by C. S. Starr
“I’ll take it out,” Andrew said, frowning at Zoey disapprovingly. “You need to take better care of Lucy. That’s what you’re here for, not making friendly with a bunch of assholes—”
“Zoey, we’ll send dinner later,” Lucy interrupted, giving her a half smile. “She’s not going to go make friendly with anyone,” she said to Andrew. “And she’s not here to take care of me. She’s here because she’s here. You stay away from them. I’m going to deal with them.”
The history between Zoey and Andrew was ugly. Zoey and Lucy’s relationship had begun as a reaction of sorts to an incident with Andrew years earlier. For all his sins, it was the angriest Lucy had ever been with her brother, and a large scar on his forearm served as a reminder of Lucy’s expectations when it came to how to treat women, at least when she was around. When Andrew was out of sight, Lucy had to not think about what he was doing too much, because it had the potential to make her lose her mind.
A piece of pie with an oversized scoop of homemade ice cream was placed in front of her, and like she should have been doing instead of napping, she started to think about what to do with the small envoy from West. She tuned out Andrew muttering at Zoey and visitors walking in and out of the kitchen and sorted through the useful thoughts racing through her mind.
West was persistent. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d all but told them to fuck off, and now they’d sent the second in command unarmed, according to Joey. She’d picked up from the conversation around her that there’d been a few guns on the plane and they’d taken a handgun off the pilot, but they certainly hadn’t come to assassinate her. It was a diplomatic mission, without a doubt. East hadn’t even attempted that. West still needed her, maybe more now that East had made a move against her. With them, she could have Seattle, and much, much more at her disposal, which could potentially aid in getting her brother back faster. She’d have to work out some sort of deal with them, but she hadn’t had immediate plans to invade West anyway. Everyone around her agreed that there was more value in doing what she could to secure the Midwest to create a buffer between both adversaries before going after West. West had Mexico. There were a hell of a lot of people in Mexico, and they were connected to the mysterious southern continent, which was ripe with oil and other resources.
“Andrew, can you get me the map?” she asked sometime later, still ignoring the twenty kids that were moving around and through her kitchen for various reasons.
The well-worn map they’d been consulting for a decade was placed in front of her. It was probably time for a new one, Lucy often thought while she was looking at it, but it had served them well over the years and she was sentimental about it. She’d leave them Old California as a starting point, with a promise of a ten year treaty. They could work from there. If they were aligned, she’d ignore their ridiculous capitalist system in the hopes that people in the territory would learn by osmosis and make their own demands. She didn’t need Old California.
Without a word, Lucy grabbed the remainder of the pie and two forks, and headed out into the late afternoon sun, grabbing her handgun from the coat closet on her way out. Andrew stood in the doorway silently and watched her walk purposefully to the airstream in the back field.
“Shout if you need me,” he called after her. She responded with a nod and a wave, the tall grass hampering her movement slightly, as she followed the path the West boys had beaten down earlier.
She acknowledged Lou, the kid that had been assigned to watch them and knocked twice on the trailer door. It whipped open, revealing Juan on the other side, leaning on the fire axe from the cupboard above the fridge.
“The Queen herself,” he muttered disrespectfully, nodding to his left where Lucy assumed Tal was sitting. “Won’t you come in, your grace?”
“Fuck off,” she replied icily. “Or I won’t share my pie.”
“I wasn’t under the impression that you shared your pie,” Juan replied with a chauvinistic smirk, before sitting back at the kitchen table where she assumed he’d been before, his tall, broad frame barely fitting into the small booth. “At least not with the likes of our kind.”
“Juan, take a walk,” Tal barked, standing to acknowledge Lucy’s entry. A copy of the local newspaper from four months earlier was open on the table, the crossword puzzle half-filled in in pencil. His dark eyes met hers, and he smiled graciously. “Please, have a seat,” he gestured at the armchair across from him. “It’s nice of you to think of us, with the pie.”
“It’s nice that one of you is on your best behavior,” she replied pointedly, as Juan slammed the trailer door behind him. “I hope he doesn’t run into my brother out there with that attitude.”
“He’s under the impression that this trip is a waste of time, but he…it’s not up to him to decide that.” Tal took the fork he was handed. “And he’s a bit pissed that we’ve been put under house arrest.”
“Trailer arrest,” she corrected. “I can’t have you out walking around. It’s as much for your safety as ours. Things are tense around here and there aren’t a lot of outsiders in town.”
“No kidding,” Tal said, nodding, as he tried to read her expression. “I am sorry about your brother, for what it’s worth. That was a very hostile move on East’s part.”
Lucy swallowed, hoping to hide her emotions. “Well, nothing gets a message across like a kidnapping, and it’s obvious that I have spies in my midst because it happened when I’d taken a very spontaneous trip to the next town over. They’d been waiting for me to go for who knows how long.” Lucy pushed the pie in his direction. “But you’re not here to hear about my problems—”
“I’m not not here to hear about your problems,” Tal replied, cautiously taking a forkful of pie. “Are you going to have some?”
Lucy smiled at him and chuckled. “Jesus, we’re all so fucking paranoid. Someone brought this over to be nice and we made her eat some before we took it.” She filled up her fork and took a bite. “It’s fine. So what are your terms?”
Tal started with how they both wanted the same things for the kids in their territories, but Lucy cut him off.
“Look, I don’t need your rhetoric. Terms, please.”
He looked up thoughtfully. “What are your terms?”
“I don’t have terms until you have terms. You came here to negotiate.”
“I did, I suppose,” Tal muttered. “We’ll align ourselves with you. Separate, but together. Free trade, and we’ll give you military support, and back you against East. I’m not going to show you any cards, but we could be very helpful in whatever you decide to do.”
“So you’re not willing to give up anything,” she raised her eyebrows. “What’s in it for you?”
“We don’t have to give up anything,” Tal shrugged, the skin around his dark eyes creasing with amusement. “Maybe we’ll adopt some of your policies to keep people a bit happier.”
“Your people are miserable,” Lucy said bluntly, taking another bite of pie. He had a certain presence that he hadn’t had when Connor Wilde was with him. It was very adult, smart, in a way made her feel a bit more optimistic about the situation. “Without showing my hand, I can tell you that.”
“Then I’m sure we can come up with something mutually agreeable, and get your brother back.” He gave a sharp nod. “We’re not so terrible, Lucy. I know you think we’re all libertarian capitalist assholes—”
“You don’t know what I think of you,” she said quietly, putting down her fork. “I need to sleep on this. I need Seattle. I can’t leave your territory intact.”
“Why do you need Seattle?” Tal asked curiously. “Is it really of importance in the grand scheme of things? Vancouver is a bigger trade port.”
“If I let you keep everything, I’ll be perceived as weak, and now’s not the time for that. I’ve gotten seven petitions in the last month from kids in Seattle wanting to join us with thousands of signatures. They’re close with Vancouver, and they don’t want to feel cut off. If I ignore th
em, it doesn’t bode well. I have to put the needs of many over the needs of few.” Her lip twitched, almost imperceptibly, but Tal caught it. “I can’t let anyone think, even for a second, I’ve chosen my needs over theirs. Everyone wants to help me get him back, but I can’t forget about them,” Lucy finished.
Tal nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll have to talk it over with Connor, but if that’s it, I think we can work with that.”
“Like I said, I need to sleep on it,” she replied, standing. “Don’t call the president until tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” Tal said, standing as well. “Thank you,” he replied earnestly. “I do appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, with everything else going on.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m going to send someone out with dinner in a bit. Don’t give the other one any pie,” she said curtly, closing the door behind her.
Juan returned about an hour later, just as Tal had begun to worry, a bag of handmade cigarettes in hand. “They grow this shit out here. It’s the best I’ve had,” he said brightly, his mood a complete turnaround from earlier. “There’s this moonshine too. You should try it.”
“I’m all right,” Tal replied, glancing at the ruins of the pie on the fold out table. “I think that went well, with Lucy.”
“Really?” Juan said, the surprise in his tone obvious. “She didn’t tell you to fuck off?”
“Not exactly. She’s sleeping on it though.”
“Sleeping on what?”
“What she’s offering. What she’s willing to negotiate. We might have to give up a bit, but I think it’s probably worth it, because she’d take it anyway.”
“Huh,” Juan replied. “I guess she must be desperate for friends.”
Tal cleared his throat and regarded the bigger man. “Don’t talk to her like that again, like you did. This is a sensitive situation.”
“She’s a bitch,” Juan stated flatly. “And I see I don’t get any pie.”
“Dinner’s coming later, she said,” Tal replied, turning back to his crossword puzzle. “You’re fine.”
***
Juan stomped around the trailer for another twenty minutes before muttering about finding something to eat as he headed out, slamming the door behind him. Tal listened to him argue with the kid outside for a minute, but let him go, mentally tracking the axe to the kitchen table before fishing out another newspaper from a basket beside the couch, not at all sorry to have a few minutes to himself.
Lucy…he could work with Lucy, and talk Connor into giving up Seattle, he decided. He liked that she was a straight shooter. Most of their own rise was built around smoke, mirrors, propaganda, and fear, but she wasn’t employing any of that. It was a little disturbing how logical she was, because it would make it harder to work against her. He’d have to discover the weaknesses in her philosophies. He was sure they were there; it was just a matter of uncovering them.
Tal had gone through three puzzles when another knock at the door demanded his attention. This time, he found Zoey outside, wrapped up in a big sweater with a large cooler in hand.
“Delivery from Campbell’s kitchen?” she said, smiling brightly. “The other one of you opted to take his in the house. He’s having a stare-off with the senior Campbell at the dining room table as we speak.”
“Just send him back if it’s a problem,” Tal said, stepping aside to let her in. “He’s perfectly harmless.”
“Andrew Campbell isn’t. Hopefully your friend has the common sense to see that,” Zoey replied, sitting on the edge of the bed in the trailer. “The entire family is having a rough go so it’s really not a good time to pick a fight with any of them.” She nodded at the cooler. “You get a good dinner at least.” She opened it and dropped a brown paper bag on the table directly opposite them.
“Thanks,” Tal said, peeking inside to find what smelled like a Thanksgiving feast wrapped in tinfoil. “Listen, I’ll get out of here in a couple of days. Things didn’t go that badly. It’s a good opportunity for us to work together, you know?”
Zoey smiled knowingly, her eyes dark. “Everyone’s an opportunist.”
“You have to be when you have people depending on you. We do have people depending on us too. We have from the beginning.” He knew that Zoey wasn’t the person that needed to believe that, to understand that their responsibilities were as important to him as Lucy’s were to her, but he hoped telling it to a person from the territory who was actually willing to listen to him might do some good.
A bottle of wine materialized from a box under the table and Zoey produced a small pocketknife with a corkscrew. “I don’t think you should go home. I think if you really and truly want to try and work something out with her, you help them now. Do whatever it takes. Gain their trust, I mean really gain it. Sometimes allies are just as important as growth, and this thing with East? It’s going to get messy.”
“That’s what you think?”
“I have the queen’s ear, and that’s what I know.” She tipped back the bottle before handing it over. “You came and talked, albeit stupidly. They grabbed their brother, her other half. Your stock rose considerably.”
Tal took a swig. It was good wine, in an unmarked bottle. He would have been a bit more suspicious about drinking it if Zoey hadn’t started. A small drop dribbled down her chin before she caught it with her index finger, and passed the bottle to him.
He took it again and drank deeply, finding himself in desperate need of some blurred edges to end his day. “So how do I prove to Lucy that I’m not a self-serving jackass that’s out to fuck her over?”
“I don’t know. Aren’t you the one that brought Mexico in line? I’m sure you can figure something out.” Zoey shrugged and sipped back more wine. “It’s too bad Cole’s not here. All someone needed to do was take him to bed, and he probably would have talked Lucy into whatever. He’s…more important than people think he is.”
Tal smiled at an earlier memory of Connor saying much the same thing. “So he was her Achilles’ heel.”
“Is her Achilles’ heel. Present tense. I’m sure he’s not…” She passed the wine over after taking a huge gulp. “They’ve been through more together than anyone will ever know, which is why this…it’s not good.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
Just like that, Zoey dropped to her knees in front of him.
“I want us to be friends. I’ve been thinking about you since you left the last time,” she whispered urgently, reaching for his fly, her eyes staring up at him admiringly.
After a half a bottle of wine, Tal was flattered, but still found himself cautious of what felt like a very obvious trap. “I thought you and Lucy were a…thing.”
“We are,” she said perkily. “But we’re pretty much allowed to see other people…men.” She opened the button on his fly. “You’re okay.”
“This is a terrible idea,” he groaned, as she reached inside his boxers. “Maybe we shouldn’t….”
Tal knew he had been saying that a lot lately to the opposite sex.
“I’m not here to trick you,” she said. “I’m just…” she paused, and sighed, sitting back on her heels a little. “I just want it. I want you. It’s nothing more than that, I swear.”
If this was, in fact, some sort of trick, or ploy, Tal wasn’t sure he was seeing it, or anything, really, but the upside to taking advantage of the situation in front of him. On the other hand, Zoey was hot, and it seemed very likely that Lucy had sent her out here for some reason. Maybe it was to see if he could be trusted to leave her things alone.
Why did everything have to be a test? He sighed.
“Did she send you out here?” Tal finally asked, after she’d wrapped her hand around him. “To see if I’d say no?”
Zoey shook her head. “I’d prefer she didn’t know I was out here. She wouldn’t like it.”
“Then why are you doing this?” he asked, finally developing the sense to push her hand away. “It seems like a bad idea all a
round.”
“Because I want to, and you’re the only one that’s not going to run to her or her brother and try and repent and atone for your actions. And get me in trouble.”
He thought about that for a minute and then looked at her, hard. “I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t exactly trust you, either,” she replied, raising her eyebrows from her spot on the floor in front of him. “Listen. This? This isn’t how she operates. I’m not a fucking pawn in this game and I’m not her fucking concubine. I’m a little insulted that you think I am. It doesn’t say much for what you think of her. This, it will work to your advantage, because I’ll help you.”
Zoey’s logic made sense, and Tal realized how ambitious she was, but at the same time, found it curious that sex was her go-to weapon and negotiation tactic when her girlfriend seemed to pride herself on using everything but. It was a strange way to put herself in the game, he thought to himself, if what she was saying was true. “Lucy doesn’t know you’re out here?”
“She knows I’m out here delivering food. She’s locked up in her office with her map trying to work through whatever you talked about, and won’t be out for hours. What I’m doing? It’s not a priority for her right now.” Zoey opened her sweater to reveal a very pink lacy tank top. “You’re all so fucking suspicious.”
“You have to be these days,” He grumbled, reaching for the wine to drown the flash of Leah he’d just had; the flash he always had when sex was eminent. “If this is a trap, I’ll do whatever I can to fuck you over, you know.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said, chuckling, a twinkle in her eye as he leaned back and gave in. “I’m sure you will.”
Chapter 6
September 2001
Fort Macleod, Alberta
When Andrew Campbell finally reached the house he’d lived in for the year after his mother died, he felt like a million years had passed, even though it had only been a couple. The house looked the same—grey shingles, spotty lawn, rusty tractor on the north side. His grandfather’s red pickup truck was parked in the driveway, a layer of fallen dry leaves covering the windshield.
