(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: self-hatred, depression-like thing)
-Ranya-
We reached Lori's house in fifteen minutes—right on time, according to my phone. The house blazed with light from within. None of the blinds were shut, and I could see her parents having an animated conversation on the second story.
I was kind of glad to make it; the wind had grown to a bitter, biting cold.
I strode to the front of the group and knocked on the thick, scratched-up door. It soon opened to Lori, a thin girl who was more than half a foot shorter than me and had tangled, nearly white hair. "Welcome," she said. I couldn't read her tone or expression aside from a wary undercurrent. "Come in."
She led us through the nearly bare, faintly fruity-smelling halls to the door to the basement, and we headed down. We soon reached the bottom. In that low room, the floor and large window frame in the middle of the right wall—all the walls were white—were some pale wood, while all the furniture was dark and worn. The long couch in the center of the floor was a deep hickory and looked like it barely had any cushion, some umber brown chairs in a back corner were bare-bones, and the bookshelves and TV stand were freshly painted wine red but littered with oddly shaped dents and bruises.
More important, though, were the people milling around and sitting on the couches, chairs, and floor. Forty-five people. The crowd's body heat flushed against the cold of my pendant.
My classmates wore too many different expressions to count. Some were blank and bored, others tight and determined, and one girl with a ponytail had a crazy look in her eye like she had just come across an old box full of her favorite knives. But most people didn't look very passionate about being here, their expressions more loose and noncommittal, and though I had expected this, my stomach clenched. Would they actually follow me into danger?
But seeing everyone here because of me, to follow me, made my chest tingle, and a smile rose on my face. Heroes had armies. North had his Yetis, and Bunny his Warrior Eggs, and Tooth her Mini Fairies. It was very Guardian-like to have an army, and people liked heroes with armies, because they were powerful and could protect more easily.
Dakota leaned against the nearest corner, directly beneath a circular ceiling light. She was completely ignored by everyone else, but was the first person to notice I had arrived, making eye contact. Soon, everyone else's heads turned. The chatter dwindled to whispers.
"Well, I'm here!" I said with a smile, opening my arms. People's gazes searched around my person, and one stocky boy rolled his eyes. "So… about the cookies… The mist took them." I showed them the hole in my bookbag, and the whispers rose to angry grumbling. My self-hatred scratched within my chest.
Someone threw something at me, and I ducked. It hit the wall behind me hard and clattered to the carpet. As Knife Girl mumbled about chaos and hatred, something else struck me across the face and fell to the floor. A black pen.
As the bone beneath my eye throbbed, my weight threatened to pull me down.
"She's right," the bony girl said behind me, her arms crossed. "The mist destroyed her bag. We saw. But I guess we don't know if there were cookies in it."
The grumbling grew quieter but sharper, and eyes narrowed. "There were!" I tried. "I made a lot earlier, and put most of them in my bookbag here. I can't control the mist!"
Though the muttering didn't abate at all, the four people behind me stepped to the side and joined the crowd. The meeting had to begin. This was for my sister, and for actually feeling loved for once. I rubbed my burning cheek.
"I'll try to bring cookies to school one day to make up for it," I said, and the crowd quieted a little. "But it's time." I brought my hands together and forced a smile on my face despite the weight—though not so big I seemed happy about losing the cookies. People scowled, so I dropped it. "As you know, we're here to bring down Pitch Black and his Fear Angels and Terror Storms, and the Watcher. There are also two other beings we'll have to deal with—a woman who soothes emotions and whoever controls the white mist—but we'll talk about those second. And none of you have to fight if you don't want to. I've mostly completed part of a plan—I just need some way to lure Pitch to Windshallow. Maybe the Watcher to a specific spot, too."
Everyone's eyes narrowed. A pointy-faced boy said, "You're not gonna tell us what the plan is?"
"It's classified," I said, because Dakota didn't seem to want other people to know about her powers. The crowd grumbled louder.
"So you're expecting us to trust you?"
"Bet the plan sucks."
"What is this crap excuse for a human?"
I put my hands together. "We're going to weaken their powers."
"How?" someone shouted.
"That's not my secret to reveal. But I can't do this on my own. And if we don't defeat Pitch, your friends, siblings, and partners will be paralyzed forever."
People's bright and hard gazes bounced around the room, and the crowd whispered questions to their friends. They kept glancing and glaring up at me on the stairs. The pendant in my pocket grew colder. Was the crowd going to turn on me? Was that the danger? Why would Isabelle's first Guardian Angel warn me about that of all things?
"If you want, you can fight with me," I said. "But we'll need weapons."
A girl with voluminous raven hair that reached her butt raised her hand. "Our flag poles, they can hit pretty hard."
"How many do you have?"
"We've got twenty in the guard closets at school."
"Okay. Does anyone else want to fight?"
They could try to distract our enemies, at least.
At first, the grumbling rose again like thunder, but it seemed to be a different, purposeful sort now. People raised their hands. One. Two. Ten. Twenty. Thirty-seven. Forty-five. The reason they hadn't trusted me was that they wanted to be involved themselves. They wanted to avenge. To protect.
A smile broke out on my face again as my arms trembled. I tapped my hands against my sides before raising them as if to quell a roaring stadium. "So that leaves twenty-six more people to arm. Anything else?"
People whispered amongst each other some more. The pendant grew so cold it began to burn into my side, so I grabbed the wallet it was attached to and shoved it into my thick coat.
After half a minute, I said, "Anything? It just has to be something hard you can lift. Even just like a branch. Or something sharp."
"My dad makes walking sticks. Branches aren't that hard," said a boy toward the front. His face was ringed with dirt. "Not the ones you can hold, anyway."
"…Something else, then?"
Classmates' whispers to one another cascaded through the room. After a few seconds, one girl with short pink hair piped up, "My family has like ten baseball bats we never use. Maybe those would work?"
"Yeah!" I glanced back at the rest of the crowd. "Anything else? Anything at all?"
The arguing soared again. I waved my hands through the hot air, and my pendant grew impossibly cold, even in my coat pocket. "Okay, how about we move on to something else and come back to that? We need a way to lure Pitch back to Windshallow, and maybe the Watcher to us. Anyone have any ideas?"
"Didn't you say in the message that Pitch will hunt your sister once she becomes a spirit?" a boy with a sniveling voice said. "And that it's bound to happen soon?"
Metal as cold as the pendant struck between my ribs. "We're not risking that. We need to kill Pitch as soon as possible—before he comes after my sister."
"We could burn an effigy of him!" said Knife Girl with a maniacal grin. "I'm good with sculptures. What does he look like?"
"He has black hair, and ashy skin…" began a pimply boy wearing clothes much too bare for winter. He tapped his fingers against his leg and looked up. "And a hooked nose…" Someone knowing something they shouldn't.
"Do you know what he's doing?" I asked. The boy shook his head. "Pitch wouldn't know about an effigy anyway," I told Knife Girl. "He's not constantly watching. Anything else?"
"You could just ask nicely."
The silky, modulated voice sent icy chills down my spine.
(A/N: Will you please favorite, review, and/or follow if you're enjoying this?)