Campbell

by C. S. Starr

  Connor and his dad, despite a number of physical similarities, were cut from very different cloth. Connor had been investing in the stock market since he was seven, and knew a great deal about strategy after developing an interest in high stakes gains and losses after reading a fairly well-written, but entirely illogical script his father had been sent for The Art of War at nine.

  Tal rarely disagreed with Connor’s rationales, because he’d seen first-hand how frustratingly right he usually was, and how many steps ahead he thought. He’d made accurate predictions when it came to their takeover, and how almost everything had been handled since then. They’d had disagreements, sure; a lot of them over the years, but when push came to shove, Connor had known what to do to keep himself and those he loved in the lifestyle they’d always been accustomed to, which was a huge challenge with the drastically reduced economic base which they had to draw from.

  Tal’s family home was a fairly modest house for the Hills, five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a pool. He’d done what he could to keep it up, relying heavily on a Reader’s Digest home repair book that he’d found on a high shelf in his study, spine uncracked, but like Connor’s place, sometimes things went—a broken window in the second-floor bathroom, a busted element on the stove. They’d never replaced the microwave when it blew up a few years earlier. Maintaining a household was a tricky task: they had the resources to do all the things that needed to be done, but doing them would draw attention to their wealth in a way that was dangerous, especially now. Everyone’s house needed a paint job.

  “I’ve got everything ready for planting. You missed all the hard work,” Leah said, poking her head around the corner when Tal let himself in, a bright smile on her face. She froze when she saw his expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he muttered as he collapsed into his mother’s favourite recliner. “I can’t go and pretend everything’s all right when it’s not.”

  Leah slumped down on the couch and smiled sympathetically. “It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be. Everything’s chill. It was just a little riot—”

  “You haven’t been to the central coast lately. They’ve got nothing up there, and everything looks like shit, and they work around the clock to supply LA so we have stuff to trade with Asia, for a pittance.” He flopped down beside her. “There’s no balance, and they’re angry. Angrier by the day, and there’s a lot of them.”

  “There was never balance before either,” she said quietly. “Don’t be naive. You know that. We’re here, and they’re there, and that’s how it is. Luck, or chance, or whatever.”

  Tal shook his head. “We’ve had ten years to right things. We got to start from scratch, and nothing’s changed. We just take and take, and he wants me to try and convince everyone that that’s the right way. They should send us everything, because we entertain them, and because we were born into this life, and they were born into theirs. It’s not going to work forever.”

  Leah sighed and frowned at him. “I thought you liked the system. I like the system.”

  He nodded and shrugged. “Look where we are. It’s starting to flake away bit by bit, and we’re going to be on the wrong end of it then. It’s the fucking French Revolution all over again, and they’ve found their voice with that family from buttfuck-nowhere Canada.”

  “I heard that we lost Vancouver, huh?” She lowered her voice. “I thought that might happen.”

  “Campbell scooped them up, without any effort at all. She’s, I guess it’s the girl...she’s doing the opposite of what we’re doing. They’ve got all these social programs, which leaves kids to concern themselves with fun, and life, and all those things we all missed out on when we were young. It’s fucking communism, and you know how that spreads.”

  Leah pulled her dark hair back in a ponytail and picked some garden dirt off her hands. She loved the garden. It calmed her, gave her something to work at that was uncomplicated, she’d once told Tal. It was the one thing that she really focused on, the one thing she cared about. She helped out with the movie industry, but pretty casually and unreliably, because she never felt that she got the credit she deserved and Connor wasn’t willing to give it to her. Tal had called her dispassionate more than once, but she always said she was level-headed instead.

  “What does that mean for us?”

  “It means we’d better work something out with the Campbells, or we’re at risk of losing support and that spreads too.” He cradled his head in his hands. “Leah, we’ve got more money than we need. It’s useless if we can’t spend it, or if someone just comes in and takes it.”

  She looked up thoughtfully. “You think they’d—”

  “Kids...they can’t handle their own stuff. Look at what’s happened in East. It’s fucking militant over there because it’s the only way to maintain order.”

  “Everyone’s okay here. I mean, things are looking up. There are lots of jobs, and...” She trailed off, seeing her cousin’s less-than-enthusiastic expression.

  “Do you remember early days? How hungry everyone was?” He cringed at the thought. “Not all of them are as lucky as we’ve been and they still remember those years, and things haven’t improved that much. Not enough.”

  “They’re not hungry now.”

  Tal looked at his cousin and sighed. “I’m not sure of that. Are you sure of that?”

  She shook her head. “I guess I just hoped….”

  “I’m going with Connor to Vancouver tomorrow. I...” he took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to go, but he kind of insisted.”

  “Tomorrow?” Her voice wavered, and then cracked. “You’re going tomorrow?”

  He took a deep breath, locked eyes with her and hoped she’d understand, because he couldn’t stand it when she was mad at him. He knew she shouldn’t be alone, on that day of all days. “I have to.”

  Leah’s lip tensed and a single tear streamed down her tanned cheek. “Okay. Okay.”

  Tal swept it away with his finger, and his hand lingered on her neck for a second too long. “I know...I know what day it is, and I know I should be here, but this...it’s so important. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Whatever you want. We’ll go to the beach, whatever you want when I’m back.”

  Their eyes met and her hand reached for his. He flinched before leaving it in place, as she covered his with hers, interlocking their fingers. She leaned in towards him, smelling of sunshine and dirt from the garden.

  He knew what she wanted. His heart beat hard and fast, an almost deafening thud in his head. After every time, he’d said that was it. Convinced himself that the next time he’d say no with conviction. He’d say no and mean it, and that would be it. They’d stop.

  Her palm pressed against his, their fingers lining up the same way they had for years, and he curled his around her shorter ones.

  “Leah…I...” he stammered, as he found himself flustered and unable to formulate words. He wasn’t like that with anything else. He’d been in negotiations with guns, he’d lived through the riots, helped people get to safety. He wasn’t weak. He was well-respected, a leader amongst his peers.

  With her, he was someone else entirely. He crumbled.

  She placed her finger over his mouth, and shook her head, her dark eyes locked with his in a way that made him embarrassingly hard, without fail. “Come on,” she whispered, licking her lips ever so slightly.

  “We shouldn't,” Tal said, swallowing, as she moved closer, her other hand relocating to his chest, as if to encourage his heart to beat even more erratically. “We know that.”

  She shrugged ever so subtly and sighed. “Tal, I think we’re past the point of preaching morality.”

  “We need to stop,” he murmured, as he pulled his cousin to her feet. “And you know why, and you know it’s true.”

  The repercussions of what they did ate away at him. Devoured his self-image.

  Her hands moved to his cheeks, gently cradling them before she pressed her lips firmly
against his. He froze for a moment, like he always did, his stomach churning, leaving him feeling both aroused and nauseated at the same time. It was hard to believe ten years had passed. To Tal, sometimes it felt like a lifetime, and sometimes it felt like the day before. At thirteen, the first time they’d done it, they’d been broken, having lived more life than they had ever aspired to in ninety or a hundred years. It had started with only a lingering touch on that night too, but by the time they’d passed out after finishing a bottle of wine, their relationship was changed irreparably.

  Ten years later, they’d both come and gone, spent time with other people, but never let the other go entirely. Their relationship was a security blanket of sorts, Tal recognized. Something familiar. Something twisted that filled him with self-loathing and disgust, but held nostalgic appeal. Knowing that, and giving Leah up, however, were two very different things. He didn’t want her with anyone else. Didn’t want anyone else touching her, sharing the things they shared. The only time he’d ever hurt someone had involved Leah.

  He pulled her close to him and deepened the kiss, backing her against the fridge as he peeled off her sticky tank-top, revealing new tan lines from her time in the garden, her small breasts, pink nipples, and the navel ring she’d given herself at sixteen. He tossed the shirt aside, his eyes darkening to match hers as they separated briefly and wordlessly revealed their shared intentions. Leah paused for the briefest moment before sprinting towards Tal’s bedroom, the room formerly occupied by his parents at the far corner of the house. He followed, pursuing her through the house at breakneck speed, knocking over a small table in the upstairs hallway before tackling her onto his bed, both of them breathless and flushed.

  She pushed Tal’s shorts down with her feet before wrapping one of her legs around his waist, pulling him on top of her as he fumbled with her shorts. She reluctantly released him when he motioned that he wanted to remove them, and reached for a condom from the bedside table.

  Condoms were an early reinvention; one that made life far more bearable.

  He regretted ever touching her, giving into something that should have stayed in the realm of perverse fantasy, but he did it anyway, giving in to her, and to himself.

  “This is it,” he whispered, brushing her damp hair off her forehead and tracing the underside of her breast with his index finger before rolling the condom off. “I’m done. Leah, we can’t...what if—”

  “Fuck you,” she muttered, pulling the top sheet around her, as she climbed out of bed, avoiding his eyes. “I’m making pasta for dinner. It’ll be ready in a half hour.”

  Chapter 2

  June 2001

  Fort Macleod, Alberta

  “Lucy, come here,” her grandfather slurred from the living room. She could tell exactly where he was sitting from where she stood in the kitchen, and she knew exactly what he wanted. Her face constricted into a tight grimace. She looked down at her hands, the dirt shoved under her nails; wished she could think about anything other than what she knew was going to happen.

  “We could run away,” Cole whispered to his sister, his eyes wide and sad, his hand on her arm. “We don’t have to stay here.”

  “If we run away, they’ll find us, and if they don’t send us back here, they’ll separate us.” She reached up and pulled his hand away, biting her lip, desperate not to cry. She never wanted anyone to see her cry. “I don’t want to be apart. We need to figure out another plan.”

  “Maybe we can stay with Andrew.”

  The colour drained from Lucy’s face at the thought. “He’s no better off where he is, Cole, believe me.”

  “But he doesn’t have to—”

  “Girl, where are you?” Isaiah Smith rasped, the ice from his fourth whisky of the night clinking in the glass. “Get in here.”

  Lucy gave her brother a resigned frown and nodded towards the staircase. “Go on upstairs now.”

  He took off up the stairs, skipping every other one in a desperate effort to escape what he knew was about to take place. For the first six months they’d lived with their grandfather, Lucy had done the same, but for her, hiding under the bed or in a closet wasn’t a solution. It just made Isaiah angrier when he’d pull her out from wherever she was. Then he’d yell at her and call her disrespectful, and it would be worse.

  As Lucy slowly walked into the room, her eyes cast on the floor, her grandfather smiled. She’d enjoyed being his favourite when they’d first been sent here after her mother’s death, but that was short lived when she came to understand what being a favourite entailed.

  He put on a good show, for Child Services, her grandfather did. So good, that when her older brother Andrew had broken the old man’s nose, it was the boy that was sent away, considered to be delinquent. Disturbed. A problem in the family unit. Hints had been made surrounding an inappropriate relationship between her and her older brother, the supposed cause of Lucy’s problems at school.

  And now they weren’t allowed to talk to Andrew anymore, her and Cole.

  “You do your homework?” Isaiah asked, setting his drink down and shuffling his newspaper onto the floor, clearing his lap.

  Lucy nodded, still keeping her distance, hands clasped in front of her. “Yep. Cole too.”

  “You look just like your momma when she was your age,” Isaiah noted, for what had to be the hundredth time. “A pretty girl too.”

  The air felt like pea soup, thick in Lucy’s lungs as she tried to keep breathing. “I’ve…I’m going to go read. I’ve got a book report.”

  Sometimes he let her go, after grumbling something about her ungrateful behavior, and they wouldn’t see him again until the next evening, when she’d be forced to try her luck once again.

  That night was not one of those nights.

  July 2012

  Campbell

  “So, just let me do the talking. She’ll listen to me,” Connor said, flipping through his ever-present notebook as their plane began its descent onto what looked like an abandoned road, yellow wheat fields stretching forever on either side of it enclosed by mountains to the west. The day was already in full swing, despite the ungodly early hour. “How do I look?”

  Tal sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Do you think you’re going to seduce her? That she’ll see you in your fucking skin tight white t-shirt and decide to align with us, just like that? It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, and it’s six in the morning.”

  Connor was not dissuaded. “This is when she said to come. We’ve got to give her the illusion of some control over the situation.” He shut his notebook. “Make her think that we’re caving. And hey, maybe I will seduce her. Maybe I’ll talk her into marrying me. I hear she’s hot, and that would lock things down. I’m good with women. It’s one of my strengths.”

  “You’re delusional,” Tal said bluntly, thinking back on many times Connor’s bold statement had been proven wrong. “She knows she has us by the balls. That’s why we’re arriving at six in the morning, like she asked.”

  A dismissive hand was waved. “She’s not as tough as people think. What people say about her? There’s no way she did those things.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t do that. Who would do that? That’s the kind of thing you tell people to scare them. It’s not the kind of thing you actually do.”

  Tal wasn’t so sure the rumors about the Campbell’s brutality and disrespect for vital body parts were true either, but they were unsettling nonetheless.

  The Vancouver trip the month before had been a complete and utter bust. They’d negotiated for ten hours over what amounted to buttons and string in Tal’s opinion, and in the end, they’d more or less been laughed out of the city. It was humiliating, the way they’d been treated, especially since the leader of the city—a cocky eighteen year-old named Dev—had told them that they’d had no intentions of aligning themselves with West again, despite their reassurances that they’d speak with Connor. Not long ago, representatives from West had been welcomed anywhere they went.

 
After that unfortunate discussion, it took three weeks for the Campbells to respond to Connor’s request for a meeting.

  “Let me do the talking,” Connor reiterated, as they stepped off the plane and onto a dusty cornfield thick with cobwebs in the early morning light.

  Tal sighed. “I think we lay it all out and see what we can work out with her. She’s not an idiot, obviously. Kids want change and she’s the change. Who the fuck knows what kind of change, but change nonetheless.”

  “We don’t even know what she’s offering everyone else, because they won’t tell us. I’m sure it’s the same old shit, packaged differently.” The president of West took his suitcase from the pilot, Juan, a stocky Mexican kid who he’d known almost his whole life and who doubled as his bodyguard. “I probably should have brough some girls,” he said under his breath, as they looked out onto the vast prairie plain spread out in front of them. “The brothers probably would have liked that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish by being here,” Tal muttered, thinking back on how early he’d had to get up to be here now, alone, waiting in the middle of nowhere for someone he wasn’t sure was going to show. No matter how many times he told Connor he wanted out, he was ignored. He knew he needed to play the part for the time being, but he wasn’t sure what decisions he would make afterward.

  Connor raised his eyebrows, obviously irritated with Tal’s statement. “I’m hoping to accomplish something useful, instead of watching our country get picked apart by vultures. I’m hoping to be able to continue to eke out a place for us in the world that doesn’t leave us fucking destitute. Do you think Leah would survive five minutes as a seamstress or a farmer?”

  “I think you’re exaggerating.”