Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Ritchey (best books to read for teens .txt) 📗

soldier girl on duty, overweight, eating a powdered-sugar Donette and watching video on her slate.

Electricity. They had electricity. I’d come back to the World.

Micaiah got out and approached the guard tower. Electric lights clicked on, blinding us all for a minute. I’d forgotten how bright they could be, how staggering, how powerful.

The guard regarded him for a minute, looked up at our Stanley and then at Alice in the back of the Cargador.

The guard blinked.

“I’m Micah Hoyt,” Micaiah said. “I would like to make a phone call.”

Her mouth dropped open as wide as wide as her eyes.

(ii)

The rules had changed. We were on American soil, back in the World, where there were gun laws, due-process of law, and media coverage, 24/7.

We’d beaten the ARK out into the World. Now they’d have to play a different kind of game, one that didn’t involve their mercenaries, guns, and violence. One that Micaiah would be able to play well, with how quick and clever he was. That boy could spin things like a top between his fingers. And he could stop that spinning top with a single word ... right when he wanted it to.

No wonder Marie Atlas had tricked June Mai. Hoyt brewed up his creations real clever.

Now we had time, time while whoever Micaiah called came to collect us.

I was snoozing in the Marilyn’s driver seat when Wren knocked on the door. “Hey Cavvy, we have a fire, and June Mai has a fiddle. Come out and be with us.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m good in here, but thanks.”

Wren opened the door and took my hand. She had to fight back tears; my gunslinger sister, struggling not to cry, I never thought I’d see the day. “It was my fight, Cavvy. I killed Dutch. You didn’t.”

I noticed how big her hand had become. “Wren, are you afraid of turning into a hog?”

My sister shrugged, smiled, even with tears in her eyes. “If there’s one thing I learned from Pilate and his AA, it’s to live one day at a time. I don’t know what I’ll become. But I know that no matter how bad I get, you and Sharlotte won’t give up on me. Let’s face it, I’ve been a monster all my life.”

“No, you haven’t,” I said, but it was just something to say ’cause she’d told the truth. Wren had always been more devil than angel.

“Bullcrap, Cavvy,” Wren said harshly. “How I was, how Mama was, it broke me early.”

“What happened between you and Mama?”

Wren growled at me, “I’ll never talk about it. Never. Don’t ever ask again.”

I let it go. I shouldn’t have.

She calmed herself. “Anyway, tonight, this night, I need you with us, with our family. I need you now more than ever. Please.”

I thought of her back in Green River, needing us all to go to church together, and I remembered how she’d wanted to change, and all the fighting she had done for us, for our sacred duty.

All sacred and full of bullcrap.

“Okay,” I whispered. “But I hurt inside, Wren. It’s gonna make me crazy. I understand it now. I understand you. You were born feeling like this, weren’t you?”

Wren smiled a beautiful smile through her tears. “Yeah, I was born with the Devil’s hand on me. I was marked by pain early on, and maybe that’s what turned me into a monster on the inside. But the Devil and that pain get boring after a while. You are the best of us, Cavvy, the very best of us. I can’t have you be breaking down on me. Please, come and be with me.”

I wanted to fight with her, I wanted to be contrary, I wanted to warn her that most likely once she mutated into a hog, she’d go coco, and we’d have to put her down. I didn’t. Right then, she didn’t need any contrariness nor my fears and worries. She needed a little sister, her baby Cavvy, whom she petted when I was only a little peanut.

I let her lead me to the fire. It was like our last night in Wendover, another celebration fire ’cause we’d made it through.

Pilate smoked cigars and drank the coffee he’d bummed from the American soldier who’d drawn the short straw guarding the Plainville border crossing. Her name was Private Marci McDonald, and she kept making calls and sending emails. It was going to be a busy night for her, filling out reports, recounting the strangest border crossing in the history of that little guard tower in the middle of nowhere.

Micaiah moved next to me, took my hand, and I let him. I felt cold about him and about us, but when Wren saw us together, she smiled and raised her coffee cup to me.

I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that if she lost her love, it didn’t mean I had to lose mine as well.

I glanced over to see June Mai sitting close to Sharlotte, and Sharlotte kept looking at June Mai out of the corner of her eye. June Mai was throwing her own glances, but then she’d pretend to watch the little fire as it popped and danced and sent sparks flying up into the cold air. It felt like the end of November all right—maybe Thanksgiving, maybe not.

For Alice, it was a holiday. She couldn’t sit still. She circled us, hugged us, and laughed and laughed.

Micaiah bent close and whispered into my ear. “The people I called, they are going to bring my serum so I can feel again. I know we will have to start over, but I want to. Do you?”

I looked him square in the eye, and I didn’t look away. I didn’t answer. I stared into his eyes, and I showed him my hurt, my sorrow, my worn-out self.

He didn’t beg for an answer, he couldn’t, but I knew he needed one. Like Wren needed me to be a certain way, well, so did he. “I do,” I lied. It was an echo of what