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Liv didn't come home. Major lay there in her bed until it felt too weird, then he got up and got dressed, grimacing as he put the bloodied shirt back on. His temporary zombieism had mostly healed the bullet wound in his side—he could barely even feel it now. So there was that, he guessed. On the whole, he still wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't rather be dead. What was there left? Beg Helton for his job back, or barring that, for a half-decent reference? Go get some kind of temporary job that wasn't what he had dreamed of doing all his life, just to put food on the table and pay the rent? Play zombie-shooting games with Ravi and pretend that it wasn't painfully ironic?
He understood finally why Peyton had skipped town. She must have learned about Liv and been unable to handle it. Major wished he couldn't handle it. He'd have liked a nice mental breakdown right about now. But Scott E.'s death had really put an end to any respite Major might otherwise have found in a mental institution.
Just the thought of it made his blood boil. Liv had known. He had told her everything, and rather than trust him with the truth, even then, she had treated him like a child and let him go toddling off believing he was going out of his mind.
He couldn't think about it another second, certainly not while standing here in the middle of her apartment. He banged out of there before considering that his car was still at Meat Cute.
It didn't matter, though. He would run. He needed the exercise. God, did he ever. Pounding his feet into the pavement, even in shoes that were all wrong for it, felt good. Feeling the air in his lungs, the blood pumping through his veins, the sweat standing out on his forehead … It wasn't all bad to be alive. And not a zombie. Liv probably didn't feel any of this anymore, not this way. He had only briefly been a zombie, but he remembered that feeling of everything being distant, nothing being quite right.
A car pulled up next to him and he ignored it, continuing to run. So his shirt was covered in blood—did he really need the neighborhood busybody bugging him about it? But then the car honked its horn and he gave it an irritated glance. Ravi leaned over to open the passenger side door. "Major! What the hell— You know what, never mind. Just get in."
Briefly, Major considered not doing it. But he was going to have to see Ravi eventually, and his boots were creating a hell of a blister. He sat back against the passenger seat. "What's up?"
"You haven't heard? Someone blew up Meat Cute."
"Yeah … not really. That was me."
"No, after you. There was an explosion. Captain Suzuki, Clive's boss, was killed in it. They're calling him a hero cop, saying he took out all those men himself." Ravi shook his head. "They're saying it was a drug ring."
"And do you think it was a drug ring?" Major asked cautiously, not entirely sure how much Ravi knew.
The don't-be-an-idiot look his roommate cast him was his answer. "Liv called. She told me what happened to you—that you know now." Ravi frowned. "Wait. You don't look like a zombie."
"I'm not. Liv cured me."
"She did what?" Ravi slammed his foot on the brakes, causing the wheels to squeal and the car to fishtail. Once he had it back under control and the chorus of honks from around them had slowed, he glanced at Major. "She cured you?"
"Yeah. Uh … Ravi, if she has a cure, then why—?"
"We had one cure. Maybe two doses. But I can't synthesize more without it because I can't recreate the exact chemical compound of the tainted utopium that was used to create the zombie virus in the first place."
"She gave me her cure?"
"Looks that way."
"Huh." Major supposed he should feel bad—but he hadn't asked her to make him a zombie in the first place, he thought defensively. "Ravi. Is that why Peyton—"
"Yeah." Ravi studied the traffic to avoid having to look at Major.
"I figured as much."
"You know, I can't figure you two out. You've both known Liv for years. You're both meant to love her. But you find out about her and Peyton bails and you treat her like she's—" Ravi stopped himself and took a breath. "Look, I get that it's complicated, but can you at least take one moment and think about what those six months were like for her? Terrified, not knowing what was going to happen to her, afraid to talk to anyone, afraid to go near anyone until she was sure she understood how it was transmitted? Completely alone in the wreck of everything she had ever hoped to be."
"Yeah, I can kind of imagine what that's like," Major said bitterly.
"You mean you can't stop thinking of what it's like for you long enough to think about Liv. Let me tell you, that is the strongest woman I have ever met. Anyone less so would never have survived it." Ravi glanced at him as he pulled off the expressway. "And she still loves you. Which is why she couldn't sit there and let you die. In her place, would you have been able to give up on her?"
Major started to say something, but the truth was he couldn't have. Not ever. And as much as he didn't want to admit it, he knew Liv couldn't have let him go either.
"Good. Now get your head out of your ass before we go inside, because she is in no condition for your issues."
"What?" Belatedly, Major realized that they were parking in the hospital parking lot. "Why are we here?"
"Her brother, Major. Evan was at Meat Cute—starting a job, I guess—when it exploded. He was caught in the blast. We're going in there to be with Liv." Ravi turned off the car and looked Major full in the face. "Can you do this? For her? And leave everything else at the door?"
Major took a breath. He really wasn't sure he could. But he cared about Evan, too, and he knew how Liv must be feeling, especially after having given up her career as a surgeon, knowing intimately what her brother's doctors must be facing. "Yes, I can."