Isn't that an ominous title? I'm so sorry for how late this is guys, I blame Tumblr, books and my new graphics tablet. Anyway, I'm going on a camping trip tomorrow (or today, because it's one in the morning right now) and won't be back until Wednesday so I wanted to post this before I left. BTDT will get an update some time after I get back, hopefully over the weekend.
As I said, it's one in morning here right now and I pulled an all nighter last night so I'm exhausted, which means the editing job on this chapter is awful (I actually only edited two parts of this). But, guys, it's 6,000+ words. And I'm tired. I'll fix it up when I get back, I promise! So other than the minor mistakes you might find here and there, I'm actually really proud of this chapter :) Especially the end sce— What's that? I'm sadistic? Psh, no.
Anyway, you know the drill. Let me know if you enjoy it :) Or if you don't, constructive criticism is always nice.
February 13th
There's a knock on Jace's door, gentle but sure as it sounds through his room. He throws his laptop off his legs and onto the bed beside him before swinging off of it and heading for the door. Pulling it open, he's only mildly surprised to find his brother on the other side.
"Alec?" he asks, looking the other boy over. He hasn't seen him in a few days now, being that Alec has taken to holing up in his room for weeks on end. Jace wishes he wouldn't do that, wouldn't shut himself away from the rest of the world just because it scares him. Isabelle has nearly gone out of her mind with worry, pausing outside his door every time she paces the halls and then turning away again with a frown etched onto her make-up coated face. Jace thinks it's weird for a girl of only thirteen to wear so much makeup, especially considering she doesn't need a single drop of it to be beautiful.
"Jace," is all Alec says in response, stepping past him and into his room with a wary expression on his face. There's a tiny part of Jace that wants to believe maybe this is Alec finally coming to him about what's going on with him, like he's always said he can. Because, in the end, he knows that Alec isn't fine. He knows he's suffering from depression more severe than Jace can imagine, as much as their mother refuses to admit that any of them are anything but okay. For as much as she chooses to ignore or forget the scars all over her son and the trips to the E.R in the middle of the night, Jace can't. He loves this new family too much to just brush off the way it's breaking.
"Alec," he says again, this time without a question at the end, as he turns to face his brother and closes the door behind them. The dark haired boy is jittery, eyes flying over to the window on the wall farthest from Jace and then over to his closet and back to his bed on the other side of the room. He looks awful, like he hasn't slept in days or eaten any more than two bites. There's a bruise, Jace can see, peeking out from under the collar of his worn out hoodie, faded so much it almost looks light grey rather than the black it once was. He looks nothing like the fifteen year old boy he should be and everything like the suicidal paranoiac he shouldn't.
"What are you afraid of?" Alec asks suddenly, turning to face the blond with an odd look in his eyes. It makes Jace hesitate, knowing there's more to this question than there seems.
"A lot of things," he tries out eventually, watching his brother with careful eyes. Alec is already turning away from him and back towards the window behind him, his arms folded loosely over his chest.
"Dying?" he questions. It bothers Jace that he can't see his face, but he makes no move to step closer to the other boy.
"Isn't everyone?" he offers warily, already certain of what Alec's response will be.
"No," Alec replies. "Not everyone." Jace knows he's thinking about himself.
"Alec," Jace says for the third time. The tiny part of him that had been hoping this was Alec finally coming to him has grown to be a much larger part of him now.
"Getting hurt?" Alec inquires, ignoring Jace's clear attempt at prodding him to get to the point, to stop being so vague and elusive.
"No," Jace says suddenly. "Yes. I don't know. It depends."
"What—" Alec pauses and Jace can see him swallow dryly against a lump in his throat as he turns away from the window to face his brother again. His eyes are still wild, a crazed fear of something Jace can't understand swimming in their depths.
Jace waits silently for the other boy to continue, staring straight back into his eyes with as much force as he can muster. He hopes Alec can see there that he can tell him anything, that it's okay, that they're brothers and that Jace would never judge him for anything. Maybe Alec does see that, maybe not. Either way, when he finally says what he'd come to his room to say, it sends a sharp flash of panic and worry through Jace.
"What about hurting other people?"
"Can I stay?" Alec asks, looking up at Magnus from his position curled up beside him on the couch, head resting on his chest. Magnus frowns down at him, running gentle fingers through his boyfriend's raven hair.
"Again?" he replies. "Won't they worry?" He's not sure who he means by 'they'; Isabelle for sure, and maybe Jace, but Alec has never said a word about either of his parents so Magnus doesn't know whether or not to include them in there as well. He watches as Alec hesitates, blue eyes shifting away from him in a brief moment that informs Magnus of the lie in his boyfriend's next word.
"No," Alec mutters and then winces at the withering look Magnus gives him in response.
"That's a lie," he says, "and you know it."
"I want to stay here. With you."
"I want you to stay here. But you can't, Alec. I don't think any of them even know where you are, which means Isabelle will be going out of her mind with worry by now. I'm surprised she hasn't called a dozen times by now," Magnus informs him, running his hands through raven locks of the other boy's hair. Alec frowns, chest heaving with the deep sigh he lets out.
"Then why hasn't she?" he replies simply.
"Maybe because she knows it's no use."
"What do you mean?" Alec demands, turning his head upwards to pin him with a fierce look.
"Alec," Magnus starts carefully, aware that he's about to tread on rocky ground. "She loves you."
"Of course she does," Alec affirms, but Magnus can hear the slight quiver of uncertainty, of hesitance, in the statement. Alec swallows with difficulty but doesn't break eye contact.
"If you know that, then why do you push her away every time she tries to show you?" And it's out, the weight of Magnus' words seeming to sink deep into endless pits of blue as Alec continues to stare up at him in stony silence for a long minute.
"Because it's what's best for her," he mutters in response, suddenly unable to meet Magnus' eye as he speaks.
"But that's not the whole reason, is it?" Magnus demands, having read every little twitch of Alec's body and come to this conclusion. Alec hesitates again, still not looking him in the eyes, and twists his fingers nervously into the oversized t-shirt Magnus had lent him this morning.
"No," he says finally, shifting uncomfortably against his boyfriend. Magnus waits expectantly for him to continue, to give him the other reason he pushes away the one person who seems to love him the most. When Alec makes no move to go on, Magnus decides to shove him a bit in the right direction.
"Then why?" he prods.
"I'm scared," Alec admits, seeming to curl up tighter against Magnus and closer into himself. Suddenly, Magnus looks at him and doesn't see an enigma wrapped in a mystery he's desperate to solve, or a beautiful person broken beyond Magnus' worst nightmares and in need of fixing, of love and help and patience and kindness. Instead he only sees a boy, lost and afraid like any other, who's made all the wrong decisions because he doesn't have a clue what the right ones are. He just sees Alec, not someone he needs to save or stitch back together.
"We all are," he whispers, running a hand through his boyfriend's hair. "It's okay."
"Is it? Is it really okay that I'm so scared of letting my own sister in that I've pushed her away and hurt her so badly she cries to herself to sleep every single night and has herself convinced that no one in the whole world could ever really love her, not even her own brothers?" Alec snaps back, breaking into soft crying partway through and following it with a breathy laugh full of wet tears. And Magnus— Magnus is left staring down at the top of his head, shocked speechless by the realization that Alec is so much more perceptive than he'd ever thought; that he isn't anywhere near as oblivious to those around him as Magnus believed.
"No," Magnus mutters after another moment of staring at the mess of black hair resting on his chest. "It's really not okay."
"Yeah," Alec breathes, deflating in the other boy's arms.
"Maybe—" he pauses, wary and unsure. "Maybe you should talk to her."
"Words don't ever really mean anything," Alec says. "Not to us. Not anymore." And Magnus wants to ask him what he means, wants to get just a tiptoe closer to solving the mystery that is Alec, but he can't do that right now. He can't think of Alec as something needing to be figured out and melded back together at all the broken points. He has to think of him as the boy he is, the boy he loves. As a person, not a mystery.
"Then maybe you should just spend some time with her for once. Maybe that's all either of you really need." He knows it's not, knows that a few hours sitting side by side while a movie plays on in the background isn't going to bridge the gap between the siblings, but it's a start. It's something. It's enough.
Jace leans against his brother's doorway and smirks at the dark-haired boy sitting on the edge of his bed, a crimson coloured electric guitar in hand. It's one of Alec's favourites, made obvious in the worn look of the coated wood and the mismatched strings pressed under his fingertips. Personally, Jace has always preferred the more peaceful sound of Alec's light blue one, but he doesn't find it hard to understand why the other boy likes the dark notes that flow from the instrument he has in his hands. Besides, what does Jace know about guitars anyway?
"Are you just going to ignore me?" he demands, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow as Alec glares stonily down at where his fingers pluck gently at the strings.
"Will it make you go away?" his brother asks, pointedly not turning his head up to look at the golden boy.
"No," Jace says, pushing off from the doorframe he'd been leaning against and moving closer to the boy on the bed. He slides easily onto the mattress covered in hideous orange sheets; their mother's attempt at making Alec feel better on her own, without the help of a professional. Orange is meant to make you happy when you look at it, but Jace just has the sudden urge to rip them off the bed and burn them slightly less horrible looking ashes.
"Fine," Alec sighs, moving his guitar off his lap to lean against the side of the bed as he turns to face the other boy. "What do you want then?"
Jace hesitates, suddenly second-guessing whether it really is as good an idea as he'd thought. "Alec," he starts. "Have you ever thought of seeing someone? Like, a professional?" He knows the second it's out that he shouldn't said it.
"No," Alec snaps, sliding his legs over the edge of the bed and standing up, heading for the dresser a few steps away from him. He passes the floor to ceiling window on the way and Jace is hit with the memory of when there used to be a bookshelf in front of it, full of thousands of words that meant so much more to Alec. He remembers the day he'd come home from rugby practice to find all those words, all those worlds his brother used to get so lost in, scattered in the hallway with half of their pages crumpled and ripped, some of their covers torn off, their perfection and beauty ruined so easily.
No one said a word about it.
"Alec, just hear me out before you get all defensive and shut down the idea completely. Please?" he pleads, giving Alec the most unguarded expression he can bring himself to. The dark-haired boy gives him a long look in return before sighing and waving his hand in a 'proceed' kind of gesture.
Jace swallows hard before he opens his mouth to speak, not having planned ahead as to what he was actually going to say. "You can't do this on your own," he says, thinking 'you need help' just sounds wrong. "And, yeah, mom's trying to help and everything, but we know it's not working. If anything, she's just making it worse by completely denying there's actually something wrong. And me and Iz are both trying too, Alec. You know that. But we're just kids, we all are, and really what can we do? I think… I think what's best for you would be to go see someone who can tell you what's wrong and how to—" Jace pauses, trying to find the right word. When he doesn't, he uses the one that works best. "To fix it."
Alec stares at him blankly for so long he almost has the urge to squirm under his brother's gaze. There's something unreadable in those endless blue eyes, something Jace can't decipher no matter how much want and desperation and care he puts into the task. He's still unsuccessful at reading his brother's expression, something that's been happening more and more lately as the months of disconcerting behaviour have dragged on into years.
"And how do you suppose I do that? Mother's never going to let me, even if I wanted to which I'm not saying I do." Mother. Not 'mom', but mother. Jace tries not to frown too hard at the way the change in vocabulary makes the woman in question seem a lot less close to Alec. A lot less loved.
"Maybe dad would—"
"No," Alec snaps harshly, turning away from him in one sudden movement. Jace does frown hard at that, shoving off the bed to match his brother in height, despite the fact that Alec is still taller than him.
"Alec, you need to see someone. Please, even if it's just for me and Iz and not for yourself," he says, stepping forward to rest a hand on Alec's shoulder. He's hit with a pang of hurt that feels like a freight train when his brother shrugs him off.
"Mom doesn't seem to think so," Alec states, stepping away from Jace slowly. "She thinks I'm fine, that's it just a phase."
"A phase you've been in for the past four years?" Jace demands impatiently. "Please, Alec, I just want you to be okay."
"You don't think I know that? You don't think I want that too?" Alec is nearly screaming now and Jace glances quickly at the open door, worried someone might overhear. "But I can't get help, Jace, because that would mean proving undeniably that something really is wrong. And I can't do that to mom, Jace. I can't. She needs to have us be okay. She needs for nothing else to be wrong. She—" Alec cuts himself off, swallowing hard on a dry throat. "I can't do that to her," he repeats, quieter this time.
Jace, however, isn't going to be quiet this time. "You need help Alec! You need to get better! Just stop for one goddamned minute and think about yourself!" he shouts, hands clenching into fists at his sides.
"I can't!" Alec screams back. "If I did, then who would think about all of you?" he adds on in a whisper.
"We would, Alec. You don't always have to be the selfless one, the one looking out for everyone else. You're not the only one who cares, you know," Jace mutters back, pleading more with his eyes than he is with his voice. Alec's expression turns even more pained than it had been before as he seems to lurch towards Jace before catching himself and halting the movement.
"I know," he says quietly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, Alec. Get help."
"I— Jace, you know can't."
"Because of mom."
"Because of everything." Jace lets out a breathy laugh that doesn't really mean a thing as Alec offers him a small, equally meaningless, smile.
"I'm sorry," Jace says this time.
"So am I." And that's it.
Isabelle lay curled into herself on the side of her bed farthest from the door, staring at the wall with a blank expression and mascara stains streaked along her high cheekbones. Her phone is sitting a few centimeters away from her hand, up near her head where it'll shake her if it goes off. She's not sure why she bothers; it's not like anyone's going to call or text her. It's not like her brother or Simon care enough to try.
She lets out a breath that sounds half like a laugh at the thought of Simon, whom she'd moved away from when the bell had rung and left sitting alone in the empty washroom while Isabelle all but ran out the school doors. She doesn't remember much after that, just blurry bits of road and smudges of trees. Somehow, she'd made it back home and into her room, her car parked crookedly on the grass her mother doesn't even let them walk on. She'll probably get shit for that later, but right now she can't bring herself to care.
Isabelle is just starting to sit up, reaching for her phone as she goes, when there's a quiet knock on her door, echoing with hesitation and uncertainty. Frowning, she calls out to whoever's at the door to open it already and it swings inwards slowly, creaking as it goes. Staring in wonder at the figure standing in her doorway, Isabelle tries to think of why on earth Alec would come to her room.
"What?" she asks rudely, eyes narrowing in suspicion at his hunched frame.
"I'm ju—" Alec pauses, not meeting her gaze. "Can we talk?"
"Isn't that what we're doing right now?" she snaps back. She knows she's being cruel, that he doesn't necessarily deserve it, but she's tired and hurt and fed up with pretending they're okay.
"Isabelle," Alec pleads, stepping forward so he's standing on the other side of the bed from where she's sitting.
"What?" she repeats, a little more gentle this time. Her brother looks at her warily before climbing onto her bed so he's sitting on his knees beside her. She purses her lips but doesn't say anything. Alec hesitates again, staring at her with a look she can't place. It seems almost like… love and concern. Except she knows that's not right, knows she's just seeing what she wishes was there.
"Did something happen?" he asks suddenly, frowning.
"What do you— Oh," she finishes lamely, hand flying to her cheek where she can feel crusted mascara streaked all across it. She turns her head away from her brother quickly, cursing herself for being so stupid, for letting him see her so weak, for letting him see how pathetic she is. At least now she doesn't have to pretend to be anything but.
"Isabe— Iz, please talk to me," Alec pleads, leaning forwards to curl calloused fingers around her chin and turn her head to face him again, eyes pleading with her in a different way than his voice. There's something there, buried deep in the blue chasms she used to associate with unconditional love and acceptance, but just like his earlier look she finds that she can't place it.
"It's nothing," she says quickly and then, seeing the doubtful expression on his face, "Just boy trouble."
"It doesn't seem like nothing," he whispers, gently moving stray locks of hair out of her face and rubbing his thumb over her cheek. She bites her lip, willing herself not to fall for it, not to think she can have this, that this is real. She wills herself not to start thinking she might have a brother again, even for a moment. She knows she doesn't, she never will.
"It's not important," she tries.
"It is to you," he counters, still tracing the lines of mascara on her cheek.
"It's stupid," she says stubbornly, reminding herself he doesn't really care, he doesn't love her, she doesn't really have a brother anymore.
"You wouldn't be so upset if it was."
"It's just Simon, nothing of any import," she snaps, lifting her chin to further convey her stubborness.
"Simon?" Alec repeats, looking torn between confusion, disbelief and anger.
"Simon," she confirms. "You know, the guy I've been dating."
"Dating?" he repeats, starting to sound like he's just an echo of her own voice.
"Yes, dating. Are you just going to repeat everything I say?"
Alec shakes his head as if to clear it. "Right, okay. So you're dating Simon."
"Was," she corrects.
"Was what?"
"I was dating Simon. Jesus christ, Alec, try to keep up." She tries to tamp down the feeling that this is what siblings do, bicker and tease and talk and be there. She tries to shove away the memory of how it used to be just like this between them, back before everything fell apart in their world.
"So… you broke up? Is that why you're upset? Did he break up with you? Or did he do something awful to you that made you break up with him? Should I—"
"Oh my God!" she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air and turning her head upwards in exasperation. "Stop being—" Isabelle cuts herself off, realizing what she'd been about to say. Now that she's thinking, she knows it would have been a lie. Alec doesn't love her, doesn't care. No one does. No one should.
"Stop being what?" her brother prods, giving her an odd look. She stares at him for a long moment, wondering if she should say what she'd been about to or if she should just make something else up— stupid sounds quite nice to her. In the end, she decides to just say it; why on earth does it matter so much to her anyway? It's just one word.
"Overprotective," she mutters. She's still staring at him, which is why she doesn't miss the way he flinches or recoils from her like he'd been slapped.
"Izzy," he breathes, expression pained. "Don't you know I love you?"
This time it's her who recoils from him, launching herself off the bed and as far away from him as she can get before her back hits the dresser perched against the nearby wall. She doesn't break eye contact with him, though, and can see the way he sucks in a sharp breath at the sudden distance between them. All she says is, "No."
"Please," Alec says desperately, standing from the bed himself and taking a few jerky steps towards her. He stops a few feet away from her, looking at her the way one might look at a frightened animal they were trying not to scare off. "I'm so sorry."
"It's a little too late for that," she replies with a laugh full of incredulity.
"I know, Belle, but what else can I say?" Isabelle sucks in her breath at the nickname, feeling like she's just been doused with a bucket of icy water while simultaneously falling off a cliff and being hit by a train. She feels sick, dizzy and nauseous to the point where her vision is swimming and her head is spinning. She tells herself none of it has anything to do with the fact that she'd on the brink of tears, because she's not. She can't be that pathetic. She can't.
"I don't know!" she says desperately. "Something. Anything. Nothing."
"Please," Alec repeats. "Don't hate me." Isabelle stares at him for a moment in complete silence, taking in the plea that seems to resound through every ounce of her brother's body, the wild fear of something unnamable, unknown.
"I don't hate you," she whispers.
"You should," he mutters back.
"You're my brother," she breathes.
"So was he."
"I know."
"Why don't you hate me?" he asks. "Why do you never hate me no matter what I do?"
"You're my brother," she repeats, suddenly feeling utterly exhausted.
"But I wasn't your only one," he whispers. She smiles at him sadly, feeling her heart ache for him in that way it always does when she can see him slipping.
"You are now," she states simply.
They're fighting again, Alec and his parents. Jace can hear them screaming from all the way upstairs, through his closed bedroom door. He's not sure exactly what it's about this time but, knowing how it usually is, he suspects it's got something to do with Alec's illness. Jace catches a few words here and there, things like 'stop', 'you're not helping', 'you don't understand'. He's doing his best to just shut it all out.
A door slams somewhere downstairs and the yelling stops, fading to the soft vibrations of indoor voices. Frowning, Jace makes his way over to his own door and throws it open, stepping out into the hall. He's momentarily blinded by the bright lights on either side of him as he heads down the hall to the stairs. Descending with all the grace and stealth learnt from years of sneaking past his drunken father to get to the treats tucked away in the storage closet, Jace reaches the bottom without making a single sound.
He creeps through the foyer to the kitchen, his mother and brother's voices now much more distinguishable. He freezes when he sees his sister with her ear pressed against door, listening in with all the curiosity of a fourteen year old girl with nothing to entertain her during the summer break that's just started a few days ago. Approaching quietly, he shushes her when she whips around to face him, mouth open in preparation of spewing some kind of coarse language she'll think will make her sound cool. She glares at him but closes her mouth none the less, letting him move in beside her to press his ear against the door.
"Alec, please stop," his mother is saying, sounding desperate.
"But mom, you kno—" Alec starts.
"It doesn't matter what I know, your father's word is final." Jace knows his brother will be flinching back at that, as if physically distancing himself from the thought of his father is possible.
"But—"
"That's enough, Alexander."
"Mom, please. Something's not right."
"You're fine, Alec. It's nothing serious. You'll get over it soon, don't worry."
"It's been four years!"
"Alexa—"
"Please," Alec says. "I'm scared." There's a pause in the conversation and the clicking of heels on tile. Jace guesses Maryse is hugging his brother to her now, as tight as she can, because he knows Alec isn't the only who's scared. He knows that where Alec's fear drives him to seek help, to admit that he's not okay, their mother's fear makes her deny it, reject the possibility that everything isn't as good as it seems.
"I know, honey, I know. But you don't have to be, everything's okay." Another pause, the ruffle of clothes, and then footsteps nearing the door. There's a low murmur that follows, but Jace and Isabelle are both too busy taking off down the hall to notice. Swinging the kitchen door open, Alec steps into the hall and raises an eyebrow at where his siblings have frozen, staring back at him with wide, guilty eyes.
"I'm not even going to ask," Alec mutters, shaking his head and moving past them into the foyer. Jace can tell something's off, that the conversation with their parents hadn't left him in the best of moods, but Alec isn't the kind of person who likes to share his feelings around so Jace deems it best to leave his brother be for now.
Looking back on it now, he wishes he hadn't.
There's the clomping of a child's feet down the stairs, lacking every ounce of grace and stealth that Jace had demonstrated during his own descent to the foyer, and then tiny five year old Max is speeding past them to the door. Jace laughs at his little brother's frenzied attempts to flail himself into his bright green raincoat, desperate to get outside like he always is. Max has always loved the outdoors, has taken every opportunity he can find to get out, even if it's just so he can lay in the grass and have stories read to him. Moving to help him, Jace grins down at the younger boy who flashes him a wide smile in return, full of gaping holes where teeth used to be. It's impossibly adorable and it only makes Jace's grin widen, the trouble with Alec already forgotten.
A few feet away from them, Isabelle folds her arms over her chest and informs them both that he doesn't even need a raincoat because it's not raining, idiots. Jace sticks his tongue out at her and sends Max through the door, raincoat and all.
Scowling darkly at him, Isabelle strides across the room and smacks him over the head, calling him an idiot again for not listening to her. Jace rolls his eyes and pulls harshly at a thick lock of her long dark hair, throwing out a few insults of his own. Whining about her ruined hair and boys, oh my god, his sister gives him a look that could probably kill lesser men than him. He opens his mouth to dish out another insult, decidedly much worse this time, but ends up getting cut off by Alec careening down the stairs, heading for the door they're currently standing in front of. He doesn't even look at them as he slides in between his siblings and reaches for the door handle, his other hand digging in his pocket for the car keys he shouldn't have.
"Alec?" Jace asks. "Where are you going?"
"Out," his brother replies, turning the handle and moving to pull the door open.
"But you can't drive, you don't have a license."
"So? It's not like anyone actually pulls you over to check. I look sixteen anyways, I'm less than a month off."
"Alec, I don't thin—" Jace starts but Alec has already thrown the door open and sped outside, racing down the steps. There's an awful feeling in the pit of Jace's stomach as he watches his brother slide into the driver's side of their mom's auris, so awful he barely even registers that their father's car is already gone. He steps out onto the porch, stopping before the top step, and frowns worriedly at where Alec is currently turning the keys into the ignition. Something's off about the other boy, like he's not thinking clearly at all. He seems almost desperate to get away, to just get the damn car started already and peel out of the driveway. Whatever it is that's off about Alec, it's terrifying.
"Mom's going to be mad," his sister comments helpfully from beside him and he has the urge to snap at her, to tell her there are more important things to be worried about, but he doesn't get the chance because the car is suddenly roaring to life, the light inside flickering on. He can see his brother grinning through the windshield, a crazed kind of grin that just makes Jace feel even more worried, more scared. And then the whole world seems to slow down, the awful feeling twisting into something even worse as he watches the scene play out ahead of him.
The car jerks, speeding forward faster than Jace has ever seen it go.
A flash of green, bright like a fabric.
The screeching of brakes pressed too late.
The sickening sound of the bumper ramming into something.
The high scream of a little girl, coming from beside him.
And then suddenly it all comes back into real time and he's speeding down the steps to where his brother had been moments before. But there's no little boy there, no bright green raincoat, there's just a mangled body swathed in crimson fabric. Jace swallows,his knees hitting the gravel of the driveway as he reaches slowly for Max. In the background, there's the slam of a car door and the high-pitched sobs and screams of the girl still standing on the porch, too young to have to witness this. Jace is crying too, tears ripping through his whole body as he clutches the tiny body to him, feeling his stomach heave on air.
Footsteps crunch on the gravel nearby and then Alec is there too, staring in horror at Jace and the boy in his arms. He's shaking, his hands quivering so violently that he can't even keep them in the air long enough to reach for his brothers. Jace jerks away from him, pulling little Max with him. He's shaking just as hard as Alec is, but his grip on his brother's body is as hard as steel.
There's a scream, loud and piercing as it echoes around them before descending into hysterical sobbing and shouting. Jace looks over at the porch where his sister stands clutching at their mother's heaving form, her face as white as a sheet as Maryse continues to shout.
"My baby," she sobs. "My baby, my little boy."
And Jace realizes that none of them have really processed what's happened, that they're all still trying to figure out how to react, or if this is even real. But as Jace stares down at his blood-stained hands, hands he doesn't think he'll ever be able to wash clean, he knows none of them could have ever imagined this one up. Not even Alec.
... review?