Broken Pasts (The Mortal Instruments Fanfiction)

Chapter 8: You have to leave

The loft was huge and almost totally empty of furniture. Floor-to-ceiling windows were smeared with a thick film of dirt and paint, blocking out most of the ambient light from the street. Big metal pillars wound with coloured lights held up an arched, sooty ceiling. Doors torn off their hinges and laid across dented metal garbage cans made a makeshift bar at one end of the room. A lilac-skinned woman in a metallic bustier was ranging drinks along the bar in tall, harshly coloured glasses that tinted the fluid inside them: blood red, cyanosis blue, poison green. Even for a New York bartender she worked with an amazingly speedy efficiency—probably helped along by the fact that she had a second set of long, graceful arms to go with the first.

Rose pushed her way through the crowd leading the group through the sticky maze of people. She had given up on using Simon against Clary, it was too much work and to be honest Isabelle had taken care of the job for her.  The crowd was just strange. A good-looking boy with wet green-black hair grinned at her over a platter of what looked like raw fish. His teeth were sharp and serrated, like a shark's. Beside him stood a girl with long dirty-blond hair, braided with flowers. Under the skirt of her short green dress, her feet were webbed like a frog's. A group of young women so pale Rose wondered if they were wearing white stage makeup sipped scarlet liquid too thick to be wine from fluted crystal glasses. The centre of the room was packed with bodies dancing to the pounding beat that bounced off the walls, though they couldn't see a band anywhere.

"You like the party?" 

She turned to see Magnus lounging against one of the pillars. His eyes shone in the darkness. Glancing around, she saw that Jace and the others were gone, swallowed up by the crowd.

“I wouldn’t say it was my sort of thing. Seems a tad too crazy for my liking.” Rose said her eyes darting around the room for any sign of the others.

“You just have to get used to it.” Magnus stood up, his eyes scanning the room to see if anyone was watching and leant close to Rose’s ear. “Come with me I need to speak to you.”

Magnus grabbed her hand and pulled her into one of the closed off rooms at the side of the ballroom; which was just as glittery as the rest of the apartment.

Magnus shut the door behind them, “Why are you here?”

Rose rolled her eyes, “The red head.”

“Of course,” he sighed he looked her in the eyes and a stern look spread across his face, “Rose I can't hold this glamour up for much longer, those men that found your parents will be looking for you. You should leave, those men worked for Valentine. Valentine will be looking for Clary and when he finds her he’ll find you. You're not safe around here anymore especially with Clary. I promised your mother I'd keep an eye out for you and at the moment you’re in danger, you can go to the London institute I'm sure they'll let you stay there again. If not you can stay with the Carstairs in California. Just don't stay at the New York institute, promise me. We lost Jessie and we can't lose you.”

She furrowed her eyebrows, “Jessie?”

“An ancestor of yours, you’re similar, you both have the same blond locks and the same attitude. Go now, I don't want your friends killing any of my guests. But promise me you will leave New York as soon as possible, we can’t afford to lose you.”