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Major was just pulling up to the house with a pizza when his phone rang. To his surprise, it was Liv. They were on good terms, but she didn't usually call him. "Hey. What's up? Everything okay?"
"Yes. I mean, no. I mean … I'm not sure."
"Okay. You want to start at the beginning, or—"
"I just saw my mom."
"Oh." He winced. That never went well. Even now that she knew about the zombieism, Liv's mom couldn't forgive her for not donating blood to Evan. It was willful ignorance on her mom's part, in Major's view, but then again, he had never liked Liv's mom. "Ouch."
"Yeah, deeper cut than usual this time."
"What happened?" He got out of the car, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder.
"She told me about my dad."
"Whoa, what?" Major nearly dropped the phone. All her life Liv had wanted her mom to talk about her dad, at least to tell her who he was, and the woman never let out a word.
"Yeah. He's not Uncle Art. He's some … other guy."
Major let himself into the house, flipping on the light. "So the guy you thought was your dad isn't your dad?"
"That's what she told me." Liv sounded like she was barely holding back tears.
"Heavy."
"Yeah. Hey, you want to come by the Hub on Friday night?" she asked in her trying-not-to-dwell fake cheerful tone. "I'm on evil chef brain, and I might as well get some use of the brain's upside. I've been making a mess over everything else."
"Sounds fun," Major told her. He wasn't sure it did, but any excuse to spend time with Liv instead of the myriad other things that constantly tugged on his time was a good thing.
"I'll text you the time," she told him. He could hear voices in the background. New business for the morgue, apparently. "Bye."
"Yeah, bye." He put the pizza on the table and the phone down. He was just picking up the lid of the box when he heard a voice behind him.
"Commander."
Whirling, Major had his gun out and pointed at the person sitting on his couch in the darkness before he had even processed that the voice was that of his missing soldier, the one he suspected of having set up the whole massacre at lockdown. "Peters. We've been looking for you."
Peters put his hands up in surrender. "I need your help. They'll kill me if they find me."
Major moved slowly toward him, gun steady in his hands. "Who says I won't? Six soldiers died the other night. Best case, you're the deserter who abandoned his post. Worst case, you're the traitor who helped orchestrate their deaths."
"I'm neither of those things, sir! But I know who the traitor is."
"Who?"
"Captain Bell. Your good buddy—Justin."
Justin? Impossible. But … was it? Major lowered his gun. "Talk."
"I left my post, just to get a snack," Peters admitted. "I was gone maybe five minutes. When I come back, the rest of my squad is dead. There's four more dead in the break room. I heard noises down the hall toward the freezers. When I turn the corner, I see them: heavily armed soldiers. I've never seen them before. And they all just huddled together, and they're just having a chat …"
"Yeah?"
"With Captain Bell. Now, he's bloody but he's fine. Just standing there casual as can be."
Justin was his friend. Justin had been his friend, all this time. Since the beginning. "No."
"Think about it," Peters urged him. "No one was where they should've been. Why? 'Cause Captain Bell ordered an inspection. People were polishing boots, making beds … Commander, he wanted them exactly where they were."
Major stared at his soldier, stunned. It made so much sense. He didn't want it to make sense, he didn't want it to be true … but it could just possibly be true.
What the hell was he going to do now?
"All right," he told Peters. "Here's what we're going to do." And he laid out the plan.
The next day, he took Peters in, wrapped up in bandages, attached to a very real-looking IV, thanks to his roommate.
Justin's face was unreadable when he looked down at the heavily bandaged body. "So that's Peters. You got him."
"Yeah, but he's in bad shape. He ran from my squad right into Mike Hughes' flamethrower, and nearly melted his face off. If we can get him stabilized before he dies, he could have some interesting stories to tell us."
Peters gave a very realistic groan of pain.
"Why don't you get some rest?" Justin suggested. "We'll take care of him here. I'll let you know if he starts talking."
Well, that sounded off. Telling the commander to go take a nap while someone else got to the bottom of a major infiltration?
But Major knew his cue when he heard it. He stopped walking and let the stretcher keep going without him. "Yeah. Rest sounds good."
He and Hobbs turned around and let Justin and his squad take the stretcher down into lockdown. Then they watched on the camera to see what would happen. Watched Justin send the other guard away. Watched him unlock the door and walk into the cell.
"Maybe … maybe Peters is a liar," Hobbs suggested. But he'd had the same reaction to the news that Major had—surprise, but not too much. Not enough.
Major leaned forward, watching tensely to see what his friend was going to do.
"Don't lose faith."
Sadly, Major had run out of faith a long time ago. "Too late."
He left the observation room and headed for the cell, arriving just in time to hear Justin say "You picked the wrong team, brother," and see him put a pillow over Peters' face.
Major pulled his gun and pressed it against the side of Justin's head. "I'm thinking maybe you picked the wrong team, brother."
Peters pulled the pillow off his face and sat up, and Justin turned to Major, his face closed off. Hobbs and the rest of the squad arrived, one of them taking Justin by the arm to another cell, a more secure one. As he walked away, Major heard Justin calling his name, and turned to see what he could possibly have to say for himself.
"I love you. I do," Justin told him. "I tried to support you, but you took it too far. You were willing to sacrifice zombies for humans. How could you be so naïve? You, Liv … There is no middle ground, Major. It's us or them! It's time to pick sides. You're a zombie. I recommend you get on board the team."
"I picked a side," Major said. "Good humans, good zombies. Side by side."
"That's not a side! That's blowing out a candle, making a wish!"
They looked at each other, each convinced he was right, neither willing to believe the other was. "I trusted you, Justin. Cuff him."
Hobbs, somewhat reluctantly, moved toward Justin with the cuffs. Before he could put them on, Justin had grabbed Hobbs' weapon from its holster and was using the nearest soldier as a human shield. All the others had their weapons ready, but couldn't shoot Justin because of the soldier in the way.
"Everybody stay back!" He dragged the soldier with him as he backed away. "I'm sorry, Major. You're a good guy, but the wrong guy for bad times. You're soft."
Major stared down the barrel of the gun, trying not to let the fact that this man had been his friend keep him from doing what needed to be done.
"You don't have the nerve to—"
And Major fired. The bullet struck Justin dead center in the forehead and he went down. Looking at his former friend, the only emotion Major could find within himself was regret that he hadn't been able to find out how far the conspiracy went first.
"Clean this up," he ordered, and walked out of lockdown.