[ORIGINAL CHAPTER]

Back to the present, I'm Clary Walker, age 12, and I'm now sitting on the sofa at my mother's best friend's house after she picked me up from school. I spent a lot of time here because my mother worked long hours at a pharmacy to make ends meet, so I rarely saw her.

As I sat on the couch watching my favourite TV show while doing my homework, I heard a knock at the door. It was loud, so I looked up from my work and sat there looking until I heard my aunt shout from upstairs "Clary, can you get the door hun?" my aunt Chloe shouted from upstairs "ok," I shouted back as I set down my pen and got up heading to the door.

As I opened the door, I noticed two police officers standing there, which surprised me. "Hello, is there an adult at home?" a female police officer said as she leaned down to speak to me. "Aunt Chloe!" I yelled standing at the doorway until she came running downstairs. "What's the matter, Clary?" Chloe said questionably until she saw the police officers.

"Mam, can we speak to you alone?" the male officer asked as he looked at me. "Clary, go inside Honey," Chloe said, turning to me and giving me the look that told me not to disobey her, so I nodded and went back inside but only enough so that they couldn't see me listening in but after a while I didn't need to listen in because I heard the noise Chloe made, which I knew wasn't a good sign.

But when she turned around to look at me with tears in her eyes, I knew what had happened. "No," I said with a sad tone and tears forming in my eyes, "Clary, I'm so sorry," Chloe said as she tried to hug me, but I pushed her out of the way and ran out the door. As I ran down the street, I heard the police offers and Chloe shout after me before they began to chase me, but I had always been the fastest in my

It was dark by the time I stopped running, so I took a moment to catch my breath before weeping into my hands in the middle of the glades, which wasn't the safest area to me, especially at night, but it was where my mother worked, and I knew I wanted her to work there in the first place because

My mother would frequently come home with bruises on her body, and when I asked how they happened, she would always come up with an excuse because it was safer than the truth because she worked in the glades, and you couldn't tell the police because you would be punished, whether you were never seen again or found in a ditch. Gangs didn't like it when people went to the cops.

As I came to a halt, I looked around, wondering what I would do next. I had my aunt, but she wasn't biological family, which meant that if I went back, I would be taken into foster care because the only people who knew my father's identity were my mother and me, but who would believe I was Oliver Queen's daughter?

My mother met Oliver at a party 13 years ago when they were both 15 years old. They had a one-night stand after meeting at the party and shortly after my mother found out she was pregnant but she had no one to turn to because her mother died when she was a small child and her father was an alcoholic who threw her out when he found out she was pregnant with me. However, I couldn't  go to my father and tell him I was his child because his family was one of the wealthiest in Starling City.

And no one knew who my biological father was but myself, so who was I to believe? "hey" the girl said which made me look up wiping the tears away from my eyes "hey" I said as she sat down next to me "you look lost" the girl said smiling at me "no I'm fine" I said wiping the tears away with the sleeve of my jumper "I'm Maddie" Maddie said as she smiled at me "Clary" I said as I looked at her. And that's how our friendship began after that day, when we spent all of our time together defending one other on the glades' streets.
End Of Chapter 2