Chapter 3:

Author's note: Oh my GOD! I am like overwhelmed by the response to this. Thank you so much for all the alerts, favorites and reviews. It means so much to me! I'm sorry for the wait, and I feel bad I kind of threw this out as fast as possible, taking from its quality I think.

Author's Note 2: Life ONLY seems to come around once I start writing. Then as soon as I give up trying to write, bam, life calms down. -_- So sorry about the delay. So Essentially in order to get this out quicker this is how its gonna go: I'm going to write as much as I can in one sitting, and post it as a chapter.. therefore… lots of random ending points. I'm sorry! It's the best I can do L

Request! Haha I know you guys are like shut up and get to the fic! But please bear with me for all of two seconds (+). Have any of you seen Heroes? For those of you that have, I dunno if you remember, but Dianna Agron played the HBIC Debbie Marshall at Costa Verde in season 2. Sadly, she only had like 4 episodes, but I thought it was hilarious. Anyone whose seen this and loves me wanna write a Claire/Debbie fic? I would like grovel at your feet. I just wanna see it done once. Just once, and I'll be happy. K, sorry I'm done. Onward!

Having spent the majority of her time searching for Quinn in the school's library, Rachel felt thoroughly embarrassed at having never even thought to check on Quinn's book list. Though she was positive it was against the rules, the petite diva waited until the librarian took her lunch break before sitting in front of the woman's computer and looked for Quinn's account. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled it up and had never been so happy to encounter incompetence before. Whoever had wiped all of Quinn's information earlier had clearly missed this little golden nugget. It was almost disappointing how easy this was.

There were a surprising amount of books the cheerleader had checked out. Rachel knew she shouldn't have been surprised; after all, the girl was on the Honor Roll, so clearly she wasn't dumb. Rachel had just never seen the blond with a book in her hand before. Then again, Rachel had never really spent that much time observing Quinn, and this list proved it. She browsed the list until she reached the most recent check out and return, dated a week before Quinn's disappearance.

( insert book title)

Strange. According to the summary, this was a book about vampires.. fantasy simply didn't strike Rachel as something Quinn would be interested in. Then again, see: Didn't know the girl well. Rachel scrolled back through the girl's check out queue and saw that the last six books had all been about vampires… a vast change from her apparent usual histories and romantic comedies. Weird. Why was the head cheerleader on a sudden vampire kick? It wasn't even like she'd checked out Twilight or The Vampire Lestat like most normal vampire loving teenagers. No, most of the books Quinn had checked out were passing themselves off as factual and historic. Like vampires were real. Rachel mentally rolled her eyes. Sure.

Still, if Santana felt it prudent that Rachel check on Quinn's latest reading, then maybe there was something to this after all. Not real vampires, of course, that would be preposterous. But maybe there was some crazed gothic-wannabe-vampire cult out there that Quinn might have gotten herself mixed up in. Pausing to stare into space, the diva briefly pictured Quinn wearing all black and leather clothing, with dark makeup. She snorted with laughter. Surely not. It was most likely she stumbled onto something on accident.

Of all the possibilities of who could have taken Quinn, Rachel felt that 'vampires' were the least likely on her list. Nevertheless, this was her only lead and Rachel would be damned if she didn't give it her all. Quickly closing the windows and setting the screen back to where it had been before the diva had decided to break several school rules (and possibly laws), Rachel bolted over to where the she knew the books to be located just in time to see the librarian come back from her break.

Rachel watched the old woman carefully to see if she had noticed anything out of place on her computer. She didn't. The diva mentally cheered for herself before grabbing the necessary books and heading over to check out. The librarian looked disdainfully down her nose at Rachel when she walked up carrying an armful of books and politely (Read: snappily) told Rachel that you could only check out three at a time. With an exasperated sigh Rachel moved to a table to pick out the three best options.

Running her hands over each in turn, Rachel settled for two of the newest (she needed the most updated information after all) and almost grabbed another, when a cold gust of wind (where did that come from) blew open the cover of one of the oldest books. It was leather-bound and looked almost as though it were hand written. The brunette paused, simply looking at it, trying to gauge if anything else weird was going to happen.

Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder and it took everything the petite diva had not to shriek as she whipped around. Puck looked apologetic. As Rachel opened her mouth to let out an epic rant about not scaring the life out of people, Puck cut her off. "Sorry Berry, didn't mean to scare ya there. You just looked so intense staring at that book, I thought maybe you were waiting for it to talk to you or something."

A glare was all he received in response.

The mohawked boy shrugged. "So I'm having a party at my house this weekend." When he saw the look of hesitance Puck clarified, "Strictly for Glee club. So, ya comin'?"

Though Rachel was relieved that she wouldn't be accosted by various jocks and Cheerios, she felt it would be a bad idea to attend one Noah Puckerman's parties. It was pretty much guaranteed that there would be alcohol, and Rachel knew how well that worked out for Quinn. She didn't need to repeat her mistake. Besides, she still had research to do

"While I appreciate the offer, Noah, I'm afraid that I must politely decline. You see, I have a lot of reading to catch up on this weekend and-"

"Yeah I can see that, there's like what, six books here? And you want to read all of them THIS weekend? I know you're kind of a nerd, Berry but damn."

Rachel huffed slightly, offended that she had been interrupted and at the name calling. "Actually, due to the school's ridiculous limitation of three books at a time, I am only taking these three home this weekend and will return for the rest on Monday."

"Right… well I know you go through books quickly, so you'll be done by Friday night anyway. Come on, Berry. You don't get out much and you can't miss one of my parties. They're legendary!"

Indeed, thought Rachel. "Be that as it may, I really don't think-"

"Great!" said Puck, cutting the diva off once again. "See you Friday night!" The boy leaned closer and lowered his voice. "And don't worry... this time, the Puckzilla has protection." He chuckled at Rachel's scandalized expression and walked away, leaving Rachel gaping after him.

Like I would EVER let him come near me again after last time. Especially after that whole babygate fiasco. Not a chance. Rachel shook off her thoughts and gathered her books before making her second attempt at checking out. Puck had been right about one thing though, Rachel would most likely finish her books by Friday and she didn't have any plans. She never did for Fridays. Perhaps as long as she kept her distance from any liquor the party might not be such a disaster. Rachel mentally added Puck's party to her to-do list.

The rest of the week passed rather quickly for Rachel. She had temporarily taken a hiatus from her search to devote her time to reading the books she had checked out. Well, perhaps it wasn't really a hiatus, since it was all linked, but anyway. Rachel found herself surprisingly unable to put the books down, absorbing any and all information they presented her with. She learned that real life 'vampires' (not the gothic wannabe's) were actually able to walk in the sun. None of that turn-to-ashes stuff, and certainly none of the sparkly crap. They didn't grow bumpy horns on their faces either. Nope, 'vampires' just looked like every day people, they just happened to be a bit paler than most.. and drank blood.

Wonderful. So if Rachel were ever to meet a 'real' (Hah!) vampire, she probably would never even notice. Brilliant. Whatever, its not like they were real anyways. No matter how convincing these books might be. If Rachel were still seeing her therapist, she could guarantee he would be asking her right now just whom she was trying to convince.

Once again Rachel took to walking home while chattering on incessantly to her invisible friend. This had become the highlight of her day in recent weeks. Just that feeling of having someone there to listen to her, even if they couldn't talk or be seen. It wasn't anything Rachel was used to and she desperately hoped her friend never left her.

Approaching her home, Rachel began to hear police sirens. The presence gave off a feeling of alarm that Rachel quickly began to feel too. Rachel picked up the pace and soon her house came into view. Rounding the corner, the diva's fears increased ten-fold as she spotted the police cars that were parked outside her home. Abandoning all pretenses of being calm, Rachel ran towards her dad who was standing in the yard talking to an officer.

"Dad?"

The short balding man that was Hiram Berry turned at the sound of his daughter's distressed voice. "Rachel!" He held open his arms for his daughter that she quickly ran to.

"Dad, what happened? Why are the police here? What's going on? When did it happen?"

It never surprised Rachel's parents just how quickly their little girl could rapid-fire questions. This was no exception.

"I came home early from work and found the door kicked open and our house in shambles. Nothing seems to have been taken, just bashed around. It's going to be ok honey, Daddy is on his way home and we're all going to spend the night at a hotel and insurance is going to take care of it."

For once Rachel seemed speechless.

Another officer walked up to Hiram. "Sir? We haven't found any leads yet, but is there any possibility whoever did this was looking for something in particular? If you could tell us that, we might be able to make better progress."

Hiram scratched his head before shaking it. "I honestly can't imagine what anyone would want from our house.."

The officer and Hiram continued to talk for a few moments, leaving Rachel time to think. After making sure it was ok with the officers, Rachel headed into her house and up to room. On her way, she surveyed the damage. Her dad was right, the house was torn apart. Whatever the culprit was looking for, they were certainly very thorough in their search. The closer she got to her room, the worse the damage was.

As the diva took in her room, she noted that her father was wrong, something was taken. Two out of the three books she had forgotten to return that day were now gone. Rachel sighed and rubbed away at the growing headache. Not only was Rachel beginning to feel like she had somehow stuck her nose into something she really shouldn't have, but she was also going to have to pay the astronomical replacement book fee to the library. This day was turning out to be wonderful. What she really needed was a break. A way to take her mind off things.

And what better way than to go to Noah's party?