{𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 17}
WILL I LIVE OR DIE?

"Fight it, or accept it.
Fear it, or control it."
-𝐜.𝐛

✾

ALEC HAD BEEN in his office all night. He slept on the couch, thinking of his fiancé and daughter. He was woken from his slumber by a call, hoping it was his fiancé. Too see it was her mother, still he answered right away. "Alec." Diana said over the phone, her voice laced with concern.

"Yea, Diana is everything okay?"

"I'm hoping, is Christina there?"

"Uh no, she left." He replies. "Really? She didn't call and Kimmy said she didn't return to the institute last night." Alec's face went pale with worry and fear.

"I'm worried, Alec you know—"

"It's not like her." He finished.

"I'll find her."

****

"Iz, have you talked to Chris?" Alec questions. "No not since yesterday, she's not in LA?"

"Apparently not, and her mother is worried....and I am too."

"You don't think?— "

"I don't want to think he has her....but I."

"What? What's wrong?" Jace asks, reading the room beside Clary. "He has her." Alec states enraged.

✾

"You know you're dripping?" Valentine asks, sarcastically referring to Chris's drops of blood on the floor. "Let me." He saids walking towards her going over her healing rune with a stele. She could breathe again the pain from the wound was gone, it had closed.

"Aren't you going to say thank you?"

"And what would I be thanking you for? ...Huh?" Christina spat, weak.

Valentine laughs, circling her. He pulls out his dagger, dragging it across her face. Chris whines at the close contact, but puts on a brave face. "You know....you're going to beg for your life soon." He trailed on.

"You know I wont.."

"Right.. because the clave trains you not to beg, to indulge such pain. " He inlights, digging the blade into her skin drawing blood from her cheek.

"How's your little girl? Iris is it? I heard you can't see her for a while...thanks to me. Oh..and trouble in paradise?"

Hearing Valentine's words on Christina's family made her think of them. Made her wish she was at the institute with them. She thought if Valentine killed her at least Iris would have her father, but she knew more than anyone it wouldn't be enough.

✾

"FIND HIM!" Alec shouted at the shadowhunters. Izzy, Jace, and Clary approach him, with intentions of calming him. "Alec calm down." Clary expressed.

"Calm down? The mother of my child, my fiancé is somewhere suffering at the hand of YOUR FATHER! " He shouted. "Alec, we'll find her." Jace defends, pushing Clary to the side.

"Jace is right. Let's just go off what we know." Izzy reasons.

"Ok.."

"So Valentine was never in London...he's had someone watching. It's the only way he could have known Chriswas in New York." Jace states.

"Okay, so....where was Chris last seen?" Izzy asks, looking at her brother walking towards the sincerity cameras from last night.

"She left my office, she didn't say where she was going but I assumed back to LA."

Izzy pulled up the footage, seeing Christina walking out of Alec's office at around 9-9:30 heading outside of the institute. "Where were you going Chris?" Alec mutters.

"Her phone's gps...the last location." Clary insists.
"Central Park..that's the last location."

"Well, let's go." Alec commanded  sternly.

***

"AHHHH! "Chris cries, as Valentine stabs her through her leg,seeing the blade on the other side. She had cuts and bruises all over, she wanted the pain, the torture to end. She knew that's what he wanted. For her to give up, let go and accept her fate. That wasn't who she was, that wasn't who she was trained to be. Shadowhunters don't accept death, they  fight it till the end.

"You're probably thinking of the daughter you'll never get to see again. The fiancé you'll never get to marry. The family you'll never get to say you have—-I know your father thought of you and his family." Valentine spoke remorselessly of the dead.

Tears fill the brim of Christian's eyes, he was right she was never going to see Iris again or Alec. She wanted to be legendary like her father...but she would be taken from her child, the love of her life much like him.

"Wha...what was the last thing?—that he said?" She hesitates.

"What they all say, what you will say; Ave Atque Vale. "

***

The team arrives at the park, they break into pairs  Alec and Jace, Izzy and Clary in  search of something to tell them where Christina is. The two girls checked the north side of the park while the boys checked the east.

"Guys!" Jace shouted. Alec and the duo came quick, to see a small pool of blood on the ground next to what from a far looked like a small stick. Izzy crouched down, placing her and above it, seeing it was a stele.

"Her stele. "

"He had to have caught her off guard walking through the park and stabbed her. " Jace figures.

"He stabbed her in the lower abdomen. " Alec acknowledges, with a cold expression. "How do you figure?" Clary questions.

"The position of the pool. " Jace informs. Meaning she wasn't dead when he took her. He adds.

"He's not going to kill her not....without torturing her first. ". Alec stated walk back towards the institute.

  ✾

Valentine had healed  Christina once more just to put the blade back through her leg.

I guess you could say I wanted to give up, let go. I was becoming numb to the pain waiting to consume me. I felt myself slipping away. I created something beautiful as a shadowhunter and she will carry on the BlackThorn-LightWood name.

I hope they knew I loved them, more than I thought you could love another person let alone two people. They were my home and they always will be.

"Ave Atque Vale. " The only thing I was able to mumble out.

I heard a door being slammed open and voices before the darkness devoured my eyes once again.

I woke to see the inside of an infirmary, Alec at my bedside tears rolling down his face. He looked at me with every bit of his being, longingly.

"Chris...I—I'm so sorry..th—this happened." He cried.

"No..don't I love you..and I'll love you..forever." She assured, tears rolling down her brushed cheeks.

"I love you Christina.."

"And were going to have the big moments and the small moments..and maybe even have that boy ."

Alec smiles widely at her statement stroking her hair."Valentine?"

"Dead..he's dead. Alec replies, Our family is safe."

Chris found comfort in that fact. She would bet money a lot of shadowhunters did. Valentine wanted to wipe shadowhunters off the face of the earth, luckily the angels wear on their side.