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

of her hand. “Trying to dig through the permafrost is going to give you an aneurism.”

She looked at me for a long time.

“Cry with me,” Sharlotte said. “You wept when you saw Mama, and Wren and I held you. I wished I could’ve cried with you, but my heart felt too wounded. Can you cry with me now?”

I’d never seen Sharlotte so raw, beseeching me with bewildered eyes.

I couldn’t take those pleading eyes, and I drew her in to hug her. As for tears, where I’d kept them was an empty pocket, my heart a dried sponge, wrung out too many times and left too long in the sunshine. Nothing was there. Only a weary determination to get to the Yellowstone caldera and find the ARK’s secret research facility. To finish the quest Micaiah warned me I should never start.

Wasn’t sure what we were going to do about the Wind River people. They’d helped us before, but odds were, they wouldn’t help us again.

While I thought and planned and strategized, Sharlotte sobbed on my shoulder until it seemed she’d falter and tumble down. But no, I’d be there to help her, as would Wren.

My big Gamma sister stomped out of the Heartbreaker, in a new tarpaulin poncho she’d sewn including a hood, which kept most of her body swathed in canvas and her face hidden. She’d left her cleaver and her slaughter machine inside.

And wasn’t that just like my sister... if she couldn’t blast her enemies with shrapnel, she’d chop them in half with a machete as big as I was.

Wren held us, head down, until she started to hum a song; she hummed it ‘cause she couldn’t form the words. I knew the words, the song Mama always sang, some old R&B tune that never hit the radio. It was what the old-timers called a B-side.

How much do I love you,

oh, where do I start?

Through the valleys of my soul,

’cross the mountains of my heart.

I sang the chorus in a low voice until Sharlotte stopped sobbing. She stepped back, embarrassed, and I knew why. Sharlotte’s job in our family was to be the strong one, the leader—never show emotions and never show cracks.

She held my face in her hands, and I felt her thumbs brush under my eyes, touching the dry skin where my tears should’ve been.

“I’m sorry,” Sharlotte said, “for all those years when I made fun of you for crying. I’m sorry you can’t cry now.”

I closed my eyes, ashamed. And isn’t that just life? I’d spent years not wanting to cry and being ashamed. And now I couldn’t cry, and more shame was piled on.

Standing there with my sisters, my heart was heavy with sorrow, but I wasn’t dead inside. No, I realized. I wasn’t a negative number, and I wasn’t zero, not anymore. I’d made it to a plus one. And that made me smile a sad smile.

Wren took the pick and whirled it around, her poncho moving with her shoulders, until she sank it into the ground. She dragged out a clot of frozen clay as big as my head.

I couldn’t cry, but I could help dig.

I fetched a shovel and started shoveling out the little bits of mud and clay Wren couldn’t get. We worked, Sharlotte watching us, letting us do the job, and not coaching, not getting involved, and not insisting we do it her way.

She let us dig the grave for her wife. She accepted the gift.

It’s a cruel thing to cage our family members in their roles. And then when they want to change, we hit them with teasing or cruelty to keep them playing their part, however insane, ineffectual, or ancient. I’d done it to both Sharlotte and Wren, but no more.

We were going to let each other change, and that’s how family should be. With so much history, you can forge memories into chains and roles into jail cells. Jacker all that.

Pilate wandered out and saw us. He didn’t ask questions. And for once, he didn’t light up a cigar. He stood next to Sharlotte. When I looked back, I saw them holding hands, and I knew Sharlotte appreciated his comfort and his silence.

Quietly, working doggedly, we created a grave, three meters long, two meters wide, a meter deep. We squared it up, Wren and I, and then stepped back to appreciate our work.

By that time, Baptista joined us along with a still shaky President Jack, pale and withdrawn, wearing a soldier’s coat too big for him. Then Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz, and the last dozen or so of June Mai’s army. Out of the thousand troops, only a dozen made it out alive.

We stood there, the survivors, solemn, mourning, staring into the empty grave that would hold no body. Then I noticed the bits of asphalt, an overpass in the distance, and I knew we were on I-25, maybe near Firestone, and I swore, if we made it out alive, I’d work to build a monument here. I’d make June Mai a gravestone that would rival the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington D.C.

We stood around the grave, Wren at the south end, standing on the pile of dirt. Sharlotte glanced at Pilate. It was time for a eulogy.

Pilate opened his mouth, went to say a word, and couldn’t.

A tear slid down his cheek.

He dropped his head, shook his head, and he wasn’t going to be able to say anything.

Sharlotte looked at me, and she didn’t need to say another word.

She needed me to talk. I was a positive integer again, so I somehow found the words.

“God bless June Mai Angel,” I said. “God bless, Alice.”

My voice broke. That had been a hard death to carry. She’d found freedom though, from her troubled mind. When I said her name, I didn’t remember her lying in the alley, blood dripping off her hair. In my mind, I saw her smiling, loving me, loving my sisters, and saving the day.

I continued because Alice wasn’t the