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

**Isabelle**

My body shook as the Guardians thundered down the stairs, their movements sharp and rapid; Dad leaped off the couch; and Ranya spun to face the windows.

North took one glance outside and said, "Basement! Everyone!"

The booming of their footsteps still rang low in my ears as I dashed to the creaky basement door just outside the living room. My terror forced me to shove myself to the front as we pounded down the stairs, my fingers shaking nearly too hard to flick on the lights.

The musty basement air rushed up my nose and breathed cold down my sleeves, and when my bare toes hit the frigid concrete, I shivered. Dusty plastic and cardboard boxes towered over me to my left as I turned off the stairs; a too-full bookshelf was shoved next to the one window; and a holey blue couch sagged against the farthest edge of the room, piled high with baby clothes from when Zachary and I were younger. Zachary… A flash of worry poked through my fear. Mom…

"Dad, come help me," Ranya said as she tried to shove the bookshelf in front of the window. Dad joined her, and soon they'd blocked it. "It won't hold them for very long on its own, but we can push against it when they come," she said.

North shut the basement door, and then hurried to our gathering in the center of the room. "Pitch knows where Isabelle is at all times. We need to take her away from the family for a little while."

"I don't think they are after Isabelle," Tooth said, giving me a compassionate look that did little to quell my pounding heart. "I saw them dispersing over the whole neighborhood. If they were really after her, wouldn't they target this house?"

North tapped his thick fingers together and glanced toward the blocked window. "Then why are they here?"

Powerful thrumming, like the roar of an ocean, sounded in the distance.

"They've been launching attacks on the children of Windshallow since this began," Tooth said. "We still don't know why they attacked Ranya's school."

"That's true," North said. "And if they're here on a mission from Pitch, we can't let them accomplish it." He turned to me. "Isabelle, we'd like to have you come with us."

Something desperate spun rapidly in my chest.

"No!" I stepped behind Ranya and Dad. "I won't! Please stay here and protect us!"

North cracked his knuckles. "We can at least distract the Fear Angels to get children to safety." He stepped toward me, and I darted backward.

Jack thrust his arm in front of North. "She can't control her powers enough yet. She wouldn't survive a battle with thousands of Fear Angels."

Tooth darted in front of the towering man. "We can't throw her into a battlefield like this."

Golden shapes flickered above Sandy's head. My fear ebbed a little.

"We wouldn't let any harm come to her," North said. "We'd only teach her a few techniques."

"I won't be your Guardian!" I said. "Making me do things I'm terrified of won't help you."

"But Isabelle, you need to get over your fears."

"You're not the boss of me!"

"North…" Jack whispered something into his ear.

North's eyes went wide, and he squinted at Jack. "Are you sure?"

Jack nodded.

"Okay then. Isabelle, we'll leave you here." North nodded at me and then turned. "Come, fellow Guardians. Let's defend the children of Windshallow."

"You're leaving me here?" I jumped out from behind my relatives. "No, please don't go. I can't be here alone! Jack, why would you do this to me!"

"This isn't safe." Dad stepped forward.

"Your dad and sister are with you, Isabelle," Jack said. "You'll be all right."

"You must protect my family," Dad said. "Didn't you tell us you would when you first arrived?"

"We have to go. Other children are in danger," Tooth said as the remaining Guardians followed North to the stairs.

"This really isn't safe," Ranya moved toward the Guardians.

"Why are you doing this?" Dad tried to step in their way, but North, large and strong, pushed him gently back. Dad snatched his arm. Ranya seized Tooth's wrist. Tooth managed to yank it out of Ranya's grasp.

North said, "Kirkwoods… You will be fine," then heaved his arm out of Dad's grip.

Ranya and Dad, as if communicating telepathically through the stale air of the room, grabbed North at the same time. Ranya wrapped her arms around his legs, and Dad around his shoulders. But North easily pried them off as if freeing himself from toddlers, and he and the other Guardians turned and raced up the stairs.

"No! Please! Just one of you!" I ran after them, still trembling, and tried to grab Bunny's arm, but they sped up and through the basement door.

Ranya and Dad stared at it, as if debating whether they should risk heading into the danger to bring a Guardian back, but rattling sounded through the house. Ranya shook her head at Dad. She had faced Fear Angels before. She didn't think they should go up there.

I stood in the basement, trembling, frozen. My body wouldn't let me go upstairs, even if Pitch could tell the Fear Angels where I was anyway.

But my powers might not work if the Fear Angels broke in… Powers.

I spun to Ranya. "Could you please tell Dakota to come here? She can protect us!"

Ranya bit her lip and tapped her fingers against her pajama pants. "I don't have her number, only her email, and she probably wouldn't be checking that during a Fear Angel attack… But I can try," she added as she glanced over my face. She patted her back pocket, narrowed her eyes, and then turned to try to look at it. I glanced, too; a toothed hole had been ripped in the back. It was empty. "That stupid mist," Ranya cursed.

My chest tightened.

"I know I had it coming down here. It must've fallen out," she said.

"We'll be all right, Isabelle." Dad smiled down at me.

Thumps sounded as Fear Angels hit the land around the house. I bit my cheeks to keep myself from screaming. Ranya scanned the stairs for her phone. I ran to the piles of boxes.

My fingers, pinkish in the chill, trembled as I tried to push boxes around without toppling them.

Dad grasped an old floor lamp with a dusty gray shade. My heart raced at the loud scraping sounds as he pulled it from the center of a box pile. "A weapon," he said. Then he jogged over to the bookshelf and shoved his full body weight against it.

I pushed a box aside, and barely caught it from clattering to the hard floor. The next one was so heavy that I did drop it, nearly on my toes. Wrenches, screwdrivers, and other heavy tools clanged and clattered within. I froze for a moment as I listened to the Fear Angels' thumping, and then calmed enough that I checked little hiding places between the boxes. The thumps grew louder, closer, and I trembled harder.

I rushed over to the bookshelf next to Dad and pulled novels from the lower levels, piling them on the floor, and discovered a large crack in the base of the shelves. It had been stuffed with an old washcloth. But Ranya's phone wasn't there. I wasn't certain why I'd thought it could be. I was going a little wild.

Glancing back around the room, I finally spotted the phone tucked behind one of the boxes closer to me.

I nearly dropped it as I picked it up. "Ranya!" She dashed over and took it. She began typing furiously.

Dad began struggling with the bookshelf. It forward moved an inch. Three more inches. Ranya still typed away on her phone, and I darted to the farthest corner and held my hands out toward the window. Then Dad was shoved to the ground, the bookshelf nearly crashing on top of him, and the first towering, empty-eyed Fear Angel climbed through the window.

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