So, obviously this is really fucking late. yeah . . . I've been really busy with getting ready for finals and also getting ready for acen 'cuz im gonna have to fly out there soon and I haven't even finished my Rapunzel or Daenerys outfits yet. My bedroom floor is basically wefts and wefts and wefts and wefts of blonde hair right now. *sigh*. But none of that is your problem, so I'll stop now. Also, 000 indicates scene changes, I'm gonna keep the ... as indication of the 3pov since that's already been established.

I used google translate for the latin at the end, so I'm not sure if it's correct, so let me know if it's wrong.


Chapter 6: The Child Made it out aLIV

"The knowledge could be useful in my research." Ravi said.

To be honest, I couldn't tell if he was teasing me or if he was actually serious. It was at that moment that I realized how close we were sitting. We sat right next to each other, thigh to thigh. I was blushing so hard, I probably looked like a tomato with all the flushed pink against my pale skin. Damn you pale skin!

I looked back at Ravi. After a few minutes of staring at each other, Ravi finally said "Fuck it." and suddenly grabbed my arms and pressed his lips to mine. It was sudden and weird and to be honest I didn't know how to feel. I knew I should've pulled back, but I didn't.

It was quick, only lasting a few seconds or so. By the time we'd came apart, we'd realized what just happened. We stared at each other in complete horror, Ravi's hands still grasping my arms. After the moment had passed, we immediately scooted away, embarrassed. "Well, now I know that just a kiss doesn't incite zombie mode." Ravi said finally breaking the silence, laughing awkwardly.

000

Ravi pulled out the body as I stood slightly behind him. Her parents were on our right. It plucked at my heartstrings watching them. These people who had the misfortune to see their daughter dead. It seemed like a fate worse than death, seeing the human being you created laying on the table before you without a pulse.

She had wondered up into the forest and stumbled upon a group of teenagers camping in the middle of the woods, who called the police. She was pregnant. Fortunately, they were able to save the baby, who was currently in care of the nursery at the hospital my mother worked at. "Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow," Clive said coming up behind us. "If you find anything relevant to the case, be sure to notify me."

The father turned towards him. "Dylan Munson was somehow involved. That's the only relevant information you need." He said coldly before taking his wife and storming out of the coroner's office. Clive, with an exhausted face, followed after them. Ravi pulled the body out to the center of the room and began sawing open the skull.

Emily Sparrow. She was pale. You could see veins of purple through her skin, she looked as if she was decomposing before she died. Her right ankle was swollen, suggesting a sprain or twist. She had scraped on her elbows and knees. "Brain." Ravi said, handing the brain to me. It looked delicious. My zombie instincts began taking over. "Whoa, red eyes, calm down." Ravi said, snapping me out of the trance. "Sorry."

I ended up eating the brain with some garlic noodles and hot sauce while Ravi was examining the rest of the body. I noticed some of Ravi's hair was out of place, licked my fingers, and attempted to fix it. Ravi was kind of freaked out to say the least. He did that weird, girly smacking as he pushed me away. "Though that wasn't remotely sexual, I'm pretty sure that's gotta be some form of harassment."

Ravi picked up a scalpel to begin. "Watch your fingers, that scalpel is sharp!" I scolded him. He looked at me with a questioning face. It was Emily's maternal instincts kicking in. Suddenly I felt like a mom. "I wonder what they're feeding him. . . the baby."

"Liv?"

"What?"

"How about you take a break." Ravi told me.

"But-"

He looked at me with those dark brown eyes of his and that serious face that was seriously serious. "Ok." I murmured. I've always been a sucker for brown eyes.

"You should eat something. With vegetables." I said before turning around and began making my way over to the break room.

"When I'm done here, I'll come watch the rest of Zombie Nightmare with you, okay?" He reassured me. I nodded. I wandered into the other room and fell onto the couch, suddenly tired. I thought back to the kiss we shared the other day. That sudden awkwardness, was somehow ironically comfortable. I didn't mind it. I wasn't sure why, exactly, he kissed me though. And it was starting to irk me. All that cliche stuff like 'what does this mean' started going through my head. Did it even mean anything? And then there was the slight sexual tension a minute ago when I tried to fix his hair. Yeah, what was that all about? Was it really just my sudden case of maternal instincts or was it . . . something more. I wasn't sure.

A few minutes of me laying there, and then Ravi entered the room and sat down on the couch on the cushion next to where my head rested. "Cat nap?" he asked. Without thinking, I made a cat noise. Well, that seemed sexual. But Ravi just rolled his eyes and patted my head.

I slept next to him like that until I woke up again at noon. Ravi had fallen asleep as well, his hand still resting on my head with his fingers lightly tangled in my hair.I removed his hand and stood up. I began to wander around the office aimlessly. In the back room, I found five rats all in lined up cages, each one labeled a letter from A to E. Aww, they were so cute! I picked one up out of the cage labeled "C" and held it. I just rocked it in my arms like a baby. I stared at his face, and he blinked back at me.

Ravi came in. He must've noticed I wasn't there when he woke up (and WOW that sounded way more sexual than I'd originally intended). He strolled up to the lined cages. "We're missing- Liv, you're rocking a rat." I giggled. "And I'm five minutes away from naming it and making it a grilled cheese." I reluctantly passed the rat back to Ravi.

000

"There was this . . . barking." he said. ". . . I didn't say that before 'cuz I would've seemed crazy. But I figured better late than never." Dylan gave a slight smirk. "Don't you think this information before?" asked Lieutenant Suzuki. His eyes were cold, his face serious.

Dylan leaned forward, challenging him. "Would it have made a difference?" DAYUM. I've never seen anyone give Suzuki a hard time, this was ground-breaking. Just like when the shovel was invented (I really need to stop). I made a mental note to tell Ravi later and refocused on the interrogation.

Everything went black suddenly. Through the eyes of Emily, I saw Dylan being pushed out by her father and saw myself, as Emily, being pushed away by the mother. Emily was screaming for Dylan, but her parents kept them apart.

As Clive came out of the interrogation room, I immediately told him what I'd seen.

Later we were walking around a piece of property owned by the Sparrows. It was a large blue country house with a guest house on the side. Very American. Clive knocked on the door. When nobody answered, he yelled "Police." through the window. "It's detective Clive Babineaux." There was still no answer. I was just kind of hovered around behind Clive when I noticed the cellar door around the side of the house. "Clive" I said motioning towards the door emerging from the dirt.

Clive was successfully able to pry the doors open. I followed him down the stairs into the dark and damp underground. He ran into a string hanging from the ceiling - the light bulb switch. Our eyes went wide when we saw the perfectly handcrafted wooden crib. It must've taken months to carve and sand down to perfection. There was a slam of the door leading up. That's when I had another vision. This time, I was looking through a barred window out into the night, staring at a man with long curly hair. From what I could see, he had a few rottweilers with him. But with his back to me, I wasn't able to see his face. He was on the phone with someone. I snapped out of the vision before I realized what had happened.

Clive's phone rang. It was Mr. Sparrow. Clive was silent for a few moments, just listening. "Yeah, about that. . . "

It wasn't them, that much I knew. They seemed too genuine to have killed her. After Mr. Sparrow let us out of the cellar he let us inside to look around for any potential clues. Nothing. At least now we knew that Dylan's barking story wasn't complete bullshit.

Clive later contacted animal control and brought in the manager for an interview. Though she lived in the city, I could tell she was kind of a southern belle . . . I mean despite her race profiling. Through her we were able to find our guy: the one from my vision. Who also happened to be her husband.

000

Steak-outs are boring. Especially when they're not with Ravi because then I can't eat my snacks freely. With Clive I have to wait until he's not looking for me to take a bite. Sometimes Clive catches me chewing, and that is just the worst, because then I have to go through the hassle of Clive telling me it's okay to eat, that I don't need to hide, and then me having to make up excuses to get him off my back.

I was in the middle of making excuses of why I can't eat with him looking when suddenly there was a loud noise and a bullet lodged into the glass of the windshield. Clive started up the car and drove around to the opposite side of the barn. We got hit a few times on the side of the car, but the windows remained untouched.

From the barn, we drove back out to the empty road just out of the brush of trees. Pretty soon moore (ha!) cop cars arrived. I was to stay in the car while Clive and all his cop buddies would take down the sniper and find the other girls from my most recent vision. From where I sat, I was able to see the treehouse. Without thinking I got out of the car and ran as fast as I could and started climbing the latter to the tree house. Then, without warning, I felt a sharp pain jolt through my left leg. I looked behind me to see the sniper from the window. I urgently banged on the hatch above me, trying to get it open. When I started to feel the metal sting from the bullet I went full-on zombie and pretty much punched the hatch open. As soon as I was in, my inner zombie faded.

At first glance, there was no one inside. But this was indeed the tree house from my vision, and I could hear a faint shivering against the wood floor. There under the bunk beds were four girls; two under one and two under the other. Something inside me could sense their fear. "It's okay, we're the good guys." I reassured them before leading them down from the tree. They were timid, really timid. They walked looking at the ground and would whisper to only each other in Latin.

"Miror vere est dæmonium exiisse?" said one of them.

"Im 'non sunt tam certa." said another.

I felt bad for them. They had been pretty much brainwashed into an alien cult. And now they had the mannerisms of Theon Greyjoy.

000

Dylan Munson was being his snarky self at the press conference at the end of the case.

"It'd be great for a TV show." He'd told me. He'd decided to exploit his baby over reality TV. NUH UH. I was not having it.

"When you lay an infant down to sleep, which way should they face. Up or down. One way severely increases the chances of the baby dying during the night, the other keeps the baby's airways open and normal. Which is it?" I asked him. That's what came out of my mouth but it kind of sounded like "You're baby's going to die within a week." I know, it was kind of harsh of me. But I had formed an emotional attachment to that baby. I had even visited him a handful of times in the hospital this week.

Dylan balled his fists and stormed away frustrated and defeated. Clive and Ravi, who were standing next to me, looked over at me amazed.

"Down girl." Ravi teased, obviously holding back a giggle.

000

My injured leg laid across Ravi's lap as he patched up the bullet wound. "You really need to stop getting shot." Ravi said seriously as he laced up the wound with a suture. I chuckled. "Yeah . . . That's what? Twice now?"

"Two times too many." Ravi said.