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Major drove around Seattle for hours, it felt like, trying to work out a way to get out of this new situation. To be handled by both Vaughn du Clark and Blaine DeBeers? Nightmare. Double nightmare. Both of them were absolutely batshit crazy, unpredictable, and dangerous as hell—and somehow Major had to stay on each of their good sides without letting either one know about the other, and manage to protect Liv and a couple dozen frozen zombies in the process.

He couldn't help but feel that somehow this was Liv's fault. How dare she keep this from him? How dare she make a deal with Blaine, of all people? After he had tortured and killed all those kids? He couldn't believe it. He wanted to face her down and have her tell him that Blaine had lied, that she had never had any intention of letting him get away with what he had done, much less signed off on him continuing to run his zombie-feeding business.

It had been his intention to calm down with all the driving around, so he could be understanding when he spoke to her, but all the delaying was doing was making him more angry. He did a U-turn in the middle of an empty street and headed straight for her apartment.

He waited a moment outside, centering himself, trying to remember to ask first and not leap straight to conclusions. At last he knocked, hoping she wasn't out somewhere.

Fortunately, she was home, and she answered the door promptly despite the late hour. If he'd had to wait, he didn't know what he would have done.

She was surprised to see him. Surprised and distracted. Briefly, he wondered what brain she was on now—gamer brain? Was she deep in the middle of some quest in the heart of Riversong? Honestly, did it even matter?

"Hey. You're not really pallin' around with Blaine. Are you?" More blunt than he had hoped he could manage, but less angry than he had expected to be. Not bad, all things considered.

But the wide-eyed look of surprise on her face, the lack of a plausible denial, told him all he needed to know. "Come inside," she stammered at last, very quietly. "This isn't a conversation I want to have in the hallway."

Considering that it seemed to be a long-overdue conversation, Major didn't particularly care where they had it—but he knew from long experience that not everyone in her building appreciated late-night chats outside her door, so he let her tug him into the apartment and close the door behind him.

Still whispering, she asked, "What makes you think I've been palling around with Blaine?"

"Well, it must have been when he said you two were BFFs now."

"Shh!" She gestured toward the far door, the one that used to be Peyton's. "My roommate's sleeping."

Major glanced at the door and back to Liv, raising his eyebrows to indicate that he thought she was stalling.

Which she confirmed when her next response was to attack a question with a question. "What are you doing palling around with Blaine?"

"I-I'm not." Fortunately, he had thought this one out, since he could hardly admit to her that he had been captured kidnapping a rich zombie and brought to Blaine's in a body bag. "Look, I'm taking my grandmother on a tour of cemeteries, and surprise, surprise—"

Liv nodded. "You visited Shady Plots."

"So you do know what he's up to." He had hoped for a different answer, but he hadn't really believed he would get one. Seattle wasn't that big, and the world of Seattle's zombies was considerably smaller. To think she hadn't known what Blaine was up to when he was working directly under her nose would have been naïve.

"But I'm not palling around with him! One of the weird, um, perks of my job is that I get to know just about every funeral director in the city."

Every funeral director in the city wasn't a multiple murderer—or at least, it seemed unlikely. "You didn't tell me."

"Yeah! Because I thought you might do something unwise with the information."

Major looked down at her with disappointment. That was the best she could come up with?

"Drop by the grenade store," she added, to illustrate her point.

Because that had worked out so well the first time, Major was just rarin' to go for another round of murder and mayhem. And that was entirely beside the point, anyway. He leaned down toward her. "Okay, anything I might do to him, he'd deserve."

"No arguments there. But you've got to know that he serves a purpose." At Major's skeptical look, Liv continued, "He's in charge of feeding Seattle's zombies. That's his gig. At least now he's doing it without murdering people."

Damn it. She wasn't wrong. But she was also playing with fire. Too many people knew who she was, and what she was, and Major couldn't protect her as well now that they weren't together. "You need to move."

"What?"

"He thought it'd be cute to mention that he knows where you live. Look, just a building with a doorman. Security cameras."

"He knows where I work, too. So—"

A door closed. A door not behind him, where Liv's roommate was sleeping, but in front of him. Where Liv had been sleeping—or so he thought. It hurt surprisingly a lot, given that they weren't together anymore.

"You have company?"

"Sorry?"

"Seems like there's someone movin' around in your bedroom."

"Oh, no. That's—that's my brother."

Like hell it was. Damn it all. "Oh, really?" he said, pretending to fall for it. "So, you two have patched things up?"

She smiled, in the fakest of fake Liv smiles. "Everything's hunky-dory."

"Must be, if you're having slumber parties."

"His buddy dropped him off here. Evan tied one on, and he's crashing here so he doesn't have to face Mom 'til he's sobered up. And you know he's allergic to pet dander, so …"

It was a totally plausible story—except that not a word of it was true. He knew Liv, and he knew Liv's lies, and this one was a whopper.

"No. I didn't, actually." And he would have, and she knew that as well as he did.

"Yep. And … my roommate is dog-sitting her uncle's mini golden doodle. So cute—the dog, not the uncle. Anyway, there's dog hair all over the couch and … if Evan gets close …"

It had been entertaining for a few minutes, but now it was just sad, and sickening, and it really still hurt more than Major would have expected it to. "Okay. I got it."

"Long story short, I am sleeping on the couch tonight. But I should get back to Evan because I was just on a mission to get his puke bucket."

She really was committed to the story. Major nodded, pretending to buy it.

"Thank you for worrying about me," she said, coming closer and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

The kiss of death. The kiss of the death of their relationship. Well, wasn't this just the best day ever.

"All right." He couldn't fight with her anymore, and he couldn't pretend to buy her story, or pretend to buy it while making sure she knew he really didn't buy it. "I'm sorry for swinging by so late. Tell Evan 'hi' for me?"

Liv nodded as he moved past her, walking behind him to the door.

Major leaned against it for a moment after it closed, sighing. Come to get one question answered, get a bonus question—one he didn't even know he should be asking yet—for free. Lucky him.