Her door is locked, and the rush of relief that floods through him is staggering. He knows he shouldn't feel grateful that the only sibling he has left has shut herself away, but he can't do it. He can't relieve her burden of guilt when he can barely breathe under the weight of his own.
It was his brotherly duty, his responsibility to take care of them, and he failed. How can it be that the one time he shifts that monstrous duty to smaller shoulders, they break? Maybe Isabelle was weaker than he thought, or the burden he carried was simply far greater than he realized. Isabelle was still too lost in her dazzles and intensity to stop and consider her own vulnerabilities. She had thought she was invincible, and now the truth had so brutally ripped away her mask.
He had no right to blame her, not under the guilt she was already crippled by, but some uncontrollable part of him did. He wanted to scream and beg the Angels for another chance, another sight of his baby brother laughing and loving and living. Before he lost his remaining semblance of control, Alec slinked back to his room and silently shut the door behind him. Leaning up against the hard grain of his door, he gulped in hard, desperate breaths, but he still felt that same sense of suffocation, almost like an imminent death, and a twisted, morbid part of him wondered if Max felt this same sense of gut-wrenching fear before he…died. Alec forced himself to think the word, because convincing himself that it didn't happen wouldn't get him anywhere. He was still swallowing air when he heard footsteps in hallway, Jace's.
Without opening the door, he could picture Jace's exasperated expression, bordering on irritation, as he banged on Isabelle's door, using his flowing words to coax her out of her self-imposed exile. Yet, the absence of a heavy knocking captured his attention, and against his better judgment, he opened his bedroom door to find the most defeated looking Jace he had known. He felt his heart shattering again watching that emptiness in Jace's eyes. Without Max, Jace looked like he was aimlessly floating, and Alec wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around him and bring him back down.
"Izzy? Izzy, open up. It's Jace." He heard something being thrown from inside her room at the door.
"Hey, just come out and eat something. By the Angel, he wouldn't have wanted you starve yourself…It wasn't your fault…" Alec saw Jace's hand hover above her door again, internally debating whether to knock again or not. Surrendering, Jace stormed down the stairs, and for a moment he looked up, but Alec quickly averted his eyes. He wasn't prepared for such a raw, broken Jace. How much farther could his world fall out of balance?
But hey, at least Jace tried.
Summoning what little courage he felt and clenching his fists together until he felt his nails cut into his palm, he walked out into the hall. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he rapped on her door twice. He heard her shoe hit the door, and he stifled a laugh. He knocked again, and this time he heard two shoes hit the door.
"Isabelle. It's me." It's not like his voice was the secret code, but the silence that ensued stung nonetheless.
"I, uh, know you probably won't open up. But, uh, I just wanted to say…I know…" and suddenly his chest constricted and he had so much to say, and it just ached all over. "Izzy, I know it must freaking hurt because it feels like the world is just crashing all around you and you can't breathe and you just want to scream…I know. Because you failed to keep safe the most important thing, but you aren't alone. I am the oldest, Izzy, and I let some mad man alone in the house with you where he…killed Max and almost took you away from me."
He let out an audible gasp; that was it. That was the pain that was eating at him. He had been moments away from being an only child…it was a selfish pain, and it hurt so, so badly.
His heart hammered in his chest, and his throat grew dry and legs gave way as he found himself on the floor next to her door, trying to stay afloat against the currents sucking him down.
"God, Isabelle, you're my sister and I love you and I can't, can't do this without you. You know this isn't your fault and I…I don't blame you, I swear. Just, come out…or let me in…please."
He heard a faint whisper from the other side of her door and it was so quiet he wasn't sure he had heard it the first time. "Don't lie."
"What?"
"Of course you blame me…You left me in charge of him and I failed. The one time you leave him completely in my care, and I get him freaking killed. How could you not blame me?"
He's sputtering so hard, he can't keep up. Where did she get this nonsense from?...But wasn't this what he was thinking earlier? But god, hearing it out of her small, frail voice made his heart die.
"Izzy, don't say that. By the Angel, you can do anything. He just…he tricked you, he tricked us all."
"Well, it's not all of us that has to deal with the fact that I killed Max, so leave me alone!"
Alec's fist slammed against the door. "You don't get to do this. Max was everyone's little brother!" He could feel her stunned silence emanating through the door and immediately regretted his anger, and called out, softly, "Izzy, please, just let me in."
After a minute of cold silence, he heard her voice thick with unshed tears, "I'm sorry. Just, I can't."
Rather than push her, Alec simply whispered through the door, "More than anything in this world, I love you."
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