Wild Warriors: A Shadowhunters Fanfic

14. Bound by Blood

          Max ended up having his rune ceremony back at the Institute the next night. It was a small celebration where he said his oaths and received his first rune from a Silent Brother.
Maryse was a proud mother that night.

The next day dawned with no further leads on where Valentine could be or what he could possibly have wanted with Magnus' spells. And because we couldn't find Valentine, we couldn't find Madzie, either.
I was starting to feel the pressure to find this little girl before something went terribly wrong. She was in the company of the most dangerous man in our world and she was too young to even realize it. I didn't like Iris Rouse one bit, but Madzie was an innocent girl that didn't deserve to be dragged into this mess.

It was close to noon when my bedroom door swung open and slammed into the wall behind it. I dropped the book I was holding into my lap, the thick cover falling shut.
It was Jace, looking equal parts annoyed and impatient.
"Do you know where Clary is?" He asked as kindly as he could despite his sister being missing again. I felt my whole body deflate.
"She's not anywhere in the Institute?"
"No. I checked everywhere and no one has seen her for hours."
I stood from my bed, pushing the book aside on my covers.
"Dammit, what if Valentine has her already? She couldn't be far unless-"
"No," Jace held up a hand to cut me off. "If she was taken from the Institute, the alarms would have gone off."

I was silent, thinking. Jace was right, Clary was most likely fine. But who knows how long that would last?

"Have you tried Simon?" I asked. Jace's expression revealed that he hadn't thought to. I nodded and started pulling my shoes on. "Let's go find Simon," I said. "He hides out at Redhook Docks behind the Jade Wolf-"
"What is he doing with a bunch of werewolves?" Jace asked dryly.
"Well, we can ask him when we find him."

The walk to the Jade Wolf took less than half an hour and by the time we found Simon's storage container, the sun was shining brighter than ever. Despite that, however, there was a chilly wind in the air that kept reminding us that fall was right around the corner.

Jace slid open the metal door to the storage unit and I followed him inside. At first, Clary and Simon where nowhere to be seen and I thought we had looked in the wrong unit. Until I saw a canoe above us rocking back and forth and heard two giggling voices.
I blinked a few times and rocked back on the balls of my feet.
When I looked over to Jace, he was rolling his eyes into the back of his head.
"I'm going to let you handle this one," I whispered to him. "She's your sister."

Jace sighed in irritation at the two individuals above us and stalked over to where an old car was sitting, probably having been parked there since forever. He reached inside the open window on the driver's side and slammed his hand down on the horn. A loud honking echoed throughout the metal storage, loud enough to make even me jump. Clary and Simon both emitted sounds of surprise and the canoe rocked dangerously. I soon saw two heads appear over the edge of the boat.

Clary's expression of panic quickly disappeared when she saw it was just Jace and I, and soon it dissolved into one of embarrassment. Simon looked just as embarrassed at Clary did, but Jace ignored it.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Jace asked loudly. "I- you know what? Don't answer that."
Simon looked like he wanted to say something but wisely decided against it. He hopped out of the canoe and landed on the ground in front of us with stunning gracefulness. Clary followed shortly after, less gracefully. Simon was shirtless and Clary's hair was tousled around her shoulders.

All three of us expected Jace to start chewing out both Simon and Clary but I was somewhat surprised to see his anger turn into concern. Clary deflated a little.
"Jace, it's okay," she told him. "I'm safe here."
"Until Valentine stops hunting you, the only safe place for you to be is the Institute," Jace said.
"Really?" Simon snapped rather unexpectedly. "Because I'm pretty sure the whole point of hiding is to, uh, not be where everyone thinks you are." He turned to Clary and shot her a crooked smile. "Trust me. I'm kind of an expert."
I sighed ruefully. "For an expert, you were pretty easy to find," I said as kindly as I could. "Just be glad it was us who got to you and not the Circle."