The Wanderer (Book 1): The Wanderer Page 7

  Haltz said I needed to defeat him. I don’t think he meant like win a race or anything, either– I’d have to kill this guy. We’d hardly even interacted, and I could already tell that he was powerful. There was very little known about the weavers, at least so far as the Lanteeyns were concerned, but what was known was they were old as all hell, and they were powerful.

  I don’t know if Malek intended on fighting me to the death, or if he just wanted to see if I’d grow strong enough in time, but either way, I didn’t like the look of things. Having this looming threat literally watching from above made every move I made that much more important. I couldn’t slip up, couldn’t let my loved ones get too close or involved, and couldn’t do much more than get stronger and hope it would be enough to somehow get on Malek’s good side.

  Of course, this would be quite hard to do, as I learned but moments after all these thoughts, that I was sitting in a one Ms. Alannah Daniel’s shed.

  “Jason!?” Alannah shouted after kicking the shed open, a crowbar in hand.

  “Oh… hey, Alannah,” I said. Keep in mind I was covered in dust, wood, and on top of a lawnmower right now. Just so we’re all on the same page, here. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up!? What the hell are you doing in my shed!?”

  “I was… well, I…” was the best I could come up with on the spot. “Would you believe me if I said I was camping?”

  Alannah just stared at me, slack-jawed, and put the crowbar down inside the shed. She looked behind her, and then shut the door, sitting down on a tub of paint.

  “You are going to tell me what has been going on the last week, Rhodes, or I swear on my life I will kill you right here and now,” she threatened. I’ll be honest, I think I was still a little more scared of her than the eons-old weaver.

  “Alright…” I sighed, not seeing any way out of this. “I…I’ve never been camping before.”

  “No kidding.”

  “And last weekend, I was in the woods, but I was also stone-cold unconscious.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, on Friday night…” I took a deep breath, and looked at Alannah.

  She stared at me with those big, brown eyes, and she seemed such an odd mix of concerned and pissed. It was so… incredible.

  “You remember that meteor or whatever that landed in my neighborhood that night? While you guys were all at Alex’s?” I asked. She nodded. “It… wasn’t a meteor. It was a guy– an alien. His name was Haltz, and he gave me the cosmic title of the Wanderer, which granted me the ability to fly, super strength, and a really high pain tolerance; I also got this chestplate, which turns into a suit, and it’s permanently attached to my body.”

  Now, you might find this hard to believe, but she found it very hard to do much more than stare at me like I had just lost every tiny little fragment of my mind. I don’t blame her, the story is insane, but I mean, I just crashed through her shed from the sky, you know?

  “Here, come here,” I said, holding out my hand. Alannah hesitantly walked over, and put her hand in mine. I closed my other around hers, and shut my eyes. “Close your eyes,” I said. She did.

  I showed her all the same things I’d just shown Bell and Bentley earlier, and just like them, I heard her gasping at all the information. Probably half because it was crazy, and half because how was I even showing her all this?

  When I’d finished, I pulled away from her, and let her collect her– my– thoughts. She took a deep breath, and then glared at me, very angrily.

  “What is wrong with you!” she screamed jumping on top of me, and whacking at my face. I held her off as best I could, but the girl had a fire inside her, and she just kept thrashing about, kicking and smacking at me.

  “Alannah!” I said. “Calm down!”

  “You go through some traumatic, life-changing experience like that, and you don’t even tell us!? Your friends!? We’re supposed to always be there for each other, you asshole!”

  “You’re right, you’re right! Will you get off me, please?” I begged. She gave me one more hard punch in the arm, and then stepped back, crossing her arms.

  She was pissed to high heaven, and I knew that, but all the same, she looked so cute being that mad. I couldn’t help but smirk a little bit, which was a massive mistake. She grabbed a hammer from the tool-wall, and chucked it at me. It hit me square in the forehead, and I’ll be honest, that really hurt.

  “Ow! Why would you do that?” I groaned, rubbing my head.

  “You said you had a pain tolerance,” she shrugged, smirking.

  “Tolerance, not invulnerability,” I muttered. “Alannah, look, I hated lying to you guys, really, but what other choice do I have? The others can’t know. Now more than before, trust me, it’s dangerous the more people know what I am.”

  “I…” she said. “I guess.”

  “Okay, thank you,” I said. Then, again, like a fool, I grinned a little, and stood up. “Hey.”

  “What?” she asked, looking at me strange. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You wanna go do something cool?” I asked.

  “Do… what?” I walked past her, and opened up the door. She followed me out to the backyard, and I turned to face her.

  I clicked the chestplate, and the suit formed around me. She gawked at it, laughing a little in amazement, but I wasn’t done there.

  “Wanna fly?” I asked.

  “Fly?” she asked. “Oh, no, no I’m not– I mean it’s like the middle of winter, I’m not–”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun!” I said, stepping closer.

  “Jason, what if you drop me? I mean can you even fly? You just fell into my shed for God’s sake!”

  “That was without the suit on. I’m fine when I’m wearing it!” I insisted.

  Alannah hesitated, but I could tell she wanted to do it. Who wouldn’t want to fly? It’s like, one of the biggest dreams of the human race!

  So, with that in mind, and knowing Alannah as well as I did, I scooped her up, and floated up into the air.

  “Jason!” she shouted, gripping onto me tight. “What the hell!”

  “Oh, stop it! This is awesome!” I said. “Isn’t this awesome?”

  I went just a ways above the house, and zipped around in circles. She was slow to it, but eventually Alannah loosened up, and repositioned herself so she was looking down at the ground, and I held her by the waist. She laughed, and held her hands out a little behind her as the wind swept through her fingers.

  I’ll be honest, my heart was racing at about a million beats a second, as you might imagine. Still, I think I was playing it pretty cool, so I just had to keep it up, and not drop her.

  Except, of course, I could pretend to drop her.

  I let go of her waist for like half a second, and she shrieked, trying to grab for me however she could. It was pretty hilarious, albeit a little cruel.

  “Jason, you asshole!” she yelled. “Enough! Put me down!”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” I said, laughing.

  I set us down on the roof of her house, and we just sat there for a few seconds, silent. I knew she would get over it if I just waited her out.

  She glanced over to me, still scowling, and scanned my suit up and down.

  “Do you even know how to take that headpiece off?” she asked. “You could at least show me your face, you know.”

  “Oh, uh…” I trailed off, looking all around at the inside of the suit. I couldn’t find anything though. “I don’t…don’t know,” I said.

  Alannah scooted closer, and grabbed me by the head. She looked around for a second, and then pressed something right behind my ear. Just like that, the helmet retracted, and my head popped out.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “It was just a button,” she said. “You really don’t know anything about this thing, do you?”

  We sat there again for a few moments, and then she gazed over to me.

  “So, when you and Sam fought earlier today,�
� she said, “you were holding back?” I nodded.

  “I had to,” I explained. “I probably would have killed him if I didn’t.”

  “You could have just not fought, you know,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, well… Believe me, I wish we didn’t either.”

  “And when you got arrested later? You were fighting another challenger, alien thing?”

  “Mhm. No one believed me, but that’s what I was doing.”

  Alannah nodded, and looked out at the sky. A lot of the clouds had parted, and now all there we could see was a blue canvas with thousands of stars, and a big, bright moon lighting the night sky.

  “So, you could be a superhero now, right?” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Seriously,” she insisted. “You can save people, Jason. Fight crime, be a hero! No one’s better equipped for it than you.”

  “I…I don’t know about that,” I chuckled. “I’m not exactly the hero type, Ana, you know? I don’t think I’m really for the job.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked. “Of course you are, Jason.”

  “What, just because I can fly now? Because I’m so strong?” I asked. “I’ve got a cool suit and a fancy name?” Alannah reared back a little, and I winced, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t… I just, I don’t think so, Ana. I’m an asshole kid who steals from mini marts and ruins his friendships.”

  “Jason,” she said, putting her hand on mine. “Look at me.” I looked up, and she stared right into my eyes. Right into my very being. “You are more than that. You’re a good person– a great person. You care about all of us so much, you always make sure we’re alright, and even though you really shouldn’t, you fight anyone who tries to hurt us. Yeah, you can be an asshole, so can everyone else!”

  “And the stealing?” I pressed.

  “Well, yeah, that’s not good,” Alannah admitted. “But still, that doesn’t mean your a scumbag or anything! And think of it this way, now’s your chance to really turn that around, you know? Be better. Be the hero. You’ve always been my… You’ve always been our hero, Jason. All of us; even Sam.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I scoffed. I glanced down at the ground, and then back over to her. She was still staring at me with those big browns beauties. Damn, they were hypnotic.

  “Just think about it, alright? Give it a chance. You’re already fighting off aliens, right? Why not branch out a little, do some real good for the world,” Alannah said.

  I nodded, and took a deep breath. We were quiet for another minute, but I really needed to figure something out, for my own sake.

  “Hey, the other night, when you were at Sam’s…” I said. “What were you guys… you know? I mean was it like a–”

  “A date?” she finished.

  “Well… yeah.”

  “No,” she said, smiling. “We were just hanging out. I’m pretty sure Sam’s not into me anyway.”

  “I don’t… yeah, maybe,” I muttered. You have no clue how hard it is to balance the bro-code with the we’re-having-a-problem-code, all mixed together with the your my oldest friend and pseudo-brother situation. “Maybe not.”

  “Not really my type, anyway,” Alannah said, smirking. “I’m more into older, southern-american math teacher dudes.” I laughed, and shook my head. She had a math teacher who she really loved, and would literally have like half-hour conversations with. It was something.

  “You’re so weird,” I said. She laughed too, and slowly pulled her hand away from mine. I totally forgot it was even there; kind of wished it didn’t go away when it did, though. “Where is the rest of your family, by the way? How did no one else hear me crash through the shed?”

  “They’re all asleep. I was about to go to sleep, too, but here we are,” Alannah explained. “They probably just thought it was like a tree or something.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” I said. We stood up, and she held onto me as I brought us back down to the ground.

  I hustled over to the small patch of woods just behind her house, and lifted a tree out from the ground.

  “Oh my God…” I heard her mutter, probably in amazement, let’s be honest.

  I laid it down on top of the shed, and it… well, it kind of collapsed the back and front walls of the shed as well, but still, it covered me.

  “Jason!” Alannah sighed, watching the damage unfold.

  “Sorry!” I said. “Sorry… I mean, the shed was already ruined anyway, right?”

  “It was just the roof!” she argued.

  “Well… ” I said, walking back over to her. “I’ll just uh… I should probably go, before I cause any more damage.”

  “Probably,” she agreed. I smirked a little again, and she tried her best to hide a small grin. “I will see you in school tomorrow, Rhodes.”

  “I know you will,” I said. “Ugh, we don’t have physics tomorrow.”

  “We don’t? I don’t know, maybe we should just skip, then,” she joked. I chuckled.

  “Probably not a good idea for me; I’ve missed one too many days already, I think.”

  “True. I guess we’ll just have to deal,” Alannah decided. I smiled, and she did the same. Damn dude, that smile…

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ana,” I said, clicking the helmet back on.

  “See you tomorrow, Jason,” she said, walking back inside her house. I took off into the sky, and flew back to my own house, which wasn’t too far away as it was.

  You know, I know that there was a lot going on in my life, but after an incredibly long day, I honestly couldn’t think of a better way to end it. And maybe Alannah was right, maybe I could go for the hero route. Maybe I could actually manage to be the good guy for once, and not the screw-up.

  Or, you know, maybe not.

  6

  A Shocking Turn Of Events

  So school was going pretty terribly, thank you for asking.

  Ever since Sam and I fought, it felt like the entire building went on high alert. Teachers were eying me up as I walked through the halls, and other kids were muttering and talking all about me, I actually think I caught what some of them were saying, which was odd, but nonetheless it was all bad things.

  It wasn’t uncommon that I’d get into a bit of a tussle, but that it happened with Sam of all people, for what most people already knew was a lot more than some simple disagreement, seemed to say to the general public that I was losing it.

  It had been about a week of nonsense such as that, all while Alannah badgered me with questions about my Wanderer-related exploits. And our other friends, meanwhile, tried to balance seeing me and seeing Sam, who was more-actively-than-usual avoiding me.

  Now, this didn’t go over super well, as you might imagine.

  See I was walking through the halls amongst a sea of people, just trying to get to my next class. As I turned a corner, I happened to spot a one Ms. Lovely Julia looking down at the ground by her locker, very annoyed, while an unsightly, out of shape, stupid looking Greg stood next to her, going on and on about some kind of nonsense.

  As soon as Julia spotted me, her eyes lit up, and from looks alone, I could tell she was begging me to come and intervene. So I stepped on over.

  “Hey,” I said, smiling at Julia, and cutting Greg off from whatever two-bit one liner he was trying to give her. “What’s up, Jules? Where you headed?”

  “We were actually just talking, chodes,” Greg said, scowling at the very sight of me. “Maybe you should get lost.”

  “No, we weren’t,” Julia shot down. “Not really.”

  “You just haven’t come around to my charm yet,” Greg insisted. “Trust me, it just takes a little time. You will.”

  “I think I’ll probably choke on my own throw up first, actually,” she said. “Jason, will you walk me to class, please?”

  “Of course, my lady,” I said, holding my arm out. Julia reached for it, but Greg smacked it down, and glared at me. I looked back to him, and had to remind mys
elf to play it cool. After all, I liked Sam and I sent him hurdling to the floor; I’d probably kill this guy if he pushed me.

  “Back off, chodes,” Greg warned. “She’s just talking to you because she pities you.”

  “Really? I thought that’s why standing here with you,” I said. Greg took a step closer to me, and I took a defensive step back. “Greg, listen, you really don’t want–”

  “To do this? No, I kinda do,” he said. “You think just because you took Finn by surprise you can take me on now, too?”

  For the record, I was already taller than Greg, and he was pretty overweight. Now I get that with any kind of weight comes some power, but I mean… I was the Wanderer, you know what I mean?

  “Greg, you’re so unimpressive right now, it’s staggering,” Julia said. “Back off, leave us alone.”

  “Why don’t you leave us alone, Jules, and let me handle this ass-wipe for you,” Greg suggested.

  I sighed, and ran circles around my head on whether or not to entertain him. It really wasn’t worth it, and for so many reasons was the wrong move, but… I hated the guy.

  “You don’t have your best butt buddy to protect you anymore, Rhodes. Not after you shoved him to the floor over a girl,” Greg scoffed.

  “What’s going on?” Sam said, pushing through the crowd of passersby, seeing the commotion.

  “That was, such good timing, you have no idea,” I muttered. Sam only glanced at me, and then at Julia.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, Greg’s just being an asshole, again.”

  “Yeah, well, what else is new?” Sam muttered. “Greg, get the hell out of here, alright? I’m pretty sure you’ve got a class to sleep in.” Ooh, nice one there buddy. I would have gone with a class to skip, but whatever, different minds of the same kind.

  “Are you serious?” Greg asked. “I was gonna kick this dickwad’s ass for you!” Sam glanced at me again, and then back to Greg. He shook his head.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam said. “But it’s probably best you take my word for it, rather than the nurse’s ten minutes from now.” Wow, my guy was on fire. I really wish I could have hyped him up in the moment, if not for the cripplingly complex relationship struggles we were going through.