War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5) by Aaron Ritchey (find a book to read TXT) 📗

went on. The wind was blowing. I kept my voice low and trusted that the Juniper breeze was my friend. It had always been, my whole life. “Hoyt got me alone. He gave me a slate, and if I don’t check in every day, he’ll kill my friends in Cleveland. I ain’t got the slate. I can’t check in.”

He unshouldered a strap I’d not seen across his chest and let my saddle bags fall to the ground.

I ran to the bags, fell to my knees, found the slate, and swiped it on. I started the eye scan and then opened my eyes. The light flashed across my retinas and I saw what it always said: UPLOAD COMPLETE.

My knee gave out and I collapsed. I had the slate.

Pilate knelt down over me. “You said before, Cavatica, that you didn’t want to do these goddamn quest things alone. Well, you’re not alone, but if you don’t let me in, you will be. Do you understand? No more secrets.”

I didn’t say a word ’cause I had two other secrets. One of the secrets had a favor wrapped up in it.

I hadn’t thought it all through, but I knew I needed something from Pilate.

I needed his help, bad, but it just might kill him to give it to me.

Chapter Five

BONNEY: YOU HAVE TO learn how to shoot. You have to protect your family from women like me.

MARLA: But Jesus said she who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.

BONNEY: We all have to die of something. And Jesus didn’t have to live in the Juniper.

—“Little Lost Souls.” Lonely Moon. Netflix. 7 April 2057. Television.

(i)

Pilate put out a hand, and he heaved me to my feet. The chill caught up to me, and I shivered now, as it hit me all at once.

I pulled clothes out of the saddle bags and saw all of my old gear. “How did you know? What happened?”

“How can I be here?” Pilate lit up a cigar and blew out smoke. “I seek my counsel in the Lord, and that jackerdan is a real gossip.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Turn around. I have to change. Tell me what happened, and if you mention God, I’ll spit.”

He spun on a boot to face the western horizon where the sun struggled to shine through the clouds before it left for the day.

I got the dress off me and pulled on the sage-colored fatigues I’d worn when we crossed into the U.S. with Micaiah months before. Dang, but I wish I’d have washed them. They were stiff from dirt and dried sweat. Rachel’s blood still stained the thighs of the pants and the chest of the shirt. I shuddered at the idea of putting them on. However, it would get me out of the damn Hurry Curry dress.

Then I paused. Wren’s clothes were in there as well, her leather vest, the green wool poncho, her jeans, and her cowgirl shirt.

I tried on the jeans. They were a bit tight, a bit short, but they fit. I’d lost so much weight. Her cowgirl shirt fit as well. It smelled like her. I put on the leather vest, then my old parka and finally, the wool poncho.

All the while, Pilate chattered. “Starla, your not-quite girlfriend, called me. She said you were being deported. I scooped up our gear and got here as quick as I could, which turned out to be faster than I would’ve thought. I beat you here. I wasn’t sure if you’d already started walking to Burlington, so I did some recon and came back here. So it seems Starla is the second-coming of our Lord and Savior. Who knew God would come back to Earth as a Hindu lesbian?”

“Real funny. How do I look?”

Pilate turned and he saw me dressed in Wren’s clothes.

Then he turned back around. “That’s not funny,” he whispered.

“What?” I asked, perplexed.

“Nothing. I’ll be fine.” He coughed and threw his cigar away. He seemed to have lost the taste for it.

Still not facing me, Pilate asked, “So, if you have to check-in daily on your slate, we’ll have to stay in Kansas, right?”

I shrugged. “I have a scheduled task that should cover me for thirty days, but the problem is, we can’t just leave the slate lying around, and we can’t take it into the Juniper. Hoyt wanted to know where I was at any given moment.”

Actually, he wanted me out of the Juniper, and I thought I knew why. Couldn’t say that to Pilate. Not yet.

Pilate stuck his hat on his head, stomped his boots, and pulled his coat back. Strapped to his legs were my cheap .45s. He’d pulled them out of the cooler. “Well, I’m armed, we are in our traveling clothes, and I’m tired of worrying about Wren and Sharlotte. So I say we head for Denver, and Hoyt can go jack himself.”

“No. The slate has to stay operational or my friends will die. Hoyt killed Alice. He’ll kill anyone. After thirty days, my little piece of hackery will stop working, but I’m hoping by then, we might have a better way of handling things.”

“Other than you getting drunk or committing suicide on an electric fence?”

It hurt for him to say that, but I deserved it. However, I wasn’t going to let him hold that over my head. “You should talk, you goddamn alcoholic. You might never have been suicidal, but you were drunk enough to kiss Wren. So shut your mouth. I didn’t touch the fence. So drop it.”

“Cavatica,” Pilate began, and he was getting ready to preach.

“I said to shut your mouth. This day isn’t going to get any warmer. Let’s get on with it before we freeze to death.” I had a tickle of a plan.

“Where are we going?” Pilate asked.

“Going to get help.”

Didn’t have to worry about the dark. Lights flickered on over the fence line lighting our path.

The hours drinking in front of my news feeds paid off. Not only had I heard about former President