The Liberator

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 I’m totally forcing it, I can’t help but fire a hand in the guy’s direction and say a weak, “Pow.”

…

After we land in Denver, I head toward the rental car stand. Valery texted me while I was in the air and said she’d reserved a vehicle under my name.

The anticipation is killing me.

I show the rental car dude my Discover card and—I swear on my mama’s soul—his nose scrunches up in revulsion. He holds the card with the tips of his fingers and types something into the computer with his other hand. Then he thrusts my card back at me. I’m surprised he doesn’t reach for a wet nap to rid his hands of my general poorness.

“One of my guys will meet you out front,” he says without making eye contact. I shove the card back into my pocket and hold my middle finger within three inches of his face. He doesn’t look up.

Out front, I wait with my luggage nearby, hoping beyond hope that Valery done me good. But when I see a lime-green Kia Rondo pull up around the corner, I know my hoping was in vain. I also know that somewhere out there, Red is laughing so hard she’s crying. That she’s picturing my face in her mind, wondering if now is the moment I’m seeing my ride.

The guy behind the wheel jumps out of the driver’s side. “Dan Walker?”

“Dante,” I correct him. “My name’s Dante.”

He shrugs like it doesn’t matter.

I point to the green car as he hands me the keys. “Let me guess… Eight horsepower and cloth interiors nice enough to spread any woman’s legs.”

The guy turns and walks away. He’s an important person with important places to be. Way too important for a peon like me.

I crawl inside my Panty Dropper and start an engine that sounds like it belongs in a Power Wheels. Then I crank the plastic stereo and head out onto the road to find my assignment, resentment boiling in my veins.

Cruising along I-70, I expect to see mountains stretching toward the sky. But from a distance, they look more like boobs in training bras, like they’ve got a ways to go before they’re real peaks. Rolling the window down, I breathe in through my nose and smell pine. Then I roll up the freaking window, because it’s cold as balls outside. I think about what I packed and wonder if I have enough warm clothes for this kind of ungodly weather.

Everything outside my big-timin’ car is coated in a sheet of white. As the afternoon sun shines down on it, it kind of…sparkles or whatever.

Charlie would love this.

I’m headed toward the address Valery texted me with pure, unfiltered excitement. I’m sure my lodging will be just as awe-inspiring as my vehicle. Though I’ve been driving for half an hour, I still don’t see the turn I’m supposed to take. And at some point, I decide I’ve gone too far. I check my rearview, wondering if I can view the exit.

But the only thing I see is a black sedan way too close to my tail.

I speed up, cursing the aggressive driver, but he stays with me.

“All right, Dick Slap,” I mutter. “Let’s calm the hell down.” Tapping my brakes, I watch in the mirror to see if he gets the message.

He doesn’t. In fact, he speeds up and gets closer to my bumper.

Too close.

And that’s when my frustration becomes alarm. My shoulders tense, and my mind whirls with who this could be. Gunning it, I concentrate as hard as I can but don’t sense a cuff. The only thing I do sense is Charlie at her house. I’m not sure who she’s with, or what she’s doing, but she’s there. And my gut says Valery is there, too, keeping her safe.

Knowing this makes it a lot easier to do what I’m going to do next, which is to confront this guy.

I punch the accelerator and head toward the next exit, throwing my signal on early enough so that if he wants to follow, he can. Sure enough, as I pull off onto the access road, I catch sight of the black sedan doing the same thing. Fine by me. Spotting that creeper, Easton, outside Charlie’s house yesterday still has me fired up. I’d like nothing more than to let off a little steam.

Pulling off onto the thinnest road I can find, I start to slow down, ready to give this guy a piece of my mind. But before I can, my bright green car lurches forward.

“Son of a bitch,” I yell. “He just hit me.”

I’m thinking it’s an accident on his part. That this guy is pissed that I cut him off and only wanted to hassle me, not hit my car. But when I look back, I see that he’s accelerating. And then the dots connect. This guy doesn’t just want to startle me, he wants to hurt my ass.