Wind Warrior (6 page)

By the time Xander returned home later that
night, he was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. He opened the
front door quietly but could hear the ensuing argument from the
kitchen as soon as he entered the house.

“
Quit being a coward,
Jack!” his grandfather yelled in a much louder voice than Xander
would have believed. “What are you going to do? Keep him hidden
away in the house until he dies of old age?”

“
If that’s what it takes,”
his dad retorted. “What’s the alternative? I let him grow up like
we did? Moving every couple years because you pissed off someone
new?”

“
It’s his right to
choose.”

“
His right to choose? He
can’t even decide on a major after two and a half years of college.
How do you expect him to make life-altering decisions like
this?”

Xander crept through the foyer until he was
near the doorway leading into the kitchen. He could see the two men
standing at the far end of the breakfast nook, their arms flailing
as they spoke and fingers being pointed angrily at one another.

“
You may not have the
chance to tell him the truth for much longer,” his grandfather
accused. “If I know about him, you can guarantee
they
do too.”

“
They’re still trapped,”
his dad said quietly. The fire seemed to have left his side of the
argument.

“
Not all of them and you
know it. They’re only trapped as long as we exist but there are
fewer of us than ever before. They’re slipping out of their prison.
It’s only a matter of time before they come for us all, Xander
included.”

Xander’s heart raced as he spied on the two
men. From his vantage point, he could see his father’s expression.
Jack Sirocco always prided himself on being a stalwart breadwinner
for his family. Few things, if anything, unnerved his father. From
what he could see, however, his father was genuinely scared.

Anger welled inside Xander. Whatever they
were discussing, he should be involved. If there was danger—and he
wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the danger and his newfound
power were mutually exclusive—then he should be allowed to make the
decisions about his life.

Xander stepped into the kitchen, making sure
his shoes struck the tiled floor loudly enough to get everyone’s
attention. Both men turned toward Xander and immediately turned a
deep scarlet from surprise and embarrassment.

“
Would someone like to tell
me what exactly is going on?” he demanded.

The two men looked at one another but
neither spoke.

“
Let me help you start,”
Xander growled in frustration. “You’re sitting in this house making
decisions about my future without having the common decency of
explaining to me what exactly is going on. What were you guys
talking about? Who are ‘
they
’?”

Xander’s father stepped forward and rubbed
his hands together nervously. “It’s not that simple, son.”

“
Yes, it is,” he replied,
taking a step back as his father approached. He didn’t want
fatherly affection. He wanted answers.

“
You’re not old enough for
this,” his grandfather added cryptically. “You shouldn’t even be
going through this yet.”

Xander turned in disbelief. “You too,
Grandpa? I figured if anyone would have been on my side, it would
have been you. Wasn’t it you just this morning who wanted to talk
about something important?”

His father turned sharply on his
grandfather, who merely shrugged unapologetically. For a moment,
Xander looked back and forth between the two men before realizing
that neither of them was going to speak.

“
You can’t even bring
yourself to tell me the truth, can you? Fine, then let me save you
the trouble from having to worry about this later. I’m sick of
this—you guys talking around me like I’m a child. I’m moving out.
Then you can have as many mysterious conversations about my future
as you want.”

He looked sternly at his grandfather. “How’s
that for being old enough?”

“
That’s not what I meant,”
his grandfather began, but Xander was already walking out of the
kitchen.

“
Stop him,” he heard his
grandfather whisper harshly.

“
Maybe this is for the
best,” his father replied dejectedly.

Xander stormed upstairs and slammed the door
to his room. He leaned back heavily against it and bit back the
wave of emotion that rolled over him. The tears that threatened to
fall were more from sheer frustration than from sadness. At twenty
years of age, he had hoped that he would no longer be treated like
a child but it was clear that his family would never see him as a
man.

He stuffed some clothes into a bag. He
looked around his room and considered taking more, either his art
supplies or some of the other items from his room. Eventually, he
decided against it. The room, frozen as it was from his high school
years, was as much a reminder of the way his family viewed him. If
he were making a break, it would be from everything.

When he walked downstairs, his grandfather
was standing by the door.

“
Don’t do this, Xander.
It’s dangerous out there, especially right now.”

“
You mean it’s dangerous
for a child like me,” Xander retorted angrily. “That’s what you
said in the kitchen, right?”

“
I’m obviously not going to
be able to talk you out of leaving but take a piece of advice,
won’t you?”

Xander stood stoically but didn’t
interrupt.

“
Don’t trust anyone,
Xander.” His grandfather leaned close and Xander could smell the
sweat on the old man’s skin. “The only person you can trust right
now is yourself. If it feels wrong, if it feels dangerous, run.
Just run. You get into trouble—you come here and find me.
Understand?”

“
No, I don’t,” Xander said
quietly.

His grandfather leaned back and placed his
hand on the door. “You will.”

He opened the door, allowing Xander to leave
the house.

“
Do it again,” Sean
demanded as he set the empty two-liter soda bottles back up on the
half wall separating his living room from the kitchen.

Xander sat forward on the couch and breathed
deeply, letting the sensation of weightlessness wash over him. The
sensation always reminded him of what it must be like to fly freely
through the air.

The air in the room swirled, fluttering the
pair of napkins sitting on the coffee table. The breeze moved
toward Xander, pulled like it was caught in an unseen gravitational
pull. Between his open palms, it coalesced into a shimmering ball
of pressurized air.

Looking up, Xander focused on the nearest
empty bottle. With a flick of his wrist, the air bubble shot
through the air and struck the bottle just below its narrow neck.
The bottle tumbled off the half wall and clattered onto the kitchen
floor.

Xander turned his hand skyward and the
bubble froze a few feet beyond the wall. Curling his fingers, the
ball shot back and struck both the remaining bottles.

With a sigh, Xander released the pressurized
wind. Both his and Sean’s ears popped with the sudden change of
pressure in the room.

“
I stand corrected,” Sean
said, still chuckling excitedly. “Bubbles are way cooler than I
ever would have believed.”

He left the bottles on the floor and took a
seat beside Xander on the couch. “You’re really starting to get the
hang of your super power.”

Xander smiled wearily. “Will you stop
calling them super powers?”

“
Whatever. All I’m saying
is that I’m rooming with a guy who can control the wind. That’s
pretty cool.”

Xander scowled at his small bag of clothes
dropped haphazardly beside the couch which, for the past couple
days, had doubled as his bed. He was greatly appreciative of Sean
letting him stay with him but he was still bitter toward his family
for what he saw as a betrayal of his trust.

“
Sorry,” Sean said, noting
Xander’s expression. “Still too soon?”

“
No, forget about it.
Thanks for letting me crash here, though.”

“
No problem. What are best
friends for?”

Sean leaned back and pulled apart some of
the blinds. Night had settled hours ago. It was a moonless night,
leaving the neighborhood cast in gloomy darkness. Only a pair of
street lamps cast a glow on the broad parking lot outside the
apartment building.

Dropping the blind, he looked down at his
watch. “You know, it’s still pretty early. You want to practice
some more before we turn in for the night?”

Xander smiled, his sour disposition quickly
forgotten. “Yeah, I do.”

Sean got back off the couch and walked over
to the pair of fallen bottles on their side of the half wall.

“
We have class tomorrow,”
Sean remarked as he set the first bottle onto the wall.

“
Uh huh,” Xander replied.
He flexed his fingers in anticipation.

“
You think Sammy’s going to
be there?”

Xander looked away but couldn’t conceal his
smile. Despite the distraction his newfound powers offered, he
couldn’t stop thinking about Sammy. Every curve of her face, every
sparkle in her blue eyes, and every playful toss of her long hair
was seared into his memory.

“
I’ll take that as a yes,”
Sean said as he set the second bottle onto the wall. “So, what are
you going to do about Jessica?”

Xander’s coy smile quickly evaporated. “What
do you mean?”

“
Come on. It’s not exactly
a big secret that you’re infatuated with the new girl. You may say
that Jessica is just your ‘pseudo-girlfriend’, but I’m pretty sure
she thinks it’s a little more important than that. You really think
she’s the type that’s going to be okay with you jumping on the
newest thing to roll into town?”

Xander opened his mouth but quickly shut it
again. He didn’t know which part of Sean’s comments offended him
more but he had trouble refuting the simple truth. Jessica wasn’t
the type of girl to take that sort of rejection. He was suddenly
far less excited about going to school the next day.

“
Don’t worry, buddy,” Sean
said as he retrieved the last bottle. “I’ll put my moves on Jessica
and you’ll just be a distant memory by the end of the day
tomorrow.”

Xander laughed and released the bubble he’d
been creating while they spoke. It crashed into the first bottle
and narrowly missed Sean’s nose as his friend set the last one on
the ledge.

Long after Sean had gone to bed that night,
Xander sat on the couch with his textbooks spread before him on the
coffee table. He picked up a packet of paper, looked at the list of
assignments he should have had completed by Monday, and frowned as
he read through the expansive list. Despite the piles of homework
he had already completed in the past couple hours, a daunting
amount of work still remained to be done.

Between exploring his new powers, his fight
with his family, and Sammy, he hadn’t spent a lot of time
concentrating on his schoolwork. Xander sighed as he dropped the
syllabus back onto the stack of other paperwork. In that respect,
his father had been right. Xander wasn’t thinking about what really
mattered and it was ruining his future.

He flipped open the nearest textbook and
read through the first of many chapters he needed to read. The
coffee cup steamed with the newest batch of freshly brewed
coffee—one of many pots he expected to drink before the night was
through. He might become a walking zombie by the time the next
morning rolled around but he was determined to at least turn in the
appropriate stack of homework when he got to class.