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

self, and I wasn’t being held by my Micaiah, but by the soulless clone, Micah Hoyt.

I said he’d only ever get to sucker punch me once. No, he had just smacked me again. And told me he loved me while he did it.

Micaiah pulled the chalkdrive from around his neck. “Cavatica Weller helped me get this out of the Juniper. It is research data stolen from my one of my father’s research facilities. You are seeing corporate espionage at its worst. This chalkdrive contains some new data on how to use Male Product more effectively, so families can have more of a choice on the kind of children they have. Also, not only will we have healthier children, we will have children immune to various diseases, including cancer. While my father and the American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative hasn’t cured the Sterility Epidemic, they are closer than ever to making this world a better place.”

I balled up a fist to hit Micaiah, to sock him in the nose, grab the chalkdrive, and then scream the truth into the cameras.

Before I could do a thing, a fat man with a red face and a million-dollar suit emerged from a side door. The room erupted in chatter and camera flashes. Tibbs Hoyt climbed the stairs, walked across the stage, and pulled me up from my seat. Then he drew me into an embrace.

My skin wanted to crawl right off my body.

He released me and never looked at me again. He picked up the chalkdrive, and then in a shaky voice, held up the cure for the Sterility Epidemic. “Thank you, Cavatica, thank you for saving my son. Your past crimes have been forgiven, and your family will want for nothing. Now that the United States peacekeeping forces have freed Burlington, I promise you, I will give you the money you need to rebuild your ranch. Don’t worry, America’s troops will free Denver as well from the tyranny of June Mai Angel and her terrorists.”

He sat down next to Micaiah. Stunned, I sat down on Hoyt’s left, like the unrepentant thief in the crucifixion. Micaiah, on his father’s left, was fully complicit in the drama.

I could imagine what was going on in Alcove B. I could picture all of the soldiers, holding Pilate, June Mai, Sharlotte, and Alice at gunpoint. Not guns, but stunners and charge guns—one wrong move, either zapped or disintegrated.

While Wren was in her room, mutating into something nothing on Earth could stop.

Tibbs Hoyt answered all the questions the media threw at him without looking at me once.

Easy questions.

Easier answers.

All charges dropped. The misunderstanding in Wendover was just that, a misunderstanding.

As ever, the ARK had America and the world’s best interest at heart.

And that was the deal.

Micaiah had bought our freedom. We were being forced to take a payoff and shut the hell up. But what would happen to Micaiah?

If I knew Tibbs Hoyt, Micaiah would be decommissioned. And then a tragic accident would be announced, that Hoyt had found his son only to lose him so soon afterwards. Micaiah really was giving up his life for us.

Like Rachel. What could be more human? What could be more Christian?

One of the reporters, an Indian woman in a gorgeous green sari was chosen to ask a question, “So from the kiss, Micah, are you and Cavatica an item?”

Micaiah played it demurely. “I’m not one to kiss and tell. But she is an amazing person. Smart, brave, funny, beautiful, everything.”

“Cavatica, would you like to comment?”

The whole world waited on me to say something, and I was damn sure not going to talk about my love life. No, I had a ton of things to say, but again, I knew one word of the truth and my family would die.

I leaned forward. The room leaned forward to listen to me. It was my chance. I had the world’s attention.

Both Tibbs Hoyt and Micaiah waited on me, both staring at me. Micaiah’s eyes were wrong, not there, blank. The kiss, his tears, had been a ruse. He couldn’t feel a thing, and that was how he could be lying to the World and walking away from me.

I looked back at the cameras, and I forced myself not to feel even as I smiled. “He said I was smart. But when it comes to Micah Hoyt, I’m as dumb as a bag of hammers.”

The room erupted in laughter, and Hoyt took over. “I’m afraid that is all the time we have. Thank you so much for coming out. And thank you again, Cavatica, for saving my son.”

Hoyt stepped back and put his arms around Marie Atlas and Marisol, like a husband, a father, and there were pictures, waving, and I stood up with Micaiah, and we held hands.

Marie Atlas leaned over to Tibbs Hoyt, and I heard her whisper, “The middle sister. We are having trouble with her.”

That made me smile. I’d grown up with Wren. I knew. These jokers had no idea how much trouble she was going to give them.

Micaiah drew me into a hug, a stiff lie of an embrace. He whispered in my ear, “Again, I apologize. But if you stay quiet, you will be taken care of financially for the rest of your lives. You will be safe. ‘Take this all of you and eat of it. This is my body, which has been given up for you.’”

I drew back. “Jesus didn’t die to save his own people. He died to save everyone.”

“I’m not Jesus,” Micaiah whispered. Then he moved away, joined his fake family, while I watched them walk off the stage.

I was left alone.

I turned, bathed in the light, blinded, while reporters hammered me with questions I couldn’t answer, not honestly, not if I wanted to walk out of there with my family still alive.

I closed my eyes ...

And listened for the silence between the shouted questions, camera clicks, the murderous pounding of my betrayed heart.

I listened for the silence deep inside me.

But nothing was there. Not silence. Certainly not