Free Campbell by C. S. Starr Page B

dark with concern, meeting Lucy’s. Lucy felt a pang of guilt over that, because she’d been unconcerned with everyone lately, least of all Zoey, who’d been forced to spend a lot of time with Andrew due to her absence. “She ate a piece in front of us to show it was okay. You want some?”
    Lucy nodded, sitting at the kitchen table. “You should take something out to the boys in the trailer,” she mumbled, wiping the sleep out of her eyes as Zoey cut her a piece and Andrew paced in the kitchen. “Don’t want them using this as an excuse to decide we’re hostile.”  
    “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