New York used to be more vibrant; there used to be a sensation of overwhelming bliss when Lucy walked the streets of the city. Then again, there'd also been a swagger to her step that was missing these days. Her grandmother hadn't been pleased when a tired Lucy had appeared on her doorstep weary from a long flight and broken from her farewells. However, the wise old woman hadn't said much, and had let Lucy take her old bedroom for as long as she needed it. Lucy was grateful for that quiet acceptance of whatever had been done to make Lucy feel the need to return to New York. Yet New York didn't seem to hold all of the answers that the small girl had been hoping for, there was no trick that had made her whole again, nothing that had filled the emptiness she'd been experiencing for such a long, long time.
Her old Grandmother worried- almost more than she had before she sent Lucy away. At least when the girl had lived with her the first time, she'd had the confidence that she would walk out of any situation that her troublesome nature would expose her to. Now Lucy walked with a gait that wasn't boastful- which might have been a good thing, but no one was certain. The only things the child did were work on her correspondance classes, call her brother, and take long walks that kept her out at all hours. There wasn't anything that the older woman could do to keep Lucy in; someone had taught the child to pick locks, and once Lucy even took her door off of the hinges so that she could get out. In the face of such desparation and efficiency, Clary had no recourse but to let her child wander out on the streets, and pray that she was as tough now as she had been then.
In truth, Lucy was probably a fair bit tougher than she had been before she'd left. She was silent when she could manage it- though she was always able to falsify some cheeriness for Henrick's sake. She honestly just didn't care anymore- her mind was swirling with thoughts of a certain male, of the young woman he flirted with constantly and how much she had always wished that he could have turned this attention on her. She'd done everything she could think of to get over him, but her troublesome heart would have none of it. Not even, it seemed, transplanting herself elsewhere to get over him. The end result was a numb feeling that coated everything she did, every single action and every single thought. She wondered if the people she encountered would notice that about her- none of them had bothered her, or even really jostled her on her walks; given that most of them were in the evening, this suited her well. Occasionally she would instigate a fight. It was the only thrill that she could get her being to respond to anymore. She didn't even touch things.
Today was one of those days she was looking for a fight. It was pulsing in her veins, the desire to go to that place when the adrenaline made her feel alive. She wanted a tough fight, something that she wouldn't walk away from unscathed. She wanted the sensation of flesh slamming against flesh, wanted the pain to mingle with a triumphant feeling of ecstasy. She'd become something of a junkie for violence in the past couple of weeks, each fix getting progressively more and more violent. She wanted to find the perfect fight, and so she waited and waited. Her moment came sometime after two o'clock in the morning, when she encountered a drunken male man-handle his lady friend. All of his male friends laughed at the poor woman's expense when she was slung to the ground by her escort. Lucy knew that this was the one she'd been looking for. She took personal offense to any situation that could harm a lady.
Excluding herself, of course. Lucy had given up on anything remotely ladylike. Moving as quickly as she knew how, Lucy delivered a punch to the back of the brute's arm, just above the elbow joint which caused him to immediatly release the woman in his grasp. As the furious man and his crew closed in on Lucy, she made certain to put her back to the wall, a fierce smile on her lips- more teeth baring than anything friendly. It was a flurry of punching and kicking- most of it delivered from the trained young woman who fought in the center, keeping the wall at her back. She ducked one punch to her head, and slid a very painful jab across that assailant's ribcage. Another attacker had flanked her meanwhile, and got her squarely in the back. Lucy went down and rolled, scissoring her ankles around his as she did so, bringing him down and allowing his head to slam against the wall with a sickening crack. One attacker down. One of the others- the one she'd punched in the ribs fled the scene.
Lucy was already wheezing from the blow to her back, but she didn't give any indication of her discomfort. There were still two men waiting for their chance at her. One came armed with a piece of wood he'd found littering the alley to their right. Lucy dodged his first swing and caught the second painfully in her hands. The third took her full side, and she felt something rather painful pop. Then she wrenched the wood from his hands, and tossed it to the side. She had foolishly paid no attention to the other man, who had come up behind her, and come down hard on her collar bone with a bit of metal. That, too, cracked sickeningly, and Lucy felt dizziness overwhelming her. That right arm was out of commission, unless she needed to fight that much pain to continue. She moved warily away from the man holding the pipe, watching him cautiously. Then she rushed him, tripping him up with a side-blow to the knee, though she took a blow to her own thigh as he fell, and she crashed down on his back. With a grunt, she grabbed the back of his hair, and slammed his forehead into the ground. He went still.
Lucy didn't have time to ponder whether or not she'd killed this man, for she was hurled to her feet and then into a wall by her last-standing opponent. A low groan escaped her, but she rolled along the wall until she faced the man again. A knife was held in his hand, and it was descending on her from her left side. Locking a scream behind her teeth, Lucy flung her left hand up to catch his wrist, trying not to pass out and keep the knife away from her. She angled her body, and flung her right fist at his throat with all of the strength she had left. He grunted and staggered back. The girl opened her mouth to scream, but he smashed the back of his hand into her face, which slammed her head against the stone wall. As the world spun around her in a sick fashion, she slid down the wall and stayed on the ground, heedless of the man who stabbed her to be sure she stayed down, before collecting his weeping lady-friend, and walking away. He left two men down on the ground, and little Lucy bleeding to death as she feebly tried to put enough pressure on her side to keep from dying.
She realised, quite suddenly, that she had so much to live for.
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