❝THAT HEART OF YOURS WILL NEVER CHANGE.❞
In which Freja Barrett, an enthusiast for all things supernatural, makes the life-altering decision of reconnecting with an old friend in the midst of her mission to prove the existence of zombies.
[iZOMBiE...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
EVERY PASSING SECOND was gnawing on the edges of Freja's courage, eating her alive until the cool exterior was reduced to a frantic rush leading her stumbling feet to the back of the police department and the entrance of her morgue, her smile gone in the wind and mild-mannered substitutes for swear words falling from her lips, instead. She had tried her best to offer solace to Ravi before hanging up and asking Elliot for a ride, but now that the gravity of the situation was weighing in and mixing in with the recent discovery of what exactly the man meant to her, Freja was no longer capable of keeping up the put-together armor of confidence and poise.
And yet, when she finally swung the heavy doors open with shallow breaths making their way into the morgue before her short figure, she didn't find a chaotic, bloody crime scene awaiting — instead, the greeting she received was delighted in tone, and the sight of Ravi watching YouTube videos on his computer was certainly unsettling, but not in the way Freja had spent the entire car ride preparing herself for.
"Oh, good, you're here!" The Chakrabarti had the audacity of clapping his hands together, but rather than joining the cheer, Freja stood in stunned silence until she saw the tightly wrapped band-aid on his finger and her feet involuntarily legged forward. "Oh, yeah—", Ravi cleared his throat, something unspoken lodged between his heart and the tip of his tongue when Freja gently cradled his hand in hers and inspected the soft skin carefully. "That—that would be the infamous zombie rat bite."
Narrowing her eyes, Freja observed the finger before looking up at Ravi and somehow ignoring the fondness in his gaze simply to swat at his arm. "You scared me!" she reprimanded with a scoff, her hold on Ravi's hand only dropping when she crossed her arms over her chest. "You sounded terrified over the phone and here I was wondering if I should have brought a helmet with me to stop you from digging into my brains", she sighed heavily, the stare in her eyes stern enough for Ravi to apologetically purse his lips together, but they both knew the lecture was coming from a place of love — even if Ravi couldn't suspect what kind.
"I mean, I do dig your brains?" he tried to lighten the mood with a joke, and once Freja's grave facade crumbled with an involuntary smile, Ravi was finally rising from his seat by the computer and shrugging. "I may not be a zombie yet, but this is all new territory. From what Liv has told me, the infection is often instantaneous but we've never seen what happens across species", he reminded, the nervous edge making a wavering return to his voice as he rested against the desk and mimicked Freja by wrapping his arms around his own chest.
Sucking in a breath, Freja reluctantly bobbed her head in a nod of defeat. "So we don't know what could happen eventually. And you need a babysitter", she figured quietly with a knit of her eyebrows, unhappy about the words her own voice was echoing through the morgue with — and the silent nod that Ravi agreed with, didn't really make the creeping discomfort any easier. Studying those who had already become zombies was one thing, but to follow the process towards an untimely half-death was another, and not within Freja's expectations, but she still looked up at him with a reassuring smile. There no words necessary to confirm that she would help him no matter what, and he figured as much, coaxing an appreciative sigh from him.
