To Ally with the Guardians

Chapter 10: The Threat to the Children

"Don't worry- it's nothing bad." Mallory was quick to make sure that he didn't seem like someone against the teens' activities. They probably already had enough people like that to not want to talk to anyone suspiciously similar.

Mallory cast a glance at his children piling food onto their plates nearby, then resumed his focus on the three people in front of him. Matt was giving him an untrusting look, Angelia's head was tilted to the side, and Duran had his arms crossed.

"What is it, then?" the first asked over the noise of chatting and people and creatures bumping into one another.

"It's a lot of things," Mallory said.

"We don't have time for a lot of things," Matt said with narrowed eyes. He gave no explanation as to what was limiting it. Mallory would've thought it was that the kid had to eat had it not been for the facts that eating generally didn't take too long and that people could talk over a meal.

Duran held up a hand to Matt. "We have time while the Guardians talk to Whisper." He looked up at Mallory. "What do you want?"

"We have our food, Dad," Jamie said, walking up to him with one hand on his plate and the other on Sophie's arm, a can of soda under his elbow.

"Okay, let's go sit back down," Mallory said, throwing a couple items on to his own plate. "Angelia, that...is what's on your leg contagious?"

"No," she replied, and Mallory gave a small smile of relief. "It's from..." She stopped short of completing her sentence, her gaze drifting down to Sophie. Mallory guessed that Angelia didn't want to talk about it in front of a five-year-old, and now that he thought about it, he also didn't want his daughter to hear all what they were going to be discussing. They would have to speak about it in hushed voices.

"Good. Come on." He gestured for the teens to follow.

"But then Whisper won't know where we..." Matt began.

"She'll be able to find us fine," Duran interrupted. "We're not Yetis or elves, and we're taller than most of the cured children. We stick out." The teenagers began following the Bennetts through the tight crowd of Yetis, elves, and children getting their food, Matt dragging his feet.

When they got to the pink tree, they sat down, Mallory's kids on one side of him and the teens on the other, farther away. He scooted toward them, hoping Jamie and Sophie wouldn't notice. Fortunately, they didn't seem to, and many people and creatures were still near the food, so it was much less crowded back here.

"So." Mallory leaned in toward Angelia. "What is it?" He decided he might as well start with that question.

"What is- oh." Angelia nodded. "That." She exhaled a shaky breath and began to explain the gray skin on her leg, where it had come from and what it did. How it had taken their friend Haven, Matt's girlfriend. No wonder that guy was acting out so much. And no wonder the Guardians were trying to stop it.

"So, to clarify," Mallory said, taking a second to make sure his children were still nearby. He wasn't going to lose them again. "The curse is caused by a cure?"

The three nodded, though Matt only a little.

"But not right away," he said immediately before the others had stopped moving their heads. "You have to cure so many Fearlings before it appears, and you have to cure a ton before you turn into one yourself." He was clearly justifying his use of it. "And someone else can just turn you back." Still justifying. How far would this boy go to bring back his girlfriend who, from what Mallory understood from their story, hadn't even been in a relationship with him for very long? The adult tried to correct himself- he had had a negatively biased view of relationships since discovering his ex-wife cheating on and lying to him, after all- but he failed.