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

understand why Lincoln doesn’t like them.
    “How long have they been hanging around?” I ask Lincoln.
    He digs his hands into the pockets of his camo jacket, jingling something. God knows what he’s got in there. “Not too long. A few days. But you see the way she is. She picks up new friends like they’re strays in an alley. Most people, she just ignores.” He tips his chin toward the group around Aspen, the ones she looks right through. “But then with others, it’s like she swallows them into herself.” When I glance back at Lincoln, he’s staring at me. “Everyone takes something from her. Money. Sex. Happiness.” His hands ball into fists. “What will you take?”
    I’m thrown off guard by Lincoln’s question, and I don’t know how to answer. So I don’t. I just look back at Aspen, my thoughts of the strange pair who drove us here forgotten. Aspen crawls onto a table and raises her gloved hands into the air. All around, people push in toward her. They want to be closer. They want to touch her, to be her. Someone else watching this might think she’s a girl who has everything: beauty, cash, an industrial-strength attitude. In her eyes, there’s a lust for life. It’s what seduces her onlookers. They note the way she does what she wants, says what she wants. But I see beyond her eyes, and I know the truth. I know that behind the green irises and potent personality, there’s emptiness.
    Aspen nods toward me with an even emptier smile. Then she wraps her arms around herself and lets her head fall back.
    She dances on the table, high above everyone else.
    Pulling in a breath, I flip on her soul light. Just as I suspected, the remaining glow is barely noticeable amidst the standard black sin seals, and even a few colored collector seals. I wonder how she got the latter. But with her resources, she’s probably traveled the world. And something tells me Aspen enjoys hitting locations where collectors do good business—places like Las Vegas and New Orleans and Miami.
    Watching her, I have no idea how I will complete this assignment. What’s more, I’m afraid this girl could easily lure me into her lair. Because this life she’s living, I know it all too well.
    She looks at me, and a shiver races down my spine.
    How do I liberate a girl who is exactly like me?
    …
    As I’m walking back to my hotel room, I’m still trying to process this assignment. I expected Aspen to have some issues, but nothing this extreme. It’s like she’s gone from this world, like she’s already dead.
    I could hardly get Aspen home tonight without incident, so I have no idea how I’ll get her to wake up from this self-destructive lifestyle. I wonder if Lincoln could be a comrade in this mission. He seems to care about her, which could help my cause, but he’s also wary of me.
    My mind turns to the two people who drove the BMW, Gage and Lyra, when I unlock my hotel room and go inside.
    Then I forget everything else. My room is trashed.
    The bedside lamp is lying on the floor. The contents of my suitcase are spread across the room. Towels are hanging from the curtains. A wastebasket is upturned on the desk. And everywhere I look are tissues. My room looks like a practical joke between friends, but I don’t have any friends in Denver.
    Walking into the bathroom—and stepping over my six-hundred-dollar Olga Berluti shoes—I spot something written on the mirror.
    Can you hear me now, liberator?
    I stumble back and nearly fall into the bathtub. Grabbing onto the towel rack, I right myself. Then starbursts of anger dance before my eyes. Someone is messing with me. I don’t sense anything now, but I know it’s a collector. How else would they know I’m a liberator?
    The question is, which collector? Is it Patrick, the scrappy bastard always eager to find favor with Lucille? Or maybe Kincaid with his beady all-seeing eyes? I consider Anthony—a gorilla of a collector—and decide it couldn’t have been him. It wouldn’t