The Warrior

  Learning without a doubt that these people knew what would become of Charlie infuriates me. I’d been honest with them, and they hadn’t done me the same favor. My breath comes faster. I want to take my anger out on someone, and if that outlet happens to be in the form of a little old man or a twenty-something with a penchant for the color white, so be it.

  “Just stop. Stop being so upset on my behalf. It was my decision to not fight back. Because I knew the day for fighting would come, and when it did, I’d be ready. We couldn’t tell you before it happened. We all believe that the scroll is guiding us, and you’d have stood in the way of this final prediction if you knew.”

  She’s right. I would have done everything in my power to prohibit her from coming to the Lion’s Hand if I knew this was her fate. I acknowledged there was a chance she might get hurt, but I never accepted it as fact. Of course, I suppose Valery took away any chance I had to protect her.

  I move my hand from her wrist to her waist. “Charlie, what happened when you…?”

  “Died?” She looks down and smiles. I get a glimpse of that peculiar smile, the one I’ve missed so badly. “I had a dream. In it I was unbreakable. I was lethal. And it felt good.”

  “Charlie…”

  “Go back to camp. Tell Kraven we’ll wait until dusk. I want two jackrabbits on guard, and Blue in the trees. If they see the army encroaching, we are to retreat farther into the woods immediately.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  “You’ll do as I say, Dante. And you won’t hesitate when I ask you to do something more. You will believe in me as I have believed in you. Is that understood?”

  My eyes travel over her body. “You are damn hot, woman.”

  “Yeah, well, I make dead look good.”

  I wince. “I don’t like that joke, but I do like the confidence.”

  “Baby, I got swag for days.”

  I touch a finger to her chin. “That’s my line.”

  She smiles. “Go now. I’ll be there soon.”

  I’m going to follow her orders even though I can’t wrap my head around this concept. But first I grab her and dip her low to the ground. I kiss her long and hard and ensure she’ll never question again how beautiful she is. And yeah, to show her that I’m still her man even if she is all fierce now. Our lips move together, and Charlie swims her fingers through my hair. One of her hands travels over my back, over my hip, to my butt. She squeezes, and I growl. “You want me to leave, or you want me to ravage you?”

  “Leave now, ravage later.”

  Her words are teasing, but she’s already returned to that untouchable place I can’t reach. Her gaze is locked on the earth, and I can practically see the thoughts swirling in her head, battling for her attention like hungry orphan children. She takes a step away from me, and I see that old limp in her step. The one she got in the fire that killed her parents. The one I took away with the soul contract.

  I turn to go but before I leave, I say one last thing. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. It may have been predicted. It may have been your destiny. But I didn’t want this life for you.”

  I walk away, thinking about how last night Kraven said Charlie would spend eternity in the heavens. What he failed to mention was how many years of service she’d put in before then. I wonder how long Big Guy will leave the dargon on Charlie. A day? A year? Will I be there with her? Could we really have forever?

  No.

  Big Guy doesn’t want me for anything more than a weapon. I know that. Still, I can’t help wishing things were different. That he found favor in me the way he did the other liberators. Kraven said He forgave him for his indiscretions. But I could never be forgiven. For all my talk of being amazing, down deep, in a place I never venture, I know the truth. I am despicable.

  I wasn’t a good human. So why would Big Guy ever want me as a liberator after this war is over?

  The answer: he won’t.

  I see the light of the campfire as I approach, and as I do, a new thought occurs to me. If Charlie spends a century liberating souls, what could that mean for mankind? I don’t believe another liberator like her has ever existed. She won’t just reward souls for the good they’ve done, she’ll guide them in the right direction so that she can reward them. Those people could change others.

  What would it look like with Annabelle leading Hands Helping Hands, and Charlie acting as the greatest liberator to walk this earth? Would it look like change? Would it look like peace?

  Would it last a hundred years and garner a name people would remember?

  Would they call it Trelvator?

  48

  Sting

  Charlie and Aspen continue to whisper to one another. The rest of us do what we can: we rest, we eat, we make fun of Blue’s newly sprouted wings. Aspen hasn’t so much as looked in his direction, but all he does is stare at her, mouth agape.

  Oswald hangs out with Lincoln. They are a mismatched pair of friends if I’ve ever seen one, but Lincoln is mystified by Oswald’s orange burst of light, and Oswald likes having an admirer. I, on the other hand, verbally abuse Oswald for never telling me about the last thing he read on the scroll. Even now, I finger the piece of scroll in my pocket he gave me as proof; one little scrap of paper proclaiming that my girlfriend would die.

  I hate Oswald, the weasel, especially after I found out it was him who called for Rector to kill the girl on his right. Then again, maybe I don’t hate him. One of the two girls was going to die, and he was only ensuring that death followed the scroll’s prophecy. I know he didn’t want Charlie to get hurt. And it’s not really his fault she died.

  It’s mine.

  The anxiety never leaves my body, even as we rag on each other and try to keep our spirits up. Yesterday morning, we lost soldiers on the battlefield, and I can’t forget that. I question Kraven repeatedly when I can get him alone. If yesterday was the day of reckoning, what does that make today? He seems stumped. Valery suggests that perhaps yesterday was merely the start of war. Wars can last months, after all. Years.

  I still remember the trumpet sound Charlie and I heard over my impeccably chosen dinner of red foods. It was a declaration of war. Their king had received word that we wanted to tango, and they were accepting the invitation. Yesterday, the actual war started, and it’s anybody’s guess as to when it will come to a close.

  An hour before dusk, Charlie appears with Aspen by her side. Valery is sitting across from Kraven, scowling at him. She doesn’t even see her best friend appear. The two girls have long removed Rector’s crowns from their heads, but a new tiara sits in its place. The Patrelli sisters wove them from gnarled branches, and it looks wicked cool on top of Charlie’s hair.

  Her blue eyes shine behind her glasses, and her cheeks are red from winter’s bite. She walks tall, as if Aspen has taught her how. I can’t believe she’s a liberator. She’s like me now. Immortal. Eternal. A slave to the cuff around her slim ankle.

  When the humans and liberators and jackrabbits see the two girls approaching, they quiet. A risky fire flickers in the center of our campsite, casting forlorn shadows across the princesses’ features.

  Aspen raises her hand as if asking for our attention. “The savior and I have spoken at length about how to proceed in this war. And we’ve decided the most effective thing we can do at this point is to initiate sting operations.”

  Charlie steps forward. “We’re grossly outnumbered, but we can weaken their spirits and rattle their confidence. If we do it well enough, some of the sirens may abandon their posts. Even if we don’t, it’ll instill fear into their ranks.”

  “We’ll strike like vipers,” Aspen says.

  Lincoln stands up. “Or like jackrabbits.”

  “Do jackrabbits really strike?” Max scratches his chin. “I mean, they don’t have fangs or anything.”

  “Dude, shut up,” Lincoln says.

  Aspen comes to stand before Lincoln. “Are you volunteering?”

  Lincoln’s face falls
, like how could she even question him? I suddenly remember these two have been friends for a long time. It was Lincoln who took care of Sahara, Aspen’s younger sister, when Aspen got lost in her own head. It was Lincoln who stood by her as others took everything she had to give.

  He knew she was damaged, but he cared for her anyway.

  “Can you act with stealth?” Charlie asks him.

  “No more than a panther.”

  “If you’re caught…”

  “We won’t be.”

  Charlie and Aspen regard each other before turning back to him. It’s like they already decided this was the best possible plan, and only needed him to accept the undertaking. “You’ll take two others of your choosing.”

  Kraven stands up and I smell a slight burning. It’s like his wings are begging to make an appearance. “I don’t know about this. It should be the liberators who do this. We can protect ourselves if captured.”

  “What about me?” Oswald opens his arms like he’s preparing to make a blood donation on either side. “If I could be snuck in, I could kill many of them at once. You saw what I can do when surrounded.”

  Charlie shakes her head. “You can only do it once before having to restore your energy. No matter how many you take out, the others will swarm. We can’t lose you.”

  Oswald grins as if Charlie valuing his life is the best thing to happen in his eight hundred years on this planet.

  “No offense, Crave,” Lincoln says to Kraven, “But you guys are about as quiet as Max sleeping.”

  Max’s brow furrows with confusion.

  “You snore,” Valery says. “Like a grizzly bear being smothered.”

  I want to laugh, but then I remember that I hate Valery.

  Lincoln continues. “Even flying, you’re too loud. But us? We’ve been trained how to perform covert operations. You couldn’t hear us coming any more than you could hear a butterfly beating its wings.”

  “That was poetic,” Max says. “Prick.”

  “Take the trumpet.” Aspen searches the ground until she finds it. “If you run into trouble, sound the instrument and we’ll come for you.”

  “I won’t need it, but okay.” Lincoln gazes at his fellow jackrabbits. “Rosen, Polo, you’ll come with me.” When the other jackrabbits appear upset that they weren’t chosen, Lincoln adds, “There will be other missions. You’ll all get a chance to come along.”

  I can’t believe how brave these emo kids are. Their military moms and dads must have done a number on them. Or maybe they just always strove to emulate their seemingly indestructible parents.

  Lincoln looks to Aspen and Charlie. “We’ll need time to discuss our strategy.”

  The girls motion for the three to follow them. I glance at Max like, What the H are we, chopped liver? Charlie turns once before leaving and smiles reassuringly in my direction. My chest swells and I realize just how ridiculous this makes me. That one smile from a girl who doesn’t know she’s beautiful can fill me with pride.

  I remember a time when I pushed booze into her hands. A time when I encouraged her to perform petty theft and party it up in Vegas. I was the reason she sinned. I was different then. Dare I say I was a douchebag?

  I dare not.

  I’ve always been awesome.

  Even if I was a self-centered dick, I was an awesome self-centered dick.

  Now I’m a dude that waits on Charlie. I want to be her protector, but something changed after she became a liberator. I’m on the outside, wishing I were the soldier by her side. Aspen is still human, after all. Even if she can kick some serious tail, she’s still mortal. It should be me protecting Charlie. It should be me protecting Aspen.

  Lincoln, Rosen, and Polo return an hour later. They seem properly strategized, I suppose. Lincoln walks like he’s lord of this here land and shouldn’t we be offering to wash his dirty ass feet?

  No more words are spoken.

  Lincoln takes the trumpet that managed to make it back to our base camp after the first battle. He hands it to Polo, a dude built like a pencil with long black hair tied back in a super-masculine ponytail. Polo has a blue ribbon tied around his pony. I shit you not—a ribbon. Dude thinks he’s Casanova, and you know what? Mad respect. Any guy confident enough to rock a ribbon is A-Okay in my book. Pow!

  Rosen is small. I want to put him in a pocket. In fact, I seriously think about doing just that. My left pocket is free. My right one has some random crap in it, but my left one could be all his if he wanted it.

  Once Ribbon Dude has the trumpet bag strapped over his back, the three crouch low and scamper across the ground. They move like the breeze. Like a virus. As they disappear from view, the smile leaves my face. I don’t want them to go. Or maybe it’s that I don’t want them to go without me.

  “What if something happens to them?” I say to no one in particular.

  49

  Dream of You

  It’s late in the night and the jackrabbits still haven’t returned. Their friends look out with obvious concern, and I can’t stay still. I switch between pacing and hugging Charlie. I want to know she’s safe. I want to know she doesn’t hate me for not protecting her.

  I want to know if her liberator boobs feel differently.

  Charlie is unnervingly quiet. I try to make small talk, but what is there to say?

  At some point, Annabelle ralphs. If I weren’t trying to maintain my dignity, I’d blow chunks right along with her. There’s been little to eat since the battle ended almost two days ago, and our stomachs are unsettled. If someone offered me a baked potato right now, fully loaded, and said I had to murder Blue to eat it, I’d walk over his carcass to my reward.

  “How you holding up?” Aspen says, startling me.

  “Me?” I point to myself. “I’m fine. I was born for this, doll.”

  “Drop the front, Dante.”

  “I feel like ass crack.”

  “There we go.”

  I sigh. “She’s really gone.”

  Aspen bumps my shoulder with hers. “No, she’s not. She’s standing right over there. Look, I know this is hard. You had visions of Charlie growing old and you being the one to ensure she was always warm in her bed. You’d be her lover, and then her friend, and finally, her caretaker. But now you can be this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A liberator that works alongside her. Her equal.” Aspen sees I’m still fretting. “You know why people fear death? Because it’s painful, and because they don’t know what awaits them on the other side. Charlie had neither pain nor the fear of the unknown. When we were up on those horses…?” Aspen looks at me like she’s confirming that’s indeed what they were on. I motion for her continue. “When we were up on those horses, it was like we were swimming, heads never rising above the surface. It sounds scary, but it wasn’t. It was some in between place, I suppose.”

  “And what about before that?”

  Aspen stiffens. She still has the diamond in her nose. It doesn’t shine like it once did, but it’s there. “I don’t ever want to talk about what happened when I was down there. I doubt Charlie will either.”

  Aspen looks at me for a long time, ensuring I understand. I want to push her for information. Maybe I believe if she tells me, I can somehow make it better. In the end though, I don’t. If it hurts to discuss it, then I’m leaving it alone. But there is one thing I must ask. “Aspen?”

  She cocks her chin.

  “Did you ever see me down there? I mean, did you sleep and dream and stuff?”

  Aspen diverts her gaze. “I dreamt.”

  “And did you ever see me in them? Because Aspen, I saw you in mine. A lot.”

  “Maybe you have a crush on me,” she says, but she isn’t smiling.

  “I’m being serious.”

  When she looks back at me, I know the answer. It’s right there on her face. Something happened while she dreamt. She may not remember the details, but she knows that somehow we connected.

  A sound rips me from my conve
rsation with Aspen. When I realize it’s Lincoln and his two comrades, I nearly jump from my skin. Those little bastards are creepy as hell.

  “Wanted to show you how quiet we can be.” Lincoln isn’t smiling. He doesn’t seem proud and so I assume he failed at infiltrating the enemy’s camp. Then I see the blood on his jacket.

  “Damn near invisible, too.” I nod upward. “Blue and Valery are in the trees and didn’t spot you. You okay?”

  A rustling sound says the two liberators—if I can even call Red a liberator—are touching down. Kraven arrives with a rabbit slung over his shoulder. Before he can ask what happened, Lincoln says, “We killed one of them. A collector.”

  Lincoln tosses something onto the ground.

  It’s a human foot.

  “We had to cut it off to get the cuff.” He’s shaking. “At first we were going to crack the cuff and take it, but it would have been too loud. Ended up having to knock him out and then cut off the entire foot. It took some time, but the blades you gave aren’t like others I’ve seen. They’re strong. Strong enough for bone.”

  Polo drops to the ground and sits cross-legged. He doesn’t seem nearly as upset by what they did. “It was the big one. They had him standing guard. He was slow.”

  I swallow. “Did you see the others?”

  “We saw ’em,” Rosen says. “All but the one who did the girl.”

  I flinch and my blood burns with anger. “Do you mean Charlie? Do you mean you didn’t see Rector, the one who killed Charlie, my girlfriend?”

  “Dante,” Charlie says.

  Polly strolls around the perimeter of the campsite like a cat seeking scraps. She’s eyeing Lincoln, ensuring herself that the blood isn’t his own. Another human nearby looks at the foot and says, “He had small feet. For being so big, I mean.”

  Max laughs and then covers his mouth.

  It isn’t funny, but this isn’t usual and we’re nervous. I worked for the devil for years but never cut off someone’s damn foot and carried it back with me like a carnival souvenir.

  “You’ll need to go again, immediately.” Charlie’s voice is gentle.