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

first five or so. She drew her Remington shotguns and went off running, looking for a fight. Looking to kill ’cause that was all she was now, no thought, no Alice, just kill.

I watched her run until I couldn’t see her any more. I wasn’t sure if she understood a word I’d said, and most likely, I’d sent her off to her death. The other Gammas would realize she’d gone coco and put her down. Even if they didn’t, she’d be killed for murdering the two hogs in the street and running off with me.

I sighed, alone on that dirt freeway, sighed long and hard. I’d broken my promise to her. And I felt shamed by it. For a half-second. Then I didn’t feel anything except for a chill wind coming down out of an empty blue sky.

“’Bye, Alice,” I whispered. Then, “’Bye, LaTanya.”

I knelt, facing east. A quick inventory of the Vail Recreation District hockey bag was the next item on my agenda. I had two two-liter bottles of water, about a half-kilo of the sausage we’d been eating, pieces of tortillas, and that old X-Men comforter. Best of all, and I’m ashamed to say it, but I got weepy holding the remaining six strips of EMAT. Just Skye6 but that was okay. I wasn’t looking for antibiotics, only my chemical ice-skates.

I had no idea how often Alice had dosed me, but I decided I’d use the EMAT at night, so I could sleep. And if the infection returned and took me? Well then, jacker it, jacker it all.

The cross-country ski boots felt better, more broken in, but I knew that was wishful thinking on my part. I still had the pink down coat with the melted wrist, covering the wool sweater and the black skirt. I still had on my leggings, though they were full of holes and dotted with burrs.

Shouldering on the bag, I walked. East. Toward Kansas. Toward Burlington. Toward June Mai Angel. Or as Alice called her, the Devil Angel. The woman whose followers had tried to kill me twice before.

I came across an old highway sign lying half buried in cast-off plastic trash.

Burlington, 166 miles.

Almost like 666. The number of the beast.

“I’m coming for ya, Satan,” I said wearily. “It’s only me and you, now, which is how you like it. But I got no soul left for you to take, so I’m thinking I have the upper hand.”

Wind blasted across my back, pushing me with freezing fingers.

I couldn’t wait for night, so I dosed myself with a strip of the Skye6 since I didn’t have a soul anyway. I floated alone in a stumble down I-70 all that day.

Well, not alone. Me and the Devil.

Looking for one last Juniper angel.

Chapter Thirteen

Dying is dying and dead is dead

She wanted heaven but went crazy instead.

—Pearl Cornell

(i)

THREE DAYS LATER.

I stopped in Strasburg, at the travel complex where Micaiah’s zeppelin had been blown out of the sky. I paid my respects to Annabeth Burton, lying in her grave under scattered bits of plastic from the Taco Bell Express sign, now long gone.

I trod over bullet casings from the fight and wandered over to the minivan where Micaiah and I had our first kiss. I laid out the X-Men comforter, climbed on top of it, then stuck my fingers into the bullet holes in the side of the minivan. It had been a miracle we’d not been killed.

All the memories came back to me barbed with longing, with death, with regret, with sorrow.

Memories of Wren saving us. Of Pilate and his gospel gun, of Petal and her rhymes:

Mary had a little lamb,

she also had a gun.

She killed the moon,

she killed the stars,

she even killed the sun.

Memories of Micaiah’s hot kisses and sizzling lips.

Remembering was too hard, even the new stuff, like Alice—big, stupid, violent Alice—who’d gone coco, and I hadn’t had the guts to put her down. Instead, I’d tricked her by promising a cure when there prolly was no cure ... not for her, not for LaTanya or any of the other megs.

“Sorry, Alice,” I whispered. “You goddamn hog. Sorry, LaTanya, but I never said yes to the promise. I nodded, but I never said yes.” As if that made it better.

Normally I would’ve prayed before sleeping, but I had no prayers left in me.

It wouldn’t do nothing for me anyway. I had a good week of travel, if I was lucky. I didn’t have enough food to make the trip, but I’d gone hungry before. And the wind was cold, but it prolly wouldn’t snow ’cause the Great Plains was mostly desert anyway.

Instead of praying, I dosed myself with Skye6 and slept in the minivan. It was prayer, only better. I dreamed, but I didn’t want to remember the dreams. Only dead people were in them. Or people I’d lied to.

Instead of breakfast, I said jack it and hit myself with the drugs and continued my stumble on wounded feet I couldn’t feel ’cause I couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.

(ii)

Three days later.

No more Skye6. Still I walked. I clung to the numb, though every so often, the rage at the world would burn through; numb or hateful, it was still better than falling into the ice of my sorrow. My stick heart shivered, scared the ice would melt, and I’d have to feel.

Dark clouds imprisoned the afternoon sky. They boiled black across the heavens, but I didn’t worry about them dropping anything. The Colorado sky was often like a nasty, little dog, showing teeth, barking and growling, but then running off east with its tail between its legs and not leaving even a dribble of pee behind.

Then I got lucky. I found a windmill water pump that still worked. Someone had repaired it, even greased the gears. It was prolly June Mai’s girls, who’d needed water to cross back and forth on the plains, protecting her territory, killing hogs, fighting all the wars she liked to fight, over and over.

June Mai might deliver the