My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 27: If They Believed

(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: depression-like thing, self-hatred, bullying)

--Ranya--

The only thing keeping me from passing out on the side of the snow-lined road was my deep-rooted longing to get to someplace warm. It wasn't so cold that Isabelle and I had gotten frostbite beneath our layers, but it was enough that the snow didn't melt. I couldn't feel my legs or fingers, and wind slashed like sandpaper at my raw face. My body was still heavy from the weight, too. All in all, I was miserable.

"I'm cold," Isabelle whispered behind me.

"Well so am I," I had just enough energy to snap.

Isabelle huffed.

One passing rusted car, earlier than the main procession that usually passed through on the way to school, splashed cold slush onto my pajama pants.

The frosty air had worn at my nerves and sapped my strength, and I nearly decided to take a nap against the snow. But I kept pushing myself one step further. And another. And another. I would make it to the high school.

Eventually, the school building leaned above Isabelle and me. A brick nearly fell on my head. But when we crossed through the doors, the wave of rich heat hit me, thawing my body from the outside in, and I sighed. Isabelle also relaxed. I directed her into one of the nearby women's bathrooms while people silently stared. I had to weave around them because they wouldn't move. Once I was in a stall, though, I slipped into warm, dry clothes and bit into a Poptart, all from my duffel bag. I confirmed a text from my dad that I had made it to the school safely (he said he would avoid messaging me the rest of the day to avoid suspicion) and checked my email. Dakota had apparently said that she would rather meet after school than miss class, and that she would pick us up at the back entrance after eighth hour.

I blearily replied, and once Isabelle had finished changing and eating and I explained what Dakota had said, we wove around the halls to my locker to stash my duffel bag away and then go to my first period, where, like the rest of the school, people spoke in whispers about the paralysis attacks, most prominently who they had lost and how. Many girls' cheeks were red and splotchy with tears. With my exhaustion, I only then noticed that half my class was missing—whether because that many people had been paralyzed, or whether they'd decided to stay home after the attacks, I didn't know. But I looked at the scene before me—the tears, the whispers, the trembling voices—and the powerful feeling rose in my chest again. Protect the weak.

Do you want to avenge your friends? I'll help you.

Third hour, I printed my posters and sign-up sheets while other people printed their keyboarding exercises.

By lunch, I was pretty sure I had accidentally acquired an hour of sleep throughout my classes, but I still felt like crap. Dull pain thudded in my head, and I got that sick, achy feeling behind my eyes I always got when I'd had little sleep. I freshened myself up in the bathroom, running my fingers through my hair so I'd look presentable. No one else in the bathroom said anything about it. A of couple girls cried in the reeking, rusty stalls.

I groggily went through the near-silent lunch line. Once I finished getting my food, I walked into the gym and its jaggedly cracked walls and falling-apart tables. Whispers bounced around the echoey area. Isabelle curled up silently on the bleachers with crackers, and a few people stared, but not many. I joined her, quickly ate, and then began to set up for my recruitment speech. The anticipation of what was about to happen helped clear the fog in my brain, and I lay the posters (normal sheets of paper I had taped together) against the bleachers, then set out the sign-up sheets in a stack on the creaking bottom row with pencils next to them. This was it.