Temere Mortis

Chapter Thirty-eight

The screams from Isla's vision carried over to the present, but they weren't her own. It was Alex whose torturous screech broke through the air.

"Isla get up!" Alex shouted, shaking her shoulders violently. "They're trying to get in."

Sure enough, loud bangs could be heard from the doorway as all three boys struggled to keep the metal door shut. They were winning the battle until Henry's foot slipped, giving the intruder the desired leverage as he tumbled to the floor.

"Henry!" Isla called. She watched as his head spun wildly until his eyes met her own. He must have seen the recognition as it danced across her iris' because a grin grew on his face, despite the bitter circumstances.

"You know me," he spoke with such hope that it brought a smile to Isla's own lips.

"I know you," she echoed back to him, lost in his eyes.

Of course, something had to ruin the moment. A broad dark figure burst into the room, and a smaller one behind them. A shot of foreboding raced across Isla's spine. Max and Mary.

"Isla," Max announced breathlessly. "I'm so glad I found you."

A thousand replies came to Isla's mind, but one outshone them all as the realization hit her like a tonne of bricks.

"Isla is Lily."

Max blinked in confusion.

"Why are you talking about yourself in the third person, Isla?" he responded, attempting to fight his way through the blockade that Jacob and Danny had formed around her and Alex.

"Her nickname must be Lila too," Isla mused, "my sister." She sneered the words like they were poison on her tongue. "They try to make the simulation as realistic as possible by putting us in the same couplings. I.. I was with Henry," she stuttered. "So, my sister must have been with his brother." She said the final words triumphantly, faking the confidence that she so needed.

"He stole her from you, and then Alex's sister died, her best friend. Oh, this makes so much sense." She was muttering now, quietly under her breath. "How much did they fake? Was it ever real?" She looked at Henry, watching the same sick thought occur to him. Had they forced them to be together?

Max's face turned cold.

"Very clever," he commented, his lips quirking into a sneer. In a motion that seemed easy for him he pulled a gun from his waistband and held it out in front of him, trained directly at Alex's chest. Danny inhaled sharply.

"I'd get out of the way boys if I were you," Max told them, chuckling darkly to himself. "Or else, Isla's one and only over here is going to die for real this time." Isla ignored him, choosing instead to taunt him dangerously.

"So, I know who you are, Jack," Isla snarled, taking a step closer towards him. Alex reached for her in vain, attempting to bring her back safely to her side. "But who is Mary, really?" As Isla looked towards the girl she met as 'Mary' she watched her grin slowly, a Cheshire Cat grin.

"Jill," Mary quipped, stalking towards her. Isla laughed harshly at her joke. Jack and Jill.

"Very funny," she sneered, not flinching as Mary inched her way over. "But what's your real name?" It was Jack who replied.

"Isobel," he told Isla, "my sister."

Jack and Isobel. The names were eerily familiar to Isla and as she looked around the room she watched her friends waiting patiently for the penny to drop. There was something special about those names, but Isla couldn't recall what. Like a rush of cold water down her back, she suddenly knew.

"What's your last name?" Isla whispered, all confidence leaving her. Max smiled, as if disconcertingly proud of her minor achievement.

"Isaacs."

Alex's cousins, the ones that had died of the Temere Mortis when they were just children. But they hadn't died, they had been reborn into this world, ready to take the places of their older siblings.

"You'd point a gun at your own cousin's chest?" Isla accused him, her eyes trained steadily now on the gun on his hand.

"I'd kill her too," was Jack's cool reply as he returned in earnest to his task. He gestured for the boys to break their human barrier impatiently, laughing at the incredulous look on Isla's face.

Danny didn't waste any time, but he didn't move out of the way as instructed. Instead, he lunged. With a heavy thud, Danny and Jack tumbled to the floor, but that didn't stop Jack from shooting. However, rather than the bullet landing firmly between Alex's breasts, his aim was thrown off and the bullet flew, penetrating Isla's shoulder with a resolute crunch.