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Major spent a long, long night shivering on his bunk, thinking back over all the best parts of his life that he could remember. As long as he could hold on to Liv, and football, and his work with the kids, and gaming with Ravi, then he was still Major. But it was hard to focus on any of it, because there was another inmate snoring just feet away, and Major could practically taste his brain. More and more of his mind and his being were just hunger now, and he was afraid to sleep for fear that everything he was would be gone when he woke up.
"Lilywhite! Visitor."
It took him a moment to remember that he was Lilywhite, and what a visitor was. He got slowly to his feet and shuffled after the guard. All his spare energy was going toward not getting brains and remembering who he was, leaving very little for keeping his body moving.
The visitor was Liv, her face going even paler than usual when she saw him.
He eased himself down on the stool and picked up the phone.
"Oh, Major," Liv whispered into her handset.
"Hey."
She immediately launched into a story, and Major tried to follow what she was saying and why it mattered to him, but it wasn't easy. "So, Clive came to see me, and he pretty much said that he doesn't think my alibi will hold up—"
There was more, but Major couldn't focus on it. "Liv. Look at me. You need to get me the cure. Soon. Very soon."
Liv didn't seem to realize how far past rational thought he'd already gone. She tried again to get him interested in the details of something other than his hunger. "Major, I mean about the case, and—getting you something decent to eat."
"It's too late for that, Liv. It is taking everything I have to stay myself. And if I'm not myself in here, it'll be bad."
"Major! No. No, we can't. It wipes away your memory … everything!"
"You have to make a choice, Liv. 'Cause we're gonna lose me one way or the other, and we both know one way is a lot worse." She was hesitating. Couldn't she understand how hard this was for him, how much he needed her support right now? "Please. Liv."
"No. No. I'll think of something. We're gonna work it out, you're gonna be fine."
"I don't agree, Liv."
But she was Liv, and she thought she could fix everything. Mostly, he loved that about her—except when it meant she didn't realize when he was really at the end of his rope.
"I'll figure something out," she said again. "You're gonna be fine." She hung up the phone before he could try again, and he shuffled back to his cell and returned to sifting through memories, savoring them, because one way or the other, he was going to lose them soon.
Later—how much later he couldn't have said; the passage of time was losing meaning for him—he was brought back to the precinct to be questioned. He submitted to being chained, wishing he could be chained all the time for the protection of everyone around him, and waited while Clive took his time about getting his papers situated.
"Okay," Clive said at last. "Let's get started. What I want to review is—"
Stone, sitting next to Major, held up a hand. "Before we start, Detective, do you mind if I give my client something?" Hunting in his briefcase, Stone explained, "He's a fitness guy, on a regimented diet, and he's gone days without his, uh, essential amino acids." He held up some kind of fitness bar, waving it at Clive.
"Yeah, sure, go ahead. He's clearly lacking some vitamin or other."
Some dim part of Major that was still Major wondered if Max Rager had decided to poison him before he talked. That would be like them.
"Here you go," Stone told Major, putting the bar down in front of him. "Your friend Peyton said that this is the kind you like."
Peyton. Peyton? Peyton! Liv. Liv had thought of something. She was a genius. Major reached for the bar, his fingers shaking as he ripped into the packaging.
"Ah, that a boy," Stone said, watching him. "Kid clearly needs his essential amino acids. Eat it up."
Major tore into it. Chocolate, vanilla … and nothing else. He stopped chewing, the food like dust in his mouth.
"What's wrong? Isn't that the kind you like?"
Swallowing some of what was in his mouth with difficulty, Major asked, "My friend gave you this?"
"Yeah! I mean, not that exact one, my shiba inu ate the one that she gave me, but I got you the same kind."
Damn it, Major thought, over Stone's long-winded detailing of his deliberations as to which kind of bar to buy. Damn it, damn it, damn it. He felt an instant of such pure rage, such pure hunger, that he could practically feel himself getting up and turning over the table and tearing into Stone's brain. He controlled it with everything he had left.
"Yeah. So. Okay," Clive said. "Now that we've got that out of the way, can we turn to these questions?"
Major tried. He really did, but concentrating was so hard. It was a relief that Stone wouldn't let him talk, because most of what he said would have been gibberish, anyway. Come on, Liv, he thought. Get me the cure. I can't hang on much longer.