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

was? Why not tell them a nice story before they were taken away?

LaTanya bent her head over me and wept.

Her tears trickled down my skin, and you know what? It was a baptism. Some of my own cynicism and coldness was washed away.

What was left was hard and determined.

What was left was my imperative.

And another woman was taken away.

Dang me, if that wasn’t when LaTanya started singing.

(ii)

Tears on her face, a smile on her lips, LaTanya didn’t sing anything that made any sense, not to me at least. I figured she’d sing a hymn if she sang a word, but instead she belted out, “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

The women in the room, fifteen of us, all turned on her, the young, the old, the thick, the thin, the scared, the whipped, the heartbroken, we all turned.

She sang about us, one being taken down, passed around, and then there were ninety-eight bottles of beer left on the wall. For a long second, I thought she had lost it, crying one minute, singing an unlikely song the next.

Take one down, pass it around, ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall.

Then I got it, and I chuckled. The chuckle felt good, so I sniggered. That felt good, so I laughed out loud, laughed and started singing along with her.

Ninety-six bottles of beer on the wall.

’Cause that’s what was happening. There wasn’t ninety-six women in the derelict DQ, but fifty. And one by one, they were being taken down, taken through the door, and we were one less woman.

More women joined in, and it was eighty-eight bottles of beer on the wall. Then seventy-three bottles of beer. Fifty-one. The door opened, and one of the remaining woman stepped forward to be taken away, smiling, hopeful. Was it ’cause I promised to get a cure and bring it back? Maybe. Did the song help? Definitely.

The brave woman left, and we all belted out, fourteen bottles of beer on the wall, fourteen bottles of beer. Fourteen women left in the room.

We’d forgotten where we left off, but it didn’t matter. LaTanya then asked a girl sitting next to her, “What’s your favorite song? I don’t think the hogs sing, so this might be our last chance.”

“Don’t Stop Believin’,” she said.

It was an old timey tune, but we all knew it. City boys and small-town girls, ha, back when there were cities full of boys.

We sang it loud, and we sang it long, and we sang it twice for good measure.

Then we moved on, sang some old tune about Rocky Raccoon, about a gunfighter and Gideon’s bible. And we sang Johnny Cash, and we sang LeAnna Wright. We sang Country Mac Sterling’s rendition of “America, the Beautiful,” with his brilliant lyrics, of course.

Another woman was taken away, another woman taken down, passed around, and we sang for her, sang out thirteen bottles of beer on the wall. Thirteen women left in the DQ.

Hours, songs, jokes, memories, and we laughed and laughed as the night hid the horror show outside. That was outside. Inside our DQ was music and laughter and hope ’cause we weren’t about to stop believin’.

Each time the door opened, someone else volunteered to go ’cause they wanted to make sure I was last. If I had any chance to save them, I’d have to be the last one, waiting for a miracle.

Finally, it was just me and LaTanya, sitting there. Two bottles of beer on the wall, two bottles of beer ...

“How could you find the courage to sing?” I asked her. “And before, you were joking even after all your friends were dead. How can that be?”

She shrugged and looked at me warmly. “I’m New Morality. I’m a Christian. Death isn’t the end, Cavatica. It’s only the beginning. My soul has been washed clean in the blood of Jesus, and I don’t have anything to fear.”

I searched her face. She wasn’t kidding. She was still a true believer. She was like I had been for months, until I started breaking commandments like walnut shells and eating up all my sins.

She then quoted from Matthew, the whole thing, from memory. “‘Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?’”

Too bad Tibbs Hoyt hadn’t read his Bible more. Again, I thought of Rachel and the Christian story of hope and meaning.

After a long silence, LaTanya asked, “Cavatica, are you Christian?”

Was I? I didn’t know. But I let a big ol’ grin cover my face and misquoted some song I’d forgotten the name of. “I sure am tonight, ma’am.”

She leaned over and gave me a big hug.

“I’ll pray for you,” she whispered.

“Not sure He’ll listen,” I whispered back. I was Pilate’s daughter, my daddy a rogue priest who killed people and quoted scripture doing it. Maybe God didn’t listen to prayers about people like him and people like me.

“He will,” LaTanya promised. “He will deliver you, and you’ll come back with a cure.”

The door opened.

We both stood. One last hug.

“Thanks, LaTanya,” I said. “Thanks for the songs.” No tears in my eyes, but she had enough in her eyes for the both of us.

“Two little bottles of beer on the wall, two little bottles of beer ...” she sang in a choked voice.

One last touch, one last time holding hands, and she was led out of the room, leaving me alone.

“One woman on the wall,” I whispered. “One woman on the wall.”

Never in my life had I been in an emptier room. Never before had I felt so alone.

Minutes crawled like a dying girl begging for death.

An hour went by.

They would be coming for me at any minute.

Then the back door opened. Outside it was inky with darkness, the dawn hours away.

Alice grinned at me.