Cool
There was a gunshot in the cafeteria.
Things got a little bit crazy after that. Kids were screaming, girls crying, guys freaking out. As everyone got the hell outta Dodge, Puck remembers looking at the hotdog in his hand, fresh from the grill, holding it up to his mouth and realizing one half of it was just... gone. He'd frozen, wondering who the hell took a giant bite out of his lunch without him knowing, the bastard. That cost him two dollars of hard-earned pool-cleaning cash.
Then Finn was hauling on his shoulder, nearly ripping it from the socket, and shouting: "Dude! Get down! What are you thinking, man, we gotta go!"
"Go where?" Puck asked. The exits were crammed, and hell if he could hear any directions coming from the PA over all the screaming. There was another volley of gunshots, and Finn reeled. The hand on Puck's shoulder disappeared, and Puck ate linoleum floor hard, bouncing off the cafeteria table on the way down. When he got there, Finn was crouched on his knees as low as he could, which wasn't much since he was such a Sasquatch, clutching his head and the back of his neck with desperately crossed arms, trying to protect himself like how they tell you to in an earthquake or a tornado, and his eyes were wide in a pasty-white face.
"You feeling okay, man?" Puck asked. "You look a little—"
Finn slapped him across the face. Puck nearly punched him back, spluttering in shock, but the utter terror in Finn's eyes waylaid him. Finn was pointing at something behind Puck, his mouth forming words Puck couldn't hear over the sounds of his own heartbeat. He followed his gaze, and that's when he saw it – Rachel fucking Berry, standing stalk still in the middle of the cafeteria, her features frozen in an overly-dramatic stage-scream. You ham, Berry, thought Puck condescendingly. Always have to be the centre of attention, huh?
And Jacob Ben Israel was standing at the other end of the now-deserted cafeteria, a semi-automatic 125-gauge with a huge magazine cocked in his hands, and a look like a freakin' rabid dog in his eyes. He was staring at Rachel like she was a sack of meat, and this disturbing little grin was twisting his face into a parody of that smiling scream mask from those movies. There were three unmoving bodies surrounding him. Puck didn't recognize any of them – he didn't let himself recognize any of them.
"Crawl for the door," ordered Puck in a ferocious whisper.
Finn looked away from Rachel with a stricken, dumb look. "What?"
"Crawl for the fucking door," Puck hissed. "I'll get Berry."
"But—"
"Find Quinn," Puck ordered. "Find everyone. Get outside, if you can. Get to the music room if you can't. I'll get Berry and find you. But you gotta find the others first."
"Yeah, but—dude, man, you're bleeding."
"Finn," Puck warned. He held up his fist, and even Puck didn't know what he meant by that, but whatever, it got Finn's eyes to refocus on the here and now, and earned Puck a determined little nod in return. When Finn started crawling away, keeping his head low and trying to stay in the shadow of the table seats, Puck turned back to Berry.
Ben Israel had lowered his gun and was steadily advancing towards Rachel, still grinning his maniac grin. Puck could guess what he was planning, easy, and still the little idiot Berry refused to move. It was like she really was frozen. Whatever. Israel didn't know Puck was still in the cafeteria; if he had, Puck guessed he would have been riddled with holes by now. He wasn't about to give Israel a second to realize it, though, so before he could even fully think through his plan – planning wasn't really his style – Puck was exploding off the ground in a dead-run towards Berry, noting Israel jerk with surprise, earning him a few more precious seconds to act. In his peripheral – a word he'd learned in juvie, always watch your peripheral, warned the guards, and maybe you'll get to keep the other nipple ring – he saw Israel level the gun, saw him wildly try to aim, a furious scowl on his face. Israel debated, which one to shoot – the jock or the girl, shoot the jock and risk losing the girl, shoot the girl and get an angry jock to probably kill after, two birds with one stone – but by the time he pulled the trigger, Puck was slamming into Berry with all the force he'd learned to in football and crashing into the table beyond. The semi-automatic fired off a half dozen more shots, ripping up the cafeteria tables and sending slushie and spaghetti splattering through the air.
Puck expected Berry to be stunned by the hit, the same kind he'd used to take out countless quarterbacks on the field, but the hit, however painful, had at least unfrozen her. At a few hectic jabs from Puck, Berry was stirring, eyes wide and wet, and began scrambling madly of her own accord to the nearest door. It led outside, into the courtyard down the cement steps, but they would have a bit of a lead on Ben Israel, who Puck could hear swearing and trying not to slip on the slippery floor – slippery with what, Puck didn't want to imagine, but he thought it was probably spilled milk and slushie and lunchbox juice, since it was sticky over here, too. Berry paused at the last table, their last cover before the two-way swinging door, but at a shove from behind leaped towards the door like a wet cat, her hands slapping the door with resounding smacks, and Puck was hot on her tail.
Ben Israel swore again: "Motherfucker! Get back here!" and fired off another round. The bullets shattered the concrete stone of the cafeteria walls, shattered the glass window on the door, forcing it to swing open astoundingly hard, its edge hitting Puck in the calf as he dove through after Berry. He'll never admit to it, but that door was what tripped Puck up, made him somersault down those stairs ass over teakettle, as his Ma liked to say, beating Berry to the landing by four stairs. It was almost four stairs too late, though, since Ben Israel caught up to them at that point, kicking open the door and shouldering his way through, glowering murderously. Three more bullets rebounded off the cage around the stairs. Berry whimpered, crashing into the railing to avoid getting hit and half-falling the rest of the way down the stairs to the landing, but luckily for her, Puck was the one Ben Israel was aiming for, if the ricochets around Puck's right ear were anything to go by.
Good Jewish Jesus, thank fuck that kid was a shitty shot, or else Puck would have about eight holes in his perfect body by now. Plus, you know, Berry would probably be dead, and Glee would never win nationals this year if that happened. They'd already lost Kurt to the Warblers.
Then: a miracle. After those three shots went off, the magazine was out of bullets. Puck didn't know whether Ben Israel had another mag or not, but Puck wasn't sticking around to find out.
"Berry," he whispered, hand outstretched. "C'mere."
She looked up at him with those huge brown eyes, terror and concern and panic all flashing, but when her gaze settled on Puck's hand, she steeled herself and nodded. She lunged out, gripped his wrist, and her momentum down the second flight of stairs got Puck onto his feet and chasing after her, leaving Ben Israel cursing behind them.
When did Berry get so fast? It was all Puck could do to keep up with her, and he had considerably longer legs. "I train on the elliptical for half an hour each morning, Noah," he remembers her saying, back when they were sort of dating. "It gives me a greater lung capacity for singing."
Unfortunately, the courtyard was in the center of the school, walled in on every side by buildings or fences. There was, however, a gap in the fence behind Sylvester's Cheerio shed that led to Sandy Ryerson's pot pick-up. Puck was done aiming them at that point, though, too concerned with looking over his shoulder to know when to duck behind a stone table. He tensed at everything that moved out here, and even worse – there were still students cowering under tables and in the shadows of the coliseum-style stairs.
"Run!" yelled Puck. Later he wouldn't know why he said it; it's not like those other kids needed him to tell them Ben Israel was coming since they all would have heard the shots. "He's coming! Get out of here!" His voice was hoarse and his chest hurt every time he drew breath in to yell. Maybe he'd cracked a rib in that fall down the stairs. He'd had cracked ribs before, once from crashing his BMX bike and once from fight club. His Ma hadn't let him go back after that. He'd lied the next week and said he'd gone to Finn's house.
That hadn't worked after Babygate. His Ma may not have known about Beth – and never would, if he had his way – but she did clue in that he and Finn had had a falling out.
Finn... why was that important? It had struck Puck as odd, when Finn had grabbed him in the cafeteria. They weren't on speaking terms, not yet, not for anything not including Glee or Football. So it had been weird that Finn had been so close when that first gunshot had gone off. Weird that he'd grabbed Puck. They'd been arguing about something, Puck was sure of it, and now... and now...
Ben Israel hadn't come out to the outdoor courtyard. It had been a good solid five minutes already, and the table Berry had ducked under, pulling Puck with her, had a clear view of a door into the school. It was dead in there, completely empty, completely abandoned, but somewhere in there, Finn was looking for Quinn and all the others, and after being unable to catch Puck, Israel was probably looking for blood. If he hadn't come out to the courtyard, then he'd gone in the opposite direction—the direction Finn had crawled.
Puck stood suddenly, heart beating a mile a minute, only to be dragged back down. He tensed and jerked, ready to fight off his attacker, only to see the last bit of Rachel Berry's flinch as she tightened her grip on his hand and wrist.
Her voice was a scandalized hiss, like he was forgetting the lyrics on stage during Sectionals. "Are you crazy, Noah? We're in the middle of a shootout!"
He smiled at her crookedly. "No shit, Berry. But I gotta—Jacob Ben Israel's heading towards the music room."
"You can't know that."
"I do know that, Berry."
"How could you possibly—"
"Because he wants you, Berry, and where the hell do you think you'd go if you thought he was going to follow you into this courtyard and I wasn't with you?"
She recoiled, and damn if her doe eyes didn't get wider. "Even if that's true, why would you intentionally head towards him? You're already—"
"I told Finn to go there. To find Quinn and the others and hide in the music room, and if Israel finds them, if he finds them, I—"
He stood again, shaking Berry's hand from his arm. No bullets smashed into his skull like a sniper's shot from the stairs, so he figured he was in the clear. Still, he crouched down right away on an afterthought, just to be safe, and began to crouch-run towards the school. He'd seen video game characters run like this. Yeah. Badass. He could be a freakin' Black-Ops Call of Duty if he wanted. Real life.
The last time he'd played that game had been at Finn's house. It was Finn's game, Finn's Xbox. Puck had stolen his own version not long after Babygate began, but sold it to try and get enough money to pay for some of Quinn's baby tests. He hadn't bothered to buy a new one, and then juvie had happened, and... he didn't have a lot of desire to play video games after that.
He was almost in pissing distance of the door when he was bowled over by a tackle. He grunted from the impact when he landed and instinctively reacted like he would from a pin at fight club, and was rewarded with a solid yelp. Thing was, he recognized that yelp, as well as the soft hands pulling at his shoulders from above. The adrenaline haze cleared, leaving him breathing heavily, his hands shaky. Sam was below him, pinned by Puck's reverse slam, and Quinn was crying almost silently, fruitlessly trying to pull Puck off and away, whispering, "Please, no, please, Puck, don't."
Puck let Sam loose and decided to sit down right that moment to figure out where the hell Sam thought he could get off doing that. "What the hell, man?"
"The hell do you think you're doing, Puckerman?" demanded Sam in a low growl. He touched his eye, which was already puffy and swelling, and glowered.
Somewhere in the courtyard, a can dropped from a table and the sound made each of them jump, and at Quinn's gesture Sam was sliding on his ass away from the door to where Quinn had gone back to hiding between a dumpster and the wall, completely out of view of both the stairs and the nearest door. That was when Puck realized he was sitting kind of out in the open, and figured he may as well get the breath Sam had stolen with his ill-timed tackle back whilst sitting next to Quinn. He crawled there on his knees, glaring at Sam when the Bieber wannabe got grabby with his shirt and dragged Puck the last foot into the tiny space.
"What the hell, Evans?"
"Puck, we called you like, ten times, man. What the hell were you thinking, going back in there? There's a shooter in the school!"
Puck rolled his eyes and scoffed. "No shit, Sherlock! I saw him do it."
"You did more than that," Quinn pointed out softly. She drew soft fingers down Puck's bicep, a stricken look on her face. She was wearing her Cheerios uniform, all red and blonde ponytail and proper. "Puck—"
"I told Finn to find the others and go to the music room," Puck explained shortly. He was beginning to get his breath back, his adrenaline sharpened at Quinn's touch – this was the mother of his baby, damn it, and despite all the crap that had gone down this year, anything that made her worry would always make Puck see red. "I have to get them out of there, or they'll all die. Someone's gotta warn them."
"Then let me do it," Sam decided. He was using his leader-voice again, the one that won those football games back when Finn and Puck weren't on speaking terms—they still weren't on speaking terms. The only speaking they'd been doing lately was yelling, and just that afternoon, not even fifteen minutes earlier – it felt like fifteen seconds – Finn had been yelling again, and Puck had ignored him, tried to take a bite out of his hotdog. "Puck, where was the last place you saw the shooter? Who was it?"
That leader-voice brought Puck back. This wasn't some football game. Sam wasn't the quarterback. And Sam hadn't told Finn to go to the music room. And Puck was here, wasting time, when all Jacob Ben Israel had to do was walk through the cafeteria, down a single hallway and one flight of stairs, and the music room would be right there.
"No," Puck refused. "I'll go."
"Man, you can't—"
"No, Evans. You listen to me, okay? Get the girls out. Get Quinn and Berry out. You know Coach Sylvester's Cheerio shed? You can sneak outta the courtyard through a hole in the fence under the shed. It's a clear path from there all the way under the bleachers. Ben Israel can't get there from this side of the school, so it'll be safe. The girls are the only thing that matters. Get them out, Evans. You do it, you hear me?"
After a pause (too long, Puck suspected anxiously), Sam was nodding determinedly. He may have said something, but by that point Puck was already lumbering through the door to the school, racing as fast as his burning lungs could take him. He belatedly realized he ought to run low to the ground, to avoid reaction shots that often took people's heads off in the movies, and skidded to an almost-late stop at the corner to peek around it, so he could see if the way was clear. The music room was four classrooms down on Puck's side, almost all the way at the end of the hall where Coach Sylvester's office was, so Puck couldn't see the situation.
"Fuck."
They were supposed to have Glee practice today, right after school, to celebrate their tie with the Warblers at Sectionals. It was all planned – after this week, with all the tensions that had been running rampant – it was supposed to be a celebration. Then Finn had cornered him at lunch, and because it was in front of so many people, Puck had just brushed him off, shut down to avoid any chick-flick moment. He was a badass, he wasn't supposed to have dramatic shouting-matches about cheating with somebody's girlfriend in the middle of the cafeteria. Yeah, a fight over a chick was bound to make him even more popular with the ladies, but in the cafeteria? Man, that was sacred space. That was eating space. Puck would have much preferred a good old fashioned fight-em-out brawl in the music room, like last time. Except... Finn hadn't forgiven him last time, almost a year ago, now.
"We cool, dude?" And expectation, and an open hand, and an unspoken, I'm so fucking sorry. I never meant for any of this.
"No." And steely eyes, and a shake of the head, and a complete rebuff of Quinn's pleading, "Finn—" and an unspoken, We're never gonna be cool again, Puck, and it's all your own goddamn fault.
Two more gunshots nearly made Puck jump out of his skin, but even then it took a few precious seconds for his brain to catch up. "Thank God," he muttered, rounding the corner and jogging as fast as he could down the hall, because those shots hadn't come from the music room, they'd come from the hallway kiddy-corner, and that meant that Ben Israel hadn't gotten there yet, that Puck still had time. He pivoted so quickly at the music room door he ended up sliding in on his ass, like a slide through the dust for second base in little league.
Little league was where Puck had first met Finn. They were eight years old. Puck's dad had just left and his Ma was feeling guilty, so she threw Puck in a bunch of sports to get him out of her hair and have fun at the same time so she could focus on baby Sarah. Puck hadn't had any of the equipment: no hat, no uniform, no glove. At practice, the coach had told Puck to run laps since he couldn't participate in the drills and there was no one willing to play catcher to his hitter. But Finn had stepped up. He'd said he didn't need his bat, ball, and glove all at the same time, so why didn't Puck take the bat and Finn could work on his throw? Then Finn had shared his Kool-Aid drink with Puck and they found out neither of them had a dad around, but that Puck had a little sister who wasn't so bad, really, and hey, had Puck ever heard of Journey?
Puck returned to consciousness by a harsh stage-whisper from a few feet away: "Puckerman, get your ass up."
He didn't think he'd been unconscious long, because his head hadn't even hit the floor yet. He could barely tell where he was but had enough sense of the place to whip around fast and latch the door, making certain to turn the handle so the click was almost silent. He leaned up against it, taking stalk of the room. He was surprised at how many students had made it here, and counted in relief each recognizable face he saw: Mike, Tina, Artie, Brittany, and Mercedes, who had hissed at him, along with a half-dozen other students he didn't recognize but thought maybe he should – Jazz Banders, maybe? He'd never paid them much attention, before. Now they all kind of blurred together, because with a sinking heart, Puck realized Schuster, Lauren, Santana, and Finn were all missing, and fuck all if he didn't care much about the first three, because the last time he'd spoken to them he hadn't ignored them like they didn't even exist.
Mike crawled quickly over to Puck, ducking and looking out the window in the door and overall looking intense and focussed and furious and – where had all that blood come from on the floor?
"Whose blood is—?" Mike asked at the same time. They both replied a second later, "Not mine."
Mike looked doubtful at that admission, which Puck frowned at. How the hell did Chang think it was possible for Puck to bleed on the music room floor when he'd just got here? But the fury beneath Mike's calm exterior was apparently closer to the surface than his observations skills, because a moment passed before Mike was hissing, "Jacob Ben Israel shot Tina."
What? But Puck had seen her, curled up between Brittany and Mercedes, hiding behind Artie's chair in the corner of the music room, all of them crouched behind the piano, which they had rolled to cover them. "What? Is she—is she okay?"
"Of course she's not okay, Puck!" Mike was nearly snarling. All that talent, all that energy that made his dancing so amazing, that was the intensity that was fuelling him now, a controlled anger that made Mike unpredictable, just like how he'd orchestrated the confrontation with Karofsky. But that same brimming anger made Mike forget things – like how much bigger Karofsky was, how easy a target Mike made when he was mad, how Jacob Ben Israel had a fucking semi-automatic. "She got shot!"
"Is she dying," Puck clarified, glowering. If she was, he'd be the first to try and escape with her, to find her help. But if she wasn't... he had to find Finn. He remembered those two shots he'd heard just minutes ago, and his back broke out in a cold sweat.
Mike ground his teeth. "I don't think so. He was aiming at Santana and Tina was in the way. He shot her in the leg. We wrapped it up with my sweatshirt, but she's lost a lot of blood already. The others are fine. What about you, bro?"
Puck shrugged. "I was stuck in the cafeteria a while. Had to crawl out, then I fell down the stairs. Shut up," he added, but Mike wasn't laughing. "I got Berry outta the cafeteria, then ran into Quinn and Sam. He's getting them out through the pot path. What happened to Santana?"
Mike just jerked his head slightly. Puck took that to mean he didn't know. He didn't want to think about any other alternate meaning behind that gesture. Santana – Puck and Santana had history, and that meant something to Puck, always would. "Have you seen Finn or Lauren?"
"Lauren got out," Mike said with certainty, and Puck slumped a little into the door. At least one. One of them was safe. "I was thinking about jumping out of a window to get Tina help and I saw Lauren in the crowd across the street. I'm pretty sure Schuster got out, too, but I haven't seen Finn since the cafeteria."
Fuck fuck. All Puck could think about was him telling Finn to get to the music room, and those two shots from earlier scared the living hell out of him now. He could almost hear them – bang bang! Like firecrackers except so much worse. Bang bang!
Only when Puck saw Mike flinch at every bang that went off in Puck's head did he start to clue in that maybe those gunshots weren't only in his head, after all. Shit, he was out of it. Had he bashed his skull in that fall down the stairs, too? It was distinctly possible. He hadn't landed very softly. The sound of new gunshots had Puck sweating buckets, his fingers shaking with raw adrenaline and fear, real fear, because those shots were getting way louder.
Mike arched his back and straightened his crouch a bit in order to glance out the window, barely visible. "Shit!" Mike exclaimed, his face alternately white with fear and red with anger, and Puck knew that whatever Mike had seen, it was bad. Mike never swore. "Open the door! Quick, do it now!"
Puck didn't hesitate. He reached for the door handle, the tension in the air making it feel like he had to move through a thick layer of sludge, and managed to crunch himself into the wall and open the door just wide enough for a flash of green and denim blue to whip through the door, sliding into the room so quickly he smashed into three chairs before he was suddenly in a crouch, eyes wide and a line of red cutting open his forehead. Puck slammed the door behind him, and everything that happened after that was a whirl of activity.
"He's coming here," Finn cried. "We gotta get outta here. Quick, into Mr. Schue's office; he was coming down that hallway so when he turns the corner he'll never see us. It's the only way, c'mon; he was right behind me!"
The Jazz banders and Brittany panicked, all of them racing for Schue's office. Puck yelled at them, tried to get them to stop, but the trombone player was already half-out the door in the office when Ben Israel, coming from the left and not having rounded the corner yet, spotted him. A fine spray of blood misted on Brittany's face and Cheerios uniform, then the trombonist was collapsing back into the room. His body took two more bullets as Ben Israel approached, saving the others behind him as they screamed and backtracked, with Artie having to grab Brittany's body – limp from her dead faint (Puck hoped – he hadn't seen her get shot, but that was a lot of blood) and pulling her in, slamming shut the door.
But it was all for nothing: Ben Israel had spotted his prey in the music room. Puck could see him through the window in the door, standing in the crossroads of the three hallways, in front of Coach Sylvester's office. He had a perfect view of both entrances. They were trapped like rats.
Mike had abandoned the door, choosing instead to clutch Tina desperately to his body, turning his back on both doors to act as a living shield should Israel come in. Artie had Brittany collapsed on top of him, and Wheels was looking shell-shocked, his hair all messed up and his glasses cracked. Mercedes was kneeling next to Tina and Mike, hovering there, unsure, out of the line of sight of both doors but just as frightened as Artie. Tina's blood – Puck was assuming it was Tina's – soaked Mercedes' acid-washed jeans all the way through, making her look like a Thriller reject without the zombie make up. Wardrobe always had been Mercedes' thing.
And Finn, still sitting accidently in the center of the room where he'd landed, a bright stripe of red on his forehead and a blood-soaked right sleeve, staring at the trombonist's dead body with a look of horror and shame, already blaming himself for giving that order, even though he'd warned them – he'd warned them to wait.
There was nothing for it. Puck swallowed, wanting desperately not to do this, but – he didn't have a choice, really, because he and Finn still needed to finish that talk, get it out of their systems, because Puck—Puck desperately needed his best friend back, before—before something like juvie happened again, and—no one even knew the truth about that, and it was only right that Finn—who had been there through everything up to Babygate and Puck had been nothing but a shitty friend, right from the get-go, always taking and never giving back and—Finn would take care of Sarah and his Ma, Puck knew he would, and really—Puck had been planning to skip town soon anyway, s'not like anybody'd miss him, and saving people when it happened—s'better than ending up an unfortunate John Doe obit three counties over, right?
"Guys," he whispered hoarsely. When no one listened, he coughed wetly to clear his throat and tried again. "Guys. Listen. I'm gonna draw him over to this door, 'kay? You guys gotta run the second he heads over here. You got that? Mike, Artie, Finn – you hearing me?"
"What?" gasped Finn, "Puck, no."
Artie was still out of it, but Mike was looking at Puck like he was seeing light after being imprisoned for two straight years. It was a chance. It was hope. Even if it didn't work, Mike was willing to try anything to save Tina, because – holding her, feeling how light she was – Mike could tell what Puck had known the second he saw how much blood was all over the floor. Tina didn't have much longer.
"Mike, you lead the way, you get Tina outta here, and Artie, you take up the rear, your chair's a decent enough shield if you duck down and Israel's a shitty shot, trust me on that one. Everyone else, get between them. Somebody wake Brittany up, and keep her quiet, you hear me? If she can't walk, somebody help her. And Finn – Finn, c'mere."
"Puck, no."
"Just come here, would you, you bastard? I gotta tell you something."
Finn looked completely and utterly powerless then, the defiance and the tension rushing out of him like a popped water balloon. He didn't walk towards Puck, he slinked like a kicked puppy. Puck tried to calculate how long it would take Ben Israel to screw his chances and choose a random door and hope he could catch all the runners before they made it to freedom. Puck didn't like those odds, so he gestured Finn to go faster. His arm flopped weakly at his side instead, and he frowned at it.
Finn kneeled down next to Puck. "I'm not going to let you do this, Puck."
"Yes, you are. Listen to me, man. Look at me. I can't get these people outta here, and if someone don't, they ain't gettin' out. Rachel's safe, so's Quinn. It's all up to you, now, bro."
"But Puck, there's no coming back from what you wanna do."
Puck forced a smile onto his face. His lips felt weird when he shaped it, but he forced himself to keep it on. Go out with a smile. There was a song for that, he knew. Good song. Classic. Odd that he forgot the name of it now. "I'll be fine, dude. I'm Puckzilla, remember? I'm a total badass. No one's more badass than me, right? I got this." Finn's jaw strained. His eyes looked suspiciously wet. "But Finn, yanno. Tell Ma I love her, and all that. And that I'll see her later, 'kay, and to not worry. And tell Sarah... tell Sarah not to go to here when she gets to high school, she don't need to see this shit. But tell her... tell her to stay in ballet, yeah? And... and to join Glee, and to... keep that smile on."
"Dude. Tell her yourself, okay man? Tell her yourself."
"Yeah. Tell 'm myself. Finn, one last thing. I—I'm sorry man. I'm so fucking sorry—for... for everything. Don't—don't screw things up with Berry... she—really likes you, dude, and—I'm sorry I made out with her this week. I—didn't mean to—din't mean t'ever make you feel like Babygate 'gain, and—yeah. We—are we—we cool, dude?"
Finn started to cry. His cheeks were all blurry with tears. Or was that just Puck's vision? He got his answer when Finn replied, all choked up like he'd been when his pet dog got run over by a car when they were twelve, all raw pain and sadness and shock. Puck had been a shitty friend then, too. Suck it up, Finn. Only girls cry over dead pets like that. Just get a new one.
But still. Finn was saying, "Yeah, dude. We're cool."
"Go."
Finn wiped his face with a shaky hand, patted Puck's shoulder, and then was standing and joining the group at the other door, looking back at Puck to wait for his signal.
Puck swallowed and glanced out of the window, swearing immediately. Ben Israel had chosen his door – Puck's, and he was headed straight here, cocking the gun at the door handle from less than two yards away.
"Now!" Puck screamed, and covered his head and ears as the door exploded above him. Distantly, as his head and upper body were intimately reacquainted with cold linoleum, he saw the others flee the room through the door in Mr. Shue's office. Puck cast out his arms wildly, searching for anything he could use as a weapon, because – even if he had been planning a lifelong retreat for almost a year, now – the Puckzilla was not about to go down without a fight.
He didn't even know what he grabbed, then, but it was big and made of wood – "Want to practice your swing while I practice my catch?" – and when the door to the music room opened, hitting Puck's leg on the inward swing, Puck wasted no time in beating his weapon against Ben Israel, who came into the music room with a video-game kick – "We cool, dude?" "No." – and a battlecry, brandishing his gun like it was a club against the broken pieces of music stool – "You're a really great performer, Noah." – and Puck would have had the gun out of Israel's hands if not for the strap wrapped around his wrist, and then more shots were going off like firecrackers in Puck's head, only he was able to dodge them by rolling to one side and kicking out with a move he learned in fight club, sweeping Ben Israel's feet out from beneath him – "Are you going to keep her?" "No. Did you ever love me?" – and Puck kicked up, trying to land on his feet, but the ground shifted beneath him so he fell backwards, flat on his back, and when he next looked up, Jacob Ben Israel's gun was pointed right at his head.
"We cool, dude?"
"No."
The others – the others had all gotten out. The music room was empty, Mr. Schue's office was empty, the door there wide open. Tina would get medical attention, Finn would be the hero who brought them all to safety, Mike would be the guy who would have risked his own life to save his girlfriend's, Mercedes and Brittany and Artie were survivors, and Sam would protect Quinn until the ends of the earth and Berry would one day win that Tony. Until today, Puck had just been the guy who threw gay kids into dumpsters, locked a handicapped boy in an outhouse, whored himself out to the cougars in town under the guise of a pool-cleaning business, threw pee balloons at a boy just for wearing nice clothes, knocked up his best friend's girlfriend, abandoned his baby girl the day she was born and even fucked up his suicide to the point where it looked like his car accident was an attempt to steal an ATM and then ended up playing the bitch for some hard-ass bastards in juvie for two weeks.
But this, at the very least, at the very end, Puck could say he'd done right.
Jacob Ben Israel pulled the trigger. The last thing Puck heard was an ominously quiet click.
We cool, dude?
Yeah, dude. We're cool.