Author: Shannon Messenger

If I hadn’t stopped him—I can’t even think about the consequences.

An ache in my jaw warns me that I’m grinding my teeth. I force myself to relax. A guardian must be calm and clear-headed at all times—the Gale Force drilled that into me. Suppressing emotion is the key to our success. The only way to endure the life of sacrifice we’re sworn to.

Plus . . . it isn’t technically Vane’s fault. He doesn’t know about the ordinances he almost violated, or how big a commitment a single kiss is—though I’ve given him enough warnings over the years. He should’ve caught on.

But it’s pointless to dwell on things I can’t change. I know better than anyone that the past can’t be undone. Moving forward is the only option.

A wispy wind tickles my fingers. An Easterly—finally, a stroke of luck.

Soft, untraceable murmurs bend the draft to my will, wrapping it around me. When I’m completely entangled in the feathery breeze, I breathe one final command in the Easterly language and surrender to the force of its power.

“Rise.”

The word sounds like a hiss, and the wind races away, pulling me along with it.

Riding a draft is the closest to freedom I ever come. Rushing higher and deeper into the sky brings clarity to my life. Meaning. I can never fully control the wind. I can coax it, cajole it, ask it to obey—but it’s still a force of its own, free to do what it wills. The trick is to listen as it speaks and adjust as needed.

Most Windwalkers are twice my age before they reach my level of control. I can hear even the softest whisper of change or dissent, translate any turbulence or unease, and adjust. It was my father’s gift. He passed it to me the day he returned to the sky.

Not a second goes by that I don’t wish I could give it back.

Dark peaks appear on the horizon and I whisper, “Dive.” The gust drops low enough for my toes to skim the ground. My legs speed to a run, and once I have my bearings, I release my hold. The wind unravels, racing away as I screech to a halt, my feet firmly planted on the cool, rocky ground of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The air is so much purer up high—the gusts so much stronger. I allow myself one minute to let the surging winds restore me. They ripple across my skin, filling me with strength and confidence that can only come from being in my natural element. Part of me could stand there all night, drinking it up.

But I have a job to do.

It feels wrong to command the wind at full volume—just like it felt wrong earlier. But that’s the point. One mistake to hide another.

Still, my voice shakes as I send Northerly squalls on all sides of the mountains and order them to surge through the desert basin. Sandstorms streak across the empty dunes, leaving dusty footprints in their wake. Scattering my trace in every direction.

The Stormers won’t be able to pinpoint our location—but they’ll know we’re here. And they won’t leave until they find Vane, tearing the valley apart in the process.

The telltale flurry will reach the Stormers’ fortress by nightfall tomorrow, and it’ll take another day of swift flight for them to arrive in the region. I’ve bought us an extra day with the false trails they’ll have to rule out.

Which means we have three days. Then people will start to die.

Vane has to have his first breakthrough tonight. Three days will be enough to train him in the basics, and I’m at my peak strength, thanks to my years of sacrifice. We should be able to fight them off together.

But there’s only one way to be sure the breakthrough happens.

My mouth coats with bile at the thought.

I reach for another Easterly, focusing on the way the edge of my palm tingles as I call the swift gust and wrap it around me. The cool tendrils wash away my fears as they brush my skin.

“Return.” I say the word so softly, the wind’s roar washes it away. It sweeps me in its force, carrying me gently down the mountain, across the parched, empty sand, to my house.

It isn’t much of a home, but I don’t have time to stay anyway. I have work to do.

Tonight will be a very long night.

CHAPTER 5

VANE

My parents are still awake when I come home. Of course they are. It’s barely ten o’clock. I’m probably the only teenager in the valley who never breaks curfew.

Course, I bet other guys don’t have icy drafts attacking them out of nowhere or hear their name on the wind. Goose bumps erupt across my arms just thinking about it.

Deal with it later.

I find my mom in our cluttered pink family room, reading on the mottled brown couch. The salty scent of meatloaf still fills the air, and when I glance over her shoulder I can see plates piled in the kitchen sink. Great, I’m home before she even did the dishes. Fail.

My dad waves from the living room, but he doesn’t get up from his worn leather recliner. He’s too engrossed in some Discovery Channel special—I have no idea how he watches those things—to want to hear about his son’s latest dating disaster.

My mom, on the other hand, closes her thick book, sweeps her long blond hair out of her face, and motions for me to take a seat.

I’m not in the mood for one of her “chats,” but I know she’ll read too much into it if I flee to my room. My mom’s a gold medal worrier. Part of her is probably glad I’m not out impregnating some poor teenage girl right now. But I know another part always worries I’m not having a normal life.

She has no idea how abnormal it is.

No way have I told my parents about my dream-girl stalker. I’d rather not spend endless afternoons sprawled on a couch while some shrink spouts useless psychobabble and drains my parents’ limited savings account. I had quite enough of that when I was “The Miracle Child.”

“How was the date?” she asks as I cross the brown shaggy carpet and plop down beside her.

I answer with a shrug—my best weapon against my mom’s never-ending questions. It’s always fun to see how long I can get away with it.

“Was Hannah nice?”

Shrug.

“What did you guys do?”

Another shrug.

“Vane! That’s not an actual answer.”

Dang—only three. Usually she lets at least four or five go. She must be especially interested. Or especially worried. Can she tell how freaked out I am?

Her pale blue eyes don’t blink as they watch me. They’re the only feature we have in common, the only thing that makes people think maybe, maybe there’s a family resemblance between the tall, dark-haired boy and his short, blond mother.

I try distraction. “Hannah was great. In fact, we drove to Vegas and got married ’cause she needs an American visa and I figured, why not? She’s hot. She’s packing her stuff right now. Hope you don’t mind sharing a roof with a honeymooning couple.”

My mom sighs, but I can tell by the way her lips twitch that she wants to smile. I let her off the hook.

“Hannah was nice. We went to dinner. Then I took her home. It was all very exciting.”

“How come you’re home so early?” she asks.

“We . . . didn’t really hit it off.”

It’s sort of true.

“But you’re okay?” The lines deepen across her forehead.

“Of course.” I smile to sell it. “Just tired. I think I’m gonna play a few games and hit the sack early.”

My mom relaxes. If I’m okay enough to play video games, there’s no reason to worry—Mom’s parenting rule number fifty-three. It comes right after As long as the principal isn’t calling, there’s no reason to worry about his grades, and right before If his eyes aren’t bloodshot, he’s just hungry—it’s not the munchies.

That’s why I love her. She knows when to keep me in line, and when to let me be—both my parents do. I totally scored in the adoptive family department. Even if they don’t look like me and live in a town where the weather can be considered cruel and unusual punishment. They even let me keep my last name—which is awesome because Weston is way better than Brasier. It rhymes with Frasier, but I know I’d have been Vane Brassiere to every kid in school.

Plus, it leaves me something from my “other life.”

My past is this giant void that makes me want to bang my head against the wall until I knock the memories loose. I don’t care how many doctors tell me it’s normal for trauma to repress painful experiences—I don’t buy it. How can it be normal to completely forget your entire childhood?

And what kind of selfish jerk erases his family just because it hurts to think about them?

I feel my smile start to fade, so I head down the hall before my mom can notice. Once I close my bedroom door, I switch on the old tube TV I inherited when my parents finally invested in a flat-screen and log online, cringing when one of Isaac’s war games starts up.

Isaac doesn’t understand why I hate playing the first person shooters. I don’t really get it either. The blood turns my stomach for some reason—not that I’ve told him that. Like I need to give him another thing to bug me about.

But I’m not playing anyway. I join the first match I find, crouch my guy in a corner and crank the volume up so my mom can hear the explosions in the family room. Hopefully that’ll keep her from checking on me.

Gunfire blasts, and I sink to the pile of blankets I kicked off my bed last night—is my mom insane? Blankets? In the summer?—and close my eyes. Cool air from my ceiling fan brushes across my face and my shoulders relax. The breeze always makes my head clear. Which is good, ’cause I have some serious crap to figure out.

Sure, I’ve caught quick glimpses of the girl before—but I was never sure I’d really seen her, and not some dark-haired girl who looked like her. Those times were nothing like this—with full eye contact and everything.

And I’ve heard whispers on the wind outside my dreams. But they’ve never been words I could understand or a voice I could recognize—and they’ve never used my name.

Not to mention I’ve never had the wind attack me before. Sudden breezes flaring up at odd times—sure. Winds that seem drawn to me—occasionally. But those never freaked me out. I know it sounds weird, but the wind doesn’t scare me. Even after what happened to my parents. Even after what happened tonight. The wind calms me somehow. I’ve never understood why.

So the crazy, cold wind isn’t the reason my hands are shaking.

It’s because I know the girl called that wind to me. Controlled it somehow. Attacked me with it. The strange hiss I heard before the wind overpowered us was her voice.

Which means what?

She’s magical? Some sort of wind god? An angel?

I laugh at myself, even though the last word makes my stomach squirm.

She was there the day I survived the tornado. A tiny part of me has always wondered if she somehow saved me. How else could I have lived?

Is she my . . . guardian angel?

Nah. I don’t believe in that crap. Plus, she wasn’t trying to protect me from anything tonight. I was on a freaking first date—where’s the danger in that?

So, what?

Is she jealous?

A jealous guardian angel—that’d be just my luck.

And I’m officially creeping myself out. Not because I think any of this is true, but because my brain even went there. I’m definitely losing it.

I need to put this insanity behind me. My instinct with Hannah was right. I can’t keep chasing dream girls or thinking about magical wind powers or angels—not unless I want to end up the star patient in the local loony bin.

Time to sleep it off and wake up tomorrow like nothing happened.

Except, she’ll be waiting for me. Sneaking into my dreams. Refusing to be forgotten.

Life would be so much simpler if I could just sink into a drugged, dreamless sleep. But the doctors gave me sleeping pills after I survived the tornado and my body broke out in sweat and hives until I threw them up and passed out. Same thing happens with any meds I take. Good thing I never get sick.