Hell's Angel✗ // JACE WAYLAND

XXXIV

"Listen up and listen well, pet."

I groaned as blaring light erupted around the room and straight through my closed eyelids. "What the fuck do you want?" I muttered while rubbing my eyes, slowly opening them to adjust to the warehouse lights. What time was it anyway?

"I want you to kill someone for me." Valentine announced as he walked throughout the warehouse, making his way to Jocelyn Fairchild who still slept like sleeping beauty.

I snorted– actually snorted– as I curled farther back into the corner of my cage and closed my eyes again. What a waste of my time. "Go fuck yourself."

"You don't even want to know who it is first?"

I rolled my eyes under their lids. "Is it someone I know?"

"I can assure you that it's not someone you like."

I popped an eye open to assess his tall frame now standing before my cage. What was this piece of vermin up to now?

Valentine smiled, surely spotting the curiosity that indeed lurked in my eye. "I knew you'd pull through for me."

The corners of my mouth quirked up as I closed my eyes again and leant my head against the bars. "What honestly makes you think that I'll help you, Valentine?"

"Oh please, we've been in each other's company long enough, Azel." The arrogance in his voice didn't even irk me. It was more comforting nowadays. "There's no need to be so formal."

My small smile widened as I opened both eyes. "Okay. What honestly makes you think that I'll help you, asshole."

He smirked. "So much like Lezable."

Lezable. He and Daniel had mentioned that name the day I'd made my little outburst about my mother. The last time I'd shown any emotion whatsoever in this godforsaken place.

"You wonder who she is." Not a question.

I cocked my head to the side. "What I wonder is why I'm still locked in a cage. But I assume that won't get any resolution anytime soon seeing as it's been a whole fucking month."

He shrugged, his eyes dancing a dangerous number. "You'll get out if you help me decimate a certain person."

To my utter disgust, my ears perked up at his offer. This was murder he was talking about. Even if I didn't like this person...burning them alive? No– I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts–no this wasn't me. That was Daniel. That was a monster. That was– a demon?

I scowled at the small hiss of a voice ringing in the back of my mind. Shut up.

But despite everything, despite the murder, the crime, the carnage he was asking me to bring to not only the person but to myself...I raised my eyes to meet his black, soulless ones.

"Well, well." Those eyes shone with pride. Just like Daniel's had the other day. When he called me a monster. And like the monster that did indeed lurk within me– however tamed or leashed it may've been– I couldn't help but find my own pride in the feeling of receiving his. No one– no one had ever looked at me like that except for the two men that now held me captive. They were proud for who I was– no, for who I could become. Of who I could be–

I shut my eyes, shaking my head, trying to rattle my brain against my skull hard enough to get the deranged thoughts out of my mind. Not of who I could or would become, but of what they could and would make me. A monster.

But they are trying to make something of it, no? What did those shadowhunters do?

I shook my head. Again. Again. Again. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

The demon payed no mind to her host– to me. And there was no escaping her. You wrong me. Azel's hiss sounded throughout my mind, interrupting every other thought. I am not a parasite, and we are not two different creatures housed in one body– we are one and the same, Azel. Stop. Fighting. It.

Stop giving me a reason to. My own voice roared throughout my mind, drowning hers out completely.

But...but the cage door had opened.

The pride still glimmered in those depthless eyes.

And Azel...

I met Valentine's hard and unyielding gaze with my own. "Who is it?"

His smile was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever beheld. "Your father has been getting on my nerves lately."

Oh. Oh.

I couldn't help the light that sparked in my eyes. In my chest. In my fingers as they pushed against the metal floor of the cage to help me raise to a crouching position. "You firmly believe that I can kill him? Or are you sending me on a suicide mission?"

"Oh no, my girl." Val's eyes glinted in the light as he cocked his head and squatted so we were eye to eye. "I still have so many plans for you."

And for once, I didn't have a problem with said plans. For once, I didn't care. Because Daniel...Daniel was going to die. And I was not coming back once the deed was done. Not a chance in hell.

"What made you decide to take such drastic measures as this? He was you partner in crime."

Val rose to his full height once again. "Key word: was. Now he's become more of a liability."

I raised an eyebrow, awaiting an explanation.

"He's using me to obtain what he believes rightfully belongs to him." Careful words. "I do not like to be manipulated."

My smile mirrored his as I stood for the first time in days, dismissing the popping of joints. I didn't care, not as vengeance was just a word away. "When can I begin my assassination?"

"I'm glad you're so eager." He checked his watch. "Because I don't like wasting time. We leave now."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "We?"

He chuckled humorously as two burly men emerged from the shadows of the warehouse where the light had failed to shine. One carried two glowing white blades and the other with a a burlap bag. "You didn't think I was stupid enough to let you leave by yourself, did you?"

I didn't have time to fight as the man with the sack grabbed me and threw it over my head. And I didn't want to as we began walking because a few steps later, I heard a door open.

And I stepped foot outside the warehouse for the first time in month.

________________________________________________

Okay I am so sososososo sorry for not updating in 18 thousand years but I honestly had no idea what to write and I literally had this idea blossom in my head while I was in the shower like 40 mins ago and was like...I guess it's happening. So...here ya go. I know it's not much, but I'll try to get my shiz together in the next chapters. :/

~Leeanna