Your Teeth In My Neck

Disappearing Act

She felt the shards of glass lodge into her leg as she fell. Her mother stood over the wreckage and jumped back to protect her bare feet. Maggie's vision went in and out into a collection of frozen silhouettes. Like some sort of fucked up PowerPoint of the immediate. The first slide showed her mom's vacant eyes as she stared down at the shattered family portrait she had thrust down onto an already cowering daughter. The second the deep cuts that had already sprung to the surface from Maggie's knees. Blood seeped down and branched out through her skin's grooves, creating a circuit etched in red steams. The last was a different figure. Pulled up into his arms. Spit flying from his lips enraged though she couldn't quite hear his threats.

"Shh, baby."

Maggie gasped and shot up straight in the bed. Campbell's arms had still been tightly around her and the movement made his eyes flutter open slowly. She sunk back into them.

"I always wished she would disappear ." Maggie whispered into the darkness, "That one day I would wake up and she would have packed up and left." Campbell reached up and caressed her shoulder. Her eyes flickered down to his. There was a danger to them he only ever caught glimpses of, and in each of those shards he was exhilarated, "Do you think it's really just us now?"

"What if it is?" He responded. Maggie went quiet, thoughtful. Their faces were inches apart and even in the black she could make out every one of his sharp features. Then she just smiled.

After his morning shower, he found her tracing the ridges of the gun he had pulled out of his father's stash. It lay casually on the table as if just another paperweight but that was far from the truth. Growing up she had been vaguely aware of her dad keeping guns. Before the tour that made him different, he liked to hunt. He'd bring up wanting to teach her every now and then but she felt guilty even going fishing. No killer instinct.

"Homicidal thoughts this morning?" Campbell asked from the doorway. She pretended not to register his mocking.

"Just thinking about how addictive power must be. Consistently having your finger on the trigger. Complete control over one small thing in this world."

"I can only imagine." He smirked and wrapped his arms around her small frame from behind, nipping at her neck teasingly.

"What are you going to do with it?" She asked and turned around in his grasp to meet his eyes.

"Just a precaution for now." He responded casually. Campbell's phone beeped and he sighed and turned away from her to grab it, "Harry says to come to the bridge."

"I'll get dressed."

"Nah, just relax, take a bath or something. Send pics." He winked but when she moved forward expecting him to kiss her goodbye he ignored her and disappeared out the door. Maggie looked down at the gun again.

"Stop it Campbell." She said softly when he picked up her father's rifle from the locker and pointed it at her.

"Don't you trust me baby?"

"Should I?"

Her father had been dead three weeks and two days. She needed help moving some of his possessions from the house to the shed. Her mother had started wandering the empty rooms at all hours. A specter in her own home. Picking up objects and staring at them for what seemed to her daughter like contained infinities, as if they were just as lost in reality as he was.

Maggie collected the litterings of memorabilia. The baseball he had caught at a local AAA game. The old photos. The medals of honor.

Campbell shrugged and lowered the gun, "Ever shot one?" He asked and she shook her head, "Maybe you should, might loosen you up."

"Oh so you want me to be loose now?" She shot back and raised an eyebrow. He snorted and rolled his eyes. She was wearing her father's old sweater. He didn't like it. It washed away her body with it's oversized bulges of fabric.

"So you watch all that shit on tv right? That Walking Dead, Bio-War conspiracy, dystopia, climate disaster, end is nigh-"

"Everyone watches that shit on TV Campbell. That's pretty much just what TV is nowadays." Maggie pushed herself up onto the worktable and spread her legs just the amount she knew would drive him crazy. He took the bait and sauntered towards her, placing his hands on either side of her on the table, so she was trapped.

"End of the world, would you trust me then?" He asked as he leaned down towards her neck, "You know I'd protect you right Mags? Tooth and nail. Life or death."

"I'd trust you." She answered earnestly. A little caught up in the directness of his stare, "I'd do the same."

Maggie's phone dragged her out of her reverie, playing the inane little melody it always did when Campbell texted. Then she saw the picture from the bridge.