A Broken Future

Chapter Six: Lies Told

Clary crept down the hall as quickly as she could, not wanting to know the reaction Sebastian would have if he found her gone. But when she opened the massive door to the bedroom, he was standing there waiting. She felt her heart skip a beat.
Sebastian stood at the top of the four stairs, wearing black jeans that made his skin seem even paler than it was. His muscular arms were crossed over his bare chest, eyes narrowed with suspicion. The dark, swirling runes tattooed all over his arms, torso, and neck added to the effect, as if he were a picture in black-and-white trapped in a landscape of dull colors.
"Where were you, little sister?" He asked, his voice like liquid poison.
"I... I went to see our mother and Luke, to see how they're doing," she lied.
Sebastian let his foot fall on the first of the descending steps with a loud thud, clucking his tongue at her. "Clarissa, I know that you're lying." Thud. "You went to see you're pretty angel boy," he spat. "You can do whatever you want with him, but you will not belong to him." Thud. "You belong to me."
Everything else happened in a blur. He stepped down from the stairs and strode over to her, back handing her across the face with enough force to throw her back into the wall. He stalked up to her, grabbing ahold of her arms so tightly and pushing her body into the wall so hard that she gasped in pain. "And you will not tell me lies, either," Sebastian hissed with gritted teeth. His knee jerked up, making contact with the center of her rib cage with a crunch. Clary yelped and sank to the ground, her chest enflamed in pain, just as Sebastian brought his other knee up to her throat. He pushed her windpipe in, grabbing her chin with steady fingers, and forced her eyes full of hatred to look up at him.
"You will not tell me lies, little sister," he snarled. "Do you understand?"
When she said nothing, he pressed his knee into her neck even harder. Spots danced across Clary's vision as her lungs burned for air.
"I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?," he bellowed. His eyes had gone completely black with rage, and Clary wondered if he would just kill her already.
But somewhere in her mind an instinct, blind to the consequences, told her to fight back. In one swift motion, she swung her arm and grabbed the ankle he still rested on the floor, sweeping his foot out from under him. He hit the ground hard, rolling over to balance on his hands and knees, like a cobra ready to strike.
With her new found and short-lived freedom, Clary took a quick breath that felt like fire in her lungs, and stood. She streaked toward the bathroom, thinking maybe she could lock herself in there until he calmed down, but he barreled right into her.
Hitting her with the force of a freight train, Sebastian propelled her into the dresser there. Just as her skull smacked into the dark wood, her world went black.