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

I chanced to look into his eyes, now dull and dark. I moved some of his hair away; it had grown long. Somehow with him so gone-away, it gave me courage to say what was the truth. “I don’t love you. I love Micaiah. He’s inside of you, waiting for the meds, and when you get them, we’ll cry together ’cause we can, and we’ll laugh, and maybe I’ll kiss you, and maybe we might even try the sex. Until then, I’d like you to know, I appreciate what you’ve done and what you’ll keep doing, Micah.” I called him by his old name, and he understood. There were no messy emotions to get in the way.

“Micaiah misses you, and I miss him,” he said. “Rachel said emotions were a liability. If that is true, why do I want them so much?”

“Pinocchio could’ve lived forever as a puppet. Instead the little puppet chose to be human, even if it meant he would die.”

Again, I thought of Rachel, telling herself stories, and I went back over my conversation with Micaiah. How many stories had we referenced? Human stories did shape reality. Or at the very least, they helped us to try to make sense of it.

We sat in the quiet, while I rested, getting my shakti ready for this last part, this last dead run toward Kansas. I thought about how we felt as we walked those last kilometers into Wendover, how invincible, how victorious.

Now we knew the truth. The ARK would be waiting for us in Kansas.

I was done being stupid. We’d tried to take the chalkdrive out of the Juniper once before and almost got killed ’cause we’d been stupid.

Now? I had a plan.

I just had to convince June Mai Angel to listen to me.

(iv)

Micaiah left, and I dressed up like one of June Mai’s recruits: sagebrush camouflage pants, a shirt made of synthetic material of the same color, a nice coat, and a pair of thick-soled combat boots with pointed toes for stirrups. I missed my old cowgirl boots, lost in Glenwood Springs, lost forever. They had a thousand kilometers on ’em, if they had a millimeter.

I wouldn’t miss Eryn Lopez’s evil ski boots of torture, I’ll tell you what.

I descended the familiar steps of the Chhaang House, recalling when Wren and I had stayed there before, when we’d come back for Mama’s funeral. Seemed like so long ago; it hadn’t even been a year.

The war room was gone, only an empty bar room was left—empty chairs around empty tables, the bar empty of booze, the stove cold in the kitchen. I thought of Old Man Singh, the man who’d owned and operated the hotel and tavern, wondering what happened to him. He was prolly just another refugee in Sterling, fleeing the war June Mai Angel had brought down on our town. Or had he made it to Kansas? Would the Americans let him in? I didn’t know.

Five years before, when I’d been sent away, I’d been young, naïve, and I had money and paperwork, which made border crossings easy no matter where you’re at. Without money and paperwork? Borders became walls.

I wandered out the batwing doors and onto the street. Morning sunshine was cold on a steaming ground. Didn’t know if it was November or December. It made me sad to think I might’ve missed Thanksgiving.

Around me was a flurry of activity that would’ve made ants jealous. The entire town of Burlington was packing up, which was a sight to see. Soldier girls hurried to load tents and gear onto every type of vehicle, most steam-powered, but we had some old diesel cars running on canola oil, which never quite caught on. The World didn’t want to waste crops on energy for the Juniper, and inside the Juniper, cow patties were far more plentiful than corn or canola.

Micaiah stood with Pilate and June Mai in the street, a calm eddy in a running river. Micaiah was dressed in black clothes, which seemed fitting. June Mai was in her soldier gear clothes like me, and of course, Pilate looked like Pilate: jeans, boots, and a duster so big and stiff you could stand it up in a corner and swear it was a man.

They were sipping coffee out of mugs and Pilate was smoking, which made me mad at him, with how weak his lungs had been.

I took a step off the sidewalk to cross to them, but I never made it.

Someone grabbed me, hugged me, and then another, and then another. I was suddenly swamped by friends. Sketchy’s face was coal-dusted, her goggles around her neck, a wide smile showing her frog mouth, and her blue eyes full of tears. She still wore her bulky New Morality dress under layers of jackets. Big engineer boots swallowed her feet.

Sketchy attacked me with words of rapid-fire love. “Cavatica Weller! I thought I’d never lay my eyes on you again! We had to leave you in Wendover, and we went back and forth, but out in the World, goddammit if those ARK sinners wouldn’t have impounded my beloved zeppelin, so we took your people on over to Mavis, and then she was working with that goddamn June Mai Angel.” Her eyes flickered up for a minute on the very woman she’d just cursed. Then, more words: “I hate every mother’s daughter in her God-forsaken army, but Tech is more forgiving. She talks to them, but not me. Can’t believe my lovely BUE is now a warzone.”

BUE ... Took me a minute, but then I remembered that Sketchy referred to towns as their airport code.

She fired on. “Word has it, Cavvy, the United States military is coming to restore order. Hell, more soldiers means more fighting and less order. Aw, it’s just so good to see you!”

The United States military? That made me tremble a bit, ’cause Hoyt and the U.S. were real tight. Couldn’t really consider her words, ’cause then I was pulled in to hug Tech.

She was as gorgeous as