War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5) by Aaron Ritchey (best short novels .TXT) 📕

us would be wounded. But our anonymity was in check. They knew someone had broken their perimeter, but they wouldn’t know who. So far, neither Pilate nor I had left anyone around who knew our identities.

The helicopters passed overhead, racing along the river. I took my Betty knife and cut the line.

The strong river swept our boat out from under the bridge and over a kind of cement embankment prolly put there to monitor and control the water. Since the Yellowstone Knockout, though, the river did what it wanted.

We drifted in darkness and cold, north, toward Denver.

“Well, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked.

I expected a quip from Pilate, at the bottom of the boat, but he was silent.

“You call that easy?” Baptista asked. “Is it always like this?”

“Mostly,” I said.

She helped me pull Pilate out of the bit of water at the bottom, and I retrieved one of our Avalon Comfort sleeping bags. It would insulate him, even wet. After getting Pilate tucked away, we unfolded the neofiber paddles and took control of the raft.

“Warmer, generally,” I said after thinking more.

“What’s that?” Baptista asked.

“Generally, it’s been warmer through our adventures. Most of the time too hot.” I thought back to hiding out in the desert for the previous summer months. When Micaiah and I solidified our relationship, back when he had feelings and before his ultimate betrayal.

“I could use some heat now,” Baptista said.

I nodded in agreement.

We’d made it past the American perimeter and into the Denver suburbs, but we still didn’t know what we faced.

“Baptista,” I whispered. “Those American soldiers are going to let the ARK search for us. Their soldiers, the Cuius Regios, the Severins, they aren’t human. So, when we shoot, we shoot to kill.”

Baptista let out a long breath. “Dehumanizing the enemy. I understand.”

“But this time, they really aren’t human.”

“It’s the same thing,” she said.

She was right. I’d killed a Regio who begged for mercy. I’d helped Rachel Vixx become more than a killing machine. With emotions, she’d become human.

“We shouldn’t talk,” I said.

We drifted along and the entire dark of the ruined countryside watched us float. How on Earth were we ever going to find our people in the warzone?

And could we get to President Jack?

It seemed unlikely but that just made me grin all the more. We’d done the impossible before, and we were going to do it again.

However nasty our landing, however hard the life of a wanted outlaw and vicious terrorist, it was better than washing dishes at the Hurry Curry and living in a basement prison cell, numbing the solitude with drugs and alcohol.

Not just a little better. Infinitely better.

As my adrenaline waned and my exhaustion took over, the night felt sacred and I felt the meaning and purpose of my life.

This was why veterans had trouble returning to polite society.

Once you get used to war, nothing else will do.

(iii)

The eastern edge of the horizon faded from black to a dark blue I loved most. Out of all the colors in the world, the dark blue of a night sky giving way to dawn was my favorite.

We floated north, oaring only when we needed to correct our course. With most of the snow locked up in the Rockies, the river ran slow and shallow. Trash and the leftovers of better times lined the banks, paper scatter, plastic hills, furniture, mattresses, old computer equipment, cars and car parts, dolls and doll parts. One section looked to be made of books, stacked up and left there to mold and mildew.

“People sure had a lot of stuff back in the day,” Baptista muttered.

“Mama worked salvage. She said that people had more money than sense. She’d find hoarders who couldn’t eat all the peanut butter they stored. Those crazies might have the Holy Grail, and they’d never know it. She’d used hoarder nests mostly for the food. She didn’t want to waste time digging through the garbage.”

“The Sino helped with that, and the lean times after.”

“Without a doubt,” I said. “But computers also solved a lot of problems. We’d find all the video tapes, DVDs, all that media and now you need one good chalkdrive. And if you have internet access, it’s all there thanks to the Eternity Library online.”

“That’s true.” Baptista turned her face to stacks of old wood and drywall, some kind of big dumpsite, maybe a collection for houses, but they were all gone now. Reeds and weeds and grass covered large areas. The plains were taking back her land.

“I grew up in Detroit,” Baptista said, “and we got a state-sponsored slate when I was little. My parents were never home—my dad worked at the prison and my mom was an office manager for a dentist. I didn’t have any sisters, but a crazy aunt who could barely take care of herself. I spent my life on that slate. It had toy simulators and Barbie everything. It was fun. If it hadn’t been for my cousins, I’d never have left the house. Funny, Mom and Dad came from big families but only had me.”

She paused and sat there for several long seconds. “Then again, our family wasn’t so big after The Sino and the Knockout. Lost a lot of people in both, but mostly in the War. All my cousins went over and never came back, boys and girls alike. At home, we used to go to the relief center, like most people, to get canned food brought in from the Juniper. I guess the government paid salvaging teams well for reclaimed Juniper food.”

I winced at the idea. The Yankees should’ve gotten their own food and left the canned goods for Juniper folk, but America had always been a greedy beast.

Take Hereford Gold for example. Howerter had made untold millions, but the ARK, Sysco, and the U.S. government all had their hands in the pie, taking fistfuls of cash out of the crust.

I sighed. “My mom said the food thing was a racket. If you knew the right person