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“Ready?”
Ravi gulped. Crouched down next to Clive, he looked decidedly out of place and uncomfortable. Actually, he looked like he was going to be sick.
Clive knew what his answer would be before he actually said it.
“No.”
Clive only nodded. It was to be expected. Ravi was a civilian, and this wasn’t something he would normally ever bring a civilian into. Unfortunately, he was out of options. Even forgoing the chance to have someone watching his back, he needed Ravi to calm Liv, if he couldn’t get through to her – and sedate her if he couldn’t.
“I know,” he said, the familiar grip of his gun in his hand comforting, despite the unease that raced through the rest of him. “But remember –”
“I’m only here for Liv,” Ravi agreed with a nod. “Right. Yep.” He visibly steeled himself. “I’m here for Liv,” he repeated, softer yet steadier, more to himself. The idea seemed to give him strength.
Clive pushed back his own doubts about bringing an unarmed civilian into a potential firefight, but it would have been more dangerous to give an untrained civilian a gun. He’d have to be enough for the both of them. He would be.
He took a settling deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in and mentally reviewed everything he knew about the situation. He was ready, even if Ravi wasn’t, but he needed Ravi to be ready.
“I can give you five more minutes,” he started, opening his eyes again, “but then –”
“No,” Ravi interrupted, strength in his voice, a steel Clive hadn’t been expecting. “No. I’m ready.”
Clive searched his eyes, looking for the mask. There didn’t seem to be one. He thought of Ravi and Liv in their lab. Ravi and Liv, laughing. Ravi and Liv, heads bent together as they debated brain chemistry and vaccines. There’s was trepidation in Ravi’s eyes, there was no doubting that, but it was vastly overshadowed by determination. No guarantee Ravi wouldn’t falter, in the face of danger, but this was as good as Clive was going to get.
He nodded again, double checked his grip on his gun. “Stay two steps behind me – directly behind me – stay quiet, and do what I tell you to do.”
Ravi nodded in reply, no matter that Clive had told him this already. Three times.
Clive took one more deep breath, then surged upward. He rounded the house to the back, strode toward the door, kicked it in with a force he didn’t know he had in him, and raised his gun as he entered. “Clear,” he called out, quieter than normal, only for Ravi’s benefit, as his eyes swept the back room – the kitchen. It had two entrances.
There was no time to doubt which one to take, no time to worry about leaving Ravi’s back unprotected. Clive swept to the left, keeping his ears open for movement behind them, and started to clear the first floor.
No one was home, or, at least, he cleared the floor smoothly and quickly without encountering a soul. The car hadn’t been in the driveway, but Clive wasn’t sure whether he was pleased with that or not. On one hand, this wasn’t official police business – if he’d fired his weapon, or even just needed to come up with an excuse make an arrest… On the other, though, this man had taken Liv. Clive wanted – needed – him off the streets.
Relaxing only a little, Clive approached the only unopened door left in the house. He glanced back to lock eyes with Ravi. The man nodded, ready. He seemed about ready to vibrate through the roof with nerves, but he was holding himself back, a syringe clenched at his side in a steady hand. It had been three days. Neither of them knew which version of Liv they would find at the bottom of the stairs.
Slowly, aware that their enemy could still be waiting for them, Clive stepped downward. There were no sounds coming from the basement; he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not either. There was no snarling of a rabid zombie, but Liv wasn’t shouting for help either.
The steps were old, and wooden. They creaked quietly as Clive stepped. The light was already on downstairs, so he didn’t need to worry about that, but they were the kind of steps that entered the center of the basement, surrounded on both sides by walls as they descended, with little visibility. From what he could see, the basement itself was concrete, unfinished, or maybe preferred that way: a good place to keep a zombie.
He shoved such thoughts from his mind and descended a little further. The only sounds were his and Ravi’s feet on the boards, and the heavy breathing of Ravi behind him. Clive’s feet settled on pavement. His eyes flickered around the sparse room at the bottom. It was clean, neat and tidy, if a bit shabby, like the upstairs. Ordered, but cheap, the product of a rogue former doctor without funding or a job: someone who knew what they were doing, what they wanted to do, but without the means to finance things properly.
“Clear,” Clive said, again, throat tight. For the first time, he let himself entertain the idea that Liv wasn’t here. If they had come all this way for nothing…
He stepped forward, swept his gaze around the room, and chose a direction. With the stairs in the center, the rooms ringed the basement in a circle, and again there were two ways he could have gone. He went right this time, entering a room just as well lit as the previous (single bulbs, exposed and uncovered, hung from each ceiling).
In the doorway, gun still raised, he froze.
Liv met his eyes, wide-eyed but not red-eyed, startled by his entrance. For a moment, the two of them stared at each other, equally taken aback.
Liv, not him, was the first to break from the shock. Her eyes widened further, surprise meeting joy and relief, and she strained forward, leaning toward him.
Strained, because she was strapped down. There was a dentist’s chair, or something similar, bolted to the center of the floor, and Liv was strapped to it, a belt across her ankles, restraints around each wrist, another at her midsection. She strained forward, but she couldn’t move.
“Liv…” Ravi breathed out behind him, relief light on his breath.
Clive didn’t move.
Liv strained again, this time more purposefully. It was clear she wanted to say something.
It was equally clear she couldn’t.
Liv was muzzled. Gentle, joyful, energetic Liv. Damaged, broken, Liv, who’d had her entire life turned upside down in one night and given up everything she held dear just to keep others safe. Brave Liv, who’d given up her dream of helping people to sulk in a basement and had found a new dream, still helping people. Irritating, confusing, annoying Liv, who swapped personalities on a weekly basis and withheld secrets like she feared they would be knives digging into flesh if they got out. Liv, his reluctant partner, his good friend, the one who never failed to make him smile on a bad day and never let her own circumstances get her down.
Liv – the zombie.
The doctor had muzzled her. It wasn’t a gag, wasn’t cloth wrapped around her head, wasn’t a thing of plastic and discomfort. It was a thing of metal and pain, a proper muzzle, mouth sealed shut.
Rage swelled through Clive, rage, wrath, a storm of fury that threatened to drown him. He’d seen terrible things, during his years on the force. He’d see more of them, in the years to come. But Liv was his friend. Liv, the zombie, the medical examiner, the faux-psychic who helped bring killers to justice, was his friend. For a moment, for an eternity, the sight of that muzzle was unbearable.
It was Ravi’s impatience that snapped him out of it, Ravi’s step forward, bumping into Clive’s back, that brought him back to reality.
Clive hardened himself into steel, well aware of the gasp of horror that left Ravi’s lips after the relief had faded. “Is he here?” he bit out.
Liv, still straining forward, still wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t stand to be in that chair for another second, shook her head.
Clive relaxed ever so slightly. He nodded. He’d have to check, but…
“Ravi,” he ordered, sharp in a way he knew his friends would forgive him for, “get her out of there.” He didn’t wait to see how Ravi took his command, sweeping forward to continue his circuit of the basement. He tore through every nook and cranny – opened even impossible cupboards and pushed aside the shower curtain in the bathroom – before he returned to the two of them.
Ravi had unbuckled the restraints already and pulled Liv from the chair – or maybe she’d pulled herself from it, eager as she’d been at the sight of them – but they hadn’t gotten far. Ravi was crouched on the ground, his forgotten syringe discarded in the doorway, Liv in his arms. She was curled up slightly, shoulder against his chest, head half-way burrowed in his own shoulder.
Clive had forgotten, zombie or not, partner or not, Liv was still a civilian too. She’d been through too many life-altering events the past year of her life; that didn’t make this abduction any less traumatic. In the process of holstering his gun, Clive froze for a second as he realized Ravi hadn’t quite finished freeing their friend. His hands were shaking, fumbling, behind her head as he struggled with clasps that didn’t seem to be opening.
The fucking muzzle. Clive snarled, shoving his gun into his holster and striding forward. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the way they impacted with the hard concrete, and pushed Ravi’s shaking hands out of the way. The other man didn’t protest, dropping his arms downward, encircling the now-shaking Liv. Forcing his own hands to be steady, Clive ruthlessly undid the two clasps that held the muzzle in place.
There was a sharp intake of breath as soon as the metal clicked out of place, and Liv bent forward, hands surging to her mouth as she pulled the thing off of her herself. She yanked it out with one move, tossing it aside and pulling in shaky, heaving breaths as it cleared her mouth.
“I’ve got you,” Ravi started to murmur. “I’ve got you, you’re safe now.”
Clive left him to the platitudes and the comforting, watching him rock Liv in his arms for moment before looking up to sweep his gaze around the room again. There was no sign of a camera, no sign of any files or records of what might have been done to his partner. Didn’t mean they didn’t exist – and Clive wanted to burn this house to the ground, for what the doctor had done to Liv – but it wasn’t something he could take care of this moment.
He turned his attention back to his two friends, and forced himself to be the pragmatist.
“Have you eaten?” he heard his own voice saying, instead of asking if Liv was okay.
No longer shuddering, her breathing once more under control, she looked up at him from where she was huddled in Ravi’s arms. Her eyes weren’t as wide as before; no longer shocked, they were just tired. Tired, and relieved, and, if Clive wasn’t stretching, wasn’t trying to imagine things that weren’t there, grateful – loving, even.
Her boys, she’d called them once, him and Ravi. He didn’t care in what context she’d meant it. Here and now, it was true. It’d been true then, too, he’d just been too stubborn to admit it.
Her boys, and instead of asking if she was okay he was asking if she was about to turn on them, even as she looked at him with thanks in her eyes.
He hated himself for it, and he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
“I’m good,” she said, already straightening. “He… He had brains.” She shook her head – dislodging memories, maybe – and straightened further, sitting on her knees now. “I’m good,” she repeated.
“You’re not,” Ravi countered, straightening himself, keeping a steady hand on Liv’s shoulder, maintaining contact.
Clive pulled himself to his feet first. “You’re not,” he agreed. “But you will be.”
A fucking muzzle. His rage might have settled, but it was still there. He didn’t care if he couldn’t do things the proper way, refused to acknowledge that there were other threats out there. This threat, at least, would be dealt with shortly. He’d make sure of it.