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

Luckily, Pilate still had an Uber account, a working Visa, and he remembered his passwords, which were the sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, and a few others from the Bible’s begats.

The Uber driver in his frictionless van dropped us off where I-70 ended, on the very western edge of the U.S. The highway ended in a circle, so people could turn around. The driver said he’d wait for us in his van.

Pilate and I walked to the fence line separating Kansas from the Juniper. I couldn’t get back into the hotel to get my gear, my clothes, nothing. So, I was still in the blanket and the New Morality dress. The flats did nothing to warm my feet but at least the snow was dry and froze to the ground.

On the American side, there was asphalt. On the other side of the fence was a stretch of dirt and gravel ’cause all the asphalt had been burned up by salvage monkeys twenty years earlier. You can melt asphalt down into road coal to feed steam engines.

The chain-link gate, an intimidating affair topped with razor and running on electric rollers, stood open. Weatherproof VSD monitors, paid for by the SISBI laws, showed the border would close in six minutes. A clock counted down. Underneath were signs, white with red and blue words across the front.

WARNING: You are leaving the United States of America. You will not be allowed back without proper documentation and identification. This perimeter is secured. Failure to comply will be met with fines and imprisonment.

But I knew better. The Juniper was the jail time.

Another sign caught my eye. Which was the point.

WARNING: THIS IS AN ELECTRIC FENCE! DO NOT TOUCH! DO NOT TRY!

I bet Maggie Jankowski didn’t figure on her batteries killing people. General Electric had—without a doubt. They had big military contracts for charge guns and the like.

DO NOT TOUCH! DO NOT TRY! Was the tagline of a new government-funded ad campaign to keep our dwindling population from killing themselves on the SISBI fences.

The timer on the fence continued to count it down. They’d set this perimeter outside of the Juniper’s EM field, so the power wouldn’t fluctuate like I saw on the monitors in Buzzkill, Nebraska, or in the casinos outside of Wendover where we fought Reb and Ronnie Vixx.

Sharlotte and June Mai already stood on the other side of the fence, on Juniper soil, waiting. But I couldn’t go. And I couldn’t tell them why. Again, the Hayao slate felt like an anvil weighing me down, body and soul. Again, I remembered Alice’s sightless eyes and the blood that saturated her messy hair. The blood dripped to the pavement.

Inside, I wanted to cry for her. But I couldn’t show any of them a thing. This was going to be business as usual.

June Mai was Vietnamese; silver flecked her dark hair, but her skin was still smooth. Her eyes seemed ageless. Her eyes were so full of power that when she stared at you, you wanted to take a step back. She’d found her fatigues, so green covered her. With her tek hood around her neck, she looked every bit the soldier and leader she was. Over her shoulder was an AZ3 assault rifle next to a large backpack holding their traveling supplies.

Sharlotte, my Sharlotte, stood shoulders above June. She was in her old fighting clothes, jeans and a heavy North Face parka. I wasn’t sure where she got her clothes, or the combat boot covering her right foot. Her left foot was the plastic of a prosthetic limb since I’d had to cut off her leg to save her life.

Old saddle bags rested across her shoulders along with Tina Machinegun, our family’s M16.

Shar was a big woman, meaty and curvy and strong as an ox. We shared the same straw-colored hair, a round face like our mother, but Sharlotte was far prettier. Like Wren, Sharlotte’s pretty was in her dark-lashed, nighttime eyes, which they both got from Daddy.

Rocks poked through the snow to dig into my feet. My poor feet. They’d been through a lot. My poor heart. It had been through more.

“It’s kind of nice they don’t have border guards,” Pilate muttered.

“Don’t kid yourself. They do,” I said. “They have Kestrel gunships who can be here in three minutes. I read about them. Every inch of fence is monitored and guarded. They don’t have humans, but they have guards.”

Sharlotte frowned at me. “There was a patrol that came by. We talked to them, and they said some kind of beast came running through. We think it’s either Wren or Alice. Maybe both slipped back into the Juniper. Come on. We gotta catch up to them.”

Wasn’t Alice. Didn’t say it. Couldn’t. ’Cause I’d killed her like Hoyt had said.

June Mai lifted a hand.

I lifted a hand back.

Then I noticed her other hand held Sharlotte’s. They were holding hands. What did that mean? Uh, I knew what it meant, but Sharlotte? My sister?

“I ain’t going back,” I said. “I’m staying in Hays. What’s back in the Juniper for me?”

Sharlotte lost every bit of color in her face. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then got mean. “For one, you don’t have a U.S. ID. And dammit, Cavvy, we have to go help Wren and Alice. And didn’t you promise other Gammas to help them? Well, we can’t do it in America. Not sure what we can do, but we have to do something. The U.S. government is sending troops to take Denver. And you can bet they’re gonna be running through Burlington and taking land. Things are changing, and you belong with your family.”

I did. But I couldn’t explain that I had to stay, that I had no choice but to stay and scan in daily. At least in that way, I could do my bit to keep Hoyt off their backs.

A million thoughts flooded me. A million cries for help. A million