So here I am again, walking home because I don’t have enough money to get on the bus. I do actually, at home in the jar in my old shoe box that’s pushed under my bed. That’s where I put all the change Dad or Pop Pop tell me to keep when I go to the store, and the one-dollar payments Mrs. Grimbly at the end of my block gives me for coming to her house every Friday morning and taking out her trash. But that’s my Get-Out-of-Lincoln fund.

I don’t really know what I’m going to do when I’m finally old enough to blow this town, just that I want to be someplace else. College is a good start, and that would make my dad happy. I also thought about joining the armed forces and seeing some of the world. Pop Pop is against that idea, doesn’t really believe in our government that much these days. I often wonder if he’s talking about the current government or the previous one, since when I first talked about joining the army it was about four years ago. Either way, I guess it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t want me to become a soldier.

Dad wants me to make something out of myself by getting an education. The girls want me to be a part of their mission to save the world or whatever they think Fatima is trying to tell them. Charon wants me to embrace my dark half.

What do I want? Nobody’s ever asked me that question before and up until this point I’ve been too chicken to ask myself. Now that I’ve gotten the question out, I still don’t know the answer.

The moment I turn the corner taking me out of the Sea Point development there’s a breeze that blows right against the back of my neck. I still, then shiver as my eyes search all around me. Something’s here.

Not again.

But it’s not what I’m thinking. A car comes down the street, in the same direction that I was walking. At first it’s speeding down the street, way past the 35 mph speed limit that’s clearly posted at the corner. Then it slows down, right next to me.

“Looky what we have here, Mateo,” Pace says in the voice that I’m so totally tired of hearing.

It’s been weeks since our last encounter and my subsequent suspension. In that time we’ve kept a safe distance from each other in school. But we aren’t on school property now.

I keep walking, giving them the finger as I go. Guess I could have just ignored them totally, but that wouldn’t have worked either. The car stops and they both get out. My heart’s thumping loud in my ears because I know what’s coming even before Mateo takes the first swing.

His fist lands across the back of my head and I stumble. Pace is right there to play his part, punching me in the stomach. So my head’s spinning and my stomach’s doing things that aren’t normal or supernatural for that matter, just painful as hell. I’m hunched over, praying my legs will keep me standing, when one of them delivers another blow to the side of my jaw. I feel like a cartoon character whirling around in the wind, wondering if there’s a circle of birds chirping around my head as I go down. Hitting the ground should have been hard and unforgiving. Instead I feel weightless, bursts of light exploding behind my eyes.

They’re both standing over me now, hurling insults, fists and feet raised to take advantage of me being on the ground. I can’t decipher their exact words and don’t feel any of the oncoming blows. Instead I feel the pulsating in my biceps, the tensing of my thighs. My temples throb, fingers itch as I stand.

Pace and Mateo back up, one looking tremendously afraid and the other so shocked his eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head. I grab both of them by the front of their shirts, easily lifting them off the ground.

“Holy crap!”

“What the hell are you?”

They’re both yelling simultaneously but their words seem slurred and I ignore them. With a slow, jerking motion I send both of them flying across the street, landing on the lawn of another house. Turning my gaze to their car I stare until every window is blown out, glass shattering the sidewalk and street. All four tires fall from the car, rolling lopsidedly down the street.

Across the street Pace and Mateo are struggling to get up. Pace is heading in the opposite direction, Mateo just standing there staring at me. There are two trees planted in that front yard. With a nod of my head they’re both uprooted, slamming down one in front of Pace and the other Mateo, trapping them where they stand.

I hear the sirens long before two police cruisers turn the corner, tires screeching, lights glowing.

Run!

The voice doesn’t have to tell me twice. Turning, I take off down the street, cutting between two of the houses and running through the grassy backyards instead of along the open sidewalk where the cops can easily chase me. Later, I would think and rethink this, but for now, about five minutes later I’m running up the front steps to my house. Sasha lived all the way on the other side of Lincoln. A car couldn’t have gotten me here this fast. But like I said, I’m too tired and too wound up to continue that line of questioning.

When I step through the front door, Pop Pop’s the first person I see. He’s in his wheelchair tonight, his wrinkled hands resting on the huge wheels. Dressed in his pajamas he looks frail and sick. If I was being completely honest I’d say he’s been looking that way since the tornado.

“Hey, Pop Pop.” I try to talk casually and walk past him, but he grabs my arm.

“Take me to my room,” he says.

Now, one thing to know about my grandfather is that he’s as independent as he is loyal. He’d never ask anyone to do anything for him that he couldn’t very well do for himself, until now. Over the years I’ve had to watch this disease take from him everything that made him Louis Kramer, that made him a man.

Shrugging, I toe my shoes off, leaving them near the beat-up umbrella stand. After that run my feet are tired and hot. Pop Pop’s already turned around in his chair, so I just reach for the handles and start to push. His room’s on the first floor, right past the living room. Our house is long and narrow, one hallway that branches off into different rooms. We pass the kitchen and the pantry on our way to his room, also.

At the end of the hallway I turn easily into Pop Pop’s room because a long time ago Dad took the framing off the doors so the wheelchair could fit through. Getting close to the bed, I flip the lock in place so the chair doesn’t roll back out the door, since there’s a slight slant to the floor in the back rooms. I’m moving around to help Pop Pop out of the chair when one shaky arm reaches out and his hand touches my shoulder.

“They’re coming for you, Jakey. They’re coming and I don’t know if I can stop ’em this time.”

Pop Pop’s words are clear and I know he’s talking about my powers and possibly Charon. “You know what happened to Uncle William, don’t you?”

With his other hand Pop Pop wipes his face. He tries to take a deep breath but ends up coughing out half of it. I reach around and gingerly rub the center of his back like his nurse taught me. This helps to loosen the passageways in the lungs, she said. He’s usually on oxygen but gets tired of the tube in his nose and yanks it out sometimes.

“I know he tried to do what he thought was right. He tried to fight, but he just wasn’t strong enough.”

“The power gets stronger. Everything is magnified now. I can feel it,” I confide in Pop Pop because I have nobody else to tell. “Sometimes I just feel like it’s going to run me over like a freight train.”

“You must control it, make it obey you, not the other way around. That’s where William went wrong.”

“Where did he go? Is he still alive?”

“He’s in a place I don’t reckon I’ll ever see. No coming back here for William. I knew that the day he walked out.”

“Were you his Guardian, too?”

Pop Pop shakes his head and plants his hands on the handles of the chair. With slow movements he pulls himself up. I stand and put a hand behind him to help steady him. He doesn’t want me to lift him into bed, we’ve had that argument too many times before.

“They only told me to keep an eye on you.”

“Why do we need Guardians? I mean, you have no powers, how can you really guard me?”

“Mortal blood and mortal eyes see much more, they said. I know when to warn you, when to teach you and when to step out of the way.”

The way he said those last words had my stomach twisting. “What happens if I no longer have a Guardian? I mean, Casietta was Sasha’s Guardian and now she’s gone.”

“We not only guard you, but we guard the secret.” He lay down on the pillows, catching his breath. “And that old crotchety Casietta, she’s closer than you think,” he adds.

I adjust his pillows and rub his back again. On the stand next to his bed is the oxygen tubing. Without even asking him I pick it up and lace it behind his head, pushing the small tubes to the front of his nose. His blue-gray eyes stare at me, then roll like a child’s. In that instant I remember seeing those eyes on a younger version of this man.

“Am I a Vortex, Pop Pop?”

“A what?” he asks looking a little puzzled. “You’re a growing boy who’s standing in my way. Now back up so I can get under these covers. I’m tired and I gotta get up and go to work tomorrow. Tell your grandma to set the alarm clock.”

I help Pop Pop under the covers, pulling them up to his neck with a weight on my shoulders and a tightening in my heart. Grandma died twelve years ago. Pop Pop’s moments of clarity are coming less frequently. The last time Dad met with his doctors that’s what they told him would happen eventually. Pop Pop was sixty-nine years old, his birthday is the day after Halloween. “One day earlier and I’d have been a demon by default,” he always joked.

But if my uncle was a Vortex and now me as well, Pop Pop and his jumbled brain might have been closer to the truth than any of us ever knew.

Looking down at his frail body shivering beneath the covers makes me sad. I have so many good memories of him, so many fun times we’ve shared. I don’t know if he remembers them all. But I do and I always will. “Good night, Pop Pop,” I say softly and step away from the bed.

It’s when I’ve turned off his lamp and am close to the door that he starts to cough again. I stop instantly, turning around to see if he’s okay. He looks right at me, his gaze penetrating in the dim room.

“You are who you are, Jakey. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

I nod. It didn’t answer my question, one of the many still floating in my head, but it was okay. This was my Pop Pop and I love him no matter what, so it’s okay.

“I won’t,” I say, not realizing that who I am and what I am are about to be tested.