The Liberator

down and tickle her until she can hardly breathe.

No mercy for the weak.

Glancing over at Aspen, I expect to see her laughing along with her sister. But instead, she’s staring at the floor with a blank expression on her face. I feel Lincoln studying me and meet his gaze. His forehead is lined with worry, but he doesn’t say anything.

Aspen’s head snaps up. She tilts her ear like she’s listening for something. When the doorbell sounds, I realize it must have been what she heard. She lifts herself off Sahara’s bed and makes for the stairs. Lincoln and I exchange another look, then we both get up to go after her. I don’t need whoever this is breaking her concentration. Hanging out with her sister does something good to Aspen, and if I’m going to liberate her soul, keeping her around Sahara may be my best bet.

I don’t know how long turning a person good will take, because I’ve only ever turned them bad. Convincing someone to embrace their sinister desires isn’t so difficult, but convincing them to forsake those desires may take much longer. I’ll have to be a shining example of purity (not easy) and show her how beautiful life can be when you’re living it clean (kill me). All in all, because I am amazing at All Things, I think I can have this wrapped up in about a week or so.

Aspen reaches the bottom of the stairs and opens the mammoth door. It grinds on its hinges, and I spot Gage and Lyra standing outside. Great. Just what I need is these two snaring her with their jellyfish tentacles.

Gage leans his head inside and sees Lincoln and me on the banister. “What’s up, guys?” he says, all smiles and charm like he’s Boy Wonder. He looks back at Aspen and says something I don’t catch. She nods and gazes up at Lincoln.

“Hey, will you stay with my sister while I go out for a while?”

“No,” he retorts, the chains on his camo jacket rattling. “Just stay here with us, Aspen.”

Her eyes slide over to me. I can tell she wants to ask me to babysit but doesn’t fully trust me yet. Not with her sister. “Come on, man,” she says, her sharp green eyes returning to Lincoln. “I’ll do your hair when I get back.”

I glance at the guy next to me, my brow furrowing. Then I notice the blond roots growing from his scalp. “Don’t cave,” I tell him. I don’t know why I’m so wary of Aspen going off with Gage and Lyra other than what Lincoln told me. How Aspen is worse around them. And also maybe because I see the way they look at her, like she’s part of some agenda they have.

Lincoln shrugs a thin shoulder and mutters, “She’s gonna go no matter what. I don’t want Sahara to be alone.” He narrows his kohl-lined eyes and calls down, “Don’t leave me here forever.”

Aspen blows him a kiss and starts to slink through the door.

“Uh, hold on there, princess.” I descend the stairs, keeping my eyes locked on Gage. “I’m coming, too.”

“I don’t think so,” Lyra snaps.

I hold my palm up to her face and speak to Gage. “I’m coming, or Aspen stays here.”

Gage laughs hard, his neon teeth flashing. “She’s a big girl. If she doesn’t want you along, then you’re not coming.”

Aspen’s jaw is set like she’s pissed I’m acting this way, but there’s something else in her glare—another challenge, maybe. “He can come,” she says. Her mouth pulls into a smile, but the gesture doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Splendid.” I grin at Gage just to piss him off real nice. Then I turn back to Lincoln. I don’t know much about the paranoid, Goth-clad dude, but he seems to care about Aspen, which I may need. And if I’m being honest, I guess I appreciate it, too, because Aspen needs someone to care. I nod in an attempt to tell him I got this, but Lincoln just watches Aspen walk out the door before heading back to Sahara’s room.

When I turn back around, Gage meets my stare. “Ready to roll, pretty boy?”

I cringe, because “pretty boy” is what Max calls me. Max. Not him. I’m going to try and give Gage the benefit of the doubt, but we need to get off on the right foot. “Name’s Dante, asshole. Next time you call me something other than that, I’ll put you in the ground. Got it?” I slap him on the arm like we’re pals and brush past him.

Behind me, I hear Gage laughing, but I’m not sure it’s authentic. If it is, we could end up being friends. Crazier things have happened.

Aspen has already lodged herself in the backseat of the BMW 7 series—or the Regulator, as I’ve named it —and has pulled her knees to her chest. She bobs her head to the angry music Lyra’s flipped on, and I feel the beat rush into my veins.

“Don’t you have a car?” I ask Aspen as I slide in after her.

She nods her head toward the garage. “Old Man took the keys.”

As we pull away from Aspen’s fortress-of-a-house, my eyes cling to the garage, because if this is the casa Aspen calls home, I’d kill to know what her sleigh looks like. I look back at her to ask what she’s packing in there, but she’s already lost to the music, her eyes glassed over.

Gage turns around from the driver’s seat and grins at me. “Buckle up, Dante.”

Lyra cranks the volume, and Gage steps on the accelerator.

He drives fast.

And it feels good.

…

A half hour later, we pull into an overgrown neighborhood that probably keeps Kool-Aid and ramen noodles in business. Gage turns behind a small blue house and into an alleyway. After throwing the car into park, he looks at me in the rearview. Holding a finger to his lips, he winks.

I contemplate popping him in the eye but decide to let his douche lord move slide.

He climbs out of the car, and the rest of us follow along. When we get to a garage immediately outside the alleyway, he turns and faces us. “You guys ready to get stupid?”

Aspen wraps her arms around herself. “Just show us what’s inside,” she deadpans.

Gage glances around and rolls the door open with a rattle. Inside are three motorcycles that look way too tight to be in this part of the city. I don’t know much about rides with only two wheels, but already my blood is pumping, because I appreciate anything with an engine.

Lyra walks inside, her long brunette ponytail swishing back and forth. She’s dressed in all white—white blouse, white leggings, white heels—which makes me think she didn’t know about Gage’s idea. But it doesn’t stop her from turning around and saying with a smile, “Bad.”

Gage walks past us and throws his leg over a yellow Suzuki that reads Hayabusa. Without missing a beat, Lyra gets on behind him and grabs onto his thighs. “Geezer won’t even know they’re missing,” Gage says. He pops his chin toward the other bikes, his gaze steady on me. “Two more bikes, two more players.”

My head pounds with excitement, because this is the old me. I’m the guy who’d borrow some anonymous person’s pride and joy without thinking twice. But I can’t be that person anymore. Because I’m with Charlie, and she believes I can be one of the good guys. Gripping the horn in my pocket, my mind flashes to where she is—

—and a bolt of anger fires through me. Because Charlie isn’t at home. And she’s not at school. But she is somewhere near her house, which means she’s probably spending her lunch break at Salem’s house.

My body floods with concern, but then I remember how she stuck up for him and his brother. I also remember that Max and Valery are both around, protecting her from doing anything unsafe.

So she’s just there…hanging out.

My mind snaps to attention when I hear the snarl of an engine kicking on. “If you’re coming, you better hurry the hell up,” Lyra sings.

Aspen straddles a storm cloud–colored bike with an exhaust pipe as wide as my biceps. She starts the engine like she’s done this a million times, though the rigidness in her frame tells me otherwise. She looks at me through the gap in her helmet, her riotous eyes flashing. “Sure you ain’t got nothing else to do?”

She’s quoting what I told her earlier. And I know what I need to do is get her off that bike, because crap like this earns seals for hell, not heaven. But that growl rolling off the twin bikes—oh, shit, that