My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 39: The Secrets We Keep

After we reached the bottom, she opened the blinds in the living and dining room. I plopped onto the couch. "Are you okay?" Ranya asked. Purple Windshallow rain began to pour from the sky, slower than my tears. It made everything shine and gleam like stained glass, like my shields, but the reminder of my powers made my tears stream faster. If only I weren't so scared, I could use my powers and help...

I shook my head. "Was your... meeting good last night?" I asked, trying to see how close Ranya was to defeating Pitch.

"It went great!" But her muscles stiffened. It was nearly imperceptible, but I caught it.

My chest tightened. "Something happened...?"

"Only good things."

"But you're acting nervous."

"Am I?"

"I know you're hiding something from me!" I shouted.

Ranya sighed. "There was a Fear Angel attack. We'll be okay, though. Don't worry."

Would I have to help her? Even at the thought of just asking Ranya to get a yearbook, though, my thoughts began to spin and my fear hijacked my body, refusing to let me move. Searching through a yearbook isn't suspicious, I told myself. No one will know what you're doing.

When that didn't work, I told myself to open my mouth. Just a little. It didn't have to be very much. But no matter how hard I tried to move my jaw, fear kept it rooted to its spot with tight, thorny coils.

Come on, I whispered to the anxiety. It's your fault things are getting worse. Do something about it.

Heavier steps thumped on the stairs, and soon Dad appeared, his back stooped over his paunchy belly. The wind howled. Dad's green eyes looked as dead as television static, and his black hair hung limp. My heart squeezed for the three of us. We were losing our family.

Dad calmly pulled the remote off the pale, creaking end table and pointed it at the TV.

"—And they have reached a discovery about this paralysis," the newswoman with long loose hair the color of a storm cloud said. "Though there is still no tie to these 'hallucinogenic storms,' as scientists now call them, by analyzing the brain activity of the paralyzed, researchers have found that they are likely suffering from nightmares. After—"

Dad clicked off the TV. He gave me a forced smile. "Even with this, we have to be strong. You still don't have to become a Guardian if you don't want to, Isabelle. It's unfair they're forcing this. If you don't become who they want you to be, I'm sure the Man in the Moon will choose someone else." He glanced slightly at the ceiling before returning his blank stare to the people around him. "Like Ranya."

---

--Ranya--

"Pitch... attacked us with his Fear Angels," I mumbled to my dad—I'd texted him where I was heading last night—as Isabelle sat back at her laptop in the kitchen. I wrung my hands together. "Most of my army was paralyzed. We still don't have a way to lure Pitch to Windshallow, and the Watcher to us. I mean, Pitch came last night, but he was too quick for Dakota. So we'd need a way to keep him in one place while she..." I lowered my voice so quietly I could hardly hear it myself, "weakened him."

My dad pinched his throat and leaned forward. "So you need more ideas."

"Yeah. Probably something else justice-related. Make him and the Watcher pay for the crimes they've committed. But then we also have to worry about the soother, and the being controlling the white mist." The arguing upstairs suddenly got quieter—as if they were finishing the conversation. Would they come downstairs once they did? How much time did we have alone?

My dad's eyes were dark. "Our odds are low."

"Yeah."

"I guess the question now is... Is there anything Pitch or the Watcher wants justice for? Perhaps we should think about this from another angle." Something was odd about his voice—clipped, hesitant. I realized he really didn't want to help me and had been holding back. He didn't want me to thrust myself into danger. He'd been hoping for another solution.

"I know Pitch is tired of being alone," I said. "Last night, he threatened me. He said our fates were intertwined. He wants me to suffer as he suffered—have no one left who cares about me. I attacked him at my high school, and when I insulted him and his lost family, that got his attention. He was already hurt, and he's angry." My body chilled like the Arctic, beginning at my stomach and shooting its way outwards. "I have to set a trap. Make him come here. Using you."

My dad's eyes were bright. He'd do it.

"Our only problem is the white mist," I continued. "It shows up whenever I'm alone or with one other person. If I'm in a group, it won't attack, but I'm not sure if two extra people—you and Dakota—would be enough. I mean, we can't have Isabelle come with, and the Guardians wouldn't help. So do you know who we can get to join?"

"The problem would be getting them to believe us," my dad replied. "I have work friends, but they're very 'logical'—they staunchly disbelieve in spirits. And if we didn't have a good reason in their eyes, they wouldn't help."

"Do you have any non-work friends?"

"Not really."

---

**Isabelle**

They needed me. I tried to open my mouth, but my lips stayed glued together. I managed to make the upper one twitch for a moment as if it would move, but it wouldn't budge any more than that.

Steps thudded above my head in the direction of the stairs.

I shut my laptop, stood, and turned around. I resolved to see if Mother Nature had taken my note, at least. But that was when something caught my eye out the dining room windows.

Through the usual Windshallow mist, which was thin and wispy like spiderwebs this morning, clustered half-dark and half-beige shapes had gathered in the distance.

I squinted, not being able to tell what they were at first, but their details emerged as they sped closer. I felt the shock of familiarity again, and shouted, "Fear Angels!"

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