The Liberator

39 I Know You

I gape at Aspen as we are lifted high into the air. All around us is blackness. A void. This is the final step before we get to the soul storage room.

Every muscle in my body tenses as I anticipate what we’ll see. Will the collectors be there? Will Rector?

But more than that, I can’t stop thinking about what Aspen said. That it’s her birthday. It can’t be a coincidence that she and Charlie share the same date of birth, the same age. Lucille assigned me to collect Charlie Cooper’s soul, and then Big Guy assigned me to liberate Aspen Lockhart’s soul.

There must be a connection between the two girls, but I’m not sure what it is past their birthday.

A square of light flickers into view overhead, and before long, we are lifted through it. The concrete beneath our heels comes to a stop. Aspen gasps, and a hesitant smile touches my lips.

“Even in hell, souls are beautiful,” I say.

Aspen grins at me, and the gesture lifts my spirit. The shelves are aligned one after another. They stand forty feet tall, and each one has thousands of cutouts for the souls they hold. The shelves almost make the place seem like the world’s largest library, where each soul is a book—a story of someone’s life. Of course, these stories would lead to nightmares.

The souls glow like a million fireflies, winking as we pass wall after wall of them. It’s cool in this area of hell. Not to the point where I shiver, but in the way you’d expect a cavernous room to be far beneath the earth’s crust. Breathing in, I relish a thick, musty scent similar to rain. This room feels euphoric after the ones we’ve passed through.

“This place is amazing,” Aspen says, her hand resting over her heart. The light casts playful shadows across her face, catching on her mouth and eyes and even the diamond in her nose.

“It’s hard to think these people deserve to be here.” I touch a finger to one of the souls. It twinkles beneath my touch like I’ve tickled it.

Aspen stops and meets my gaze. “You didn’t deserve to be here.”

My hand drops to my side. “Yeah, I did.”

“No, I don’t believe—”

“I lived for myself, Aspen,” I say, my tone tightening. “And I wasn’t a nice person. It’s harder than you think to find favor in heaven. People down here, people like me, we worked every day to make ourselves happy. And we never worked for Big Guy. We wouldn’t have. He expects his followers to do for others, not just themselves.”

Aspen studies me, turning over what I said in her mind. “You’re different now.”

I let the conversation go and move past her. “We need to find Charlie’s soul.”

“How?”

I walk along the pristine hardwood floor, wondering the same thing. “I’ll recognize it.”

I hope.

Aspen moves in a different direction, and within a few seconds, I don’t hear the sound of her footsteps.

“Aspen?” I call out.

“I’m over here,” she answers. “Just looking around.”

“Don’t go too far.” Despite the lowered temperature in this room, sweat still coats my brow. I don’t forget where I am for a single second. If one collector knew we were down here, the others probably do, too. The question is, how many of them are here?

When I remember the determined scowl on Patrick’s face, I pick up my pace. My feet move faster as I pass rows of luminous souls. I approach a towering shelf that feels…different. My hands twitch as I move down the aisle, searching for what made me hesitate.

But there’s nothing that screams to me. It’s more like a whisper.

I shake my head and decide it’s not here. If it were her soul, I’d know it like a bat to the skull.

Aspen’s voice resonates through the hall. “Dante!”

Her tone isn’t alarmed. It’s more surprised. I leave the aisle I’m in and rush in the direction of her voice. When I find her, she’s stooped over something. Her back is arched like a question mark, her dark ponytail caressing her cheek.

“It’s a letter or something,” she says as I approach.

I move closer until I can see what she’s referencing.

It’s a scroll.

The second scroll

It’s enclosed in a glass case like we’re in a freaking museum. I debate telling her what I know about the scrolls, which is pretty much zilch. And that this could be a fake like it was at the Hive. Not that seeing the real one did me any good. I look closer to see if there are any words on this scroll—

But something stops me.

It isn’t a whisper. It’s a scream.

And it’s coming from the next aisle over. Aspen doesn’t seem to hear it, which means it’s only in my head. This could be it. I move away from Aspen and toward the place that calls out to me. As I approach, the sound overwhelms my body and causes my legs to shake.

I turn the corner, and there it is. There’s a carved column that stretches to my abs, and above it floats an iridescent ball. It glows and spins like a child’s toy. My breath catches as I near the ball. Inside there’s a soul, and it’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen. It glimmers as I approach, almost as if it remembers the night I collected it.

Behind me, I can hear Aspen calling my name. She’s talking about the scroll, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about that thing. Not when Charlie’s soul is singing to me. I move closer and reach out my hand.

Is there an alarm?

Will the ball hurt me if I touch it?

It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop myself from reaching out—

“Dante, this thing is really freaking me out,” Aspen says.

I’m so close to Charlie’s soul, so close I can feel the warmth it radiates even from inside the orb.

Aspen’s words continue to reach me, though I’m hardly listening. “This thing is saying that there are—”

Wait, what?

I jerk my hand back from Charlie’s soul as a current of energy courses through me. “Aspen, are you saying you can read the scroll?”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve read it three times. It’s freaky as shit.”

Though every part of me aches to take Charlie’s soul, I hurry toward Aspen. I come to stand beside her, positive that this is another faux scroll. But when I see it, the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

There aren’t any words.

I place my hand on the glass case and narrow my eyes. “Are you sure you see words?”

Aspen glances at me like I’m crazy. “What, are you blind? It’s right there.”

“I see the scroll,” I say. “I just don’t see any words.”

Aspen takes three steps back from the case. “Stop messing around.”

I turn and look at her. Aspen’s green eyes are round with worry. But there’s something else there, too—excitement. “The first time I read it, I sort of knew it was true.”

“What does it say?” I ask, my pulse pounding.

Instead of answering, she stands stock-still, staring over my shoulder. I follow her gaze.

A collector steps out from the shadows.