Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4), Aaron Ritchey [best beach reads txt] 📗

food. I didn’t know how picked-over civilization would be way out west here. Or how we’d find Marisol’s people. And how could we stop without first rescuing our boys?

I took a moment to doctor my feet. Nikola Nichols had supplied each Stanley with a first aid kit including antibiotic cream, gauze, tape, and bandages. I’d been cut badly from stomping down on the yoke—my right heel had a U-shaped cut, and the pads of my left had three shallower gashes in a line—but the bleeding had stopped. I cleaned the wounds and then let them air out and resumed worrying.

Wren and I took turns driving Marilyn, allowing each of us to sleep, but the Stanleys jarred us as they walked; sleeping on horses seemed easier. I wasn’t sure, but with our gait, I figured we were tromping along at about fifteen kilometers per hour. A pretty good clip, considering, but not fast enough to catch up with Edger.

The snow, though, was piling up, more and more centimeters. Lucky for us, the Stanleys were heavy enough that they wouldn’t have a problem unless accumulation was measured in meters.

We didn’t have access to any kind of weather report that would tell us if we were in trouble. While the rest of the world might be living in the information age, we were lost in the darkness of our ignorance.

Edger’s Humvee would handle well in the snow, but I wasn’t so sure about the Athapasca.

And the snow continued to fall.

(iii)

The night passed. The snow stopped, finally, though the storm clouds still closed the sky. In the early morning, we stopped; about twenty-five centimeters of snow covered the old highway. Wren, Sharlotte above us, me, we all sat in silence. It felt nice not to be moving.

The firebox was glowing red hot, which worried me. It had been burning all night long, and I wasn’t sure if Nikola Nichols had really anticipated her war machines would run so hot for so long. They’d been built for battle, not long-distance walking.

Thinking about Nikola made me smile. I still couldn’t believe I’d met her, since I had so much hero worship for her co-worker, Maggie Jankowski, the woman who invented the Eterna battery, the power source that changed the world outside of the Juniper. Nikola had been with Maggie at GE, but then left to study the Juniper problem, to see if she could come up with shielding. In Utah, Aces and his men had grabbed her and made her think for them in Glenwood Springs since they had the brain capacity of Rhesus monkeys. No, that was being unfair to the monkeys.

Still, the tech of the Stanleys bothered me, and I wished for Micaiah, so I could consult with him. He had such a good mind, and when he was on his meds, such a wonderful personality; he was fun to kiss, and his laughter was music to me. He could laugh as long and as hard as Pilate, who loved a good joke as much as a cigar and coffee.

We had to get them back.

At this point, Edger might be beyond our reach. Unless she turned herself around and came at us. The valley was narrow enough that we’d see them unless Edger was trying for Independence Pass.

We just didn’t know.

Finally, I sighed to break the quiet. “Dang, Wren, I’d rather be chased than do the chasing.”

My sister rolled her eyes at me. “You’d rather be the rabbit than the hunter? Jacker that, Cavvy. We’ll find Edger.”

“What if she gets over Independence Pass before we do? What if she finds a way out of this valley or gets around back to Glenwood?” I asked. “Micaiah will be all right, but they’ll kill Pilate.”

Wren’s face hardened into stone. “Then I will murder everyone in the ARK. I will skin Tibbs Hoyt and wear him like a jacket. I swear to God, Cavvy. I swear to God.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered. “God don’t like it.”

“God don’t care.”

“I do.” Out the driver’s door I went. I fled her rage and hurt ’cause it was getting to me.

Cold, so cold, even with the itchy wool blanket around my shoulders. I’d given up on the slippers and went barefoot across the snow. I climbed up the ladder on Marilyn’s side and stuck my feet near the boiler. My toes found relief in the heat.

Marisol and the others were out, wrapped in blankets, all weary and mealy-eyed from travel sleep, which didn’t feel like sleep at all. We had some cans of pears and peaches, which Wren opened with her Betty knife.

We each got a can. I ate the fruit and slurped up the sugar juice. It had that metallic taste, but I’d grown up eating Juniper canned food, so it made me a little homesick for the ranch.

It took me a minute to remember that peaches had been important to Micaiah. Us eating them together had been a turning point in our relationship. It made me sad that he’d not been my first thought.

After eating, I took a pair of pants Wren had grabbed from one of the Regios we’d killed, and I cut the fabric to wrap my feet. Wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing.

In my pant-shoes, I walked over with a can of fruit to give to Rachel in Audrey Hepburn’s cockpit. Rachel refused to eat. She sat there, gray-faced, eyes like flint from her heartbreak. She had so wanted to find Pilate. Not finding them with the ARK convoy was like losing them all over again.

I kissed Rachel’s cheek and left the can next to her, hoping she’d find the strength to eat.

“Hope is our weapon, Rachel,” I said to her. “But if you don’t eat, you won’t have the strength to use it.”

She finally gave in and picked up the can of peaches but didn’t join us outside.

I returned to my perch above the boiler. The firebox still glowed red, and I’d wait until the metal returned to a normal color before we