by C. S. Starr
“What are you, some kind of faggot?” Thomas, one of Bull’s cousins, growled at her twin. “Don’t touch me like that.”
Bull’s head perked up too, and he nodded towards the doorway. “You want me to get that?” he asked her, his brows knitting together. “I thought it was fine—”
“What was fine?”
“Tommy and Cole. I thought they were...” he shook his head. “I’ll—”
“No,” Lucy said, shaking her head as her stomach churned. “He needs to figure things out on his own.”
The two of them inched closer to the living room, but remained out of sight.
“We were just talking,” Cole said, exasperated. “I don’t know why you think—”
“I heard about you,” Thomas barked. “I heard all about you. I’m not some fucking faggot. I should kick your ass.”
Bull raised his eyebrows at Lucy, to see if she wanted him to intervene.
She shook her head and whispered, “Not yet.” This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Cole, while very different from Andrew, also enjoyed the newly acquired power his family had gained, and become bolder with his flirtations as a result. Usually Andrew was around to bail him out when things went south, as they almost always did, but Lucy knew that that wouldn’t always be the case. Unfortunately for him, Cole’s type seemed to be guys much bigger than him, who were either closeted, or firmly heterosexual.
Bull’s house was as safe a place for any for him to learn a hard lesson. The crack of Thomas’ fist against Cole’s face made Lucy wince, and before he could throw another, Bull tossed him out on his ass.
“I was just talking. We were just talking,” Cole gasped, reaching for his face.
“Right,” Lucy muttered. “There’s not always going to be someone there to bail you out, you know. You ‘talk’ to the wrong person like that and they’ll kill you.”
“I’m fine,” Cole grumbled, turning to Bull. “And I don’t need you to bail me out. I could have handled him.”
“In a fight, in my living room, on the day of my brother’s funeral?” Bull growled. “No.”
After the altercation, the mood was decidedly somber and when Lucy went to leave later that night, desperate to be away from all the sadness, Bull grabbed her hand.
“Please, don’t go,” he said, his voice low. “Stay with me. Both of you. Cole can take Ruben’s room.”
For a few months, she’d teetered between love and hate for her friend. He’d spent a lot of time trying to goad her into a romantic relationship over the summer, and they’d fought as a result over a series of stupid, inconsequential things that upset her to think about in the context of his brother dying.
This night, she did what was good and kind. She followed him up the stairs to his room.
“I’ll stay with you,” she whispered, crawling in beside her friend. “But I’m not—”
“Fuck, Goose. I just lost my brother. You think I’m interested in that?” He pulled her smaller body against his. His hands brushed over her chest, in a move that appeared to be accidental, perhaps because her chest was larger than it had been the last time they’d shared a bed. She’d gotten her period too, one awful morning a couple of months earlier, and found herself trudging into womanhood like she was on some sort of death march. None of the changes she was going through were enjoyable in the least.
Bull had changed in the last six months as well; lost every ounce of the baby fat Lucy knew he’d been self-conscious about. His voice had changed too, to a deep, rich tone that only cracked occasionally.
Despite their familiarity, Lucy knew no that matter how long she knew Bull, no matter what transpired between them in the future, she’d never feel as comfortable with him as she did with Cole because she’d never been able to properly decipher what he was thinking from what he was saying. With Cole, it was a given. Bull said one thing, but the way he held her, it suggested something else entirely. She knew he’d never hurt her, but she also knew he’d jump on any opportunity that presented itself when it came to pursing his attraction to her.
“I think it was my fault,” he whispered. “There was nothing I could do though. He just…he got sicker and sicker.”
“Then it wasn’t your fault, exactly,” Lucy replied, giving him a half smile in the dim light. “If you couldn’t prevent it.”
“He was such a good kid,” he choked. “Always did what I asked him.”
“We’ll learn how to help sick kids. We can learn,” Lucy whispered. “There’s books, and we’ll work hard. We’ll learn fast.”
“So it wasn’t all for nothing, he murmured. “It can’t be for nothing.”
Lucy nodded. “So it wasn’t all for nothing.”
October 2012
Los Angeles, West
Tal woke up to incessant banging on the front door of the house.
“Get that!” Leah groggily yelled, tugging him out of his half sleepy state. “It’s probably for you!”
Begrudgingly, Tal got up, pulled on some clothes and trudged down the stairs. On the other side of the door he found Connor, flanked by George and Rico, two huge guys that he paid to be his muscle.
He immediately regretted opening the door.
“We’re going to war with Vegas,” Connor stated, his voice wavering in a way Tal had never heard before. “Pack enough stuff for a week. Bring all your guns.”
Tal shook the sleep out of his head, curious as to if he was perhaps still asleep in a terrible dream.
“What?”
“They’re advancing. They’re on the offensive. They’ve moved into Old Arizona,” he replied rapidly. “We need to go and stop them before they go any further.”
Tal found himself not as concerned about that as he would have been a month earlier. “How do you intend to do that?”
“Tanks, guns, everything. We put them back in their place with everything we’ve got, or we’ll never—”
“I’m not going with you. I’m going to stay here,” Tal said quietly, but firmly. “I’m going to stay here, and maintain order, and continue to negotiate with Campbell—”
“Fuck Campbell,” Connor sneered.
That was all it took. All doubt Tal had regarding Connor’s guilt over his kidnapping and Juan’s murder was gone. Connor had never had any plan to work with Campbell when he’d sent Tal up there. He’d orchestrated it all to serve as a distraction.
“Fuck Campbell? Fuck Campbell?” Tal raised his voice, unable to stop his emotions from creeping in.
“They’re not going to come down and save our asses.”
Maybe not his ass, Tal smugly thought to himself. “They’re the best chance we’ve got. We don’t exactly have a lot of allies.”
A look was exchanged, and for the first time in many years, Connor backed down first.
“You stay here,” Connor said with a heavy nod. “I’ll be in touch for supplies.”
Tal locked the door behind them and slumped down against it.
Someone else knocked two minutes later. This time he checked the peephole and saw Rika standing there, kids in tow, her face flushed, presumably from hustling them over in the morning sun. He ushered them in and locked the door again.
“Vegas is getting supplies from East,” she spewed, exhaling loudly like she’d been holding it in. “I’ve been hiding in a bush waiting for Connor to leave.”
“With your kids?”
She smiled down at them, and picked a twig out of the littlest one’s hair. “Penny and Ana have done stranger things.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Mexican mafia.” She shrugged. “I called my hairdresser last night.”
“Your hairdresser?”
Her eyes twinkled. “She’s not a hairdresser. She just cuts my hair. She’s a...” Rika covered the littlest girl’s ears and mouthed the last part. “Prostitute.”
“Oh.”
“She’s got all the right clients.” Rika looked around Tal’s house. “I though
t you’d be living larger.”
“This was my parent’s house.”
She nodded thoughtfully and her eyes gleamed as they met his. “How sentimental. So, this changes things, this thing with East, considering what we know about what’s happened with Campbell.”
Tal nodded in agreement and put his index finger to his mouth. “Leah’s upstairs.”
“Right,” she nodded. “And you don’t—“
He shrugged noncommittally. “Not sure. I haven’t told her everything. Let’s go to my office.”
It was odd, talking strategy with two of the best behaved small girls he’d ever seen in the room, but he and Rika did it as the two kids colored away happily with a box of stale crayons he’d remembered being in his father’s desk. He’d played with them himself when he was a kid and his dad would work from home.
“I think our plan is still a good one,” Rika said. “But we have to be prepared to either fight East, or make friends with them.”
“I’m not making friends with them, especially after what they did to Lucy’s brother. They’re nuts,” Tal muttered. “And I told Campbell we’d work with them.”
“So then we’ll have to be prepared to fight. It’ll all come down to Mexico.”
“Can we work with Mexico?”
She smiled at her kids. “I think so. We’re in a good spot with them.”
“I want us to be more like Campbell,” Tal said decisively. “I want a more even distribution of wealth.”
“It’s nice, in theory,” Rika said with a shrug and a smile. “A good thing to aspire towards.”
“Better than a capitalist dictatorship?”
She nodded, lowering her voice. “I’d say so. Tal, do you remember the internet?”
Tal nodded, trying to remember what was on the internet. “Kind of? People used to get music there, right? Napster? There used to be porn there too?”
“Yeah,” Rika nodded. “And games, and information. I think it would have been huge in a few years. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure, but I called my friends in Silicon Valley because we’ve been building this thing, well, we’ve been working on rebuilding it, and they said they’d hold it.” Her eyes gleamed. “They’d hold it for us.”
“Hold it?”
“They’d let us release it. When we needed it. You think movies are big. This,” she shook her head. “It’ll change everything. We’ve got all the software, and the Chinese—”
“Can build the hardware,” he nodded along. “And we could have that again.”
“Better than before. And once it starts, it just builds itself. The possibilities are endless. It solves any communication barriers we’ve had with the world. Email, Tal. We can email.”
“From a computer?”
“It won’t just be for typing. There’s voice technology. It’ll be a phone too. We’ve been working on all this for a long time.”
“I didn’t know.”
She smiled slyly. “That’s because we didn’t want you to know, because you would have taken it.”
“And now?” he asked curiously. “They don’t think that now?”
“I’m your second,” she said with a loopy shrug that warmed Tal’s heart unexpectedly. “So what’s mine is yours.”
Tal smiled at her assumption, although he knew he’d probably be just as happy being her second. “Juan knew about all this?”
She bit her lip as a fat tear rolled down her cheek. “Juan and I had a plan. It would have been a few years before we made a move. Why do you think he stayed so close to Connor?”
“With the Mexico connection and the tech—”
“We would have flattened you, and you never would have seen it coming.”
Tal gave her a half-smile. “But you trust me now.”
“I have to trust someone, and Juan was okay with you. He said you were in the same situation as him, but with no plan. Stuck. It’s hard to change unless—”
“You can imagine a better outcome.”
She glanced at her girls. “I don’t want them to live in a world where they’re not capable of rising to the top if that’s what they decide they want.”
Tal smiled at them. “They do colour in the lines very well.”
She smiled. “Juan and me, we decided a long time ago that we were going to do this right. It’s more important than ever that I do that, which is why I’m willing to trust you. You didn’t have to tell me that you thought Connor was responsible for what happened.”
“Of course I did,” he replied. “That, and I didn’t have anyone else to tell.”
They smiled at each other understandingly. “If we’re dealing with East, we need Campbell on side.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Let me work on that.”
Tal called the Campbell house again around two, when Rika took the kids home and Leah went out somewhere, loudly slamming the door behind her. It rang for ages before anyone answered. He decided he wasn’t taking no for an answer when it came to talking to Lucy. He’d give his condolences and hope that what he’d passed onto Bull, combined with what he’d found out about East would be enough to keep her on the line.
“Hello?” A vaguely familiar female voice answered brightly.
“I’m calling for Lucy. It’s important.”
“Who is this?” the voice said curiously.
“Who is this?” Tal countered.
“Cara,” she replied cautiously. “And you are…?”
“It’s Tal. From…your house,” he said, shaking his head at his own awkwardness as he pictured the strawberry blonde woman with the large ass. “I need to talk to Lucy…or Bull. There are some new developments.”
“Bull left this morning for Seattle, and Lucy, well, she’s not really talking. Period.”
“Oh,” Tal said. “That’s—”
A door slammed and Cara’s voice dropped. “What did you find out? More about Connor?”
Tal noted that she’d conferred with Bull. “East is supplying Vegas with weapons. They moved into Old Arizona this morning.”
The line went quiet. “You have to come here and tell her that you need her.”
“Go there? I can’t—”
“Yeah,” she replied seriously. “She needs a push, or the only Campbell anyone is going to remember will be her brother, the one that’s terrorizing everything east of us. We’re not getting through to her. She’s…stuck.”
Tal knew what stuck was. Stuck had landed him on a bridge, years earlier. He also knew he was irrationally attached to Lucy, and right now, that was not good.
“I don’t think I can come—”
“Well, if you want to work with her, you’ll figure out a way.”
“Is she…okay?” he asked carefully.
“No,” Cara said simply. “She’s not.”
Tal paced for hours, trying to determine the right course of action. Leaving wasn’t smart, then again, neither was staying if it meant he didn’t have strong support from Campbell, or worse, had to negotiate with the wrong Campbell. Rarely an opportunist, he saw a chance to endear himself to Lucy, to affect her in some way the way she’d affected him in their time together. He knew he wasn’t extraordinary like she was, but he did know a thing or two about loss and blame.
“You sure you don’t just want to move in?” Rika said brightly as he stood on her doorstep. “Really get people talking?”
“I need to go to Campbell.” Tal frowned. “Everything is falling apart there.”
“And you think you can help?” Rika wrinkled up her nose. “Really? Now?”
“I hope so,” Tal said honestly. “She’s…I think she’s important. To us, with this.”
Rika moved aside and let him in a knowing smile on her face. “I can get you a plane, but what about her friend who’s coming down?”
“Can you…?” Tal sat on the couch and shook his head. “I can try and be back by then. He won’t be here for a week.”
“Okay,” Rika nodded. “I’ll see what else I can fi
nd out about what happened to you and,” she swallowed. “Juan. I want to know who killed Juan.”
Tal wrapped her up in his arms, remembering Lucy’s attack. “I killed him already. In Missouri.”
“Oh,” she rasped. “You did?”
“With a tire iron. It was as awful a death as you could imagine. Not quick, and—”
“That shouldn’t make me feel better,” she said thoughtfully. “But it does.”
Rika made a call to Otis, the kid that taught Juan how to fly, and four hours later, after packing and threatening Leah with everything he could think of until she agreed to cover for him for the week, Tal boarded a plane to Campbell. At the last minute, he’d thrown something in that he thought might help, no matter how hard it was for him to look at.
The last family album his mother had put together.
The flight went by quickly, and Tal passed the time thinking about how interesting it was that people liked Rika as much as they did, for such a wide variety of reasons. Otis, with his blond hair and dark rimmed glasses, was certainly not related to her or her late spouse in any way, but apparently owed her some debt after she was able to source him a rare plane part from China for his baby, which Tal had the privilege of flying in.
It was well after dark when they landed in Campbell, and just as the last time, their greeting was not pleasant. A few bruises and two damaged egos later, they were deposited on the Campbell’s porch, which was flanked by a couple of kids about Bull’s size.
“Cara asked me to come,” Tal grimaced. “Is she here?”
The two boys looked at each other and one went inside. A few minutes later, Cara emerged in an apron, covered in flour.
“You move quickly,” she said with a grin. “Sorry your welcome wasn’t more…welcoming. I would have put the word out if I’d known when you were arriving.”
Otis grumbled something about barbarians north of the forty-ninth parallel.
Tal rubbed his very bruised arm. “We’re at war with Vegas, so we didn’t have much time to waste. Is Zoey going to come out here and kick my ass for good measure?”
Cara shook her head. “No Zoey. She and Bull left for Seattle this morning.”
