Clary was screwing with him; that was the only viable option. There was no way that the ridiculously gorgeous girl standing in front of him was his soulmate. "Did you get some temporary tattoos made just for the purpose of screwing with me, Fray?" he asked, peeking around this girl to see Clary's gigantic smile. "There's no way this girl is my soulmate. No way. My soulmate's more like, like that guy," he said, pointing to a startling green man who had just appeared beside of the insanely dressed man Clary had been talking to when he first walked in.
"Oh stop acting like you're the victim here," his apparent soulmate said, letting go of his wrist and allowing it to drop back to his side. Simon couldn't help but smile at her, everything about her was intriguing to him. "I'm the one with this nerdy nonsense tattooed on me forever." Simon watched as Isabelle let her whip slide back onto her wrist. There was so much more he wanted to say, but he knew it was no use in their current situation.
It took several long minutes for them to explain everything to Simon, and he went over everyone's names in his head several times. Clary had explained the basics of this whole "Shadow World" thing to him on the phone, so they didn't have to waste any time trying to tell him that the green man (apparently named Ragnor) and Magnus, the man apparently in charge of most things, were warlocks, and that the curiously pale and child-like man that quickly appeared beside of them (apparently Raphael) was a vampire.
He looked around curiously when they were led to a room empty of Magnus's strange party guests. Simon knew his eyes kept flicking to Isabelle, but he couldn't help himself. In all his wildest imaginings, he'd never once pictured his soulmate as someone who looked like she could easily have been hired as a supermodel. But the thing that excited Simon the most about Isabelle was not her looks, but rather the fact that she was so intimidating he felt as though she could kill him in one hundred and one ways before he so much as knew what was going on.
Simon's attention finally momentarily turned away from Isabelle as Magnus actually began explaining the fact that he'd taken Clary's memories. Simon easily observed the ways in which the Shadowhunters communicated with the Downworlders, and it quickly became incredibly obvious to him that they looked down on the Downworlders, but Simon couldn't figure out exactly why that would be. When Isabelle pulled him away from Magnus's room, Simon willingly went, hoping that she wanted to talk about the situation. But when Simon was stupid enough to take a drink from a seemingly friendly vampire before he even had the chance to say something to Isabelle, he knew had jumped far more into the Shadow World than he had ever wanted.
Ending up back at the Institute after finding himself in the Dumort was like a dream for Simon. He barely knew where he was anymore, all he could feel was the overwhelming sensation that he no longer belonged in the Institute. He knew he wasn't a vampire, that he'd only ingested Raphael's blood, but the more he sat his spare room, the more he felt as though there was no place for him there.
Simon had always thought he'd meet his soulmate at Comic-Con, that they'd have a nice, safe date at a coffee shop right after. But meeting Isabelle had been much more than he wanted to handle, no matter how intriguing or gorgeous she was. For years, Simon had been so consumed by the fact that he and Clary were not soulmates. He'd always thought his feelings for her were real, but then again, he'd never truly thought he would find his true soulmate, so the legend hadn't kept him from hoping that he and Clary might actually work out.
Just as Simon was thinking about going to find Clary, to see what was really going on, what the plan really was, the door opened slowly, and the first thing Simon saw was Isabelle's long, dark hair. He couldn't keep himself from smiling as she entered the room, hiding something behind her back. "So Clary and Jace are apparently nowhere to be found, and I just thought that you might need to relax a bit," she began, obviously trying to keep a smile off of her face as well.
Simon looked at her in what he knew was thinly vailed surprise when she handed him a Star Wars DVD. "There's no point in running away from this," Isabelle explained as she moved to take the DVD toward the TV that was across the room from the bed. "Plus I'm very curious about these lightsabers, so you're going to have to do a lot of explaining."
For the next couple of hours, Simon allowed himself to get lost in spending time with Isabelle, and he was pleasantly surprised. Isabelle obviously didn't care about the plot of the movie, and for the first time in his life, Simon really didn't either. Every now and again, Isabelle would remember that the movie was playing and would ask him a question about whatever happened to be going on at the time. But they mostly talked about themselves, about their lives and their personalities, and the more Simon talked to her, the more he felt she might actually be what he'd been missing all along.
The feeling Simon got from being with Isabelle stayed with him for the rest of the night, but he knew that trying to find Clary was a mistake as soon as he actually found her. Finding her with Jace completely changed his mood, and Simon knew there was no going back now, not at the moment at the very least. Simon hadn't even considered the thought that Clary might have found her soulmate as well. But the look on Jace and Clary's faces told him that he had been dead wrong.
"What was that Clary?" he asked as Jace left the room almost as soon as they realized he was there. "That guy has been nothing but repulsive since I got here. I don't understand a lot of things that are going on right now, but I really don't understand what's going on with you and Jace." Clary simply looked at him for several seconds, and Simon could see that she was trying to analyze the entire situation before responding.
"Nothing is that simple anymore, Simon," she said, taking a seat on her bed and motioning for Simon to do the same. "When I first got here, I wanted nothing more than to get away and go home. But now that we know Izzy is your soulmate and Jace is mine, we can't really leave even if we didn't have to worry about the whole people wanting to kill me thing." Simon knew she was right, but he couldn't seem to keep himself from hating Jace. He knew it was very likely that he was just overprotective of Clary, but that didn't change his feelings in any way.
"What's with these Shadowhunters anyway?" Simon asked, trying to turn their conversation away from their soulmate situation. "They act like they're God's gift to the world and everyone else is just here for decoration. The way they've treated the Downworlders even since I've been here is appalling. Are they just jealous because they don't have magic like warlocks or strength like vampires?"
Clary shook her head in a slightly dismissive way. "They're just trying to protect people, Simon. And no, don't say that it's more than that. I don't really know what's going on yet either, but they saved my life, and I can't ignore that." What Clary was saying made sense, but that little fact didn't seem to make any difference to him.
"No, Clary, that's just it. It is much more than that. They want you to think they're protecting the world, and they've already got you convinced." Simon could feel his tone hardening, but he didn't seem to have any control over that. "Isabelle told me about the law that says they can't have Downworlders as soulmates. Tell me, Clary, how something that isn't a choice should ever be punishable by death. If I'm missing something, please tell me because I'm at a terrible loss to understand everything that's going on here. The one thing I do know is that they've got you fooled, that's for sure."
At that, Clary stood up, turning to face Simon faster than he'd ever seen her move before. "You're acting like you can look at this from the outside, but I've got news for you, Simon. I am one of them, and that's not going to change anytime soon." Simon stood up and moved past her. "Wait, where are you going?" she asked as he moved toward the door.
Simon didn't really know the answer to that question himself, but he had to get out of the Institute and it didn't matter where. "I'm going someplace where I won't feel like everyone around me thinks I'm less than them, Clary. Don't worry about waiting up on me, I won't be back here if it's up to me." Simon knew he should have stayed, he knew he wasn't as safe now that he knew about the Shadow World, but he didn't care anymore.
Simon didn't realize that he was walking back toward the Dumort until it was far too late, until he was looking up at the sign, his heart rate quickening with every second that passed. He was so angry that he hadn't even thought about where he was going. Escaping the Shadowhunters was all he had wanted to do. But when a new found blackness washed over him before he could move away from the Dumort, Simon had the sinking feeling that Clary had been right all along.
Yes, I will most likely finish the next chapter tonight because I physically need to write Alec's chapter, but, no, I will not be posting three chapters in one day! (Alec's chapter may or may not end up being excessively long but we'll see!)
As always, let me know your thoughts!