Stonebrook High School

Chapter 61

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Upon hearing those words, Isa called for a team to search for Jess and the Order members. "Don't come back until you find them," she had ordered.

The Sky City founder had had to leave the brother in order to continue her investigation but told Jesse that she would come back once she was done. It had been quite a few hours and she had not returned. Perhaps she was interviewing many people or making a report. He didn't know. He didn't know what the Director had to do.

He was still dumbstruck by their initial conversation. She was his aunt. His mother and Aunt Carrie's older sister. Why did he not know about this? There was definitely a similarity in their piercing emerald eyes. The way she scanned him with her sharp vision just as Carrie and his mom would flicker theirs over the twins. Had there been a fallout? There wouldn't have been as Isa had said she visited them in elementary school and yet he didn't remember that. Or perhaps there had been. It was all too confusing and he held his head.

"You shouldn't touch your head with those burned hands of yours."

Jesse looked up at the doorway. Like a phantom, there was Isa standing in the frame, the gold rays of the afternoon bouncing off her gold lines.

"I know," he said. "I'm just frustrated."

"Why?" She took a seat by his bed.

"I don't know why I didn't know you were my aunt. You said you visited us but I don't remember that and I've never heard anything about you until now."

Isa's face fell and she looked down at her hands. "Ah. Well, your mother and I did have a long... incident."

His face turned. "An incident?"

"Yes. I... wanted to set up the new training headquarters for the Sky City Guard in this nice, remote plain. I had signed all the papers and everything asking for my consent to continue on with the project. But then, your mother went up to me, very distressed and angry with my actions. She told me that the land there was home to animals that had been buried over thousands of years and that I shouldn't disturb it. I didn't know that, so I tried to compromise by agreeing to preserve the bodies and have them moved but she was mad that I was even continuing the plan."

She looked at him, her eyes turning gentle and soft. "I love your mother a lot. We've been together for a long time. But at that moment, we were so nasty to each other. I yelled at her and screamed for her to get out of my face, losing the cool that I should have as a person-in-charge. She was distraught at me for shouting at her like that and she yelled back at me, saying things like, 'Had I known we would have been born sisters, I would have rather died.' It hurt. It really hurt. We ended up going to court over the project and I won. It separated us and I haven't seen or talked to her since. I've wanted to call her but I don't know how she would react."

Jesse recalled walking into his country house with his sister, seeing their mom crying and telling their father how the unknown lawsuit was breaking her. So this was the lawsuit that had plagued their mother for months. The lawsuit that shattered her smile until little Reuben had come into their lives. No wonder it had consumed her – it was between her and her own sister.

"Now I know," Jesse said. "Now I know about the lawsuit that Mom cried about so much. I remember she said she couldn't believe that 'this would even happen to us'. Jess and I didn't know anything about the lawsuit, but now that I know what happened, I can't help but imagine how bad it was for you and her."

Isa shrugged. "It was warranted. I had no reason to do that to her. But... if you can and want to, please tell her that I love her the next time you see her. I don't have the courage to tell her face to face."

He scrunched his face in confusion and then shook his head. "No. No, no, no. When I'm out of this stupid bed and when that Storm is taken care of, Jess and I are going to drag you out there and we'll all talk about it. As family. Even if you're the Director, you and Mom are still so similar. All pretty talk and no ability to act pretty. You gotta talk to her. Maybe you can even ask Aunt Carrie to help out."

"Ah, Caroline? Perhaps I could... She was always more open-mouthed than the two of us were." The woman smiled to herself and nodded. "Alright. I will do this if you two come along."

"Deal."

"Ma'am!"

A different voice shouted in the hallway and the two of them looked out the doorway. A man with rumpled clothing and disorderly hair panted as he leaned against the frame for support and said, "We've located the Order and the girl."

Isa stood up, almost knocking over her chair, not wasting any time. "Where are they?"

"They're on top of what seems to be a large base in the mountains. It seems they've planned something." The man's communicator beeped and he looked at the screen, eyes turning wide. "Ma'am, the girl has climbed onto the Witherstorm!"

"What?" She looked over his shoulder at the screen, trying to piece together the reality. "What is she doing?!"

Jesse's breath got caught in his throat as he tried to call out to his aunt. "Is Jess okay? Why is she on the Storm?"

"I don't know, Jesse, I–" Isa stopped mid-sentence as she read aloud the new message. "Alpha seen holding something in hand and pressing it."

All of a sudden, the earth shook and the room rumbled. "Take cover!" Isa shouted, diving towards Jesse and covering him with her body. The man slid underneath a nearby table and clutched the legs.

"Is- is this an earthquake?" the boy cried out over the sound of glass shattering and items toppling over.

Just like that, the shaking was over and Isa cautiously got up, looking around for any danger. "I- I think it was. I'm not sure."

The beeper went off again and the man crawled out from underneath the table, reading it. 

"Witherstorm has been deactivated."