To Ally with the Guardians

Chapter 8: Panic

Mallory jerked his head away from reassuring his kids that the Fearlings and Nightmares wouldn't find this place until everyone was long gone. Somebody was shouting, a girl based on the pitch.

"No!" came the strained, piercing voice. "Please! Please don't tell my parents! I'll make something up, say that I ran away but came back!"

Mallory looked around, trying to find the source of the screaming, but he couldn't see over the furry masses of Yetis. Sure, there were short children and elves here and there, but there wasn't a line of them leading to the source of the noise. In fact, he couldn't tell where the protests had come from in the first place due to all the echoing.

Sophie lifted her head from his shoulder and slipped from his arms. "What's wrong with Angelia?" Angelia. That had to be who was screaming. Mallory hadn't heard her voice enough to recognize it immediately.

"No! Please! You can't do that! They'll think that I wrote the note and that I'm hallucinating again! Please, no!" At the second round of pleading, people and creatures raised their hushed talking to a murmur.

"I'm gonna go find her," Sophie said during a brief pause in the noise.

"No! You don't need to..." But Mallory was too late. His blond daughter had disappeared between the legs of Yetis, her heart too caring to consider obeying. "Sophie, come back!" He tried to squeeze past and follow her, but the hulking creatures only gave him angry looks with frowns and furrowed eyebrows. "Jamie, can you get through?"

"Hey guys, my dad's trying to follow Sophie so she doesn't get into trouble." The Yetis parted, and Jamie gave his dad a nonchalant look. "You could've just told them what you were doing."

"Uh, yeah, thanks. Take care of yourself." With a half salute, Mallory began to race through the crowd after his daughter, throwing rushed explanations at anyone who tried to refuse to let him through while Angelia continued to plead like her life depended on it. By the sound of it, she had started to weep.

Mallory, no matter how hard he tried, was always one step behind Sophie. He reached out to grab her on multiple occasions, but he always missed. Finally, however, she stopped near the center of the cave, where Yetis, elves, and children were sliding down a grassy hole in the ground. The Guardians stood next to it, or at least, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were; Jack and the Sandman must've already gone down the tunnel. Angelia was practically kneeling on the ground in front of the three still present, tears streaming down her red and puffy face.

"Please no! You don't know how hard I've worked to get them to think I'm sane!" Shaking hands rolled up the sleeves of her purple sweater and rubbed makeup off of her arms to reveal tiny white lines. "Look at what I've had to hide! When the Fearlings did this to me, I couldn't even flinch or people might've suspected something!" Mallory's eyes widened at the scars. How could the Guardians not realize this had been happening? The three here didn't look too comfortable. "I've done this for years! You can't undo it all now!"

"Angelia, sweety." The Tooth Fairy's voice sounded much calmer than she looked, with her twitching fingers, wide eyes, and open mouth. "We can't just not let your parents know where you've gone."

"What's wrong?" Sophie asked as she ran over to Angelia. The teen looked down at the newcomer, but Angelia's eyes were glazed over as if she wasn't even seeing what was in front of her.

"I told them I need to get my stuff sometime or I'll have to lie about losing it, but they said they're gonna tell our parents we're with them! Mine don't believe in them! My parents will think I'm insane again and that I ran away!" Her voice hitched. "Please, Sophie, tell them they can't do that! Tell them why they can't!" She intertwined her hands in her lap as if she were praying. "Please!"