Campbell (37 page)

“We don’t have to do that,” Cole replied, standing firm on his spot. “We don’t need the meat. We can buy it from somewhere else.”

“We have these cows so we don’t have to.”

“We own these cows because we want to,” Cole shouted. “Because they need us, and we can help them.”

“Cole,” Lucy said carefully, in the hopes of avoiding Andrew kicking Cole’s ass like he did sometimes. He was rough on his younger brother, more lately than ever before, especially since Cole had sprouted up to match him in height. “It can’t just be all about the cows. We…there’s an order to things. It’s what they’re here for.”

Lucy tugged her twin inside and sat him down at the kitchen table of their new house. It was larger than they needed, with five bedrooms and three bathrooms, but it was new, and the heating worked well, and there was nothing in it that reminded Lucy of her grandfather. Everything felt fresh, even when the boy sludge her brothers and everyone else that seemed to visit left behind, started building up.

“You need to not challenge him so much. You know how he is,” she told him firmly. “Sometimes, could you just let him do his thing, if he thinks he needs to do it.”

“Even if his thing involves slaughtering innocent cows?”

“Better the cows than some kid that looks at him the wrong way, or some less-useful animal. He’s…” She leaned in. “There’s something wrong with him. You know that, Mom knew that. We need to keep him under control.”

“He’s a dick,” Cole muttered. He cocked his head at Lucy. “You could stop him, you know. He’d listen to you if you talked to him the way you do sometimes.”

Lucy swallowed, her heart aching for her younger brother. He was so good, so naive sometimes.
 
“Cole,” she said carefully, “We need to kill those cows. We need the meat—“
 

“We don’t—“

“What does it look like if we can’t even kill a cow? Kids look up to us. We’ve got to be tough. You’ve…you need to try and be tougher.”

“You’re heartless, you and him,” Cole replied coldly. “We watched those cows come into this world.”

“They’re just cows, Cole,” Lucy said softly, pulling him onto the blue velvet couch she’d begged Bull to bring her from Calgary the week before. “They’re not you and me, or Andrew, or Bull. We have to take care of our own first, and the cows have to go. We can’t be starving—“

“We’re not starving though. That’s the point.”

“That’s because we’re lucky, and smart, and because we’re good at making decisions.” Her eyes met his and she raised her eyebrows. “We’re not starving because we kill the cows we need to. We’re Campbells because we do what needs to be done.”

November 2012

Campbell

When Lucy woke beside Tal the next morning, she felt something she hadn’t in a long time.
 

Contented.

She lay there, watching him sleep, sprawled out on his back as she’d decided was his norm. He was still hairy and bulgy like he’d been the first time they’d shared a bed, but it was different now. She wasn’t exactly embracing it, but she accepted it.
 

When they’d first spent time together, she found herself comparing him to her brother, but now she saw it all clearly. It wasn’t that he was like Cole. Where Cole had stood by her side and followed her, Tal was in front of her. He forced her to examine herself. He had been since they met. He didn’t blindly support her, embrace her. If he liked her, it was for who she was now and the things she’d done, not simply because he’d always known her.
 

Since she was little, she’d always looked for people that made her feel the way Cole did.
 
Safe. Secure. Accepted. Tal had played along with her for at least two hours the night before, until they’d both succumbed to exhaustion. They’d drawn out a new, ridiculous life that would never exist together, where they traveled and had all the time in the world. He’d helped her escape, if only for a little while into a place that didn’t hurt so much. When she’d been ready to return, he’d held her while she cried and said all the right things, all the while stroking her terrible haircut, and giving her exactly what she needed. Simple acknowledgement of her loss.

Lucy didn’t feel better. She felt like she would feel better eventually though, and that was more than she’d felt a couple of days earlier.
 

He stretched out and curled up into a ball, tugging the blankets around him. Lucy closed her eyes and enjoyed the heat of his body next to hers, combined with the sun streaming in the bedroom window. She’d never slept in Cole’s room while he was alive. Not in the ten years they’d been in the house. The eastern exposure in the morning was too hot for her liking she decided, but for that morning, it was perfect. She wondered if they could somehow just not talk about what was going on between them. If they could avoid it for a while, leave the labels off and see what happened. Her comfort level with him was unexpected. Not undesirable, but unexpected.
 

Lucy blushed at the way he looked at her when he finally opened his eyes.
 

“Since it’s morning, I’ll ask. Why did you cut your hair?”

“I don’t remember cutting my hair,” she murmured, changing the subject. “When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, with a half smile. “I have to get back for Bull’s visit on Friday.”

“What day is it?”

“Tuesday,” he whispered. “But there is a lot going on in West I should be there for.”

“But you’re here.”

His hand wrapped around hers under the covers. “I am. And I guess you’re allowed to talk to me now.”

She frowned. “Come on. Don’t pretend you don’t get it.”

“What happens when she finds out I was here?” He leaned in tentatively and his lips brushed her neck. “Then what?”

“I don’t know,” she said simply as she rolled away and tucked her body against his. “I don’t know about anything.”

“There are more important things,” Tal said decisively. “I wish there weren’t.”

Lucy concurred. “Who’s here? At my house?”

“I think just Cara and my pilot, and your guys outside.”

She smiled to herself. “Good.”

“Good?”

Lucy nodded. “We should actually be able to get somewhere.”

An hour later, after they’d eaten the bacon and eggs Cara had left in the kitchen before making herself scarce, Lucy and Tal settled into the office, big mugs of steamy coffee in hand.
 

“So start from the beginning,” she said from her desk chair, cradling the cup in her hands.
 

“There’s something else, first,” Tal said hesitatingly, clearing his throat. “I think it was Connor that tried to have you killed. I don’t think his intention was to kill me.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes and felt her face go hot as she realized that thought should have crossed her mind weeks ago. She’d been roughed up. Tal hadn’t. They told Tal they were from East. “Why do you think that?”

“I don’t have any proof, but when you think about it—”

“It does make a lot of sense,” Lucy admitted. “But we need to know for sure, because that changes a lot.”

“I know,” he nodded. “The thing is, if he is responsible, it means he also killed Juan. The pilot. I…his wife and I have been working together since we thought of it. She’s ridiculously smart.”

Lucy found herself oddly jealous of the way he spoke about the pilot’s wife, whose name he hadn’t even mentioned.
 

“Oh,” she replied, trying not to let her moment of vulnerability show, before remembering that she’d snot sobbed into his t-shirt for most of the night. “That’s nice, that you have someone. To work with. That’s important.”

Tal looked at her curiously. “It is important, especially since I’m not sure I can trust my cousin.”

“No?” Lucy shook her head. “Oh right. She’s sleeping with the enemy.”

“Well, according to the two of them, it was just once.” He frowned. “Anyway, not important. I think she’s okay.”

“It could be important.” Lucy raised her eyebrows. “So I think you’re right. He’s probably responsible.” She buried her face in her hands. “Shit.”

“You know what Andrew’s done—”
 

“I know he was upset, and he reacted.”

“He burned down Washington.”

Lucy avoided his eyes. “I can’t carry that on my shoulders.”

“I didn’t say you had to.”

“I will though,” she said with a sigh as she reached for her map. “So Nevada and East. That’s an odd match.”

Tal nodded, peering over her shoulder at her tattered map. She flinched at his breath on her shoulder. “It’s not like they own the Midwest. We were there. Maybe it’s just an isolated alliance?”

“An Atlantic City—Vegas asshole gambling connection, maybe?”

“Could be,” Tal said thoughtfully. “They could have been trading all along, although we were supplying them with a lot.”
 

“We need to depose Connor before they get too far, otherwise they’ll be in a better position to do it. Then I guess we negotiate with Nevada and either let them join East or talk them into siding with us.”

“That’s a lot of ‘we’s’ and ‘ours.’” Tal moved back a step. “We want an alliance with you. We don’t want a takeover.”

“So you’re a ‘we’ now? With the pilot’s woman?” Lucy raised her eyebrows.
 

“I’m a ‘we’ with a million and a half kids that live in West.” A confused look crossed Tal’s face, which he followed up with a smile. “You’re a funny girl, Lucy Campbell.”

“Why?”

“Because you think I’m going to let you run the show.”

“Now that you’ve got a taste for power?” Lucy raised her eyebrows. “You think you want more?”

“You forget I’ve managed West’s finances for almost the last ten years. I may not have had absolute power, but—”
 

“You had enough to really fuck things up for people.”
 

“I was going to say it was enough for me to realize that absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He pointed at the map and changed the subject. “They must have made some connections in the Midwest, or along the Gulf Coast.”

Lucy looked at him curiously. “So what’s your end game then?”

“Higher taxes and a proper democracy.”

“So you’ll win it and then you’ll step down?”

“If the people don’t want me, yeah.” He leaned on the corner of the desk. “I don’t need this shit if I’m not wanted. I’ve got enough money to find something else to occupy my time, as long as I can sleep at night.”

“Bold.”

“You want to do this forever? I’d rather sit back and take an advisory role eventually.”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. There’s a long way to go.”

He shrugged. “It’s good to have a dream.”

For a long time, Lucy’s dream had been Heidi Klum circa 2001 in a bikini, an image taken from a faded poster Andrew had scrounged from somewhere. Now, it alternated between murdering the most important people in East and a threesome with Zoey and Tal.
 

She was fairly certain that neither was very healthy.

When she realized Tal was staring at her, she shook her head. “I’d never let it go unless it was to someone I thought could do a better job than me.”

“Then why did you let Andrew—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, reaching for a ruler. “Don’t act like this is a normal week. My other half is dead. Here I am sharing a bed with you, while the person I’d prefer to be with is probably fucking my oldest friend.”

Lucy felt the hairs on her neck stand up from the look Tal gave her.
 

“I don’t want to sleep with you. If you’ll recall,” he replied snottily, “
you
crawled into bed with me last night. I’m trying to work together like adults to further our own interests, and the interests of all the kids that depend on us to be the adults.” She saw from his expression that what she’d said had cut deep. “That’s why I came here. I’m not an idiot. I know I’m not your type, and you know what? You’re not mine either.”

Lucy’s face went red and her nostrils twitched as she bit her tongue to keep from making a comment about his incestuous relationship with his cousin. She turned back to her map and lined the ruler up between the territories she had marked East and Vegas. “So we need to cut off their supply line to Vegas.”

“That’s a good plan.”

“Yep,” she replied curtly. “It is. I’ll send Chubs and a crew down to investigate and see if Red Cloud can assist.”

“You’ll take care of it?”

“It helps me too,” she snapped. “And if we are working together, that’s what I can do. You’ll have your own civil war to fight with Connor. I can do this.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“I’m sure I’ll need a favour from you someday.” She folded up her map abruptly, shoving it in her drawer. “I’m going to go tend to my cows.”

She ushered Tal out of the room and locked it behind her, before stomping off to the front door and reaching for a puffy floor-length coat.

“What am I supposed to—”
 

“I don’t care,” she muttered. “Plan your war. Whatever.”

Lucy wasn’t sure what she found so frustrating about Tal. Perhaps it was the knowledge that at any time he could fuck her over, just like Connor was fucking him over. There was no certainty in trust; especially when it came to people one wasn’t related to.
 

She hadn’t been to the barn since she found out Cole died. They’d tended their cows together, a small herd of mixed dairy and beef started from a few of Angela Duncan’s they’d taken that first spring. Someone had brought them in since the air was cold and they huddled together in the large open barn built to keep them alive through the harsh winters. Quietly chomping, they were unaware that they were never going to see again the person that had helped birth most of them.
 

Lucy let herself into the large open pen and climbed on top of one of the round hay bales that they were picking away at. She’d always enjoyed the simplistic nature of caring for the cows, keeping them fed and watered, milking them when it was required. She didn’t get to do it as much as she had before Campbell’s expansion, but they’d always made a point of visiting them, her and Cole.