My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 22: A Powerful Being

(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety, family member pressuring child to get over anxiety)

**Isabelle**

Anxiety is like a disease writhing just beneath the earth's surface in the middle of a lush jungle. The disease snags roots and sucks the nutrients out of the soil, causing the flowers to curl and brown. And when the plants die, animals that eat those plants die from a lack of food, and then the animals that eat those animals die, and so on. There are many little ways anxiety can affect you, many little areas it can touch.

Once Jack and I had ridden home in Zo's mom's car through the thick swirling fog, and I leaned against a wall in my house's entryway, longing to sit back down instead, Ranya trudged down the stairs to greet me. Her clothes were damp and torn in jagged slashes with little wood shards snagged in her hair and sweater. Jack had told me what had happened at Ranya's school, what Tooth explained to him while they worked together. At least the pale boy's warning had likely only been about that, so I didn't need to worry about it now. That was all the damage the danger had done.

Except there was something else.

On the way back home, the pounding heart and trembling and thoughts of the danger had calmed enough that I felt the full effects of Cathey's paralysis. She was my friend, but I had abandoned her. I could have turned and distracted the Fear Angel, or if my fear had been calmer, I might have been able to concentrate my thoughts and control my powers in time. She was paralyzed because of me.

It squeezed my heart, circling in my thoughts. I could have saved her, but I hadn't.

Tooth, twiddling her fingers together, flew behind Ranya, and then North strode past the two girls. Mom stood behind him.

"Isabelle's school was attacked," Jack, his brows furrowed, said from behind me, and explained what had happened, how after he left when the boy told him Ranya was in danger, the Fear Angels locked everyone inside and began exterminating them. Ranya's eyes widened.

Mom, her own eyes a little glazed over for some reason, stepped forward and reached a hand toward me. "Are you all right, Isabelle?"

"Yes..." I said shakily, letting her squeeze my shoulder.

Ranya opened her mouth, but Tooth spoke quicker. She looked back at North. "That wasn't what happened at Ranya's school. Almost everyone escaped." She turned to Jack. "Was Pitch there? Or a white fog?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Another difference," North said, templing his fingers. "Pitch didn't send Fear Angels to the schools for the same purpose. I checked the Globe of Belief recently, and no lights have gone out. So weakening us was not his objective. Then what?" My heart began to pound at a realization. "We still don't know who the white mist was from. And where are Sandy and Zachary?" His eyes darted toward the door.

"They're coming; we passed them on the way back," Jack said.

My voice shook as I, avoiding looking at Mom, whispered, "I think Pitch was after me. He locked us inside so I couldn't escape."

"But he said he wouldn't kill you yet..." said North. "Pitch doesn't often lie."

But either way, I had to get help. The Guardians couldn't always protect me, as I had seen today.

I jumped when the front door creaked open behind me. Spinning, I saw Sandy floating next to the yellow door with his hands on Zachary's shoulders. I couldn't help but give a cry of relief at their coming. Zachary was another person I had failed to protect. Thank God Sandy had been there.