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To Major's surprise, the news about Jordan's scratching of the human hadn't hit the news—or made it to Chase Graves, if the silence from that quarter was to be relied on. Unfortunately, it had made it to Fillmore Graves' legal department, who called Major in and handed him a file containing details on the lawsuit the human kid's family was bringing against Fillmore Graves for wrongful scratching. Even more unfortunateiy still, this meant that Major was going to have to take the news to Chase Graves himself, which was pretty much the last thing he wanted to do. He also had to tell Jordan that she was being sued, which didn't go well at all. Major blamed himself for not having kept a tighter rein on her those first few days, but that didn't change the situation, and Jordan was freaking out.
Making an appointment with his superior to fill him in on the story appeared to be more easily said than done. Even once he explained the situation to Chase Graves' assistant, Alice, she still couldn't find so much as five minutes in which Major could tell him about the situation. Eventually, he managed to charm Alice into giving him a sneak peek at Graves' schedule so Major could hang out in the hallway outside a conference room and wait for Graves to come out. Even that approach didn't work the first two times, as Graves came out with other people in the midst of intense conversations.
Finally, Major managed to catch him alone in the hallway, and got him to stop long enough to hand him the file on the lawsuit, and tell him the further bad news that somewhere out there was a video of a Fillmore Graves soldier, in full uniform and full rage mode, scratching a human civilian.
Graves accepted the situation far more calmly than Major had anticipated—he wouldn't have been surprised if Graves had shot him just to make the point and wouldn't have blamed if he had—and ordered Major to hunt down the video.
Because a human in possession of a hot video such as that one, a human who had yet to put that video up on any kind of social media and could thus be assumed to be holding it back as evidence, was so easy to find. Major put a lot of effort into it—he interviewed the kid who had been scratched, who told him nothing; interviewed that kid's parents, who told him little more; spoke to the storekeepers on the block where the scratching had happened, in hopes that they knew the names of the kids in the gang. None of it helped, particularly. While he had a good idea of what part of Seattle the videographer lived in, he didn't have a name, not even a nickname, to go on, and no one on his squad had taken pictures, so he only had the faintest memory of what the guy had looked like.
By the time he made it home, he just wanted to collapse on the couch and watch something mindless, maybe over a pizza liberally sprinkled with hot peppers. There was music blasting when he came in, playing somewhere upstairs, which was odd. Ravi liked music, but usually he listened downstairs, where the surround sound was better.
As he climbed the stairs, Major realized with some surprise that the music was coming from his room. To his even greater surprise, he found Liv and Ravi dancing in his room, both of them wearing his clothes, while Peyton applauded.
When she saw him standing in the doorway, she hastened to turn off the music. Ravi and Liv, startled by the sudden loss of their jams, straightened up and turned to look at Major.
"What is going on here?" Looking more closely at Ravi, he realized that the shirt he was wearing—Major's shirt—rather than being tucked up to show off his roommate's hairy belly, had actually been cut off. "Dude! My shirt."
"Sorry, mate. Fashion casualty," Ravi muttered, shame-faced.
"We're going to human-zombie night at the Scratching Post," Peyton explained.
"Why?"
The reason—which he should have guessed—stepped forward, and he tried not to think about the last time Liv had worn that particular one of his shirts. Softly, she whispered, "Major. There is no easy way to tell you this … I've met someone. And I think he may be the love of my life." Her smile was the kind typically shown in cartoons with hearts replacing the characters' eyes. He wondered what brain it was this time.
Behind Liv, Peyton caught Major's eye and made the international symbol for letting him know his ex-girlfriend was currently off her rocker. Not that it wasn't obvious, but he appreciated the confirmation. Well, fortunately for him, he didn't have to get involved with the lunacy this time.
He reached out and rubbed Liv's arm. "I've had a very long day unsuccessfully tracking down an incriminating video, plus we're in a fight, so … I'm gonna go make myself a burrito."
And without another word, he did just that. Behind him, there were hasty whisperings as Liv and Ravi blamed each other for getting caught dancing in Major's clothes. The three of them finished getting ready and left for the club, stopping to say good-bye to Major, who made sure he had a mouthful of burrito at just that moment.
The front door closed behind them and he was left at home, alone, in blissful solitude, filled with nothing but relief to be off the Liv Moore roller coaster. His life was crazy enough without that.