Wind Warrior (9 page)

She stared at him through the shimmering
bubble but it wasn’t with animosity like he had expected. Her
expression was deeply colored with sadness.

“
What is going on?” Xander
yelled as he approached the bubble.

“
I’m sorry, Xander,” she
cried. Tears rolled down her cheek. “I don’t have a
choice.”

Pockets of flame began to ignite around her
arms again but she had to cough as smoke began filling the
bubble.

“
I wouldn’t do that,” he
said, feeling horribly deflated. “If you don’t burn all the oxygen
out of the bubble, I’ll pull all the air out and let you
suffocate.”

She looked at him again and bit back a
body-wracking sob. The flames on her arms were reabsorbed into her
skin, leaving them both in relative darkness.

He wanted to rail against her but all he
could hear were her continued sobs. His mind fell time and time
again to the flames that had engulfed her, seemingly without
harm.

“
Why?” he asked
quietly.

She reached up and wiped away her tears with
the back of her hand. “I don’t have a choice. I’m a Fire Warrior. I
had to do this.”

“
I don’t understand. What
is a Fire Warrior? Why did you have to attack me?” He felt his ire
growing. “You could have killed me!”

“
I couldn’t,” she blurted
out in the darkness. “I was supposed to. I was supposed to bring
you here and kill you but I couldn’t. Please, you have to believe
me. I couldn’t do it!”

Xander felt crestfallen, like he had been
stabbed in the chest. This woman who he had fallen for so
completely was his assassin.

“
So this was all a lie. You
toyed with me just to get me here?”

“
Yes. No,” she cried out in
the darkness and it took her a long moment to regain her composure.
“I was supposed to get close enough to you to get you here. That
was it. But we have a real connection. I know you feel it too and
it’s way more than just love at first sight.”

“
Stop,” he
demanded.

“
There’s something tangible
and unnatural between us. I know you can feel it!”

“
Just stop!”

He wanted her to stop talking, not because
he was angry with her but because he knew she was right. Whatever
they felt for one another transcended simple puppy love or physical
attraction.

His eyes finally adjusted to the gloom of
the abandoned house and he could see her puffy eyes and streaks of
tears that had been traced down her face. The woman he was staring
at might be a liar but she wasn’t a killer.

With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the
air bubble.

Sammy stared at him in surprise but he spoke
before she could say anything else that would hurt him.

“
Just explain to me why?
Why did you have to do this?”

She stared at him as though he had asked her
a trick question. When she realized he was serious, she tried to
stammer through an answer.

“
It’s the cycle of the
elements. Earth gives way to the sea, the sea bows to the wind, the
wind feeds the flame, and the flame burns the world of man down to
the earth.”

Xander stared at her sternly. “You’re not
making any sense.”

“
The time of the Wind Caste
is coming to an end. It’s the time for the Fire Caste to take
over.”

“
You’re not making any
sense!”

“
You’re a Wind Warrior!”
she cried.

He shook his head. A part of his gut twisted
as his mind began theorizing about the truth.

“
What’s a Wind Warrior?
What’s the Wind Caste?”

Sammy staggered in surprise. “You really
don’t know, do you? This wasn’t all just an act. You really have no
idea.” Her hand flew to her mouth as she stifled another cry. “Oh
my God, I almost killed you and you don’t even know the truth.”

“
Please, Sammy. No more
games. Tell me the truth.”

“
You’re a Wind Warrior,
Xander. You can control the wind like a weapon. Your kind has
protected the Earth for thousands of years but your time is coming
to an end. It’s time for the Fire Caste to take over.”

“
How…” he began, before
choking back the question. He cleared his throat before continuing.
“How does someone become a Wind Warrior?”

Sammy looked devastated as she told him the
truth. “It’s passed down through your family. Someone in your
family had to be of the Wind Caste.”

All the cryptic conversations between his
father and grandfather came pouring through his mind. He stripped
away every conversation he could remember, trying to put it into
the context of what he had just been told. He felt his anger
returning but not directed at Sammy.

“
Go,” he said, motioning
toward the door.

“
What?”

“
Go. Run, before I change
my mind.”

Sammy didn’t need a second invitation. She
skirted well clear of Xander as she rushed to the door. He heard
her footsteps pull up short of the doorway.

“
You weren’t like they said
you’d be,” she said. “They said you’d be evil—an oppressor who
would stop at nothing to keep us from claiming our right to reign.
You’re a good man, Xander.”

Xander refused to reply and kept his back to
her, though her words burned him deeper than her fire ever could
have.

“
I have to warn you before
I go,” she said, the strength returning to her voice. “I didn’t
come alone. If you have any other Wind Warriors in your family,
their lives are in danger. You need to go warn them.”

Xander nodded without turning to face
her.

She took another step but stopped and turned
toward him again. “You wouldn’t really have sucked all the air out
of the bubble, would you?”

When he didn’t reply, she turned sadly,
walked down the stairs, and out of the house.

He waited until he was sure she was gone
before he whispered into the room, “No, I wouldn’t have.”

His anger was reignited when he thought
about his family and the lies they’d told him. He wasn’t entirely
sure he could make the same promise to them.

The car idled in the driveway as Xander
leaned back against the driver’s seat. He lifted his head and
stared at his parent’s house. The lights in both the living room
and dining room were on and he assumed they were sitting around the
table after dinner. A sense of betrayal washed over him as he
stared at the unassuming house. His parents had gotten him ready
for school every day of his life, sat around the table during
meals, and tucked him in at night. The entire time they knew what
he was and hadn’t told him.

It’s passed down through
your family
, Sammy had told him. As much
as she had betrayed his trust as well, he had no reason to doubt
her.

He turned off the engine and climbed out of
the car. The night air seemed far cooler than it had been during
the spring formal. A wind gusted around his legs, pulling at his
suit pants. Xander frowned, suddenly not sure if the wind was
natural or if he was creating it as a response to his bad mood.

The porch steps creaked as he climbed to the
front door. He knew it would be unlocked; his parents rarely locked
it until they were going to bed.

He turned the handle and the door swung
open. Xander could hear the chairs being pushed back from the
dining room table as the door opened, his family curious about
their unannounced guest.

His father was the first one around the
corner but his mother and grandfather followed closely behind.

“
Xander, thank God,” his
father said. “We’ve been worried sick about you.”

“
Have you?” he replied
harshly.

His father seemed taken aback. He stopped in
the hallway and stared at his son. “Of course we were worried. We
haven’t heard from you since you left the other day. We wanted to
make sure you were okay.”

“
I’m not okay, Dad. I’m
angry and I’m hurt.”

“
What are you talking
about?” his mother asked, stepping up beside her
husband.

“
What’s a Wind
Warrior?”

The silence in the house seemed deafening.
No one spoke but their expressions confirmed what Xander suspected
all along. Slowly, his father turned toward his grandfather and
they shared a knowing expression.

“
Where did you hear that?”
his father asked, surprisingly calm for the situation.

“
From a Fire Warrior who
tried to kill me tonight!”

“
A Fire Warrior,” his
grandfather said, though his inflection didn’t turn it into a
question as much as a statement of fact.

Xander turned his attention back to his
father. “You knew what I was this whole time, didn’t you?” He
didn’t wait for a response before he continued berating his father.
“I could have been killed tonight all because you were too
egocentric to bother to tell me the truth! You could have been
training me to use my powers! You could have been helping me
prepare before something like this happened!”

“
No, he couldn’t,” his
grandfather said sadly. “He couldn’t because he’s not the Wind
Warrior. I am.”

Xander felt deflated. “You?”

“
It follows family lines
but not every member of a family becomes one. It skipped your
father. He’s just a normal man, like you were until a couple weeks
ago.”

“
Why?” Xander asked, unable
to find a more articulate question. “Why didn’t you tell me the
truth?”

“
Because I asked him not
to,” his father said. “I grew up the son of a Wind Warrior and it
was a living hell for me. Your grandfather had a perpetual
obligation to save the world but he never thought about what his
responsibilities did to our family. We’d settle somewhere new and
your grandfather would go off to right some wrong in the world.
Next thing you knew, someone would claim they saw him flying
through the air or making a hurricane to put out a forest fire. And
just like that, we’d have to pack up our things and move somewhere
new, somewhere where no one knew us so we could start a new life. I
moved six times during high school alone. Six times!”

His father looked exhausted and aged. “I
didn’t want that for you, Xander. I wanted you to have a normal
life. You don’t know how hard it’s been for me since I found out
you were one of them.”

“
How hard it’s been for
you?” Xander replied. He empathized with his father’s sadness but
couldn’t ignore the fact that everyone seemed far more interested
in controlling his life then letting him choose for
himself.

“
What else did the Fire
Warrior say before you killed him?” his grandfather
asked.

“
It was a she and I didn’t
kill her.”

“
You let her go? Even
weakened like the Fire Caste is right now, she’s still a
danger.”

“
She’s not a danger to us.
But she did say there were others with her that are looking for the
rest of the Wind Warriors.”

“
If there’s more,” his
grandfather quickly said to his father, “then we need to get out of
the house.”

“
This is exactly what I
didn’t want,” his father replied angrily. “Even now, after all
these years, your life is ruining everyone else’s. Have you ever
thought that maybe we don’t want to pack up our lives and leave? We
have a good life here!”

“
Don’t be a fool, Jack! You
think the Fire Warriors care about the life you have?”

Xander shook his head sadly and turned back
toward the front door. He slipped back outside before anyone even
realized he was gone.