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Major's squad was ordered to investigate the family cabin of Harley Johns, zombie truther. They separated into teams of two—he drew Justin—and closed in carefully, a bit at a time. None of them knew what had happened to Harley after Don E had been freed, or how many more truthers were out there. It would be to everyone's benefit to take as many alive as they could, so no one wanted to spook anyone who might be in residence.

It looked like a bit of a bust, though. The cabin seemed deserted. Not only was no one there now, in Major's estimation, but he didn't think anyone had been there in a long time.

Still, making that decision was above his paygrade, so he and Justin took shelter behind a large moss-covered pile of rocks, as ordered. Major hit his comm button. "Lilywhite and Bell, in position."

Chase Graves had taken position at a high point in the surrounding rocks where he could see the cabin and keep an eye on as many of their men as possible. His voice came through the comm. "Hold tight."

"Copy."

Before any further orders came through, there was a buzzing sound. Major and Justin looked at each other—it was both of their phones at once. They reached for them. Against protocol, but nothing was happening in the cabin. It would be easy enough to put the phones away and pick up the guns if something moved. "Text from Liv," Major said, reading his.

Justin frowned at his phone. "Same."

Major read the text aloud. "Harley knew his truck was bugged. He wants you to know about the cabin." Damn it. That was why the place looked deserted. No one came here, because this wasn't the place.

Justin voiced what they were both thinking. "It's a trap."

Hitting his comm button again, Major said clearly and with urgency, "Sir, our intel is faulty. Repeat, intel is compromised. Over."

"What makes you say that?" Chase Graves responded.

"I just received a text from Liv Moore. She said Harley knew about the bug in his truck." There was silence while Major waited for Graves' response. Would he take Liv's word, or would he yell at Major for looking at his phone during an operation and taking intel from civilians?

Then Graves' voice crackled through the comms. "All units fall back. Confirm receipt."

"Early, Boyd, confirmed."

"Clark, Falwell, confirmed."

Major hit his comm again. "Lilywhite, Bell, confirmed."

More silence. Then Graves' voice again. "Finnegan, Coombs, acknowledge. Do not press forward. Fall back. Finnegan, Coombs, acknowledge!" he repeated, his voice more urgent this time.

Justin and Major cautiously began to fall back from their position behind the rocks. They hadn't gotten very far when there was an explosion nearby. They hit the deck while debris rained down on them. When the dust settled, Major looked in front of him and saw a severed foot lying on the ground. For Finnegan and Coombs, the message had come too late. It could have been any one of them—or all of them, if Liv hadn't found out the truth in time to warn them.

He looked at Justin, both of them feeling sick. And angry. These truthers had taken two more good men from them. How many more before they were all caught? How many more could they afford to lose?

Major was still reeling from what had happened at the cabin by the time he got home. To his surprise, he found Liv there waiting for him. She came to him as he walked in and he was glad to put his arms around her and just hold on. "If you hadn't texted when you did—"

"I know. Justin texted me about Finnegan and Coombs. I'm meeting him at my place in half an hour."

"Good. He can use the support." Major was already thinking about seeing what Shawna was up to. Mindless sex felt like the right kind of cure for this particular moment.

Liv drew back and looked up at him. "I know what you're thinking."

"Do you?"

"Yes. And that's why I'm here. I need to show you something." She led him to a table and set up his laptop on it.

"What am I looking at here?"

"Shawna's Tumblr page." The top of the page didn't look like much, just a picture of Shawna. But Liv added, "Scroll down."

So he did. And there he was, shirtless, in Fort Lust. And more. Every picture she'd ever taken. "Oh, my god. The hell? I'm all over it. Those are texts we sent each other." Texts he had definitely not meant for public consumption.

"Yeah. Can't unsee some of those," Liv said.

And there was the video of him singing the Camp Skookum song and eating pizza. Did the world need to see that? "Videos she took of me, all these pictures!" Why would she do this? Major asked himself. Without telling him about it, without even asking if he minded? In fact, he was pretty sure he had objected out loud to having his picture put on the internet at least once, although he'd spent his time with Shawna in such a haze of lust he doubted he'd been too forceful.

"I'm sorry." Liv sounded genuinely unhappy for him. "I thought you should know. Oh, I almost forgot," she added, and stuck a piece of gum she'd been chewing over the laptop camera.

"Gross! There's literally a trash can right next to you!"

"They're always watching," she told him. "And I don't want you to freak out, but I think that Shawna's—"

"Crazy?"

"A zombie hunter, trained by the CDC. Getting close to you is Step 1 of a nine-step plan. Step 2—"

Major really didn't need the conspiracy theories. Today was bad enough without them. "I'm going to stick with she's crazy, and … she's using me for some kind of weird notoriety." Which hurt more than he would have expected it to.

To her credit, Liv let the conspiracy theory go. "I'm so sorry, Major."

He supposed he should be grateful to her current paranoid brain for checking up on Shawna … but he kind of wished she'd waited a little longer. Now he was sick and angry over the loss of his squadmates and angry and sick about Shawna's betrayal, and his mindless sex option for working through either or both was long gone.