The Liberator (A Dante Walker Novel) (Entangled Teen) (26 page)

38

Fire Dancer

Around the circular room are twelve fireplaces. They are ten feet tall and ten feet wide. Inside them, humans are bound by their ankles. Flames shoot up from stacks of wood at their feet and lick their skin. The moans are louder here than almost anywhere else. Every once in a while someone lets out a scream. When that happens, the fire burns blue. It engulfs their entire body and singes their hair. The demons don’t come when they scream. The fire takes care of that.

The smell of burning flesh and smoke fills my senses, and even though I’ve smelled it a hundred times, I almost heave.

With my chin, I motion toward an empty fireplace. It burns just as bright as the others, but there aren’t any bodies in this one. “That’s where we’re going.”

“Inside there?” Aspen gasps. “With the fire?”

“We just have to walk through it,” I say, as if this is somehow better.

Aspen’s gaze turns to the burning bodies. “Can we do anything for these people?”

I shake my head. “It’s too late for them.”

She bites her lip and cringes. I wonder if it’s the sound they’re making, or the smell, or perhaps the sight of them that bothers her the most. She looks back at the empty fireplace. “Will it hurt?”

I want to tell her no. I want to protect her from all of this. But I can’t. “It will,” I answer honestly. “But only as you pass through it. Once we’re on the other side, your wounds will heal.”

She squats down, and her gloved hands touch the ground. It’s like she’s lost the will to stand. “How much farther?”

“We’re almost there.” I grip her shoulder, and she stands back up. Then she grits her teeth.

“Let’s go, then.”

We clasp hands and approach the flames. They seem to bend toward us, eager for a taste. “Ready?” I ask.

“Could I ever be ready for this? For any of this?”

I almost laugh. Almost.

“Quickly!” I order. We dart toward the hearth, and within seconds we’re engulfed. The scent of my own flesh burning fills my nose, making me gag. Aspen’s hair is on fire, flaming orange. Her mouth is open in a perfect circle of black, but no sound comes out. Pain radiates through every nerve in my body. It’s so intense, I think I’ll collapse.

I forget about Aspen. I forget about Charlie. There’s only agony, slicing open my skin and filling it with blinding heat. The skull buckle on my belt melts and drips silver onto my shoes. My right ear peels off and falls to the ashes below, a hunk of charred meat. The sizzling sound I heard before is now cut in half. My vision blurs, and I know the fire is eating my eyes, sucking them from their sockets like the pimento in a stuffed olive. The misery is too much. The fire is too greedy, too hungry. I’ve done this before, but I can’t do it again. I can’t take another single step after this one.

It’s over.

We fall to the floor on the other side of the hearth. Aspen wraps her arms around herself and rolls on her back, but our skin has already repaired itself. Even my clothing and belt buckle look untouched. That’s the beauty of hell. Your body is never destroyed. That way, the pain can always continue.

“You’re okay,” I say, brushing the ashes from her hair. It’s black again. Not red or orange or any other color that makes my stomach churn. “We’re so close.”

Aspen coughs into her open hand, but nothing comes out. Her lungs are perfect. Untouched. She slowly comes to a stand. I offer her my arm, which she refuses. A pang of guilt rushes through me, but I push it down. I can’t think about how horrible it is that she’s here now. If I do, I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else.

We’re in a room that’s a perfect square. The walls and floor are made of charcoal-gray concrete, and it doesn’t seem that threatening. There aren’t giant bears or snakes or demons or even fire. It’s just a room. But we all have our weaknesses. And this has always been the one I hate the most.

The walls start moving.

They push Aspen and me away from the edge of the room. She spins to look for the fireplace, but it’s gone.

Soon, the ceiling is moving, too, sliding down toward the floor with a rumble.

“What’s going on?” Aspen says, twirling like a ballerina to see the walls inching closer. I can tell right away this is different for her. She knows what’s happening, and her body is already writhing with terror.

“We can pass through them,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster. “You have to believe it, though. Just like with the Hall of Mirrors.”

Aspen’s lips curl back with panic. “I can’t do this, Dante. Make them stop.”

I know exactly what she means. There’s only one thing that makes my mind threaten to shut down, and that’s being boxed in. I take her face in my hands. “Listen to me,” I say. “This won’t hurt you.”

The walls grind closer. The ceiling is five feet above our heads. She closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“Aspen, stop it,” I say. “Look at me.”

Aspen grabs onto my wrists but doesn’t open her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore,” she mumbles. “I want to leave. I want to go home.”

I put my mouth close to her ear. “I want you to remember the time you and I were in Sahara’s room. Remember Lincoln painted his nails black and Sahara wanted to be spun in a circle? You couldn’t lift her, but I could. I can lift you now, but you have to believe I can.”

Aspen’s green eyes flash open. They swim with tears as she holds my gaze. “You said you’d never go away.”

“I never will.”

Aspen tilts her head to the side. “I don’t want to die. Not without telling him.”

Confusion crashes through me, but there isn’t time to think on it. The roof comes down and touches the top of my head. I let go of Aspen’s face and fumble for her hand. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tell myself that I am made of air. I am nothing. I am nothing, and the wall is nothing, too.

The ceiling passes over my head and shoulders. I am left untouched, sliding through the cement like a ghost. Aspen bends down, and tears slip down her cheeks. I lean down to keep hold of her hand.

“Aspen, you’re not really here,” I yell. “You are back in your room with Sahara.”

The ceiling creeps downward.

“You are at Lincoln’s house, laughing at his paranoia.”

Aspen smiles up at me, though she can probably only see my legs. The rest of my body is invisible, buried in the concrete that isn’t really there. At least not once you stop believing in it.

I think fast, my brain whirling with what to tell her.

“Aspen,” I say gently. “You are with Blue. You’re telling him how you feel, and he’s holding your hand. He’s asking you to come with him. All you have to do is stand up and pass through the ceiling. And he’ll be there.”

Aspen’s gaze moves to our connected hands. I’m losing my grip on her. She swallows and seals her eyelids tight. Then she stands up. Her body slides through the cement like a hot knife through butter.

We are both on the other side. The ceiling is gliding down our legs. I step up onto it, and Aspen does the same. Then we are being lifted up instead of pushed down.

“So,” I say, titling her chin up to look at me. “Blue, huh?”

She releases this nervous laugh and shrugs. “I almost died. Cut me some slack.”

“You
thought
you almost died,” I clarify. “If the ceiling had come down on you, it would have crushed you, yes. But then it would have just repeated the torture over and over. No biggie.”

Aspen manages a small smile. “What a way to spend a birthday.”

My heart skips a beat. “What did you just say?”

“It’s my birthday,” she says.

As Aspen and I are lifted higher and higher toward the next room, the soul storage room, my blood freezes in my veins. It’s Aspen’s birthday. Her
birthday
. Eighteen years ago, Aspen Lockhart was born.

And eighteen years ago today, so was Charlie Cooper.

39

I Know You

I gape at Aspen as we are lifted high into the air. All around us is blackness. A void. This is the final step before we get to the soul storage room.

Every muscle in my body tenses as I anticipate what we’ll see. Will the collectors be there? Will Rector?

But more than that, I can’t stop thinking about what Aspen said. That it’s her birthday. It can’t be a coincidence that she and Charlie share the same date of birth, the same age. Lucille assigned me to collect Charlie Cooper’s soul, and then Big Guy assigned me to liberate Aspen Lockhart’s soul.

There must be a connection between the two girls, but I’m not sure what it is past their birthday.

A square of light flickers into view overhead, and before long, we are lifted through it. The concrete beneath our heels comes to a stop. Aspen gasps, and a hesitant smile touches my lips.

“Even in hell, souls are beautiful,” I say.

Aspen grins at me, and the gesture lifts my spirit. The shelves are aligned one after another. They stand forty feet tall, and each one has thousands of cutouts for the souls they hold. The shelves almost make the place seem like the world’s largest library, where each soul is a book—a story of someone’s life. Of course, these stories would lead to nightmares.

The souls glow like a million fireflies, winking as we pass wall after wall of them. It’s cool in this area of hell. Not to the point where I shiver, but in the way you’d expect a cavernous room to be far beneath the earth’s crust. Breathing in, I relish a thick, musty scent similar to rain. This room feels euphoric after the ones we’ve passed through.

“This place is amazing,” Aspen says, her hand resting over her heart. The light casts playful shadows across her face, catching on her mouth and eyes and even the diamond in her nose.

“It’s hard to think these people deserve to be here.” I touch a finger to one of the souls. It twinkles beneath my touch like I’ve tickled it.

Aspen stops and meets my gaze. “You didn’t deserve to be here.”

My hand drops to my side. “Yeah, I did.”

“No, I don’t believe—”

“I lived for myself, Aspen,” I say, my tone tightening. “And I wasn’t a nice person. It’s harder than you think to find favor in heaven. People down here, people like
me
, we worked every day to make ourselves happy. And we never worked for Big Guy. We wouldn’t have. He expects his followers to do for others, not just themselves.”

Aspen studies me, turning over what I said in her mind. “You’re different now.”

I let the conversation go and move past her. “We need to find Charlie’s soul.”

“How?”

I walk along the pristine hardwood floor, wondering the same thing. “I’ll recognize it.”

I hope.

Aspen moves in a different direction, and within a few seconds, I don’t hear the sound of her footsteps.

“Aspen?” I call out.

“I’m over here,” she answers. “Just looking around.”

“Don’t go too far.” Despite the lowered temperature in this room, sweat still coats my brow. I don’t forget where I am for a single second. If one collector knew we were down here, the others probably do, too. The question is, how many of them are here?

When I remember the determined scowl on Patrick’s face, I pick up my pace. My feet move faster as I pass rows of luminous souls. I approach a towering shelf that feels…different. My hands twitch as I move down the aisle, searching for what made me hesitate.

But there’s nothing that screams to me. It’s more like a whisper.

I shake my head and decide it’s not here. If it were her soul, I’d know it like a bat to the skull.

Aspen’s voice resonates through the hall. “Dante!”

Her tone isn’t alarmed. It’s more
surprised
. I leave the aisle I’m in and rush in the direction of her voice. When I find her, she’s stooped over something. Her back is arched like a question mark, her dark ponytail caressing her cheek.

“It’s a letter or something,” she says as I approach.

I move closer until I can see what she’s referencing.

It’s a scroll.

The
second
scroll

It’s enclosed in a glass case like we’re in a freaking museum. I debate telling her what I know about the scrolls, which is pretty much zilch. And that this could be a fake like it was at the Hive. Not that seeing the real one did me any good. I look closer to see if there are any words on this scroll—

But something stops me.

It isn’t a whisper. It’s a
scream
.

And it’s coming from the next aisle over. Aspen doesn’t seem to hear it, which means it’s only in my head. This could be it. I move away from Aspen and toward the place that calls out to me. As I approach, the sound overwhelms my body and causes my legs to shake.

I turn the corner, and there it is. There’s a carved column that stretches to my abs, and above it floats an iridescent ball. It glows and spins like a child’s toy. My breath catches as I near the ball. Inside there’s a soul, and it’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen. It glimmers as I approach, almost as if it remembers the night I collected it.

Behind me, I can hear Aspen calling my name. She’s talking about the scroll, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about that thing. Not when Charlie’s soul is singing to me. I move closer and reach out my hand.

Is there an alarm?

Will the ball hurt me if I touch it?

It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop myself from reaching out—

“Dante, this thing is really freaking me out,” Aspen says.

I’m so close to Charlie’s soul, so close I can feel the warmth it radiates even from inside the orb.

Aspen’s words continue to reach me, though I’m hardly listening. “This thing is saying that there are—”

Wait, what?

I jerk my hand back from Charlie’s soul as a current of energy courses through me. “Aspen, are you saying you can read the scroll?”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve read it three times. It’s freaky as shit.”

Though every part of me aches to take Charlie’s soul, I hurry toward Aspen. I come to stand beside her, positive that this is another faux scroll. But when I see it, the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

There aren’t any words.

I place my hand on the glass case and narrow my eyes. “Are you sure you see words?”

Aspen glances at me like I’m crazy. “What, are you blind? It’s right there.”

“I see the scroll,” I say. “I just don’t see any words.”

Aspen takes three steps back from the case. “Stop messing around.”

I turn and look at her. Aspen’s green eyes are round with worry. But there’s something else there, too—excitement. “The first time I read it, I sort of knew it was true.”

“What does it say?” I ask, my pulse pounding.

Instead of answering, she stands stock-still, staring over my shoulder. I follow her gaze.

A collector steps out from the shadows.