Your Teeth In My Neck

Fugitives

Maggie lay on her stomach in the grass, reading, as Campbell stroked her back and watched the other prisoners of their new world. A lot of the students were meditating to some higher power, a figment of faith whose indifference they could not seem to grasp. Why are we here? What have we done? How do we get back? He gladly ignored them. 

"Hey man." Harry clapped Campbell on the back and he stood up to talk with him. She was drawing into a new chapter when suddenly a shadow fell over the pages. She looked up and saw Campbell doing the same. A solar eclipse had elapsed the once sunny day. 

We asked for a sign? What does it mean?

"It doesn't mean anything!" Gordie shouted over the fanatics, avowing that it was a predictable astronomical event. As if anything in the last couple days had in anyway been predictable. Maggie's eyes flickered to Campbell's. He looked down and met her gaze briefly, seing total disgust, he smirked. 

Maggie looked out of place in the scene she'd been set. She didn't know much of the upperclassmen around her. She'd only been let on the camping trip under special permission. She was a model student. A cheerleader, soon to be head. Grieving. If none of that convinced the faculty of her deserved involvement, the insider prodding from the Eliot parents certainly did. They'd do anything to make their first son seem normal after all. And he'd wanted his girlfriend to come on his senior trip.

As the eclipse passed. Her eyes returned to her book as if nothing had happened. As everyone else clustered and gossiped Campbell noticed another girl, similarly disassociated. He'd seen her around and knew she kept to herself. Timid. Lonely. What a perfect controllable playmate for his girlfriend.

"Baby." She pulled herself up onto her elbows and set aside her book to look up at him questioningly, "Why don't you go talk to her?" He nodded to the blonde girl across the quad, "Might be a good friend for you." He crouched down to kiss her, "You know. I can't be around all the time." Maggie looked back at him suspiciously. Campbell never promoted anything that distracted her from him. At her silence, he laid down on the grass next to her and kissed her imploringly on the neck. She wondered if maybe he was changing, the same way she was. Or maybe this was just another vicious game.

"Is this your ploy for a threesome?" She teased lightly and he bit into her neck tenderly. Afterwards, he drew away and cupped her cheek. His face growing serious.

"Mags, none of your friends were on this trip." She frowned, feeling herself cave, "I just want you to be happy."

A couple of the people watching them made gagging motions to each other, but others found it endearing. Someone had finally made Campbell Eliot human. At least, almost.

~...~

"Hey, you're Elle right?" Maggie asked. Tottering awkwardly above her. Elle cut her eyes away from the sky and looked at her. She was soft. She could never be a ballerina. Bleeding. Forcing your body do things it never thought possible.

"Yes."

"I'm Maggie." She introduced herself sticking her hand out and then quickly retreating it when she saw the gesture wouldn't be reciprocated. She blushed. Elle had heard the name before but never encountered the face to match it. Maggie took note of her book, "Reading Orwell at the end of the world? Seems fitting."

"Catch-22 seems just as cliche."

To Elle's surprise Maggie just smiled sincerely from ear to ear, "Fair. Totally fair." She flopped down onto the grass next to her.

Then it clicked in Elle's head, "You're the girl whose boyfriend makes everyone stay away from her."

Maggie arched an eyebrow at her, lolling her head to the side, "And you're the girl who everyone stays away from anyways. We'd make a pretty great team."

"Maybe." Elle couldn't help but feel a little grateful for the opportunity to ditch her plans of trying to connect with the other girls. The girls that had shunned her since day one. Considering there was no escape now. 
She hadn't heard much about Maggie other than the gossip about her relationship with Campbell Eliot, but  she let a small smile pass over her features as she gazed back up at the newly cleared sky. 

"So, want to be a fugitive with me, Winston Smith?"

~...~

"You have anything to do with that?" Harry nodded over to the two girls, who were now whispering and giggling. Immediate confidants.

"Maggie needed a friend." Campbell shrugged, "I just put in a suggestion."

"You like pulling the strings, don't you man?" Harry nudged him in good humor but the feeling wasn't sincere, his face sobered, "Things are going to get bad, I don't know how yet but I got this feeling I can't shake." He put a hand to his heart, feeling the erratic beating, "Everything I had to protect me. They mean nothing now." 

Campbell signed. His gaze still focused on Maggie. Maggie smiling. Maggie not shying away. Maggie not searching anyone's eyes for approval. Maybe he'd been too tough on her as of late. He turned his attention back to Harry, "Just remember who deserves to be on top." He said, "There's going to have to be a hierarchy. And leaders like Cassandra or Helena with all their holier than thou shit. Not exactly forward thinkers."

~...~

After the running Maggie pulled Elle into a little alcove of trees she knew, away from the main drag. Her and Campbell had been there countless times but she couldn't admit that. It would seem like she wanted him to find her. Which maybe she did.

"So why him?" Elle asked suddenly. Maggie just looked down and shook her head slowly.

"If you're just going to tell the other girls I don't think—"

"I wouldn't do that." Elle shook her head and tried unsuccessfully to meet the girl's gaze, "Why would I? They either treat me like an outcast or like I don't exist." She mumbled, "The latter turned out to be better."

"Easier at least." Maggie interjected and suddenly grabbed Elle's hand, looking up, "I love him. More than I've ever loved anything after my father died." Then her eyes got dark, "I know you won't understand but Elle, I deserve him."

"Wait, what do you mean you-"

That's when Campbell grabbed Maggie around the waist.