Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) Aaron Ritchey (read a book .txt) 📖

still needed my medicine, the antibiotics and the Skye6. I told Jolie that, and she promised she would have Alice come and dose me when I needed it.

That made me feel better. I’d get to see Alice again.

Jolie locked me up at the end of the chain, stainless steel handcuffs on a length of oily, thick-linked chain. They threw cold sausages at us; we all scrambled to pluck them out of the dirt and grass.

Another Gamma came along with an orange Home Depot twenty-liter bucket with a plastic soup ladle. I watched as my fellow prisoners threw their heads back, opened their mouths, and each was given a ladle-full of the water.

When my turn came, I followed suit. Head back, the cold water struck my mouth and splashed into the back of my throat. I gagged, but I knew it might be the only water I got for a while.

I forced myself to stop choking, I threw my head forward, breathing hard out of my nose, waiting until I could slowly swallow the mouthful.

Then I coughed, sputtered, and grit my teeth.

The African-American woman next to me touched me kindly. “You’ll get used to it. It’s hard the first couple of times, but the gulping gets easier. Practice makes perfect.”

I nodded and gave her a good look over. She was older than me, prolly Sharlotte’s age, which meant mid-twenties. She was thick-legged, but thin on top, with dark skin and hair, thick and tightly curled. She had waterproof clothes, real high end, North Face coat and Mortex skirt. From the cut of it, she was full-on New Morality. Her clothes might’ve been expensive at one time, but now were stained and torn.

She didn’t look like your typical Juniper rancher. No, she seemed like a tourist. Most of the curious and the bold would take trips up in what used to be South Dakota on account of Mount Rushmore, and down in Amarillo when Americans wanted to see what it was like to live hard without electricity. A few were brave enough to risk the Rockies, but not many.

She put out a hand. “I’m LaTanya Ashley.”

I had to shake the chains a bit to get my own free, but we eventually shook hands. “I’m Cavatica Weller.”

Immediately, the whispering started all down the line of chained women.

LaTanya heard it, got confused, but she didn’t look at them for explanation, she looked at me.

What could I say? I needed to say something, but everything I thought of either sounded like I was trying to be humble, or I was boasting. I finally sighed, “My mama was Abigail Weller, one of the first women to run her own salvage operation in the Juniper. Then she became the third largest rancher. She died, and me and my sisters ran cattle to Nevada. Made it, too. No one had ever done that before.” I addressed the woman on the other side of LaTanya. “That about cover it?”

The woman—covered in leather clothes, with rough hands from farming and living at high elevation—nodded. She was Juniper. Prolly knew how to gut and skin a deer. Undoubtedly, that was where her outfit had come from.

LaTanya wasn’t a Juniper girl. But how could I ask her about her past?

I couldn’t. I kept quiet and tried not to think about the fact that I was relying on Jolie and Alice to remember about my meds. I might’ve had the last of the Skye6, which depressed me. I didn’t much care about the upsilonteixobactin.

Without my Skye6, I’d actually have to experience the walk into Denver and not float above it on the ice-skating feeling.

I was sleeping when LaTanya nudged me and then helped me to stand. “Ms. Weller, we have to get up. We have to walk now or else they’ll beat us. Which is something I can’t get used to, practice makes perfect or not.”

I had to smile at her; she was trying to joke with me. Her calling me Ms. Weller was also funny, since she was older, but then she was New Morality. I grew even more curious.

Our conversation ended ’cause two big Gammas came up behind us with still-green cottonwood branches. They started beating the megs until we shuffled away. Chained up together, we all had to move at the same pace, which for me was quite a change since I was used to shambling down the highway, leaning on Alice.

I was breathless and hurting after the first ten minutes.

“Hey, Ms. LaTanya,” I called out, huffing, “you can get used to being beat. Trust me. In this ol’ world, you can get used to just about anything.”

She gave me a smile, full of strong teeth and weary joy. “We’ll just have to practice not liking it. Not ever.”

“Amen to that.” I’d found another friend, but I didn’t want one—I didn’t want any more strings binding me to the world. I was going to go Gamma and then run off to Burlington. LaTanya, or anyone else, would only hold me back.

I swore I wouldn’t become friends with her.

(ii)

By the time we walked onto Colfax going east, I couldn’t keep up. The handcuffs in the chain dug into my wrists, and I stumbled along on aching feet. The hogs behind hit me, but I was hurting too bad and starved, but more I missed the numb ice of the Skye6. That was really my problem.

LaTanya kept looking behind me, watching me, her dark skin pale and her eyes wide. No jokes now, as the hogs smacked me with the cottonwood branches, which to them were only switches, but to me were full-on clubs.

I stumbled and fell, which caused LaTanya to trip. Like dominos, all of us megs went down, halfway up the chains.

The others shivered, watching, waiting for something to happen.

A club smashed into my skull, and it was stars and stripes forever. The pain enveloped me, removed all my doubts, all my thoughts. For several long minutes, I felt washed clean. Pain is a pure thing, and we can cling