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

only death that encumbered me. “God bless, Beatrice Maria Mercedes Gonzales, Nikki Breeze, Tenisha Keys, Kasey Romero, Allie Chambers, Dolly Day Cornpone, and Annabeth Burton. God bless Nichola Nichols. God bless Desdemona Rodriguez. And God bless LaTanya Ashley. God bless Lucretia Macaby.”

Crete. That had been a hard one as well. My voice left me.

Sketchy stepped up. “God bless June Mai Angel.” She paused, that old hatred gone, now that the true nature of June Mai had been revealed. She’d jumped into the river to save me. And she’d held on to a nuclear weapon to save us all.

Sketchy continued. “God bless the Moby Dick. God bless Pam Smyth, Tam Donovan, and Veronica Guerrero.”

Tech spoke and she blessed June Mai, and then all the names she remembered. And around we went saying hundreds of names, blessing them, and each time someone would start with June Mai Angel. Sharlotte cried, Pilate held her hand, and around it went.

Baptista blessed June Mai, but also blessed Brigadier General Martha Eibling, and she listed the divisions that had lost their lives in Denver.

And again, it was the good news of our voices in the silence. We were alive, saying the names of the dead, and that was God: both the silence and our voices in the silence.

We all took a turn being God, until only Pilate, Wren, and Sharlotte hadn’t said their litany.

“God bless June Mai Angel,” Pilate said. “God bless Rachel. God bless Petal.” His tears choked him quiet.

Sharlotte took it up. “God bless June Mai Angel.” Then she too fell quiet, turning to Wren.

“Mama,” Wren said slowly and firmly. “God bless. Abigail. Weller.” A single tear trickled down her big mishappen face.

Her prayer surprised me. I’d be even more surprised when Wren finally found forgiveness for Mama. It would take a bit. Right there, though, at the grave, it was a start.

We joined hands. We said the Lord’s Prayer. And then each of us took a hand of cold dirt and threw it into the grave.

Wren finished it, shoveling the dirt back into that hole that took us so much time to dig.

That is life, my friends. We spend eighty years digging an empty grave and we fill it full of memories and then ourselves. All the effort, all the struggle, that’s where we find our meaning even though the grave is covered in minutes.

Out of the many funerals we’d had in the Juniper Wars, that one, with the empty hole, was the finest.

(iii)

People drifted off until it was only me, Wren, and Sharlotte. I wasn’t going to leave without my sisters.

At some point, we turned to look north, toward the last journey we’d take on our tour of duty in the Juniper Wars.

Wren took in a deep breath, held it for a long time, and let it out slowly.

All of my life, she’d been such a mystery to me, but now I knew her, knew what it was to walk around in her skin and carry her pistols. And yet, the biggest enigma, something I couldn’t quite explain, was that never in her life had she seemed so at peace, so comfortable with herself. Was it the antipsychotics? Probably. But there seemed to be something else.

I put my hand in hers, not that I could really. Her hand had become so huge, so thick and so massive. It was like holding hands with a side of beef, warm instead of cold. She curled her massive mitt around mine.

“Wren. I know it’s hard for you to talk, but are you okay? You seem so at peace. Are you?”

Wren turned her shaggy head and showed me her glittering eyes. She smiled with thick lips. Her beauty was gone, and yet she didn’t seem to care.

“Peace.” Wren grumbled. “Gone coco. Maybe.”

Sharlotte and I exchanged worried glances. If my sister lost it, we wouldn’t be able to put her down. No chance of that happening.

Wren grinned showing teeth like rocks, yellowed, and massive. I remembered they’d been her pride and joy not so long ago.

“Vanity. Gone.” Wren said. “Fear. Gone. Only sisters. Only us.”

“What about going coco?” I asked.

Wren shrugged. “Already was coco. Gammas didn’t. Know how. Didn’t know how to handle crazy. Me? For all my life.”

Sharlotte let out a long breath, her eyes going heavy. All that sadness was getting to her and I knew she planned on sleeping for a week. But we couldn’t afford to lose a single second. We had exactly twelve days before my routines on the slate stopped working and Hoyt would know I’d left the World and returned to the Juniper.

On March 30, 2059, when my scan failed, he’d find Cecelia Beckencourt with the slate. Neither she, nor her family, would survive. Then he’d send his monsters to Cleveland for Anju and Billy. Baptista would hopefully be there to stop him from killing my friends, but better would be for us to end Hoyt first.

Sharlotte leaned into Wren. “Irene, you weren’t crazy. Just wounded. But I guess you learned how to handle the wounds. This is just one more. Your body, your mind, broken.”

“No,” Wren said fiercely. “Not. Broken. I told you. Me. Free. For now.” She huffed in hair, grunting a bit.

She managed to calm herself. But what happened when she couldn’t? We were out of myal-olanzapine. Once Wren snapped, it would be over. Maybe for us all.

“Me,” Wren said, “us. We. Me. Us. We go and get Hoyt. We go and get ARK. Never a better fight. Never more at peace. Never better.”

And we held each other, the Weller sisters, as we faced the wind and the north and our final quest.

Wren was right. We’d never been better or stronger. Tibbs Hoyt was in trouble deep.

We were coming for him.

And I’d like to believe, on the windy day, with the ashes of Denver in the air, that he knew it. And he was afraid.

He had a right to be.

We were women with guns hunting gods.

And the world, the Juniper, would never, ever be the same.

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