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

just grabbed us. He had even brought a frictionless flatbed truck for Alice, since no way could she fit in the Toyota Comanche.

Micaiah had already had started notifying the Hays news outlets for an interview. He had a news conference set up in a matter of minutes. And so far, no Severins had come calling to murder us. We didn’t hear a peep from the ARK, the local authorities, or the FBI. It seemed our crimes had either been forgiven or forgotten.

We still didn’t know what had happened to the Moby or her crew. Nor did we have any news on Nikola Nichols and the other survivors from our battle of four armies.

Micaiah had booked us a block of suites in the Marriott and we’d gotten clean. We’d had to buy New Morality dresses, and I stood in front of the mirror, drabbed in gray, in a dress five sizes smaller than I’d had in Cleveland. The dresses were so stupid, but we were dealing with the public, and they had certain stupid expectations.

I walked around, feeling at my protruding hip bones. My face was so thin, but so was my hair. It looked bedraggled, wispy and strawed. My eyes were big on my face, which should’ve made me cute, but instead, they were ringed by storm-cloud bruises ’cause I couldn’t sleep. Nightmares. Blood. Huge monsters. Mama’s grave full of rats and maggots. A haunted look filled my eyes. I was jumpy. I was a mess and looked it.

Before I left the bathroom, I slipped Wren’s fateful bullet into the pocket of my dress. Funny, but having that bullet made me feel better.

I found Alice sitting on the bed like an ogre, hunched over under the ceiling, but she was clean and smelled far better. She’d managed to fit through the double-doors of our penthouse suite. We couldn’t get her into the shower, so we gave her a bottle of body wash and a towel she used as a sponge. Drying her off took three more towels. Then we had to have a special gray dress made for her. Micaiah’s money made that possible.

Alice was quiet mostly, staring off into space for long periods of time, like she was trying to remember when she’d been human. And she’d sing “Wayfaring Stranger” in murmurs. We’d kept her hidden, smuggled her into the hotel room up a freight elevator, ’cause we were going to unveil her at the big press release. She was proof of what Tibbs Hoyt and the ARK had been doing in the research facilities. If they didn’t have a cure I could give to LaTanya, they’d have to think up one quick.

I kept pondering what Dutch had said about the gas-engine cars, about the fact the ARK had shielding which worked in the Juniper. And I kept thinking about things Micaiah had said.

I figured there was a secret ARK research facility in the Juniper based on certain things Micaiah had hinted at. Like when he had talked about growing up and riding bikes on lava beds, and I couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t talking about a secret ARK clinic in Hawaii. No.

And if the ARK did have a secret base in the Juniper, and if they had ties with President Jack, our four-term ex-president, he’d prolly know where it was.

One thing I couldn’t quite figure out, though ... if the ARK could bring electricity back to the Juniper, why hadn’t they? Or was it only to keep their secret base a secret?

Alice’s singing and murmurs roused me from my obsessing.

I shook myself so I could focus. “Alice, you okay?” I asked. “This is the big day. You ready for the spotlight?”

She didn’t respond. Her lips moved, singing the song.

I walked over and put a hand on her furry arm. “Alice?”

She moved her eyes, slowly, and finally looked at me. “I’m going coco again,” she whispered. “On the plains, running and fighting, Alice could forget. Now, in this place, Alice can feel it. Everyone so pretty, and Alice so ugly and big. Alice a monster. Monsters kill. I want to kill all the pretty.”

I shivered. If she lost it, I wasn’t sure what we’d do. She was huge, strong, and hard to take down due to her healing abilities.

“Sissy,” I said quietly. “You’re my sissy, Alice. You saved me. You love me. And I love you. Only a little while longer, just a little while, and we can give you medicine. Please.” We had talked about it, and Pilate suggested anti-psychotics, or some type of powerful psychotropic drug. I thought it was a good idea, but what we really needed was a cure. Tibbs Hoyt needed to clean up his many messes, which included not just Alice, but LaTanya, the other Gammas, and most likely my sister Wren, as well.

I’d asked Micaiah if Hoyt might have a cure, and he’d been honest with me: The ARK didn’t want to spend research dollars trying to reverse a mistake they could fix in the next iteration of the drug.

Jackerdans.

Alice sighed. “Okay, ’Teeca. Alice try. Alice try.”

(ii)

I got her off the bed. She had to crawl and squeeze herself out of the door, and then she had to walk hunched over. We took the freight elevator down.

Micaiah had rented the entire convention center and had invited the press. Every news outlet, all the reporters, came flocking.

Micah Hoyt, son of Tibbs Hoyt, finally found in the Juniper!

It was big news.

June Mai Angel had said the press had been silenced when she went to them before, and that the American people weren’t too keen on stories about the realities of the Sino veterans. Well, give the American people a celebrity lost for months in the wilderness of the Juniper and watch the ratings soar. Everyone would win. Except for two people: President Amanda Swain and the awful things she did to our vets, and Tibbs Hoyt and the awful things he had done to humanity.

Sharlotte met us in the lobby of the empty convention