The Liberator (A Dante Walker Novel) (Entangled Teen) (28 page)

42

A Choice

Demons pour into the room. The whistling sound they make engulfs my senses. There are so many of them, too many to defeat. My mind spins, deciding whether to try and fight regardless.

Beside me, Aspen clutches my arm. I glance at her, at the crease between her green eyes. Understanding passes between us. We won’t make it out of here. I expect to get angry, for that anger to fill every crevice in my head. Instead, I am awash with guilt. I allowed Aspen to come with me on this futile quest.

And I’m the reason she may die tonight.

Demons creep closer as Rector struggles to stand. At last, he’s successful. I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure there’s anything
to
do. Rector has won. He’s wanted to destroy me ever since he learned my name. And now he has me cornered. So it surprises me when he limps toward Aspen like I’m not even in the room.

“My wicked little rose,” he says to Aspen. “Don’t be upset. You brought them here with your screams, after all.”

“Stop calling her that,” I bark.

“No,” Aspen whispers.

I squeeze her hand. It wasn’t her fault. The demons would have come eventually, the scent of our perspiring flesh guiding their noses.

Rector ignores me. “As I was saying when we first met, I have a proposal.”

“Screw your proposal.” I step in between him and Aspen. I may not be able to defeat the demons, but I can kick his ass one more time before they attack us.

“Let him talk.” Aspen’s spine is straight, and her chin is raised. She looks like a goddess.

“Smart girl,” Rector says.

I stare him down for a few more seconds, then move aside. Right now, I just want to make things better for Aspen, so if she wants to hear what he has to say, then I’ll oblige.

“Start talking, old man,” Aspen says.

Rector folds his arms across his chest and grins. “My proposal is simple,” he says to Aspen. “Dante can leave and take Charlie’s soul with him. But you will stay behind.”

My fist connects with Rector’s jaw. He hits the ground.

The demons stir. Their overgrown toenails click against the floor, and they raise their giant heads and hiss. The yellow-and-black scales smeared across their bodies remind me of bumblebees. One near the front flicks out its forked tongue. The demons are waiting for an order to strike, their glassy eyes taking in everything. If Rector weren’t here, I have no doubt they would have already overpowered us.

I step away from Rector and shield Aspen with my body. She shoves me to the side, but I don’t miss the way she grips her injured bicep.

Rector looks up from the ground like he’s not altogether surprised to be there. “Despite that very rude gesture, my offer stands.”

Aspen sobs quietly. I grip her shoulders. “I’ll never let that happen. I told you I’d never walk out on you, and I won’t. Do you understand?”

“This isn’t your choice,” she mutters.

“The hell it isn’t.”

Aspen shrugs my hands off and gulps in air. “What will you do to me?”

She’s talking to Rector, but I don’t want to hear the sound of his voice. “Don’t say a damn word to her.”

He ignores me. It takes everything I have to keep from knocking the rest of his teeth out. “You won’t be harmed,” Rector replies. “But I do think you’d make an excellent collector one day.”

Aspen bolts upright. They glare at each other, and the pair seems to have a silent conversation. After a moment, Aspen breaks off her stare and pushes herself against my chest. I’m thrown off by this. It takes me a moment to respond, but then I wrap my arms around her.

Of course Rector would want Aspen as a collector after seeing how viciously she fights. He’s misinterpreted her strength as hidden sinfulness. But why would he trade Charlie’s soul for a future collector? It doesn’t matter, I decide. I’ll never let him have her.

“Shhhh,” I say near her ear. “Everything is going to be okay.” I lower my voice. “When I give you the signal, I want you to run like you’ve never run before. Don’t stop until you get outside. Find Max and get out of here.”

Aspen steps away from me. Tears streak down her dirty cheeks. “You’re like my brother, Dante. I love you like a brother.” She turns and faces Rector. “I’ll stay.”

“No!” I roar.

Aspen tries to take my hand, but I jerk away from her. “You’re not doing this.”

Rector nears Aspen. I try to block his path, but Aspen goes to him. The collector meets my gaze. “I keep Aspen, body and soul. In exchange, I give you your life and Charlie’s soul. She has made her decision. Now go.”

My stomach heaves. My eyes sting, and suddenly the room is spinning. “I can’t…”

“Go,” Aspen says, echoing Rector. “Return Charlie’s soul.”

I move toward Aspen, but she pushes me away. The stinging in my eyes is now blinding me. “I can’t leave you,” I say, tears dripping down my face. “I can’t.”

“This isn’t your decision to make, Dante.” Aspen’s voice is cold, like she’s already out of reach.

I jab a finger at her. “I won’t let you do this.”

“It’s done.”

“Damn it, I said
no
! You told me you’d do as I asked down here without question. You promised!” I’m furious, but I don’t care. She has to listen to me. I won’t leave her here.

Aspen closes her eyes. When she looks at me again, there’s only resolve to be seen. She’s not changing her mind. And I can’t make her leave without getting us both killed.

“Aspen…” The word is a plea.

“You set out to make me a better person,” she says, a gentle smile gracing her mouth. “Turns out you’re a damn fine liberator. That, or I always had it in me to change.” She rubs a hand over her eyes. “You tell Sahara…you tell Sahara I did this for her. When she’s older. When she understands. Tell Lincoln he was a good friend. My
best
friend. And tell Blue… No, don’t tell Blue anything.”

I nearly choke as I say, “How am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to just leave you?”

“Valery said I was important. They all said I was important. This is why—my life for her soul,” she says. “I’m staying for Sahara. And for Lincoln and Blue and everyone else who deserves a chance at a peaceful world. Now leave, Dante.”

“Aspen, please—”

“Leave!” she screams.

A ball of ice forms between my shoulder blades. Aspen’s face is red, and her hands are clenched. I turn away. I’m still not sure I can do this, but I’ll take the opportunity while I have it to get Charlie’s soul.

Rector and his demons don’t try to stop me as I head in the direction of the floating orb. Inside is the ball of light. With every step, my body yearns to be closer. Charlie’s soul is like a beacon, calling me to it. I stop when I’m an arm’s length away. My heart pounds against my rib cage, and my back arches involuntarily, pushing me forward. The way my body reacts, it’s like it’s greeting her soul, like they’re old friends. What’s more, her soul itself has pressed against the orb as if it, too, is eager to be reunited.

This time I don’t question things. I touch both palms to the ball, and it bursts like a bubble made of dish soap. As soon as the orb is gone, her soul shoots toward me. The moment it touches my chest, my arms fly open and my head falls back. A crushing sense of
rightness
consumes me. The demons are gone. Rector isn’t here. And Aspen is safe in her bed.

All that’s left is me and this bliss.

Gently, I touch a hand to my chest, and my knees nearly buckle. With Charlie Cooper’s soul inside me, I am fulfilled. I am whole again.

Before I lose this sense of resolution, I stride toward Aspen. I pull her into a hug. “I understand now that we must all make sacrifices,” I say. “But I will be back for you, Aspen. I’ll return and blow this entire place apart with the strength of God himself to save you.”

Aspen collapses against me and cries into my shoulder.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask her one last time.

“I’m sure,” she whispers. And then, “Come back for me.”

I hold her head in my hands and know this is it—this is where I do the thing I said I wouldn’t ever do. I have to leave Aspen. I put my mouth near her ear so that only she can hear what I say next. “Your father may never know how amazing his daughter is, but I do.”

Aspen covers her face. Then with one hand, she pushes me away. “Go, Dante. Go now.”

I do as she asks. I turn from her—from my friend, my sister—to leave. But not before socking Rector in the stomach one last time. He falls to one knee.

“One day, Rector, it’ll just be you and me,” I say.

Then I run.

As a token of good faith, Rector gives me a thirty-second head start before sending the demons after me.

43

Light

Thirty seconds is longer than I thought Rector would give me. He said he’d let me leave with Charlie’s soul, but Rector is nothing if not a liar. I bet as soon as he ushered Aspen from the room and she was out of earshot, he made the order.

I’m able to move through hell faster without Aspen. I know the ins and outs and which areas to avoid, like the ones leading to Lucille. Though everything in me screams to return to Aspen’s side, I also know I’m lucky that Rector is egotistical enough to want to handle this himself. Because if Lucille knew I was down here, I’d be a human Popsicle by now.

I run faster, but the whistling sounds increase. The demons are slow, but there are so many of them. And once they’re worked into a frenzy, they crawl out of invisible cracks, calling out to one another in their terrible language.

One appears in front of me in the Hall of Mirrors. I am able to spin around it and hurry past. No harm done.

As I near the end of the mirrored room, three demons reach for my legs. The entrance to the bear’s stomach is within sight but still too far away. I fall to the floor when one of the demons grabs ahold of my shin. My heel smashes into its teeth, forcing it to release me.

I’m up, racing toward the throat without looking back. I don’t want to go into the darkness, but I don’t have a choice. So I keep running. I keep running even when the slickness causes my feet to slip. My fingers dig into the fleshy tissue for support, and the bear doesn’t like this. His throat works, the clenched muscles making it hard for me to claw up.

Halfway to the top, a demon lunges on me. I tumble backward. At the last moment, I spot the bear’s tongue and latch on. I dangle over the open throat like a rock climber, the demon clutched onto my ankle. It outweighs me, and there’s no way I can hold on for long. I raise my free leg, and with all my strength, I ram my heel into the demon’s face.

The demon falls. I move toward the bear’s teeth. I zigzag through the spaces between them and almost pierce myself on the tip of his canine. When I land outside the bear’s mouth, the creature snaps at me. He wants his meal back. I roll to the right and spring back up. Then I race toward the stairway where protruding faces will watch my ass retreat to the earth’s surface.

But when I get to the foot of the stairs, I stop cold. On every single step, blocking any possible escape, is a demon. Together, the snapping jaws and warped bodies look like an army. It’s such a devastating sight that I nearly return to the bear and ask him to swallow me back down and keep me in his gut this time. The faces protruding from the walls yell greetings to me, chattering about the demons on their stairs, but I barely hear them.

I’m so close.

Only a few hundred steps stand between remaining in hell and returning Charlie’s soul.

There are too many demons, though. Too many to attempt any kind of plan. Too many to dream of living through this.

As the demons slink toward me, I cover my chest with my palm and close my eyes.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I savor the feeling of my lungs expanding, of my heart beating. Every nerve in my body demands an answer to this problem. But I don’t have one. It’s over. When Lucille finds out I’m here, he’ll remove my cuff. And if I’m lucky, I’ll slip into an eternity of nothingness quickly.

It’s sad, really. The end. I’ve fought so hard for life, whether it’s as a human or a collector or a liberator. I just wanted more time. But even I know when the clock is about to stop ticking.

And this is it.

I wish I could kiss Charlie one more time. I wish I could bring her to a nice restaurant for the world’s best crab cakes. I wish I could take her on a Ferris wheel ride just to hear her laugh. I wish I could buy her a Valentine’s Day card and a vase of sunflowers and a beagle puppy she picked out herself.

I wish I could slip an emerald ring onto her beautiful hand.

I wish I could lift the veil from her smiling face and kiss her soft lips and tell the whole world that she is my wife.

I wish I could feel the kick of a child in her stomach and know it is ours.

As the demons slither closer…and closer…I know I will never have these things. But I will settle for this—I will settle for giving my life for Charlie Cooper.

I open my mouth as wide as it will go and release the most bone-rattling battle cry I can summon. Then I call to my wings. They rise from my back like a black sun, the pain filling me up. With Charlie’s name on my tongue, I charge toward the demons.

I am hit and bitten and clawed so many times I lose count. The pain wraps me in a cocoon until it is everything. I hold my own for as long as I can, picking demons at random and taking them to the ground. My wings are a more powerful weapon than I anticipated, but in this closed space it’s difficult to use them.

Still, I fight like a champion. Like someone who might just defeat a horde of devils to save the girl he loves. It’s the worst part—hope. Even when I realize that I’m drowning in demons, that they are crawling over me like fire ants, I still hang onto the idea that I could make it out. I know it’s untrue. I acknowledged as much before I ever launched my attack. But it’s still there, hanging on like a loose tooth.

When a demon bites down on my shoulder, and I feel the joint separate, I know it’s over. A warm current seeps from my chest and into my limbs. It enters my mind and whispers words of reassurance. I will die a final death or suffer for eternity, but either way, it is okay. It is okay because she was mine for a little while.

Inside my head, I send her a message. One I know she’ll never hear.
I love you, Charlie. I would have fought a thousand hells for any part of you. My angel.

When I open my eyes, all I see is a swirl of black and yellow, of teeth and saliva. And I know I’m losing my grip on reality, because between the demons’ bodies, I spot the ghost of the girl I love.

Her shirt is stained with red and her face is shadowed with rage and she doesn’t look like the person I remember.

She looks like an assassin.

Clenched in her palm is a knife. She tosses it to her right hand. “You want me?” she screams.

The demons turn their gruesome heads toward her.

“Come and get me!”

Charlie rushes down the stairs like a militia of angels are at her side. She slices the throat of the first demon she sees and cries out as the red-black blood washes down her hands.

It’s her. It’s
truly
her.

The sight of Charlie Copper, of my only love, lifts me from my agony. And even though many of my bones are broken and I can hardly see out of my left eye, I climb to my feet. I don’t understand how this is happening, how she’s really here. But I can’t question it for long because the demons are moving toward her too quickly for me to hesitate.

My pulse races as I push past one demon after another. They don’t try and stop me. They’re too curious about this small girl and her glittering knife.

I leap in front of Charlie, wanting so bad to touch her, to make sure she’s flesh and blood. Instead, I launch a new attack. I fight as best I can with my right arm, since my left swings uselessly at my side. With the motivation of keeping Charlie safe behind me, I’m able to hold them back. My girlfriend slashes at demons’ outstretched arms with her blade, and I’m impressed by how viciously she does so.

Despite the odds, Charlie and I are able to take a step toward the surface. And then another. And another. Once again, hope dances in my peripheral vision, just out of reach. But it’s there, and that’s all I care about.

“Charlie, keep moving toward the top.” They’re the first words I’ve been able to speak. I don’t know if she responds; the whistling sound is too loud. I step back and collide into her. A moment later, she moves away. We do this a step at a time, back-to-back. Charlie whips her blade across the few demons farther up the stairs, and I fight the ones below us. We don’t take any out, but we hold them back. And that’s enough.

The faces in the walls watch us retreat. Some seem happy to see our progress, others appear infuriated. We ignore them and keep battling. After what feels like hours, we near the top. Only a few dozen steps remain between us and the world above. It’s then that I realize only one of us is getting out of here—that one of us will have to hold them off while the other flees.

My heart plunges to my feet.

Charlie came here for nothing. I was never going to make it out alive. But seeing her one last time, watching her fight to save
me,
it reminds me who I’m dying for. It reminds me that this is the way it should be.

“Charlie,” I yell. “When I say ‘go,’ I need you to run past the demons. Don’t stop until you’ve reached the top.”

“I won’t leave you,” she cries, her back still pressed to mine.

Her words make me want to spin around and press my mouth to hers. “You’re not leaving me. I’ll go when you go.”

Charlie doesn’t respond, and I pray she’ll do as I ask.

I grab the closest demon to free the path in front of her. “Run!”

She runs.

She runs for several seconds without looking back. Just as I’d hoped, the demons don’t chase her. Instead, they turn their attention to me.

Good-bye, angel.

Charlie turns. Our eyes meet, and unadulterated sorrow crosses her face.

Then her expression changes. Her eyes widen so that she almost looks crazy, like she’s lost her mind to fear. I shove the demon in front of me aside so I can see her face one last time.

She races toward me.

“No!” I holler. “Keep going!”

But she doesn’t stop. She flies down the stairs like she has wings of her own.

My heart hammers in my chest because I feel it—I
feel
that something big is about to happen.

Charlie Cooper reaches the demon closest to me and lays her hands on it. She screams so loud, I’m sure my eardrums must burst.

An electric white light forms beneath her palms. “Get
back
!” she roars.

The demon soars through the air.

It lands a hundred feet below and doesn’t move. The other demons study Charlie for a moment. Then they retreat. They click down the stairs to get away from whatever power just came out of her hands. The faces in the walls pull back one by one and disappear from view.
Pop-pop-pop!

I watch the demons’ flight for a split second, my head spinning, then grab Charlie’s hand and scramble upward, out of hell and into the afternoon sky. She gasps when my black wings spread out against the snowy backdrop, a storm of feathers arching over our bodies.

Her eyes roll back in her head.

I catch her when she falls.