Puck sauntered down the empty hallway whistling to himself. The hallway was deserted, but he still made a point of hunching his shoulders and gluing a self-satisfied smirk to his face. Who knows, maybe Coach Sue installed some hidden cameras in the hallways to make sure her Cheerios never ate or talked to people below their social standing, so it was worth the extra effort to look intimidating. Because there's nothing more badass than looking like a BAMF on a grainy surveillance-cam feed.
Puck glanced at his watch. It read 3:21, and the second hand wasn't moving. Dammit, he thought. Life guards should tell you not to wear your watch in the pool. This thing was expensive. I could hock my mohawk on the black market and still not get enough money to get this thing fixed. Being late was to be expected of him, but even grade-A rebels such as himself couldn't miss anything important, especially anything that might require his obviously superior opinion. They were brainstorming set lists for Nationals today.
Cursing, he kicked a locker just for fun. The only room he knew of that had a clock was the auditorium, because he used to get busy in there with Santana back when she was into guys, and he had to make sure she was never late to Cheerios practice, or she'd kick him so hard in the nads even his great-grandchildren wouldn't be able to have kids. Of course, he could always check a classroom, but there were probably nerds in there doing their homework, and that was one pathetic display he didn't care to witness. And he sure as hell wasn't going to the choir room early. Not if it meant listening to Berry present her pre-lecture notes on why her song selections for Nationals were the obvious choices.
So the auditorium it was. Puck spun on his heels and headed off in the opposite direction, breaking into a run. When he reached the auditorium, he skidded to a halt, wrenched the door open, and almost flung himself inside but stopped himself almost immediately. As soon as he had opened the heavy steel door, he was met by a sound, unearthly and disturbing, coming from the center of the stage.
There was somebody on the stage. A girl, by the looks of it, although most chicks didn't wear jeans and horizontal-striped crewneck sweaters anymore. She was pacing back and forth on the stage, leaning side to side and bending her knees as if to jump into the audience. She looked almost drunk. But she wasn't, he could tell. She was playing a violin and clearly very into it.
Puck heard violinists all the time. There was that fussy-looking Asian chick who played in the band sometimes, and the last time he went to Breadstix there had been this top-heavy Russian dude in a cummerbund playing some interminable sappy romance music as he waddled from table to table. But this sounded different. She was good, there was no doubt about that. Ever since Blaine showed up he had been trying to teach everyone how to tell if notes were in tune or out of tune, and he hadn't really been paying attention because he had just been staring at Berry's ass the whole time while she demonstrated her perfect pitch skills with her back to the piano as Blaine plunked out random notes. But he did learn something, and he could tell that this chick played in tune. But it wasn't just that. There was something about her sound that managed to traversd the expanse of the auditorium and burrowed a searing hole in his ear. He knew what pain felt like, and this sounded like it. In a good way.
He found himself quietly shutting the door to the auditorium and taking a seat in the back, under the shadow of the balcony so she wouldn't see him and get spooked. Because, you know, he was kind of scary. He found himself closing his eyes and just listening to the sound of the violin, as it dipped and faded and accelerated and decelerated. Whatever the hell she was playing, it sounded like fear and longing and agony, and it sure scared the shit out of him. He knew it couldn't be classical music because it sounded too cool. He opened his eyes and focused in on her fingers. They were doing some ridiculous acrobatics right now, and it kind of hurt is eyes to look at it. His eyes traveled to her face, which was contorted in concentration. She was playing some crazy fast part now and her fingers looked like little hammers, scurrying up and down the fingerboard with the agility of a spider. This girl had talent. Crazy talent.
And then it was all over. She stopped playing and lowered the violin from her chin. Now that her face wasn't all smashed up against her instrument, he could finally see it properly. She had a long, sharp nose – longer than Berry's – and big green eyes. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and her bushy shoulder-length hair framed her olive-skinned face in unkempt waves. In other words, not the best looking chick he had ever seen, but not the worst. She had one of those faces that looked better glaring than it did smiling.
Puck jumped as a door slammed behind him. He looked back at the stage, but it was empty. The violin girl was gone.