The Liberator (A Dante Walker Novel) (Entangled Teen) Read Online Free PDF

one hell of a send-off.”
    Max pulls out his new phone, the one he hasn’t shut up about for the last six days, and pushes a few buttons. Pulsing music fills my ears, and I raise the bottle in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
    Max dances in place, Charlie hands me a plate of bacon and waffles, and Valery comes to stand beside me. She takes the champagne from my hand, holds it up even higher, and says above the music, “To Aspen.”
    Then she puts the bottle to her lips and drinks.

4
    Connection
    The day flew by in a blur.
    Grams woke up a few minutes after our makeshift party started. She didn’t seem too upset, though. Just came downstairs, sat in her nearby oversized love seat, and nursed her water bottle. Of vodka. Max and I acted like morons and insisted Valery, who was now sober, chauffer us around in her Mercedes. We hung our heads out the window and howled at the afternoon sun, and later, the moon. Charlie sat between us as we cruised Peachville, Alabama, stopping here and there to complete dares, and capturing the idiocy with Max’s new phone. We also stopped at The Wireless Hut so Valery could buy herself a cell and, in a moment of coolness, buy Charlie and me phones, too. I would have done it myself, but I couldn’t since I was now cut off from my hell-issued AmEx Black Card.
    When we get back to Grams’s place, I say good-bye to Max. He hugs me, slaps me hard on the back, then pulls on his shadow and vanishes from sight. I turn to Valery. “Thanks for the phone.”
    “I enjoy helping the needy,” she says.
    I scrunch up my nose. “I am many things, but needy isn’t one of them. Though speaking of, when am I getting my new card? Is it all blue and sparkly to represent the heavens?”
    “You’ll get it tomorrow, once I get you to the airport.”
    Groaning, I hook my arm around Charlie. “What time?”
    “Seven in the morning,” Valery answers.
    I shake my head. “You did that on purpose.”
    Valery smiles and waves before she disappears inside her Mercedes. As she drives away, her windows down, I can hear the clatter of empty bottles clinking against one another in the backseat.
    Charlie squeezes me around the middle. “I had fun today.”
    My eyes close as I breathe her in. Whoever said “like attracts like” had their head stuffed up somewhere dark and stank-like.
    I bury my head in the side of her neck and lay my lips on the warmth there. My stomach tightens as I feel her hands roam over my back and across my sides. She moves them farther down until her fingers dig into my pockets. Then she pulls me closer. “Stay again tonight?”
    I raise my head. I’m not sure how she can even question this. There’s no place I’d rather be. When I even think about how I’ll be away from her—in Denver—my insides revolt. I can’t imagine spending my days wondering where she is at any given moment and questioning whether she’s safe. “Course I’ll stay.”
    I expect her to smile, but instead her eyebrows pull together in confusion. “What’s this?” she asks, wiggling her fingers deeper into my pocket.
    Restraining myself from saying the dirty thing that’s on my mind, I step back. She withdraws the ivory horns my father gave me. In all the talk of whether I was going to Denver, and then celebrating—err, mourning—my decision, I’d forgotten to tell her what else was inside the assignment envelope.
    A rush of excitement races over my skin at the chance to talk about my father. “My dad sent them for me.” Charlie’s mouth falls open. “My thoughts exactly.”
    “What are they?” she breathes, her full pink lips stretched into a smile.
    “Beats me.” I pour both of them into her outstretched hand. It’s a difficult transaction considering I’m hopped up on enough bubbly to intoxicate a tractor.
    Charlie rolls them around in her palm. “Kind of heavy,” she says, rubbing her thumb over them. “And so smooth.”
    “I just don’t understand why there wasn’t