Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Ritchey (best books to read for students TXT) 📕

over the fence, chasing the Moby, but like I thought, she had become supercharged and flew away into the night.

Where was Marie Atlas and the chalkdrive?

Couldn’t leave. Couldn’t. Not without the chalkdrive.

I spun the Laredo around. The last we’d seen, Marie Atlas had been in the main corridor, but she wasn’t there now. Most likely, she’d be heading for the border. We might already be too late.

I crashed through mattresses, making for the alley next to the fence. I knew a section had been blocked by the plastic wall of crashing leftovers. Had to get lucky ...

And we did. Atlas was on the fence, right in front of us, climbing it.

I floored the Laredo, giving the pistons every bit of steam the old girl had. I opened the door, and it punched the Severin off the fence; hit her so hard it ripped the door from its hinges.

I slammed on the brakes.

Dust swirled around us as Micaiah and I banged out of our truck to face her.

She was lying on the ground, struggling to get up. The bottom half of her had been twisted around and her hips were all wrong on her body. But she wasn’t crying out or grunting or anything, she was merely trying to follow her imperatives; to deliver the chalkdrive to safety, despite her destroyed body.

Around her neck was the chalkdrive, though not for long. Micaiah nimbly plucked it off and then threw it to me. I put it on.

The Severin didn’t respond, but continued to struggle pathetically. For a mad minute, I thought about putting her down. But no, not my call. Let her struggle. I wasn’t sure if she could heal a wound like that, not sure at all, but we had to go.

Back in the Laredo, I couldn’t turn her around, so I drove it in reverse, which, if you grow up on a ranch, you learn how to do.

The other Havoks were now silent. Ha, no electricity for them.

Once we were out of the alley, I spun the truck around, and we were back on the main street. The soldiers had piled out to cluster around their dead Havoks. For whatever reason, the EM field from Yellowstone must’ve had a long reach that evening, right when we needed it.

Lucky for us. For once, we had the vehicle and the Regios were reduced to shoe leather.

Micaiah and I drove away from them, the chalkdrive once again around my neck. I watched them getting smaller in my rearview mirror and then crashed through the northern gates of the salvage yard.

I made a left turn onto a road and silently thanked the Juniper. Her EM field had saved us. What was her greatest liability had become our greatest asset. I felt love for my troubled homeland and grinned.

“You still alive?” I asked Micaiah.

“Not really alive,” he said. “But not dead. Cavatica, you do know we can’t keep winning like this. We simply cannot continue being so fortunate. Our luck is bound to run out.”

“I know that,” I said. “I know.”

We drove toward the actual town of Plainville in the quiet. Missing the Juniper border by only about a kilometer, the little hamlet had gone to seed, but that’s luck or fate or God or whatever. A kilometer, a centimeter, a half second, and everything would’ve been different for us and for that town.

Wren was alive. Alice had mentioned Sharlotte, so I could only assume Rachel still lived as well. Prolly even Dutch had made it. I looked forward to hearing the story of all them meeting up with Nikola Nichols and her Stanleys. I hoped to one day hear the tale. And I could only hope the battle of four armies would turn out well for my family and the people we loved.

Things were going good.

Then, a half second later, the pressure of the steam truck went bad. The needle took a nose dive to zero and we rolled to a stop.

It was the first of many things that would go wrong that night. Our luck had grown thin as a towel washed too many times.

(iv)

Micaiah and I took a minute to troubleshoot the piping but couldn’t find the leak. We finally gave up and started walking. The sun was heading toward the horizon, but there was a ceiling of clouds over us, so it felt like night already, like we were walking through a shadowy land of wind, gloom, and yellow grass. The ghost town in the distance looked like an old man, haggard and exhausted, waiting to die. My combat boots were far better than the cross-country ski boots I’d ruined my feet in, so it wasn’t bad. And I wasn’t alone. Micaiah wasn’t much company, but he was someone. I couldn’t help but hold his hand, just to feel something other than the chalkdrive around my neck.

In the chill air, I huddled closer to Micaiah. I had on my sage-colored army coat, but my gloves, hat, and other gear I’d left on Corwin. I hoped he and the other horses were okay.

Micaiah stopped abruptly, turned, and stepped back from me. He regarded me for a moment, in silence, his dead eyes searching my face.

“What now?” I asked.

“You won’t stop,” Micaiah said. “You will never stop, will you? Even if it means everyone you ever loved will die, you will never stop. I was correct in my assumption when I first met you. I knew if I told you about the nature of my quest, you would finish it, even if it meant the deaths of you and your family.”

“Kill me to stop me,” I said. Then I remembered what June Mai Angel had said about what she had done in her righteous cause. He was right. I didn’t have free will. I’d been given a task, and like Pilate had said, it was my sacred duty to carry it out. My imperatives. Get the cure to the Sterility Epidemic out into the world. Make the ARK find a cure for LaTanya and