place to hide? Or are they already twelve steps ahead of me?
My world splits into so many dizzying pieces when the first gunshot ripples through the air, and I veer to the right. Fear—there's so much fear, just crawling up my body, a hungry demon wanting more and more and more. I don't know how much more I can give.
More gunshots singe the forest, so many that they're all I can hear. Dodging them is exhausting; it slows me down.
Without a thought in my head, I seize the little strength grappling to remain in me, and sprint until I can see and feel and hear nothing but the awaiting freedom, which will be all mine to toy with, embrace, if I can just go a little farther.
The faint sound of rushing water shoots an idea into my desperate mind. And, the chance of this bud of an idea working out is like grabbing onto a thread during a hurricane: dangerously close to hopeless.
But it could all fall into place perfectly. It's either this, or going back to that nightmare teeming with evil, going back to the Keep.
I look to my left, where I'm almost positive this river is going to be, and, to my immense dismay, my eyes latch onto their black uniforms, their hooded faces. The cockiness in every one of their moves.
They should take off these fucking cuffs, and then we'll see how cocky they're daring to get.
I'm calculating how on god's green earth I'm going to get past them, and stupidly, it hits me—I'm in a forest. Not a meter of this place is without its own arsenal of hiding spots, obstacles, shelters.
The bastards chasing me from behind are far enough that, if I duck under one of the several protruding, large roots jutting from the mud-and-grass-covered floor, they could possibly fail to notice.
A few seconds of contemplation pass, and I've stumbled under a root, which is suffocating in moss and beautiful little flowers. I wonder how old it is, how much it must have endured. I'm almost unable to keep my heaving breaths from being too loud, but as I hear boot-clad feet thunder above me, my paranoia surges, paralyzing me. I make no noise, no movement. I'm nothing, but fear.
When they've gone, when the scent of hunger, anger, has been kissed away by the smell of sweet forest, I peer cautiously around the tree root. Relief cascades inside me, fresh and cool like a summer breeze, when there isn't a single black uniform staining the area around me.
The weight of the world is no longer mine.
But, when their thick skulls register the fact that I've probably hidden, they'll come back, scavenging. And no doubt with their guns even handier this time.
Images of getting dragged back by the hair, or a dart of serum that'll knock me out cold snipping right through my unguarded skin, sends my numb, yet throbbing feet padding quietly through the maze of trees and bushes towards the raging river, about half a mile away. The steady sound of gushing water seems to twine around my heart, my mind, calming me in the way only nature can.
Has Simon gotten to the abandoned grocery store a few miles from the Keep, as we'd planned? Has he found the maps rumored to be hidden under the counters? And has Emma found the rogue tribe of rebels near the northwest coast?
The wicked clinking of the chains linking together the iron cuffs gagging my wrists, rings awfully through the forest. But the near-ethereal radiance of the nature encompassing me, buttery sunlight, enchanting flowers and all, has me in a daze. Funny, how it's all so breath-taking when I'm not running for my life.
The pace of my steps increases with each passing second, because the Keep's guards can—and will—double back at any moment.
Grass and mud soon become swampy, the blissful sounds of the gnashing, powerful river thriving around me, along with the buzz of dragonflies and the crunching of dead leaves and sticks as small creatures skitter over them.
Pungent river-smell attacks the air in large tendrils. My nose scrunches, and then scrunches even further at the clacking of my chains, every time I move.
I sigh quietly, but the river is alive around me. I'm excited, anticipating the taste freedom. Does it get bitter after a while? Or shall it remain charming, like most love?
A few more metres, and there it is. The water, before me: deep, opaque with mud, and unrelentingly turbulent. Expectedly, there is a small dock—just three or four planks for decaying wood, and a raft, paired with an oar, tied to the dock. I could use the sharp edges of my chains to fray the rope, and then . . .
I stand in front of it, dirty water spraying onto me. Soft, silent tears drag down my grimy cheeks.
And I'm taking one weighted step towards it, tears morphing into soundless sobs. Two steps. Three. Five. The wet wood of the dock has brushed my toes.
Free, a hair's breadth away from freedom.
Then, a sky-shredding crack splits my heart into two, and all I know is pain. I collapse onto the dock, my eyes and mouth propped wide in agony, blood slithering down my back, poisoning my filthy clothes. My wrists scraping against the iron cuffs is what finally awakens me from my shock.
I scream so brutally; my throat feels as if it's been sanded with tree bark.
So close. So fucking close.
There isn't a word to describe the incinerating animosity I feel the moment a hearty laugh seeps into my ears.
"You caught the bitch, thank god," the words slither out of Hodge Starkweather's mouth. I hate that I know every one of their voices, their names. Hate it. "It's like killing a mosquito, isn't it, Jonathan?" Wayland. Wayland shot me.
Of course, he shot me. Vengeful, arrogant piece of dog shit.
Someone snorts, though it's definitely not Wayland. "The whore's filthy, diseased, like a mosquito," says Bat Velasquez, as if it's an epiphany he's made. A boot wipes across my leg, smearing mud all over my skin. "For once in your pathetic life, Starkweather, you've babbled something correctly."
I'm too paralyzed to speak, to unleash the living anger within. I'm tired beyond belief, I realize, and my eyelids shut.
"Oi," Starkweather snarls. "Watch it. You'd be no less of a whore than her—"
"If that's even possible," points out one of the more useless guards, Malachi Dieudonne. The statement pulls a laugh from everyone. Though, I can't hear Wayland. Perhaps, to my luck, he's left, to help alert everyone else that I've been found, that I'm bleeding disgraceful blood and everyone should rejoice.
I register footsteps at my side, hopefully not Starkweather's, because the old pervert makes me want to peel the skin off his body, slowly, more so than the others.
A calloused finger tucks under my chin, roughly lifting it up. My tired eyes stagger open, immediately melding with a bored, but slightly curious gaze.
"Go find the others, and alert the Keep she's been found and killed," Wayland orders, voice smooth like the flow of calm water. His features turn devious, malicious, as his stare probes at me. A smirk paints his lips cruelly.
I don't let myself be scared. Death is a new type of freedom, I suppose.
Surprise, coupled with spikes of envy, is evident in Velasquez's voice, "You're going to kill the whore yourself? Keep the glory to yourself? Unfair, don't you think?"
"I'd like to enlighten you, in case your small brain somehow hasn't caught on, even after all these years: I don't give a damn about unfair." His voice suggests a sarcastic smile on his face. His finger under my chin slips away, but I'm too drained of energy—and blood—to acknowledge the pain.
"You're a real pain in the ass, Wayland," Starkweather quips.
"And you'll be much, much worse if you talk to your superior like that again." Wayland sighs, bored. "Just go. Find the two other morons that escaped, if you're so inclined. The search team for them is bound to be more incompetent than you fools, so why don't you go make yourselves useful?"
If wishes come true, then I'm wishing a thousand times that Simon and Emma have touched the freedom they've dreamt of. This world is so harsh to dreamers, anyway. Perhaps the gods above will let there be an exception. Please, please, let today be an exception.
Everything around me starts to get quieter, and the bellowing river I'd so admired, subdues to a gentle lull. And I'm so, so sleepy.
When I can at least manage, through the fading world, to recognize that Starkweather, Velasquez, and Dieudonne are out of earshot, I groan in protest of whatever I'm sure Wayland will do next.
"I'm going to remove that bullet," he assures quietly, voice rough. I have the flittering energy to be incredulous, but then it ebbs like the ink in a pen. "And if a sound comes out of your mouth, Clarissa Fairchild, the entire search team will know your location, and you'll be dead before you can pray to stay alive."
Mustering the strength to grumble a response is a feat only the gods can achieve in my state, so I nod, barely.
"Hang in there," he whispers. It's so soothing, I want to let go of every tether and just sleep, but the picture of Emma negotiating with the tribe of rebels for shelter, and Simon, glancing at the maps with renewed faith, startles the life in me to dance a little longer. If only for them.
I hear the unzipping of a backpack, and suddenly, my lips are being parted by Wayland's slender fingers—they taste bitter, like sterilizer—and a handkerchief is between my teeth. "Bite down if you must," he instructs, though kindly.
I only moan, biting down weakly, because I cannot manage anything more, once something ice-cold cuts through the skin on the back of my right shoulder blade. Another cluster of blood gladly dampens my ratchet hospital-esque gown. More metal enters the cut he just made, and, I can sense there isn't a morsel of doubt in his movements as he picks that repulsive bullet from my body, as he cradles it in his palm, then chucks it into the roaring river watching us a few feet away. A needle swivels in and out of the cut, and I don't know how many minutes pass before he's finished with all the gauze, too.
I can identify the feel of a syringe biting into me no matter how alive or dead I am, no matter how fixed or broken. So, as soon as I sense my skin splitting for the tip of a syringe, every shred of resistance festering within me explodes disastrously. I jerk my arm away, about to damn it all and let out a scream.
"What part of 'don't make a noise' fell deaf to you?" Wayland growls warningly, his cunning, honey eyes crackling in frustration.
He's taken notice of how I'm looking at the syringe, and the sigh he lets out holds a note of defeat. "It's a healing serum, Clarissa. Remember the ones the Keep had used on you initially?" He softly eases my arm back to him. "When you'd screamed from pain so loud, you'd woken the guards from all the way up on the roof?" I'm so concentrated on looking at the needle tip inching closer to my vein, at the consoling brush of his voice against my ears, I don't even question why he remembers my screaming from years and years ago. "You'd fallen right to sleep—", the needle's in my skin, and he's pushing the serum into my bloodstream, "–when Graymark had given it to you, like a little baby would have done." A fond grin twitches at his mouth.
Despite everything, I've forgotten what it's like to be healed, and it feels nice to remember.
A/N: I've been so excited to write this, I finished this whole thing last night ; -; Please review! They make me 10/10 very happy :) I've been on the worst Sarah J. Maas high as of late, so I got super inspired to make clace magical and stuff lol. Also, guess who read Half Truths for the ninth time last week? this bitch right here. sigh.
Also, lmk if you want Jace's PoV next chapter!
Anyway, I hope all of you have had a wonderful day, and I'll see you in the next one!