Alec's POV

My head was throbbing. It was the pain that woke me up from whatever kind of slumber I fell into and it wasn't the good kind where you woke up feeling refreshed and restored.

Because my eyes were so heavy with pain, it took a few minutes for them to fully open up. The sky above was still blue as it had been earlier. The only difference was that there were crows circling overhead like vultures would circle a corpse-

Corpse.

Kit.

I shot up a little too quickly, causing my head to throb even more. The searing pain only prompted me to reach up to see where the source of the pain was coming from. After feeling around for a minute, my hand finally felt something dried and crusty on my forehead. Dried blood. Something must've hit me during the ride down the river and knocked me out cold.

Kit. Shit, I hope he was okay. If I washed up here (wherever here was) then there was a good chance that he did too. The little shore that I washed up onto was covered in mostly pebbles and broken branches mixed with debris from God knows what but there was no sign of Kit anywhere.

"Kit!" I called out. Water found its way up my throat and I coughed it out. It was a miracle that I didn't drown. I just hope that Kit didn't meet that fate....

There was practically no life left in my legs when I tried to move them. They were so cold to the point where even my toes were numb, so I had to rub some of the life back into them before attempting to stand up and walk, which was a task all in its own because my hands were just as cold.

Once I felt a slight tingling in my feet and legs, that's when I tried standing up. There was a long branch beside me that was just right for my height so I used that as a cane for support. It hurt to move but I had to if I wanted to find any sign of Kit anywhere.

"Kit!" I called out again. No response. Maybe he was already up and out of the water? Surely if he had seen me washed up along the riverbank too then he would've stopped and helped me.

I was about to call out again when I finally saw him. Floating against a bunch of large rocks, I rushed down to the riverside to try and haul him out of the water. If those rocks hadn't been there then he definitely would've floated even further down the river.

"Oh shit. Come on, Kit." My entire body protested as I dragged Kit out of the icy water and onto solid ground. He wasn't breathing so CPR was the only option. "Come on. Come on. Breathe!"

After several breaths into his mouth and doing compressions, he finally gasped and coughed up the water in his lungs. He coughed some more, his eyes frantically looking around in shock.

"What the-what happened?!" He wheezed.

"Relax. It's okay. We're both out of the water now. You're safe."

He sat up, hugging his knees for warmth. "You....jumped in after me? Why?"

I rolled my eyes. "What was I supposed to do? Wave and watch you get sucked into the water? Of course I jumped in after you. I care about you, Kit. You're like a little brother to me."

He gave a small smile before hugging his knees even tighter. "Are we going to stay out here all day or are we going to find someplace warm for a bit?"

He had a good point. We couldn't stay out here, especially not in our waterlogged clothes. "You're right. We need to find a place to make a fire and dry ourselves off. Can you walk?"

Kit shifted his weight around. "I think so. My legs are a little numb but moving them around might bring the circulation back in them."

I nodded. "Okay. But promise me you'll let me know if you're in any pain?"

He said nothing, only nodding in agreement. I knew he wasn't telling the truth but I let him think I believed him anyway. He didn't like anyone knowing how he truly felt which was a lot like me.

We didn't have to walk far before we came across an oddly placed fancy house. It didn't feel right for it to be out in the middle of nowhere so I just figured it was one of those really nice cabins that  people with a lot of money built in the woods for some privacy. My family used to own one back in the day. I never thought of us as "rich" exactly but we did have money. Sadly money never had any value these days. It was just something that kept the fire going.

"Wow. This place is huge," Kit pointed out. "I bet it has like eight bedrooms and four bathrooms."

"However many rooms it has doesn't matter. There's a chimney so therefore there's a fireplace. We can dry off and warm up in there." I stepped up onto the porch and peered inside. "I can't tell if there's anything or anyone in there. What about you?"

Kit looked in through a window. "Nope. Too dirty. Should we knock? You know. It's the polite thing to do."

Again, I rolled my eyes at him. He was so much like Jace sometimes that it was uncanny in a lot of ways. "I'll knock but not for the reasons you're thinking off. Grab that hammer. We might need it."

He picked up a hammer that was lying around on the swing. We both lost our backpacks in the river so everything that we had, including food, water, even our weapons, were long gone. "Okay. I'm ready."

I lift a hand and knocked four times. What was I expecting? Someone to greet us with open arms? A friendly face asking us if we were lost? My body told me to run but my mind kept me in place just until we knew what was inside.

"I don't think anyone's home," whispered Kit.

"Doesn't seem like it-oh. It's unlocked." I slowly opened the front door. "Who leaves their doors unlocked?"

"Who needs a big ass cabin in the middle of the woods?" Kit retorted. He stepped inside before I could scope out the first floor and whistled. "Whoa. The people who lived here must've been swimming in money. Hello!"

I winced when his annoying pubescent voice echoed throughout the home. "Can you be quiet? There could be Forsaken in here...."

He snorted. "If there were, they would've came running as soon as you knocked. Relax. We're good."

I still did a floor to floor check just to be sure while Kit worked on the fire. The first floor was clear, as was the second, so that managed to put my mind at ease somewhat. I even managed to find some clean clothes during my search which was very lucky because I was starting to shiver again.

"Hey. Check out what I found," I said as I re-entered the living room with some clothes. "These should be your size. At least they're dry anyway."

Kit poked at the fire with a metal poker. "Cool. Thanks. I need to get out of these clothes before I permanently become a snowman."

I chuckled as I stripped down. Kit didn't seem to mind too much. He knew when to look away. But just when I picked up a dry shirt to put it on, he spoke up again.

"Hey Alec? Can I ask you a question?"

I turned towards the sound of Kit's voice. "Sure. Ask away."

He was quiet for a moment. "That scar on your shoulder. I saw it the other day when you were washing up by the brook. Did you get shot or something? What happened?"

My hand unconsciously went up to my shoulder where the scar branded my skin just below the collarbone. "Magnus never told you the story?"

Kit shook his head. "No. I never asked him about it. I wanted to hear it from you."

I sighed, pulling on the shirt I'd found. It was a comfy black sweater that oddly enough was just my size as it was adjusted over my upper body. "I got shot trying to save Max. We were all captured by this horrible group that kept us hostage. So we one night we planned an escape. A gun went off and I grabbed Max before he could get hurt. Ended up with a slug in my shoulder."

Kit eyed the spot where the scar was. "There were more of you? Like who?"

Thinking about the rest of my family made my heart ache but I answered anyway. "Our group wasn't very big. But it was me, Magnus, my little sister Isabelle, my little brothers Jace and Max along with Jace and Isabelle's lovers Clary and Simon. That was when all of us were together."

He poked at the fire again to try and bring it back to life. "Max is dead. But what about everyone else?"

"Isabelle's passed. I don't know about everyone else. We got separated after the church got burned down."

"....what church?"

I sighed wearily. "That's another story for another time. Throw in another log for the fire. You're killing it, mindlessly poking at it like that."

We threw in another log which immediately caught. The clothes we had taken off were drying next to the fireplace, but I doubted we'd be changing back into them again. The stuff we wore now was much more comfy and cozy compared to our soaking wet attire.

"My parents were shot by a group of humans ."

Kit's sudden confession made me sit up straighter on the couch. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

He continued. "I was 8 at the time. We were crossing this bridge when we were ambushed on both sides. They wanted our supplies and threatened to kill us so my dad tried to negotiate. It failed obviously and he was killed first. My mom tried to run with me but got shot from behind. She landed on top of me so I pretended that bullet went through the both of us and killed us."

Jesus. I wasn't going to ask why he was telling me this but I assumed it was because he trusted me with this information. "Kit, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I really am."

Kit wiped a hand over his face to get rid of his tears. "Whatever. It's done and over with now. Can't keep thinking of the past when the present is constantly happening."

I offered him a small smile and pat his knee. "You're a good kid. Smart too. You know what you're doing....most of the time."

He chuckled at this. "I'm just a dumb teenager. I can barely take care of myself let alone both me and Madzie."

"Well....I think you're doing a pretty damn good job of it. Just look at me and Magnus. We've never had kids before-I mean I've had Max in the past but that's completely different. You're not blood related to me. I didn't have any obligation to take you guys in but I did it anyway."

"Because you felt bad for us?"

"No." I placed a hand on his back. "I did it because it was the right thing to do. It's not in my nature to leave anyone who needs help unchecked like that. Besides....you're starting to grow on me."

He flicked my hand away as I tried to teasingly pinch his cheeks. "Stop. I'm thankful you took us in and all but can we leave the cheek pinching for Madzie? I'm 14. I'm too old for that shit."

We both laughed, watching the fire crackle and spit. It was nice to just be able to sit down and relax. Being so on edge the last few days really took the good out of both of us, especially with our experience in the river together draining us even more so. With the warm fire in front of us, it was easy to lose sight of reality and of why we were really here in the first place.

"Do you think Magnus and Mads are worried about us?" Kit asked. He had just draped a quilt over his shoulders and was still shivering from the cold.

"I don't doubt that for a second. Madzie must be worried sick about you."

He smiles at this. "Magnus must be worried sick about you too."

There was a moment where he yawned so I adjusted the quilt over his shoulders. "Get some sleep. We'll stay here overnight and get provisions in the morning."

He apparently had no qualms with this. Not long after the blanket was tucked under his chin, he was sound asleep. Still shivering but asleep nonetheless.

He slept the entire time as I boarded up the door and windows. The second floor wasn't a problem because the only way to get to it was if you came in through the front door and went upstairs. By the time I finished with that I had spent my last drop of energy. Collapsing to the couch across from Kit, I threw a blanket I had found over my body and sighed heavily.

"I'm okay Magnus," I whispered to myself. "I'll find my way back to you. I promise."

A/N: so.....how was the first person point of view? It's definitely different from the normal third person pov like how it was in the first book. I really like writing from Alec's perspective. You get to see what goes on in his head and how his thinking process works. He's very strategic. He analyzes every situation before he jumps into it....sometimes. That river situation doesn't count. He was trying to save Kit's life.

As you probably already guessed, the next chapter will be in Magnus' pov. Then maybe a few chapters after that we'll go back to third person again. We'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading!