(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: none)
--Ranya--
"Good morning, future leaders of America," Mrs. Peeks said once announcements ended. She had pale, thin wrists, and gray hair in a tight bun at the top of her head. "Take out your splendid novels and turn to page 30."
We all flipped to the nearest chapter, stifling groans, and I gave the scribbled notes of my green notebook one last once-over so I could think about them during class. I should focus on gathering evidence for Mattie's case. She needs it the most right now. I'll think over the evidence I have so far and how best to present it.
Tooth peered at my novel before resuming flicking her gaze around the room. I tried to figure out why she was being so paranoid. I went through all my mental notes on her and remembered that during the last war with Pitch, he had kidnapped all but one of her Mini Fairies—the tiny helpers she loved—and stolen all the memories she guarded. Maybe it had hit her hard, and she was wary of what might suddenly strike if she wasn't paying attention.
"What a magnificent day to learn," Mrs. Peeks said. "I hope everyone applied their intelligence and really thought about how they could improve their fog driving this morning. I certainly did." Someone actually groaned this time, and her sharp eyes snapped in his direction. "Would you like to tell us what you learned, Cory?"
"Uh, I don't drive," he said, and snickers flitted around the room.
The intercom retched out static, and everyone glanced at it for a second, but then resumed attention on the teacher. Except for Tooth. Her feathers bristled.
"Well, Cory, I hope you someday do." Mrs. Peeks opened up her own faded copy of Of Mice and Men that she always forgot had different page numbers than ours.
A scream reverberated in the distance, but no one except for Tooth looked up. It just happened sometimes in public schools. Mrs. Peeks said, "In this chapter, we can see that the two inciteful main characters—" Two screams sounded off, and she stopped.
"I'll be right back." Tooth zipped out of the room.
A couple of people giggled. "What is going on down there?" Mrs. Peeks said. She opened her mouth again, but was interrupted by thirty more screams. My stomach twisted with doubt at my earlier thoughts that we'd be fine. One ripped boy named Ned got up, but Mrs. Peeks made him sit. "I'll see what's going on," she said.
That was when Tooth darted through my teacher. She grabbed my arm tight. "We need to go. Now."
I stood and said, "We need to leave, guys! It's not safe!" Tooth dragged me from the room. One look behind me, and everyone stared like they knew I was on drugs. A metaphorical knife cut into my chest. "Guys!" But Tooth had the stronger grip and hauled me away.
As she yanked me down the hall, Mrs. Peeks ran back around a nearby corner. "Evacuate! Immediately!"
In seconds, my whole class was dashing through the hall as we sprinted down a set of stairs that bent under our combined weight.
"What's going on?" I tried to ask over the pounding of feet of high schoolers and teachers spilling into the hall. I had meant the question for Tooth.
"Skeletons!" a soprano shouted.
"People being paralyzed!" a raspy voice yelled.
"Fear Angels," Tooth said, tightening her grip on my arm though I wasn't fighting it anymore. "At least, that's my guess."
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.
Screams sounded behind me, farther away into the building.
I locked my legs and tripped to the dirt. Slush soaked my pants and sweater. Someone stepped on my legs, and I grunted in pain.
Tooth tried to pull me to my feet, but I resisted as people trampled past. "What are you doing?" She managed to get me upright, but I flopped back to the ground. More people raced past as she yanked me up again. I tried to drop once more, but she pinned me to her hip. "You're not going back inside."
I tried to twist out of her grasp, but she gripped my waist too tightly against her as she flew into the air. I pulled on her arms. She hung on firm. As she lifted me higher, I tickled her side. Her arm relaxed as a giggle burst from her mouth, and I slipped from her hold. When I landed, a shock of pain shot up both my legs, but I recovered and sprinted toward the dilapidated house.
"Come back!" Tooth darted toward me as I burst through the back door and slammed it shut behind me. The scattered wooden chairs and table were all missing legs, and moths had eaten the red and blue rug in the middle in patches. The inside of the house was grimy and musty and full of jagged shadows, and my foot nearly burst through the floorboards when I hit a weak spot. A fireplace stood across from me, not a single log inside.
I quickly took in the two different doorways and dashed through the closest one. Shoved in the corner was a bed with holey blue blankets strewn over it. Peeling wooden drawers were tucked against another. I slid under the bed, shivering in the sheets of cobwebs hanging from the framing underneath. I was careful to avoid the gaping holes in the floor and planks scattered across the space.
Tooth burst through the back door. "Ranya, come out, please! I also want to save them, but it's too dangerous!" I held my breath as she flew around the main area. If I even so much as moved an inch, the floor would probably creak, and she might hear me.
Within a few seconds, however, she entered the room. I had no choice but to risk it. I slowly began lowering myself into a hole in the floor. I paused as the planks squeaked.
"Ranya?" Tooth called.
I dropped the rest of the way into the hole and pulled planks over myself.
Right when I had retracted my hand, Tooth ducked under the bed. I froze.
She stayed like that for a few seconds, then stood again, and flew out of the room. I waited until the front door creaked, and then I crept out of my hiding place, brushing splinters and spiderwebs off me. When I crept to a jagged hole in the wall and didn't see her, I dashed outside into the fog.
I nearly yelped when I saw someone standing a ways feet away, but after half a second, I realized the figure was too tall to be Tooth. It was a woman or older girl with stiff wavy hair; a rigid, thin body; and hands relaxed at her sides. The fog obscured her details.
"The rest of the school went that way," I said only loud enough for her to hear, thinking she must have just escaped the Fear Angels. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder.
The figure didn't move.
"Can you hear me?" I whispered.
When the figure nodded, I shrugged. She was out of the school already. A twittering emerged from my left, and I dove behind a cluster of trees. The leaves were high above me, but at least there were pale trunks.
The sound grew closer, and I pressed myself as close to the trees as I could.
"Ranya!" Tooth called, and then she was in front of me facing away. She was looking on the other side of a nearby tree. I leaped to the other side of the trunks I'd hidden behind, pressing myself hard into their bark.
Through a small gap in the trunks, I saw her look in my direction. She ran a hand across the rustling feathers on her head, and then darted off.
I stood there for another minute before I shook myself out and ran for the edge of the forest.
The female figure still stood in the mist. She grew hazy as I got closer. When I was near enough that the fog would've no longer smother her colors and details, she vanished.
A mist figure? A grin spread across my face. Finally?
Tooth zipped nearby. I ducked my head and dashed for the high school a short way away.
I made it to the side door I had left and slipped inside.
My body immediately began thawing, but it felt almost too warm in here, though the nearest window was cracked completely through. And it was dead silent. Was I too late?
Farther down on the floor, I spotted a large cluster of bodies bent at awkward angles and leaning on each other, their eyes closed tightly. I was pretty sure people's eyes normally stayed open if they were paralyzed, but this paralysis seemed a little different.
Was anyone still left in the building, though? Had I left Tooth for nothing?
I was about to go check another hall when the noise began. Clack clack clack. Clack clack clack. Like bones.
Fear Angels.
(A/N: If you enjoyed this, please vote, comment, and follow!)