I'm sorry it took me so long to update. To be honest, I don't have much time for writing now at the end of the semester. It's freaking tiring to study 21 credits so bear with me.
I would love to get back to every one of you but let me just say how much I appreciate all your comments. Thank you so much.
Onto the story. There's lots of action.
Chapter 11
They have 24 hours to catch Rory.
Puck woke Santana up after she'd only been asleep for two-hours, exhaustion displayed on her tired eyelids and sagging face.
"I can't Puck, I'm too tired," She knew it was a losing battle but her life had been rolling downhill lately and she just wanted it to stop, become stationary. She needed time to breath.
"I'm not letting you retire to your grave early, now get up Santana. I've got coffee."
Santana growled begrudgingly.
She's much more awake, dressed for combat, weapon loaded and staring at the closet above Pucks head in concentration.
Tonight is the night.
"…It's closing night, there are going to thousands of people. Especially since the closing notice was so out of the blue, people will cram or stand outside. It's the perfect set-up."
Santana nodded. She's trying to take this seriously because her life is on the line but her focus keeps shifting to the question of 'then what?'
This whole chase had kept her occupied, it thrilled her. Part of that of course she owed to Brittany who continued to be the most exciting person she ever chased.
"I know what I have to do," Santana replied when Puck coaxed her to pay attention.
"It's closing night," Quinn poked the wiggling form under the blankets. Brittany hadn't left the bed since she jumped in at 3am last night.
"I don't care," It sounded like a monster talking with his mouth full of sheet.
"You have so many calls! Everyone wants you to be there!" Quinn whined. Brittany felt no urge to make her stop.
If it was Santana though, she'd bargained lady kisses to get her ass out of bed.
Shoot. She really needed to stop doing that, thinking about Santana.
Quinn had told her she had 1 day to cry but that afterwards she had to get over it. Start fresh, let the past be the past.
If she was correct, she still had another 8 hours to mope.
"Who's calling me?"
"Rachel and… yeah just Rachel."
Quinn knew she wasn't doing so well in motivating Brittany to join her.
"I don't care if Rachel is calling me,"
Head snuggled further into the bedding and Quinn let out a frustrated sigh.
"Fine, I'll go alone. But tomorrow you are going to be agent Pierce at her fiercest. Otherwise, I'm kicking you out."
Sometimes desperate times called for desperate actions. Santana would call this desperate.
Who knew she'd ever be on a Broadway show? That's one positive thing about this whole crappy situation, she could add onto her resume, 'look hey! I was a tree on the closing night when the male lead was murdered!'
That would be impressive. She could have a future on Broadway, a true, spectacular future.
"Finally," Santana pulled the 'leaves' out of her eyes. In the mirror she caught an image of herself. "This is ridiculous," she said under her breath before following the insistent hand ordering her to get ready to go on-stage.
The bright lights hit her fully in the eyes and then 'Romadahl' newly crowned prince began skipping jubilantly down the street.
The first thing she thought was, 'he's so sparkly.' The second thing was, 'This fucker ruined my life; control yourself before the ending turns bloody.'
It was the final scene and the crowd was wildly excited. Some were crying, others practiced breathing techniques, some were screaming their ears off.
Santana didn't see what the whole big deal was. She did her best to sway in the breeze with the other innocent trees.
It ended with a loud brass clang and many bows.
The crowd threw money into the chocolate-coin-littered street, a grand and fitting end.
For Santana it was a different type of ending. She would soon be finishing her duties; it meant no more attachment to her past life.
She followed all the other garden props off the stage while the curtain was getting readied for the final bow.
As quickly as possible, Santana slipped out of her bark and bush, picking up a large bag hidden behind a rack of clown costumes. She wasn't the only one.
The changing room was a hundred meters away from the stage where Rory Flanagan was certainly getting taking a bow, the applause was thunderous.
Looking to the side of the stage, Santana spotted the rope that lead up the scaffolding. She moved fast already pissed at being delayed.
She reached the top and balanced carefully on the beams till she was directly above the spotlights. Her hands worked on their own, getting her sniper rifle ready.
She was counting down, 10, 9, 8, 7…
Her aimer enveloped Rory's head, she steadied her breath.
6, 5, 4,…
Exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale…
3,2,1….
A loud bang was heard, but not loud enough for the audience below to take notice of the source. They filtered out not knowing what had happened.
Another equally loud bang sounded as Santana hit her shoulder on a sand bag.
Get your bearings. Come on. Snap out of it.
Santana repeated in her head as she felt something hard connect with her knee.
That sent her to down to a lower level of rough, not sanded beams. Her attacker followed, dropping nearby.
"Who are you?" Santana caught her breath and stood up slowly.
"On your wedding day, I told you if you hurt her I would kill you."
"Quinn."
"Brittany! Pick up right now!"
Beep, beep, beep. Who's there? Well don't say anything stupid if you want me to return your call, muffins are burning!
"She did this, not me." Santana spit blood. "She fucking returned her wedding ring!"
"Because you hurt her, you made her feel like nothing, why would she want to be married to you after that?"
"After what Quinn? We both lied, and how I see it we don't deserve each other."
Quinn grabbed Santana's hair and shoved her down another level. Santana hit her head this time. She must have a crazy number of bruises right now.
"You don't deserve her. She loved you Santana, nothing about her feelings were fake. So what if she lied about her job, does that warrant you flying off the hook at her?"
"And this is why you're single Quinn, because you don't know how relationships work. It dies without trust."
Santana lunged at Quinn, grazing her arm before letting out another series of punches that Quinn defended easily.
"Do you even know how special Brittany is? Do you think your relationship with her is normal? That girl would die for you, a million times for you. She'd be here beating me up now if she knew I was here now."
Quinn kicked Santana under her feet. Hardly being able to process what was happening, Santana held onto a beam for dear life. She tried not to look down but she did notice it would be a nasty fall.
Above her, Quinn knelt down till they were face to face.
"She would forget in a second about how you tore her heart to shreds if she knew you were in danger."
Santana shivered, she believed Quinn. Her judgment may have been clouded the past few days but she knew that in truth Brittany would be her knight in shining armor.
"Fuck you Quinn, don't you think I hurt too?"
"Maybe, but it doesn't look like you're trying very hard to fix that. You stopped caring about her that's why she returned the ring."
Santana smiled because Quinn was wrong about that. She'd finally accepted that Brittany was her everything even if she lied to her.
Brittany scolded herself for the hundredth time for not checking her phone sooner. The last voicemail she'd gotten from Rachel sounded desperate, who knows what had happened in the fifteen minutes she'd decided to be an ass and ignore her friend?
The streets were full of people running rampant. From where Brittany decided to park, a ways from the turmoil, she could see the smoke and flames engulfing the theater that her friends had gone to.
She tried calling Rachel again, but she did not pick-up. Brittany hoped Rachel was ok, that all her friends had made it out of the fire alive.
What could have started it anyways?
Not fearing for her life, Brittany slipped through the maddened crowd towards the toppling building.
"I am kicking your ass so bad once I can breathe again," Quinn wheezed. Smoke filled her lungs and she tried to cough it up while supporting Santana.
Santana was badly hurt. Apart from the beating she received from Quinn, her muscles hurt like they couldn't hold on their own anymore. She leaned on the other girl as they made it out of a crack on the side of the emblazoned theater.
"Do me a favor and just kill me," Santana let her body slide to the rubble littered ground, too tired to put up a fight.
"What in hell's name were you thinking?"
"That I didn't want to fall to my death,"
"Well it was stupid."
Quinn looked at the burning building again. They had barely made it out.
One moment she was talking some sense into Santana, the next Santana had flipped out a lighter and set her jacket on fire. From there the flames had leapt off her clothes, onto the wooden beams and spread until the whole building was on fire.
In the process of escaping, both girls found themselves helping each other climb the wood that was quickly turning charcoal black. They descended till they hit the stage then went to the walls looking for a way out. They found a hole; Quinn pushed Santana through first, and then Santana pulled Quinn through.
"Your phone is buzzing," Quinn pointed out remembering that she should call Rachel to see if she was okay.
Santana picked up and pressed the half melted plastic to her ear.
I'm tracking Rory, he looked injured. Are you alright? I heard about a fire.
"I'm fine, or I will be fine," Santana huffed wearily. She hoped she'd done enough to help Puck capture Rory easily. "Where I did hit him?"
Stomach, he won't last long. I'll finish the job for you. Just go to my house and take care of yourself alright? I'll see you soon.
"Yeah, see you." Santana hung up.
"Headquarters calling?"
"No, I'm going home."
Quinn helped Santana up; she didn't expect Santana to punch her full in the face.
"You bitch!" Quinn spit blood. It was a hard hit but she knew Santana had held back, her teeth were all still there and she could only feel a small cut in her lip.
Before Quinn could catch her, Santana sprinted away at full speed. She wasn't as tired as she thought; there was something she had to do that filled her with energy.
"Rachel, you're alright!" Brittany hugged her friend tightly. She hugged Finn too. "Where's Quinn?"
"I don't know," Rachel said, "she left for the bathroom before the show ended and after all the chaos I couldn't find her. She's not picking up her phone."
Brittany bit her lip. She was even more worried now. It had taken her forever to find Rachel who was hiding under a car for christ's sake – well it was Finn's idea so she couldn't really blame Rachel.
After the tenth call, Rachel finally realized that someone was calling her. Brittany found Rachel and Finn soon after in shock and wordlessness.
Rachel told Brittany everything that happened in detail from the wild crowd to the shot to the fire starting in the ceiling of the theater.
Something told Brittany that Santana had something to do with the disaster.
They had been sitting at a café near the scene for half-an-hour trying to make sense of everything when Quinn called Rachel.
Not long after Quinn came through the doors of the café looking like she'd gone to Iraq.
"What happened Quinn!" Rachel was the first to jump up and give her a hug. Brittany ordered mixer for Quinn before getting up to hug her too.
"Santana set the place on fire," Quinn said bluntly. She saw the waiter put her mixer down on the table and quickly grabbed it, taking large gulps.
Brittany wasn't surprised. "It's one thing to hurt me, but now she's gone too far. She almost killed my friends too."
"Wait, Brittany where are you going?" Rachel called at Brittany who already paced to the door.
"To knock some sense in that crazy woman,"
"But Britt, I already did!" Quinn shouted as loud as her coarse voice would allow but Brittany was already gone.
Santana looked at the caller ID, if this were any other time she'd be happy to pick-up.
"Why now?" Santana rolled her eyes, debating whether to answer or ignore. After a while, it stopped ringing. She was almost at Pucks house.
She was turning into the street when her phone went off again. This time she decided to take the call and get it over with.
"What do you want?"
"I want to know why you nearly killed our friends. Why Santana? You can hate me but this has nothing to do with them."
"You make it sound like I'm an arsonist out to murder people." Santana knew the conversation would probably not be short so she pulled up on the side of the road.
"I still want to know why, and no I don't know that you didn't do it on purpose."
"Well then, I guess you don't know me after all." Santana threw the words Brittany had once said to her back at her ex-wife.
"With the way you've been acting, no I don't know you. I don't know what's real anymore."
"Was it real before?"
"What?" Brittany hadn't expected Santana to ask her something she should have known.
"How much of it was real? I just need to know." Santana's voice softened. "Please help me to move on if this is the end for us."
"And this is your problem, always dramatic." Brittany grumbled. Santana was giving up already without a fight. She would take this over her pride of admitting their relationship had faults and over fixing things.
"I think you're talking about Berry," Santana scoffed. She was not being dramatic, she was being realistic. After what she had done there was no way Brittany would forgive her she knew it was over.
"Stop deflecting Santana. We could have talked about this, we let it get too far and it's my fault too okay?"
Santana didn't answer right away. Brittany was talking to her as if they could work it out.
"Santana?"
"Yeah, I'm still here. Let's do it then, talk about it." She sat a little lower, getting comfortable in her car seat.
"There are just … so many things… I don't know where to start." Brittany admits.
"You can tell me why you lied to me."
It stung Brittany that Santana was being so blunt. She made it sound like their relationship was ruined because she had concealed something.
"The same reason you lied to me…"
"That isn't an answer. Why didn't you tell me from the start what you were doing?"
All this condemnation was getting annoying.
"And what?" Brittany huffed, "What would that have changed? Would you still have married me if you knew? Would you have loved me less? Would you have loved me at all?"
"That's not the point; I don't know what I would have done then. But I should have known."
"What do you mean that's not the point? See this is your problem Santana and it always has been. You don't want to talk about feelings. You don't tell me what's going on. I still don't know why you're mad at me for keeping the same secret you're keeping!"
"Well, why are you mad at me?" Santana shouted back. The civil conversation was quickly slipping. "We were fine for so long.."
"No we weren't" Brittany slammed her hand against her steering wheel in frustration. Santana could be so block headed sometimes. "Our sex life was fine, but we could never really be fine when we were both keeping huge lies. It would have come out one day."
"You're right about that!" Santana laughed bitterly, she wished it had never happened. "So you just stayed with me for sex? Married me to keep your bed warm at night?" She said in dry humor. She knew she'd crossed a line but she was never good at controling her mouth.
It was the last straw for Brittany. "I can't do this Santana." She willed her tears to stay back for a moment longer; she couldn't let Santana know how weak she was without her. "It's like we aren't on the same page anymore and I'm tired of flipping back and forth trying to figure you out."
"As if you were trying," Brittany could almost see the smirk on Santana's face. She hated when Santana got insensitive to protect herself.
"You are an asshole. You need a punch in the face." She said it. She really said what she felt about Santana right then and there.
"What did you say?"
Brittany didn't have the strength to say it a second time though. She was mad as hell and beginning to cry from all the emotions breaking down her walls.
"I said lets settle this the only way we both know how. This world is clearly too small for the both of us. See you at home."
With that Brittany hung up and began driving. She had a mission.
Santana looked at her phone and blinked for a few seconds. She wasn't sure what just happened but it sounded like Brittany had challenged her after calling her a dog.
"Fine," She shouted out loud as she shifted into gear. If Brittany wanted it that way she would show Brittany who was the boss.
The house was dark just like it'd been for the past few days. The only sign that life existed in there was Brittany's car parked in the driveway.
Santana groaned knowing Brittany had the upper-hand. Never mind, she was a trained assassin and without the rest of her angels, Brittany would submit to her easily.
To be on the careful side, Santana stalked quietly to the front porch and looked through the window. She could only see through the small crack and so far there was no movement.
Santana made her way to the side of the house to her shed. She placed herself in the meter wide space between the buildings and began to climb. She tried to keep her breathing low as she pulled herself onto the shed's roof.
A running leap helped her onto the awning right near their bedroom window. Santana peaked inside, seeing nobody she broke the lock on the window and slowly put one leg in. When she was in the bedroom completely she let out a shaky breath – so far so good.
Santana checked are her nooks and crannies but she had no gun on her. She knew where she had to go next.
With light footsteps Santana tip-toed down the hall and crawled down the stairs. This was dangerous territory. She knew Brittany would be hiding on the first floor and so she had to be careful.
Santana spotted her weapon hide-away spot, a compartment next to her beloved salt water aquarium. It was a risk to go there because the hazy blue light would give away her position, but she needed that gun.
She could make a dash for it; the coast seemed to be clear. Santana didn't know how serious Brittany was but she had to be cautious. She didn't want to be blindsided with a bullet to her heart.
She counted in her mind…1…2…3…it was now or never. She took three long steps to the oak shelf and flicked it open. She worked as fast as she could to grab the game of battleship from inside and empty the contents, she felt blindly for her gun till her fingers ran over cold metal.
Just as she pulled it out, a deafening blast came from somewhere and a bullet whizzed right past her ear. Some glass decorations on the shelf smashed letting fly little shards that pierced her skin.
Santana heard a voice. It was familiar, yet hard and cold like she had never heard it before.
"That was just a warning shot, come and find me."
I'll try not to keep you waiting for too long. Hope you liked the update.