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

  “No!” I growl. “Aspen being here is more important than my soul.” My mind spins in circles and lands on the one thing I haven’t thought about since returning to the surface. “She could read the scroll.”

  “What?” Kraven moves toward me. “Who could read the scroll?”

  “What scroll?” Charlie asks.

  Blue and Annabelle look equally confused.

  Kraven races from the room. He’s back within minutes, the scroll in his hand. He looks at Valery. “There are still no words.”

  Valery reaches out, and Kraven hands it to her. She bites her lip in frustration. Then she walks over to the bed and lays the scroll on Charlie’s lap.

  “What are you doing?” Kraven asks. “The message can only be read by the kings.”

  “Maybe not,” Valery snaps.

  Everyone holds their breath as Charlie scans the gold sheet of paper. She looks up and asks with a shaky voice, “You really can’t read this?”

  Valery gasps.

  “What does it say?” Kraven asks, his entire body quivering with anticipation.

  Charlie looks back at the scroll. The walls quiet their creaking. The ocean stops whispering. We all wait for Charlie Cooper to read us our fates. “It says,” she whispers, “that there will be a great battle on earth between heaven and hell. It says the victor will rule the earth and all those who live upon it.” She narrows her eyes at the bottom of the page. Her body recoils from the scroll like she doesn’t want to say the last part.

  “What is it?” Blue asks. “What else does it say?”

  Charlie meets my gaze. “It says the battle will be won by two girls born on the same day, in the same year. Two girls—a savior and a soldier.”

  The world tilts, and I’m falling. I catch myself on the edge of Charlie’s bed.

  “Oh, God,” Valery says, “Charlie is the savior and…and…”

  Blue grabs a nearby lamp and launches it across the room. “And Aspen is the soldier!” he roars, pointing a finger at me. “She’s the soldier, and you left her there. You left her!”

  “Blue, stop,” Charlie begs. But he’s already gone.

  I cover my face, remembering when Aspen said it was her birthday. When she told me it was she who taught Lincoln how to fight, and not the other way around.

  There it is—the reason Aspen Lockhart is so important. She wasn’t meant to help rescue Charlie’s soul from hell. And she wasn’t meant to return my own soul to my body. She was destined to stand beside Charlie in a war between heaven and hell, and now she’s locked beneath the earth.

  I raise my hand like I’m asking a question, but honestly, I’m not sure what I’m doing.

  Everyone looks at me.

  “It’s okay, right?” I run a hand over my forehead, thinking. “We’ll go down and get Aspen. All of us. And then we’ll be ready for this battle, if it ever happens.”

  Valery’s gaze lands on Kraven. He shifts uncomfortably.

  “What?” I ask. “What else are you hiding?”

  “Not hiding. It’s just…” Kraven clears his throat. “All liberators must complete training.”

  I laugh. What he said is just too ludicrous. Beside me, Charlie reaches out her hand. I press our clasped hands against my thigh. “You’re crazy if you think I’m waiting more than a day to go back for her,” I tell Kraven. “We’re going. We can’t leave her there. You heard what the scroll said. Plus…plus she just can’t be in hell. She’s our friend. She’s been with us—”

  “Dante.” Valery moves toward me.

  I shake my head. “I’m not listening to this. We’re not training while she’s in hell. I won’t sit here and—”

  “Dante!” Valery’s tone shocks me into silence. She straightens her green dress and touches a hand to her chest. There’s something else she knows, something she’s about to say but I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to freaking hear it. She says it, anyway. “Our king handed down orders.”

  She glances at Kraven for support.

  “Well, what is it?” I growl.

  Valery looks at Annabelle and then at Charlie and finally at me. “He has declared war on hell,” she says. “We’re going to war.”

  …

  Later that night, when everyone is asleep and Charlie is in my arms, I think about what Valery said, that Big Guy has declared war on hell. The liberators will fight. And I’ll get my chance to settle the score with Rector once and for all. But what of Lucille? Will he fight, too? And if so, how will we ever defeat him?

  I stroke a finger across Charlie’s cheek and watch her chest rise and fall gently. She’s safe beside me. I take one of her hands and inspect it. Such power radiated from these hands, power she never knew existed. I place her arm next to her side and smile to myself. The savior is dreaming and working her bottom lip as if she’s talking.

  My angel, the savior. How many times did she tell me she loved me as we lay here, buried in these blankets? Too many to count, and way too few to satisfy either of us.

  I brush my lips against her ear and whisper, “Forever.” I hope she hears my words in her dream world. With my head back on the pillow, I push myself closer to her small sleeping body and kiss the back of her neck.

  Charlie and Aspen are destined to do great things—a savior and a soldier.

  And me?

  I’m only what Charlie—and Aspen—need me to be now. Fire rages through my veins as I think about protecting these two girls. About what I’ll do if either are hurt.

  I no longer belong to hell. And I do not belong to heaven.

  I am not a collector.

  And I am not a liberator.

  I am a warrior.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you first to Laurie McLean for loving Dante Walker as much as any agent could (or should?). I’ll be forever grateful to you for launching my career as a writer.

  Thank you to Liz Pelletier, Heather Riccio, Jessica Estep, Stacy Abrams, and the entire team at Entangled Teen for loving Dante’s bad boy ways. You guys rock.

  Hugs to Wendy Higgins, Brigid Kemmerer, and Trisha Wolfe for reading early versions of The Liberator and for laughing at Dante’s antics.

  Thank you to my entire family—the one I was born with, and the one I married into—for the endless love and support. A big shout out to Peggy, Hassan, Kristi, Nancy, and Tommy for pushing Dante Walker books into people’s hands.

  Love, love to my grandma, Jo Ford, who is part of my family but deserves special attention for believing her granddaughter can do no wrong. Sometimes it feels like no one understands me the way you do. Thank you for teaching me that it’s every girl’s perfect right to be pampered shamelessly.

  To Angee, Gianina, Laryssa, and Jaga—fabulous friends who ask about my books every time I see them.

  Huge thanks to Felger & Friends Hair Salon— especially Teresa Gomez, for the fabulous airbrush makeup, and Tyse Kimball, for working wonders with my hair—for making me feel like a rock star for The Liberator release party.

  To the V Mafia, and to all of Dante’s fans, thank you for everything. Without you and your continued enthusiasm, my job wouldn’t be half as fun. I adore you guys.

  And finally, always, to my husband, Ryan. You totally came up with Dante Walker (no, you didn’t), and I love you for that (I love you for other things, but not that). I can’t imagine my life without you, boo. You’re the only husband who’d watch his wife put on a play with stuffed animals and question the character’s intentions with a serious face. I love you…forever.

  Read on for a sneak peek at Melissa West’s epic sci-fi romance Hover

  Available in stores and online now!

  On Earth, seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander was taught to never peek, but if she hopes to survive life on her new planet, Loge, her eyes must never shut. Because Zeus will do anything to save the Ancients from their dying planet, and he has a plan.

  Thousands of humans crossed over to Loge after a poisonous neurotoxin released into Earth’s atmosphere, ne
arly killing them. They sought refuge in hopes of finding a new life, but what they became were slaves, built to wage war against their home planet. That is, unless Ari and Jackson can stop them. But on Loge, nothing is as it seems...and no one can be trusted.

  Chapter 1

  “What is that?” I ask, pointing to a dark triangular building in the distance. My tone is formal, focused, just as it always is when we’re discussing the city’s breakdown.

  Emmy shifts beside me. Emmy has been my sole healer at the Panacea, the Ancients’ version of a hospital, for nearly a month now. She is more personable than the other healers, who often appear exhausted or angry. I’ve been trying for weeks to understand the need for healers beyond their ability to maintain life on the Ancients’ planet, Loge. They cultivate the land, nourish it. On Earth we might have called them corporeal Mother Natures. But when it comes to Ancients needing healers, I’m at a loss. Ancients have xylem running within their bodies, similarly to how humans have water. Xylem itself has healing properties, so why the need for healers? Something doesn’t add up, yet each time I press Emmy on it, she gives me a distant look and responds with short answers that give me next to no insight into anything beyond the fact that my questions make her uncomfortable. This one is no exception.

  “That be the Vortex,” Emmy finally says, her speech different than the other Ancients I’ve encountered. It’s intentionally choppy, like she can’t be bothered to use complete sentences. She washes her hands together nervously as though they were under a faucet of water and she wanted to make sure the soap touched every inch of flesh. “RESs train there.”

  I nod. I know very little about the RESs, beyond that RES is short for Republic Employed Spy, and that Jackson is one of them.

  I think to the night he revealed himself to me in my room. I was petrified. I had lost my Taking patch moments before, breaking one of the only formal rules of the Ancient/human treaty. The Taking patch was a small silver eye covering, created by the Chemists on Earth, to not only block our vision, but immobilize us, while the Ancients came into our rooms at night to Take our antibodies so they could acclimate to Earth. We weren’t allowed to see them, an act punishable by death, and there I was, my eyes closed tightly as I waited for my Ancient to come and offer up my punishment. Only the punishment never came. I opened my eyes to find Jackson Locke hovering above me. Jackson Locke. My greatest competition for top seed in Field Training. Everything became so hectic after that moment. He told me about our refusal to allow the Ancients to coexist with us, as promised in the treaty, that soon a war would begin. He begged me to help him stop it. Before I truly knew what I was getting myself into, before I even allowed myself a second to think it through, I had agreed. And now…here I am, half human, half Ancient. A girl lost among strangers, linked to the enemy. Though, now, I no longer consider them the enemy. Maybe I never did. Something has changed within me. I never would have imagined humankind could be as brutal as we became in those weeks leading up to the release of the neurotoxin. The cylinders of Ancient organs. The testing chambers full of dead Ancient children. And then once we had released the neurotoxin and poisoned our own people, the execution chambers built to disingrate our remains.

  I have no idea what the Ancients stand for, what morals ground them or what passion propels them, but I now know that deep within the human concept is something dark, selfish, and completely willing to do whatever is necessary to support the idea of humanity. Because that’s what it is, an idea. True humanity would never behave as we have behaved.

  I glance over to Emmy, and then back to the triangular building. Each day we do this. She comes in with the intention of checking on me and stuffing me with these circular healing foods called bocas, but we always end up by the window, staring out over Triad, the largest city on Loge, while I ask question after question. I try my best to hide my true intent, but my efforts are futile. Emmy knows, what I’m sure most here know. I am not one of them. I do not trust them. And I will do whatever is necessary to protect the other humans from them. After all, it’s all but my fault they are here. If I would have gone to Dad about Jackson, if I would have confided in him, none of this might have happened.

  My mind drifts to the days that led up to the release of the neurotoxin, to Jackson and how uneasy he had become. Why didn’t I see it? We had spent weeks together, growing closer with each passing day. An intensity had built between us, a dependency on the other, that was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was as though we were the only two people who understood what was happening, and through each other, we found comfort. More than comfort. My chest tightens at the thought of his lips on mine, his body pressed so closely to mine I could feel his heart beating in rhythm with my own. But even after all that, I never pushed him for details. Instead, I stood by helplessly as our Chemists released a poisonous neurotoxin into Earth’s atmosphere, killing thousands. Of course, they couldn’t have known how many humans had been healed by Ancients over the years, effectively exposing them to Ancient xylem—effectively turning them into Ancients. They couldn’t have known. I couldn’t have known. So why did I feel so guilty?

  I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask for Jackson to seek me out for help. I didn’t ask for him to heal me, turning me into an Ancient. And I certainly didn’t ask him to bring me to Loge, which cemented my guilt in place. Because while I was here, healing, those I cared about were on Earth, abandoned.

  The constant ache in me to hear their voices, their reassurances that they’re okay, is enough to drive me insane.

  The main door to the Vortex opens, and I crane my neck to get a glimpse inside. Two Ancients exit, but from this distance, I can’t make out anything inside.

  “Do you think the humans are in there, Emmy?”

  She sighs. “I don’t know, child. Not my matters.”

  “But have you seen any of them? I mean, surely some have come here for treatment, right?” I glance at her, hopeful.

  She shakes her head, looking conflicted.

  At this point, I have more questions than I can possibly hold within my useless brain, which brings me back to the Vortex, and my true intent on pressing Emmy to tell me everything she can about Triad—I have no idea where the other humans are being held.

  “Emmy?”

  She averts her eyes, and I feel a common frustration bubbling up within me. “Fine.” She knows. She just refuses to tell me.

  I’ve been at the Panacea for three weeks. Three weeks of tests and analysis and enough bocas to feed all of my hometown of Sydia, and still, I have yet to see a single human. Not injured in the Panacea. Not dancing in the fields that cradle the city like a blanket. None. Not one. Which means either Zeus is keeping them somewhere…or they’re all dead.

  I study the Vortex, its almost black exterior, and imagine it full of men and women training, like Jackson, to pretend to be human on Earth, to kill humans by Taking them to death. A shiver creeps down my back. That has to be where the humans are being held.

  “Come child, eat.” Emmy holds out a bowl of bocas, purple on the outside, sunshine yellow on the inside. They taste like oranges, but look like grapes. “Young-one be here soon for assignation. We need to get you ready.”

  The assignation. There are four sectors in Triad of which one can be assigned to work—the factories, the schools, the military, or the government. The healers on Loge possess the ability to cultivate the land and heal living creatures by zeroing in on the inner workings of the person, animal, or plant and “fixing” whatever isn’t working just right. That ability also allows them to look at that living thing’s purpose. So, the top healers in Triad conjure together with Zeus to give an analysis on all Ancients once the Ancient turns sixteen. This analysis is known as the assignation, and the results determine which of the four sectors of Triad the individual will work. Most everyone goes to the factories, but advance intellect can often sway an individual towards military or government, which are the sought after jobs in Triad. Emmy tells stories
of her kids pretending to be RESs, running around in disguise. It’s prestigious. A mark of honor.

  And the very last thing I want to be here.

  The RESs are responsible for the attacks on Earth that led to the release of the neurotoxin. We may have killed thousands of our people by releasing the neurotoxin, but they killed thousands just to prove they could. Becoming an RES would be the ultimate betrayal. But in the end, I’m not sure I’ll have a choice. It will all come down to Zeus. And if I have learned anything in the three weeks that I have lived in Triad, it’s that what Zeus wants, Zeus gets.

  I can still hear Emmy’s words, mere days after Jackson brought me here to save me from the neurotoxin that was poisoning me to death. “Not young-one,” she had said. “Old-one.” And I knew, the words pounding into my head like a migraine until one single name appeared—Zeus. Zeus wanted me to become an Ancient. The question is…why?

  The curtains to my private room sway, and I wait anxiously for Jackson to enter but no one emerges. Jackson and Emmy have been the only two people that I’ve seen since coming here. Though, I really shouldn’t call them people. They aren’t, even if they look as human as I do. But that’s not why I call them people. I call them that because it makes me feel like I’m not really on another planet, just another country, like any day I could hop a hovercraft and fly home.

  I’ve realized it’s familiarity that grounds us, and without it, the mind drifts into dangerous territory. I’ve only considered death once, when the nightmares mixed so thoroughly with my thoughts that all I wanted was a little relief. Now, I’m medicated with one of their concoctions to make sure I don’t drift again. I hate what it does to me, the constant humming in my brain as though I can’t be trusted to think or act by myself. Emmy says she’ll take me off it soon. Every day she says it will be soon. I’m starting to wonder if soon means something different here.