My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 10: The Chaos After

Soon, we burst into the biting cold and thick, palpable mist. My sweater was soft and thick, but it could only help so much, and my winter coat was still in my locker. The chilly air sunk its teeth through my clothes, and brown slush seeped into my shoes. The fog enveloped us.

I tried to look back before I couldn't see into the building anymore and noticed a few large shapes obscured by the fog and flying above the school. They were darting away from the building and the crowd.

"Ranya?"

The voice sent chills colder than winter down my back. I dragged my feet in the mud for a second before I realized—

"Trap," Tooth said.

"Yeah." I sped back up into a run. Isabelle wasn't here. She had gone to her school this morning.

"Ranya? Help me! Please!" Isabelle's voice continued.

It still struck a cord in my chest, and I had to cast a glance over my shoulder.

Through the fog, something arched from the school doors into one of the shapes in the air. The shape froze, and fell.

Isabelle's voice screamed, and I caught a figure running back into the school.

Just a trap. Just a trap.

Tooth pulled me faster into the nearby pine forest and its tall canopy of leaves that I could only just make out the form of. More screams echoed behind me from deep inside the school. There were still people that far back?

"We're just gonna leave them in there?" I panted.

"I can't abandon you," Tooth replied.

"Then let's go together."

She gave me a look I couldn't read. "It's too dangerous. And clearly Pitch wants us to go back inside."

Isabelle's voice screamed again. It sounded so real. But then I remembered how in the book series, Pitch was possessed because Fearlings tricked him into letting them out of their prison using his daughter's voice. This was the same thing. A trap.

"Couldn't we find some other way to get them out?" I said. "One where we didn't go into the school?"

"We shouldn't get that close," Tooth replied.

I recalled how all the Fearlings had been killed at the end of the book series. What could mimic Isabelle's voice, then? The Watcher? Fear Angels? More importantly, what had mimicked her powers?

Tooth pulled me faster into the forest. The air shimmered as if with smoke. Windshallow.

Screams from within the building rang off more raw, desperate. A powerful feeling surged up in me—my nature: protect the weak. I remembered how scared I'd been when I had anxiety, and knew the people trapped in the building were just as afraid, if not more so. I didn't want to leave them to that fate.

"Guardians help children," I could hardly talk at the rate I was going, and spoke between puffs for air as low, sharp branches struck across my face and hands. I could feel it even as my skin numbed.

Tooth's shoulders slumped, and her twittering grew higher. "We also don't run into traps."

"We can't leave everyone in there! We can evade the trick."

"My job right now is to keep you safe."

"I've basically memorized both the books and the movie. And I know the most about the Watcher. I can keep myself safe."

"No, you can't."

We reached the clearing in the woods and its dilapidated log house in the middle. The roof was caving in, and logs were missing in jagged places. Where the sides weren't peeling or covered in grime, dead vines choked them. All of the windows were just gaping mouths.