Ten

Everyone helped move Peyton into her new place. Liv and Major were in charge of the heavy lifting while Ravi assisted in unpacking boxes. It almost felt like things were back to the way they should be, but then Peyton would look at Liv's pale skin and the illusion would shatter. Soon. Liv, Ravi and Major were all working on the cure now; between the three of them, she was sure they would come up with a permanent solution. Hopefully before Major joined the ranks of the brain-eating undead.

Peyton didn't mention to either Major or Ravi she knew about Major's temporary condition; she didn't want them to think it had anything to do with her decision of moving out. Sure it played some role, but John was a much bigger factor.

When did she get to the point where loving John was enough to make her less uneasy about zombies?

Liv lingered after the guys went home. Peyton popped open a bottle of wine and the two sat around chatting. Liv detailed her efforts to get back into Clive's good graces. He still wasn't letting her participate in investigations, but he was at least following the leads provided by Liv's visions.

"Is that going to happen to Major, too?" Peyton wondered. "If he turns into a zombie, I mean. Is he going to get these visions and have weird personality swings?"

"I don't know that many zombies to use as a point of reference," Liv mused, "and I don't know if being cured for a while will make any difference, but probably. He might not purposefully find ways to trigger them like I do, but a lot of the time you can't control when they pop up or how the brains make you feel." Peyton couldn't even imagine what that would be like, having flashes of another person's life. Experiencing the good, the bad and the painful. Liv told her that the visions felt real to her. And adding the out-of-of control personality shifts? It was actually a really horrible way to survive.

"What about the hair and the pale skin? When does that happen?"

"When I woke up as a zombie my hair was already changing colors," Liv remembered, "and I was definitely pale. It took a while for my hair to go completely white. He would need to get frequent spray-tans and constantly dye his hair if he wanted a 'natural' look."

Peyton felt a tingle of unease. She now knew the boat party was the first incident of the zombie outbreak. Liv told her how her formal rival Marcy had become a zombie as a result. Liv and Ravi didn't discuss it but it no doubt weighed on them that there could be zombies walking around Seattle, disguising themselves. A chill ran through her as John's face popped up in her mind. His bleached hair seemed so natural… maybe too natural.

No. There's no way. She'd been sleeping with him for weeks. If he was a zombie, surely he would've infected her by now. Wasn't that how it worked, and why Liv and Major couldn't sleep together? Yet now that the idea was in her head, Peyton couldn't shake it.

"Peyton, you okay?"

"It's just a lot to take in. Lowell was one of those zombies who passed as human, wasn't he?" She knew Lowell was a touchy subject, but she had to know. "He recognized you as one because of your hair and skin, but you weren't sure about him. And even with the hair and skin, none of us would've guessed 'zombie' with you. So how can you tell?"

"The weird personality shifts. And the love of spicy food. Zombie taste buds are so dead we need lots of spice in order to feel anything." Things Peyton noticed about Liv while they lived together but again, would never have suspected would equal "zombie".

She compared this information with what she knew about John and came up with little. The only weird personality shift that came to mind was when they were on the piano bench. He got a little weird when she asked him to the New Year's party, too, but that was typical "guy not wanting to commit" behavior. As for spicy food, he ate it but didn't go to the extremes she saw Liv exhibit. The evidence was pretty flimsy; she certainly wouldn't go to any court with it. But it still gnawed at her.

Because another idea was starting to form: What if John is a zombie, and I'm just immune? Ravi treated it like a virus so surely someone was bound to be immune to it eventually.

It explained some of John's behavior. She felt the hunger in that first kiss, like he hadn't kissed anyone in a very long time. Was there relief in his touches during their first time, or was she just retroactively imagining it? He was a funeral director, giving him easy access to brains. Maybe his unease in meeting her friends wasn't because of commitment but because he worried the environment would make him go full-on zombie mode. Then there was the bleached hair… It still felt pretty flimsy but that didn't stop her mind from running with it. If John was a zombie and she was immune, that would be huge.

"Hey, don't worry. If Major turns, Ravi and I will help him." Right, they were still talking about Major, not Peyton's possibly-a-zombie boyfriend. Oh, my god, I've become a heroine in a supernatural romance novel.

"And you cured him once," Peyton added. "You could do it again."

The two friends parted soon afterward, leaving Peyton alone with her thoughts. Her lawyer instincts knew she had to gather as much evidence as possible before presenting her case. Luckily, she was a damn good lawyer.