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

Denver’s skyscrapers rose to the east, and the mountains unleashing the clouds to the west. Wren stopped by a derelict prison, lots of concrete, downed fences, and razor wire.

This far west, that fencing wouldn’t mean much to salvage monkeys. They would’ve focused on the interior. A lot of simple construction material wasn’t worth the cost of transporting it to a border.

Across Kipling were two other buildings. One bore a sign that said it was the Rocky Mountain School for the Deaf. There was another school further down a weedy dirt road. We jogged past the deaf school and approached the other building. Clouds took away the sun. The smell of snow and dry grass fields played in our noses.

Another sign lay covered in dust and grime. I shuffled forward to get a look.

D’Evelyn High School.

Wren, toting Pilate in the raft, moved away. Baptista followed. I stopped, gazing down at that sign. A high school, gossip girls, gymnasium dances, and final exams. Normal life for a seventeen-year-old girl.

Friends, lovers, first kisses, and late-night video at sleepovers including popcorn and too much soda.

Still I stood there. Rough bits of icy snow thwacked across my shoulders. The wind swept the jagged snow into my face, but I didn’t wince.

That sign told me that my high school years were over, my teens were over, and now instead of textbooks I studied the art of war.

A rage cracked open my heart, and I drew one of Wren’s .45s. My coat had covered them, so Wren hadn’t seen her precious guns she’d thrown away after she’d been forced to shoot the only man she’d ever loved.

“Don’t, Cavatica,” a whispered voice said.

It was nearly dark now. I had no idea how long I’d stood there, remembering my dumb high school experience in Cleveland—dumb but precious and over too soon.

I looked up. Sharlotte was there. She didn’t wear a dress, but camouflage pants and jacket. Our mother’s M16, Tina Machinegun, was cradled in her arm. Mama loved the singer Tina Turner.

I gritted my teeth and then relaxed some, enough to slip the pistol back into its holster. “I was going to kill the sign.”

“That sign is long dead.” Sharlotte’s hat covered her head, but not her face. She’d thinned down, prolly too much running and not enough eating. She had those dark eyes. Like Daddy. Like Wren.

“I won’t ever get to go to high school again,” I said, blinking against the snow.

“No, I don’t reckon you will,” she said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner.” I took a step, tripped on the damn sign, and Sharlotte caught me. “I’m sorry I left you. And those mean things I said...they were to push you away. I’m sorry for always hurting you.”

“All is forgiven.” Sharlotte held me and murmured in my ear, “Us Wellers do like the drama. And while we always leave, we always come back together. Wren left and came back. I left and came back. And you did too.”

“Twice.”

“No,” Sharlotte said. “You going away to school was Mama’s idea. You hadn’t wanted to leave the ranch, remember? No, you staying in Hays was you leaving, and now you’re back.” She took my hand and led me toward the crumble of D’Evelyn High School.

Sharlotte had learned forgiveness. Given enough time, I think we all will.

We found shelter under the entryway. This had a concrete pad covered in dirt and broken glass from the doors. And of course different bits of leftovers from the salvage monkeys who had gutted the school. A splintered pencil. The top of a desk marked with graffiti. A plastic Coke bottle so brittle that if you looked at it twice, it’d turn to dust.

“I have to tell you something about me,” Sharlotte said. “Before we go in, you have to know, June Mai and I are together. Turns out I’m gillian.” She watched my face, to gauge my reaction.

I already knew this based on what I’d seen back on the border. The fact she was homosexual didn’t bother me a bit. Tenisha Keys had loved Nikki Breeze. I’d seen same-sex love work and work well. And I remembered Sharlotte saying that being with Micaiah hadn’t felt right. Then I recalled the stories of her practicing kissing with Jolie Wayne and Pearl Jane Macaby.

So her being gillian wasn’t a big deal. Now, the object of Sharlotte’s affections? Please.

“But she’s such a villainous skank, Shar,” I said before I could stop the bubble of my own anger. That sign, it had opened me back up to feeling again, and goddammit, feelings suck.

Sharlotte grinned. “What a thing to say about your sister-in-law. We’re married and you better learn to like her.”

“She nearly killed us. She destroyed our house. She’s...” and words left me.

“She’s mine,” Sharlotte said. “We’re generals of this army, and it made sense for us to marry. When ’til-death-do-us part is most days, you have to do such things. But about me being gillian...”

“Join the club. I joined it.” My stomach burned and twisted. Talking about this, about me. “I had a girlfriend in Hays, and a dumb boyfriend, and all that sex stuff is pretty silly, but it took me away. But I was never serious.”

I didn’t tell her that Starla had called me a shut-up-sexual.

Ow. It hurt to think of Starla and how I’d treated her and my Hurry Curry friends.

“’Cause of Micaiah,” she said.

“No!” I yelled it, but I might’ve yelled “yes” just as loudly.

Sharlotte gripped my hand harder. “’Cause of Micaiah,” she repeated.

I dropped my chin and looked away. But I had to correct her. “’Cause of it all. ’Cause of my war.”

“Our war. We all own it together,” Sharlotte said. “And like everything we’ve ever owned, this war is a mess of salvage, all patched up and hardly working. But it is working. We are holding our own out here.”

“But for how long?” I asked.

“You tell me,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t run into Denver without a plan.”

And her saying that, her knowing me, eased some of