*Isabella's POV*
After the flight and a twenty-minute Uber ride that felt like it was taking us to the middle of fucking nowhere, we finally arrived. The car spat us out onto a gravel patch at the edge of dense woods. And there, nestled amongst the trees like it had grown there, was a tent. It wasn't the cheap, kind you'd find at a carnival, but something more rustic, made of deep purple and rich red fabric that was faded by sun and rain.
"Here it is," Jacob said, his voice a little too bright, a little too forced.
"Are you sure?" I asked, eyeing the tent with scepticism. It looked like something out of a fairytale, and not necessarily one with a happy ending.
"I guess... I found her on a forum. Someone was talking about her," Jacob said, already walking towards it.
"Saying what about her?" I pressed, my curiosity at war with my understanding.
"There's no fucking time for that," Jacob said, waving a dismissive hand over his shoulder.
"Let's go inside," Damien said, his voice a calm, steady command that cut through Jacob's frantic energy. He placed a hand on the small of my back, a silent, grounding gesture, and we followed Jacob towards the tent's flapping entrance.
The inside was dim and smelled of incense, and something else... something herbal and slightly sweet. Madam Suzanne was sitting on a pile of mismatched velvet cushions, a crystal ball on a low table before her.
"Welcome, children," she said as we entered, her voice a low, dramatic murmur.
"Oh, the twin souls," she said, her gaze landing on Jacob and Damien. "I've met you before."
"Wait... what did you do?" she asked, her voice suddenly sharp with horror, her eyes widening as she looked between them.
"What?" Jacob asked, taking a hesitant step forward.
"You broke it," she said, her voice a shocked whisper. "The connection is severed."
"Can you please give us more detail?" Damien said stepping forward. "We haven't talked about the payment, but we can..." he was saying when she cut him off, her voice cracking like a whip.
"Shut up," she said, her gaze sweeping over him with such authority that he actually closed his mouth. Her eyes then fell onto me, pinning me in place.
"Who's the girl?" she asked, her head tilting. She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, as if she was tasting the air around me.
"Oh... oh... Please come here," she said, opening her eyes, and they were filled with a mixture of awe and profound pity.
I slowly approached her table, my legs felt heavy, as if made of steel. In the centre of the table, a crystal ball swirled with a dark, smoky light, I sat down in the cushions across from her, my legs scraping against the old rug.
"You are their link," she began, her voice a low, dramatic rumble that seemed to vibrate right through the tent. "Or, I should say, you were." She let out a long, weary sigh, as if the weight of the universe was on her shoulders. "You were their soulmate."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Were. Past tense.
"When you were born, you created a connection between them that no man can break," she explained, her gaze distant, as if she was reading from a script written in the stars. "But I don't see it anymore." She shook her head slowly, her eyes filled with a strange kind of pity.
"She died," Jacob said, his voice flat, devoid of all emotion.
"Huh?" Madam Suzanne asked, snapping her attention back to him, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"She was declared clinically dead," Damien clarified, his voice steady, a stark contrast to the mystical chaos of the tent. "But she was resuscitated."
"Oh... Makes fucking sense now," Madam Suzanne said, her eyes widening in realization. "Their connection was severed due to your near-death experience. A spiritual cord, cut."
"Does that mean..." I began, my voice barely a whisper, a fragile thread of hope tangled in a sea of fear.
"They're not connected anymore," she said, her tone final. "No bond is joining them. They're free."
Free. The word echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of the tent. I felt a dizzying rush of... something. Something I couldn't tell.
"Am I still... their soulmate?" I asked nervously, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"I don't think that could ever change," she said, a small, wry smile touching her lips. Her eyes flicked over my shoulder, looking at the two men standing behind me. "I can see from their dumb faces that they're completely and utterly smitten with you."
I turned in my seat. Both Jacob and Damien were standing there, looking like two schoolboys who'd been cheating on a test. And, holy shit, they were both blushing. A furious, deep red that crept up their necks and stained their cheeks. The sight was so unexpected, so endearing, that a real, genuine smile broke across my face.
"It's up to you now," Madam Suzanne said, her voice pulling my attention back to her. Her gaze was sharp, knowing. "What are you going to do about it?"
The air outside the tent was cool and sharp, a stark contrast to the smell of incense inside. We stumbled out, blinking in the sunlight, our minds reeling from the bombshell that had just been dropped on us. The world felt both brighter and more confusing.
"I told you something was fishy," Jacob said, breaking the stunned silence. He was running a hand through his hair, a gesture of disbelief.
"It was," Damien agreed, his voice low and thoughtful. He wasn't looking at us, but at the trees surrounding us, as if they held the answers. "I realized the moment I realized Jacob didn't know about the New Year's kiss."
"I realized way sooner," Jacob countered, turning to face his brother. "In the hospital. When Isabella had the accident... I thought you didn't care about her. I was going out of my fucking mind with panic, but I couldn't feel anything coming from you. You seemed so calm, so... numb. So Indifferent." The word hung in the air.
Damien shook his head slowly, a look of profound awe on his face. "It's fucking insane," he murmured. "Isabella... you were the link. All this time, you were the goddamn link."
"I fucking told you!" Jacob said, pointing a finger at Damien. "I told you we didn't feel anything when we were little. I knew something was different!"
And then it hit me. "Wait a minute," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I'm seven years younger than you." I looked from one to the other, my mind racing. "If what Madam Suzanne said was true... if I created the connection when I was born... then your connection was formed when you were seven." Everything was clicking into place, a dozen weird, unexplainable moments from their lives suddenly making perfect, insane sense.
Jacob just stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "I... I..." he stuttered, completely and utterly lost for words.
"I have no words either," I said, shaking my head in disbelief.