Alec let out a sigh when he saw his sister's outfit. His arms crossed around his chest, he asked, "Do you ever wonder how our parents would react to your activities?"
Izzy laughed easily, flipping her long, inky black hair. "As if. Don't tell me you're worried about getting caught-you don't even live with them anymore. You're an adult."
Alec was inclined to disagree. While he was 19 and living in a dorm, he didn't feel any more grown up than before. He huffed out a breath, looking away from Izzy's gaze. "Of course I'm not."
"Great," she grinned, "Let's go. There's something we need to get before we go to the party." She threw him his car keys, which had been on the kitchen counter he shared with his roommates.
He caught them with ease, following her out and into the parking lot. It was best, he had decided, simply to let tonight happen so that it could end as soon as possible. Having grown up with her, Alec knew how stubborn Isabelle could be once she set her mind on something. And she was determined to go to this stupid party.
Isabelle took out her phone and puts on the navigation for Alec. It droned directions on how to leave the parking lot.
He started the car, and glanced at Isabelle in the passenger seat. "Where are we going?"
"We have to pick up Jace," she replied easily.
"Where's Jace?" Alec asked, confused. If their adopted brother was coming with them, it would make more sense for Isabelle and Jace to go out together, rather than risk leaving the house separately. And why had she turned on the navigation? He knew how to get to their house. It hadn't been that long.
"At Clary's," Isabelle answered calmly. As if Alec were expected to reply 'Oh, yes, Clary's. Of course he's at a girl's house at 11:45 p.m.. Say, are we picking up drugs on the way?'
Alec almost slammed on the breaks, instead he controlled himself enough to only grip the steering wheel harder, his knuckles whitening. "Who?" He asked, immediately embarrassed to hear the squeak of his voice.
Although his gaze was focused on the road alight with the headlights of his car, he could practically feel Isabelle roll her eyes. "Clary. Jace's new girlfriend. She moved here recently."
"Why didn't anyone tell me about her? Why didn't you tell me Jace is sleeping with someone?!" At this moment, Alec was starting to see drawbacks to focusing purely on school and never so much as adventuring out of the library.
"Maybe I would have if you checked in more often. When's the last time you had a decent meal?"
Alec avoided the question. Would she consider instant noodles as a decent meal? Because that's all he's been having to eat. "But this is important."
She scoffed at that. "Important? Try annoying. They're disgustingly in love. You're lucky you don't have to see them together, honestly. I doubt they have had sex, they're probably just starring lovingly into one another's eyes," she said, clearly sickened by an actual relationship.
Alec grumbled uneasily, still upset he had only heard of this just then.
The phone had directed Alec and Isabelle to an apartment. Isabelle texted Jace, and in a few minutes Jace and a girl with red, curly hair popped out from behind the apartment building and walked to the car.
Alec didn't like Clary, he decided as he watched Clary and Jace climbed into the backseat. Both of them were dressed for the party, Clary in a short black dress that Alec was pretty sure she had borrowed from Isabelle black boots, and her hair was done into a fashionable knot behind her head. Alec also did not like how it seemed like Isabelle and Clary were getting along.
Jace smiled at Alec in the poor lighting the car light offered. "Alec, this is Clary. Clary, this is my brother, Alec."
Clary looked up nervously at him with big, green eyes. Alec glared at her for a second before turning back around.
"Where is the party?" Alec asked Isabelle.
