To Be Like the Guardians

Part 1: The Plan, Chapter 13: Morals

Beth finished speaking to Irene in Irene's dark living room, "And then Bennett told me that he couldn't tell me why we have to keep what we're doing a secret."

Irene frowned, her eyebrows raised as she grabbed a handful of popcorn from her bowl in the middle of the floor. "Weird. But I still don't think you should kill Pitch for him. Pitch's possessed. He's innocent."

"I know." But the lure of safety was so very tempting. If Beth killed Pitch for Agent M. Bennett, then maybe she would be able to leave the L.E.R. without being in danger all the time. Irene, too.

"Remember what you said your dad told you once?"

Beth nodded. Her dad had heard some pretty strange stories of people hurting themselves since he worked in the ER, but he had also seen some gruesome tales of revenge.

"I don't want you or your siblings to ever hurt anyone," he had told her, his usually warm smile gone from his face and replaced with a set jaw and a stern gaze. "Not unless you absolutely have to." Her dad wasn't annoying most of the time, unlike her mom and siblings had been when Beth was younger. If there was one person in her family whom she loved, it was him. And she knew what he would want her to do in regards to the situation she was in. She had been living on her own for years, but that didn't mean she no longer respected him. In fact, getting older had helped her realize his wisdom.

"And maybe you being scared of Bennett is just a gut feeling," Irene said. "Maybe you know something's off about him." That could be true.

That night, as Beth tried to sleep, her thoughts wrestled with each other. If she killed Pitch, she could potentially save lives. But since when had someone died because of Fearlings and Nightmares? Sure, there was when Pitch had gone around destroying planets, but that had been a long time ago. That sort of thing didn't happen now.

The thoughts invaded her dreams. In one, she electrocuted Pitch, but it turned out that it had been her dad instead. In another, it was Irene in his place. In another, it was Graham. Any one of them could just as easily be possessed like Pitch. Pitch had to have had some friends at some time, and she knew he had had a family. How would they feel about all this?

Her stomach ached. She dreaded killing Pitch. She dreaded going to the next training session with Bennett.

And as the night continued, she came up with new fears. If Pitch died, what would the Fearlings and Nightmares probably do? Bennett thought that with no leader, they wouldn't attack as much or in as big of groups. But what if that wasn't true? What if they found a new, more powerful person to possess? What if they wanted revenge for Pitch's death and hunted her down in enormous swarms? What if because they had no direction, some naturally rose up to be leaders, and there would be multiple forces of evil to fight? As she continued to think of these things, she realized that they sounded much more plausible than Bennett's explanation. Fearlings and Nightmares wouldn't just stop attacking if they still had a goal.

So she decided to not kill Pitch.

*}{/*}{/*}{/*

Whisper walked down the street in the sweltering morning, houses on either side of her. A little blond girl spotted her and ran away screaming. Guilt ached in Whisper's chest, but there was nothing she could do. If she tried to explain what she was to the girl, spoke at all, Whisper would probably only end up frightening her more than Whisper's pupilless eyes did alone.

"Do you know where Beatrice and Fracture Praefortis live?" she asked the girl's redhead mother, who just stared. The adult shook her head, then, like her daughter, retreated inside. "Do you know where Beatrice and Fracture Praefortis live?" Whisper asked a dark-skinned man mowing his lawn, and he yelped and ran into his house.