The Liberator (A Dante Walker Novel) (Entangled Teen) by Victoria Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

she’s lost in her own head.

6
    Road Rage
    An hour into the flight, I still can’t stop thinking about Valery’s conversation. Who was she saying was important? Aspen? What are the twin scrolls? And what the H is the Hive?
    These thoughts swirl in an unproductive circle in my head. But before I decide to let them go, I vow to ask Max to do a little snooping for me. It’s a risky decision, because he might go running to Valery. But I’m betting on “bros before hos” and all that.
    I’m about to wave the flight attendant down to order a Bloody Mary when I catch sight of a fidgety girl one row back. She looks to be about seven and is leaning over this ancient guy—trying to see out the window—in a seriously invasive way. It’s like the girl doesn’t even see him at all. And this geezer looks like he’s sick and tired of being invisible to everyone.
    The girl tips over, and Death Walking shoulders her into place. No biggie. She just pushes across him again. The man glances around like he’s searching for her parents, but he doesn’t find them. After shouldering the kid back into place again, the man barks, “You’re being very rude.”
    The girl sits back instantly, her eyes as round as quarters. “I’m sorry,” she says with an oversized grin. “I’m trying to see if it’s true.”
    The man sighs. “If what’s true?”
    “If you can really see aliens from up here,” she answers, pulling her navy vest closed.
    People around the man chuckle, and though I’m fighting a smile, my lips win out and jerk upward. I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting to see how the guy responds. At first, he doesn’t. He just looks at her like she’s slow. Then he glances back out his window.
    I turn around in my seat and face forward, wondering how people do this. How they sit in coach and don’t purposely choke themselves out with stale peanuts. A while later, I check out the old man and girl again from sheer boredom and realize they’ve switched places. A laugh bursts from my throat and the woman next to me gives a worried look. I ignore her and study the man that’s watching the girl. He seems pleased to see her grinning at the postcard-sized window. As the girl presses her nose to the glass, he points past her at something. The girl giggles and gives him a light shove.
    I bet that’s how Charlie was as a kid.
    All changing people for the better and shit.
    In that moment, I think about what I could do right now. How Charlie has this power to make people better, and I have the power to reward them for it. When I think of it this way, it doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming. I’m not a liberator, not really. And I’ll never be as good as Charlie. But I did decide to accept this assignment, and since I’m already doing stuff I’m uncomfortable with, I might as well go all out.
    I roll my eyes and groan. Then, with my lips pulled up in disgust, I release a seal the way I did when I was a collector. Just like normal, the man’s soul light flicks on. But instead of a red seal appearing from my chest, a blue one does.
    Curling my hands into fists, I try not to rip my seat from the floor. Red is my color. Always has been. So I don’t know what Big Guy thinks he’s doing up there. As the seal moves toward Old Man, I try to calm myself. My jeans are blue. And no one looks better in a pair of kick-arounds than me, so maybe blue’s not so bad.
    Old Man’s got quite a bit of soul light left. In fact, he only has a few black stamp-sized sin seals. My seals usually attach to soul light. But this blue one doesn’t do that. Instead, it floats toward an existing sin seal and lands directly on top of it. And just like Valery’s pink, glittery seals, it begins to break down the sin. It’s a strange sensation watching my seal doing someone a solid instead of the other way around.
    Even though I know it’s ridiculous, I feel sort of feel like a traitor.
    I sigh, remembering the collector I used to be. And even though