Oliver stops Elliot as he leaves school the following day. “Cold tendrils of fear” (59) envelop Elliot as Oliver tells him that the Guardians want to see him: now. Elliot weighs his options and decides the easiest route is to go along with Oliver, to get whatever horror is planned over with. Oliver leads Elliot into the dark woods behind the school to a small clearing by the railway embankment. Sitting on a low brick wall in front of the embankment are three boys. Oliver, who is flustered and nervous, stops and bows his head. Elliot, having a hard time suppressing the urge to pee, does the same. One of the three boys, Richard, prompts Oliver to introduce Elliot, which he does before hurrying away, leaving Elliot alone with the Guardians. Elliot looks at the three “entirely ordinary” looking older boys on the wall: Richard, Gareth, and Cameron.

He quickly assesses that Richard is the leader and, despite his inner terror, he is able to maintain his newly-cultivated nonchalant expression, even when Richard jumps of the wall and gets very close to his face. Richard starts to ask Elliot questions. Before answering them, Elliot pauses, listening to the new voice in his head; this voice materialized when Elliot started to reinvent himself as a self-assured, indifferent kid. The voice tells Elliot to change the way he thinks, to think like the new Elliot. Elliot answers each probing question about his knowledge of the Guardians casually and vaguely. When Richard asks if he’s afraid, Elliot freezes, struggling to come up with an answer. He stays silent and, to his surprise, Richard continues talking. Richard asks Elliot what he thinks the purpose of the Guardians is. Elliot screams internally that there is no good reason for the control and torture handed out by the Guardians, but he casually suggests extortion or protection rings. Richard laughs, dismissing his answer, and tells him to come up with the correct answer at their next meeting.

All Elliot can think about for the next three days is that meeting. He relives every moment, astonished at his own responses, feeling as if he became someone else in the woods. He is also terrified because he has no good answer as to the point of the guardians. On Friday, Oliver takes Elliot back to the meeting place in the woods. Richard, sitting on the wall, tells Elliot that the Guardians have noticed him and that their spies have been watching him, confirming Elliot’s worst fear. Richard mocks Elliot by telling him they know every little detail about him, even his essay grades, and asks whether he would like to be one of their snoops. Elliot replies that they seem to have missed a few of his better essays, a response that causes Gareth to reprimand him, and Elliot panics, thinking that he’s gone too far. Richard stops playing and asks Elliot for the answer to the question: What is the point of the Guardians?

Suddenly, Elliot recalls the “wolfish grin” on the cruel gym teacher’s face as he humiliated Baker on the field and the answer comes to him: “The point is—the point is to have fun. That’s the point” (68). Richard raises an eyebrow and compliments Elliot before launching into an unexpected conversation about books, throwing him off guard. Richard quizzes him about George Orwell’s book, 1984, which Elliot has not read. Richard pulls out his much-loved copy and explains to him that the book is about a society where everyone is watched all the time. Richard asks Elliot what the point of watching people is, and Elliot casually answers “control.” As if he is done with the guessing game, Richard jumps down and grips Elliot’s shoulders. He finally, fiercely tells Elliot what the point of the Guardians is: “The point is this. It's what Orwell wrote in the book. The point of control is to control. The point of having power is to have power. The point of using terror is to use terror. It's as simple as that” (70). Richard releases Elliot with the parting comment about how much fun power can be before dismissing him, telling him that they’ll be in touch.

Elliot cannot get Richard’s words out of his head. It is Saturday morning, and his parents fight from the night before, coupled with the distance he feels from his depressed mother, hangs in the air. This mixes with a sour feeling from Richard’s words and the guilt Elliot feels about his locker room lie. Unable to fall back asleep, Elliot heads straight to the local pool, where he goes every weekend morning to swim laps alone and escape the turmoil in his life. Swimming is Elliot’s refuge; his mind clears as he becomes one with the water. He is often the only swimmer there, with the occasional enthusiast swimming solitary laps. Today, there is one other swimmer. He stops swimming at the same time as Elliot and pulls up his goggles.

Elliot goes cold as their eyes meet: It is the small kid from the bathroom punishment, who had his head flushed in the toilet and who dropped the film. The kid scrambles out of the pool and runs to the locker room. Elliot follows him and finds him trembling as he tries to open his locker, fear preventing him from getting the key to work. Elliot realizes that the boy is terrified of him and tries to reassure him that he’s not going to hurt him. All this does is scare the boy more, making him drop the key. Rather than feeling powerful in this situation, Elliot feels awful. He picks up the key and holds it out to the boy, who shakes and presses himself against the wall. Elliot opens the locker for the boy, telling him again that he’s not going to do anything. Then, losing patience, he goes into the showers, leaving the boy cowering by his open locker. In the shower, Elliot’s hands start shaking and he feels sick with self-disgust and his memories of being in the boy’s position. He let soapy water run into his eyes, hoping the pain will chase the painful memories away.

On Monday morning, Elliot finds a note in his locker with “4:15” written on it. Assuming it is a summons, Elliot goes alone to the woods at 4:15 and finds Richard, Gareth, and Cameron on their usual wall. Without any small talk, Richard starts to tell Elliot the history of the Guardians. Gareth and Cameron chime in with details in a clearly rehearsed speech. Elliot learns that the Guardians were founded at about the same time as the school, in 1976, to “keep people in their place” (79). The original guardians kept records of the people who were punished, the punishers, and the vicious methods that were used. There is a 20-year gap in the records when Holminster expanded, but the records started again 10 years ago in 1996 and, as Richard explains, it is as if they never went away. A chill creeps into Elliot as he listens to Richard tell him that they need successors—like-minded people to keep the Guardians going—and that they have chosen him. He silently screams to himself that he’s not like these bullies and that he doesn’t want to do what they do, but he just stands there, looking unconcerned and disinterested despite the sweat running down his back and the painful knots in his stomach. Richard, impressed by this show of indifference, jumps down and congratulates Elliot: He passed all the tests. Richard puts out his hand, palm down. Cameron and Gareth put their hands on top and, feeling as if he is watching himself from afar, Elliot puts his hand on top of Gareth’s. Richard covers Elliot’s hand with his and presses down, saying, “Welcome, Elliot. Welcome, Guardian” (83).