Halfway home, Santana began to say something, and Brittany cut her off by turning on the radio. Santana twisted her hands around the wheel against the beat of "Empire State of Mind" and didn't protest.
Over dinner, Brittany's mother asked her about school, and Brittany chafed under her skeptical stare. "It's fine, really," Brittany repeated, passing the mashed potatoes to her sister and ducking her mother's gaze.
After a pause—Brittany glanced up to find her parents eyeing each other warily—Brittany's father chose a roll from the basket and split it gently with his knife. "Brittany," he said tentatively.
"I think I've had enough," Brittany blurted, downing one last forkful of mashed potatoes before she stood. Her ears burned; two good days at school didn't amount to a turnaround, and discussing them would mean discussing the failures that preceded them.
"You've hardly touched your potatoes," her mother admonished, her tone hard.
Katie scowled. "Potatoes are gross."
"I'm full, and I wanna look at my bike tonight," Brittany said, despite the hunger lingering in her stomach. She collected her plate and went into the kitchen to set it beside the sink. The murmur of voices echoed from the dining room, but no one followed her, and Brittany took several more big bites before abandoning her plate on the counter.
Her father found her in the garage. "Hey, sweetie," he called softly, at once soothing and worried. "Got everything you need?"
It'd turned out that an adjustable wrench and a measuring tape were all the equipment she needed, so Brittany just shrugged. Her father loitered in the doorway.
Before he could try again, Brittany listened to his shoe scuff the concrete and asked as lightly as she could manage, "Don't you have to go to bed soon?"
"Yeah." His fingernail clicked against the doorknob. It was nearing sunset; by the time he got up to go to work, Brittany would be out doing Spanish homework in the graveyard. Brittany could sense him collecting his thoughts; biting his lip; preparing to try one more time—so she dropped the wrench to the concrete, where it rattled loudly and broke the spell. "Sleep tight, sweet pea," he said.
Then he cleared his throat and left.
Brittany succumbed to spontaneity and rode her bike to the graveyard. She'd worn her helmet in case her mother checked the garage, but drove extra carefully to avoid getting pulled over without insurance documentation.
It bordered on ironic, that she drove more recklessly without manmade armor. When only Slayer magic protected her.
She left her bike in the lot by the park, across the street from the graveyard, even though the engine noise had probably already sent the undead packing. She dropped her helmet just inside the fence and snapped a thick branch from one of the shrubs guarding the gate. As she walked deeper into the cemetery, she stripped it of smaller twigs and peeled off the bark at the end to form a shallow spike.
A noise from behind. Brittany whirled and jerked her leg outright, catching a shadowy oaf in the gut with combined momentum and supernatural strength. He staggered back into the moonlight: another football player. Brittany was on him before he could recover, letting her adrenalin cover for the stammered uncertainty in her mind.
Her arms whipped and wove like air currents. She caught the boy under the armpit with the blunt end of her makeshift stake; she smashed his knee hard enough to drop him to the ground. Her fear receded with her thoughts.
She moved like the wind. Caught him under the chin, until he lay splayed on the grass. Yanked him to his feet, so hard he pirouetted and nearly fell. He panted and braced his hands heavily on a tombstone.
She moved like the wind. She was the wind.
The boy fled.
Once she'd hopped the fence two vampires later, Brittany shot a text to Quinn, asking if she was already at the Bronze. Quinn replied before Brittany even reached her bike: Get here now. So bored.
Just to center herself, calm herself, Brittany took her time getting there. Then again—considering the rush she got from the wind biting at her and the hum of the bike between her knees—maybe it was less about calming down and more about something else.
She dropped her helmet unceremoniously on the round table. As usual, Quinn didn't seem particularly surprised to see her, despite the way the table clattered and her drink rocked. "There you are," Quinn drawled loudly, disparaging even while shouting over the music and chatter.
"Here I am," Brittany answered. She glanced absently at the bar while she sat halfway on the stool.
"How's your night treating you so far?" Quinn's tone fell flat: a clear indicator of how the night had been treating her. Brittany looked at her now, carefully.
When the trap didn't make itself clear, Brittany shrugged. "Pretty good, I guess."
Quinn's eyes caught on Brittany's helmet, tracing its few scrapes and gaudy design, but she seemed to shelve her curiosity. Instead, she asked with venomous sarcasm potent enough to verbally mimic finger air quotes, "How was 'Spanish homework' with Santana?"
Brittany squinted. Santana had turned her down in the conversation with Quinn. With the air of a gentle reminder, Brittany corrected, "Without Santana."
"Right." Quinn snorted doubtfully. "Without her, then."
Brittany squirmed fully onto the seat and set her hands on the helmet. "It was easy," she answered, growing warier every second Quinn stared away from her. Quinn snorted again and turned from the table to the dance floor—not feigning disinterest, but maintaining her power as interrogator-apparent.
Eventually—or a few long, awkward seconds later—Brittany drummed her fingers against the plastic and said, "So, no Finn tonight?"
"He said he's tired," Quinn said with an unhappy smirk. "He has things to do." She flicked her eyes at Brittany and somehow seemed even more distant. "Everybody has things to do," she muttered, her pitch changing wildly, like she was mixing her unhappiness with hysterical laughter.
Quinn's hand settled on the glass in front of her. It looked like Sprite or 7-Up, translucent and fizzy. Quinn turned it in her hand and her gaze lit on Brittany's helmet again. She lifted her pointer finger from the glass and nodded slightly. "I forgot you had a motorcycle."
Brittany looked down at the helmet, too—though she knew it too well to bother looking at it, it seemed odd to keep staring at Quinn when Quinn was looking elsewhere—and removed her hands. "Yeah," she said, "I joined a club at my old school, and…"
The story died in her throat. Though Quinn seemed important, a good person to know, the Bronze felt like a poor setting to build a friendship.
Besides, Quinn looked way less interested in that than the Spanish homework, somehow.
Quinn drank her pop and her pinkie lifted from the glass, poised and perfect like a movie star. With her hair down and casually styled, she looked the part despite her overly modest dress.
"Your hair looks nice," Brittany said without meaning to.
Quinn looked up at her with unveiled suspicion. Brittany shrank against the stool, glanced uneasily at the dance floor, and tried again. "Is Santana coming?"
That nearly caught Quinn off guard: She shifted, propping her elbow on the table and her glass on one edge. She turned the glass the way private investigators in old films turned loaded revolvers on their oiled-wood desks. "I didn't text her," Quinn said with a shrug. "Figured she was busy, either way."
Brittany tilted her head. "Either way?"
The raised eyebrow. "Puck or… 'Spanish homework'."
She kept saying it the same way: the way a parent would refer to a child's imaginary friend by name.
"She's not the one who needs help with it," Brittany said. Clearly, a one-on-one conversation with Quinn was far over her head. The same feeling had pricked the back of her neck during their words in the equipment shed; she'd felt increasingly, disconcertingly sure she was missing half of Quinn's meaning, and Quinn was reading her words at twice their intent.
"I bet she doesn't." Quinn's lip curled.
"She's bilingual," Brittany said.
Quinn's smile looked like a grimace. She took another sip and set the glass hard on the table.
Brittany dropped her hands in her lap and twisted her fingers together. "Did you wanna dance or something?" she asked, suddenly wondering why Quinn was here of all places.
"No." Quinn's firmness was surprising; her expression, distraught despite her attempt to hide it, was more surprising still. "I don't feel like dancing tonight."
"Okay." Brittany looked around the space, taking in the pairs making out on the catwalk and the bodies heating the dance floor. She lost track of time in the looking, spotting possible brawlers and possible victims and only one possible vamp, disproven by the cross necklace she glimpsed.
When she looked at Quinn again, Quinn seemed even more lost, her eyes focused far beyond the farthest wall. Brittany's hands flew to her helmet and clenched. "It's late," Brittany said awkwardly.
Quinn's eyes came back to her and blinked to refocus. "Right." Her voice was hoarse.
"I have to go," Brittany said like an apology, tapping her helmet. "Supposed to be home a while ago."
A glance at Brittany's hands. "Before dark?"
Brittany nodded. Quinn just shrugged. "I'll see you at school," she said as she took the last sip of her drink.
"Right."
Brittany retreated, taking extra steps backward before turning away. Quinn's thousand-yard stare was back, a laser into the crowd.
The air was cool outside. Brittany looked at the sky and wondered what Quinn was thinking about.
As she mounted her bike, Brittany found her head full of Santana and Quinn—their drawn faces and bottled thoughts. Her body followed a longer route, a detour back near the park and out of her way. Before long, she found herself back beside the cemetery, surprised and slowing to a stop. She turned off the engine.
Santana's car sat in the side lot, behind the velvet silhouette of a tall oak tree. Brittany hesitated by the curb, leaning on her leg and waiting for some other vehicle to approach and spur her into action.
There was nothing. Only stillness and quiet, cool night air. It had to be near midnight, or past it. Though Brittany listened, she heard nothing.
Brittany pulled her helmet off and propped her bike on its stand in short, efficient bursts of motion. Still, she listened; still, she heard nothing. She peered at the cemetery, flicking her eyes at the spaces between tombstones, but saw no tornado, nor hint of her presence.
She stepped cautiously toward the fence. In the eerie bas relief, she could feel the heaviness of her body and the liquid pull of muscles in her thighs. The cemetery stood, solemn and silent as the grave.
A flash of movement, to Brittany's left, beyond the fence and the first rows of stones. A figure leaving a raised gravesite.
Just beyond, a shadow leapt over another headstone, looking a dark bird with its stretched fingers and ragged edges. Brittany barely registered the black hair and Santana's battle cry before the vampire lay prone beneath her.
Brittany jolted forward. Her fingers gripped the crossbar of the iron fence. She froze.
Again, Santana wasn't wielding a stake. From here, facing Santana's front, Brittany couldn't tell if she even had one with her. The vampire raised its arms high to protect its face; Santana's fists scooped in from the sides to box its ears.
Brittany felt her hands spasm against the iron. She dropped it quickly, stunned, eyes locked to Santana's knuckles, glistening wetly as the clouds peeled back from the moon.
Brittany staggered back. Santana's arm kept falling, though the pauses stretched longer between blows. The vampire had stopped struggling. Brittany's backside bumped her bike, and she bumbled around to refit her helmet and sit astride the seat.
A glance at the cemetery. From here, leaning to keep her balance, a grave's white statue of an angel praying obscured her view of Santana and the vampire.
Chilled, Brittany flipped down her visor and rode home.
Brittany stopped on the street and walked her bike up the driveway. Instead of opening the garage door, she walked around and parked it in back.
Part of her wondered if Santana went to Puck's at all. The rest of her wondered where else Santana would have gone.
As she slipped in the back door and moved silently up the stairs, she recalled the afternoon she spent with him, and the relative innocence of their conversation. The hopeful, hopeless voice inside insisted that, really, that's all Puck and Santana did when they were alone.
Brittany dumped her things out on the bed and her eyes wandered back to her phone. She had Puck's number; she could call him.
She stood, staring, suspended between idea and action.
Eventually, she swept the rest back into her patrol bag, dumped it under the bed, and plugged her phone in on her nightstand. She crawled under the covers without calling.
Santana greeted her in the morning with coffee and the same guilty expression she wore in the library. Brittany dropped into the seat and pulled the door shut; she frowned when Santana nodded at the thermos and pulled out of the drive.
"It's not early practice," Brittany said mildly. She took a tentative sip and tasted sweetener. A peace offering?
Santana shrugged. "Had a hard time getting up this morning," she said, though the thermos was full to the top and she drank her coffee black.
Instead of mentioning the sweetener, Brittany licked her lips and casually asked, "Long night?"
A smirk flickered across Santana's face, gone too quickly to seem genuine. "Hell yeah," she said with forced enthusiasm. As if on a whim, she added, "Puck's the only guy who really keeps up."
Brittany narrowed her eyes, but aimed them at the thermos as she sipped. She hadn't thought about it in a while, but she thought about it now: months ago, her second round with Jake, and how quickly and easily she'd outpaced him.
The memory, grafted onto Santana and Puck or anyone else, made Brittany's stomach contract.
"Hard to believe," Brittany commented, shrugging one shoulder. She felt Santana's hot stare and glanced over. Santana's eyes were wide—surprised more than affronted. "That he can keep up at all," Brittany explained.
The surprise washed into relief and Santana chuckled. "Yeah, well, you gotta take what you can get," she said. They were near the school, and focusing on the road kept Santana from noticing Brittany's stony stare.
Santana's girl-talk bluster didn't erase anything. Olive branch coffee didn't erase anything.
Unbidden, Brittany caught sight of the lightened coffee through the lid and thought of Santana's skin, smooth and strong in the darkness of her bedroom, hot to the touch, firm and alive.
She wiped spilled coffee from her chin and discarded the half-full thermos in the cupholder; she stared hard out the window as they pulled into the lot.
In real life, witches couldn't be the way they looked in Halloween specials, with pointed caps and noses and cruel smiles. Witches would be like Slayers: invisible to the ignorant, flying broomless under the radar.
Brittany glanced at every face in the hallway, but she couldn't decide what she was looking for. Her only suspect so far, really, was Kurt, because he sounded so freaky in the parking lot the week before.
Now, she couldn't even remember what he'd said to her—only the chill down her spine, and running over to Puck to avoid it. She'd seen spy movies, and Harry Potter; there had to be some kind of potion she could just casually spill on everybody to make spellcasters turn green.
Or purple. Purple could be cool.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Kurt turned into a classroom as Brittany passed it, wearing a cropped purple jacket and talking loudly to the girl entering in front of him.
Something about Beyoncé. Brittany didn't slow her steps.
It was cool out on the field as afternoon wore on and the sun grew weaker. Brittany's warm skin and warm sweat felt nice for once, and she was somewhat jarred to realize it was already October.
Only the 2nd, but still.
The workouts were still a challenge, more to her lungs than her supernatural muscles, but she no longer compared the grueling exercises and endless repetitions to the milder training at her old school. The red-and-white uniforms and endless flips and falls had become white noise to her body the way Coach Sylvester's bullhorn became white noise to her ears.
Brittany was working her cheek muscles, holding a grin the way she held her right foot up above her head, when the regular chaos of cheer practice was interrupted by a distant noise: an off-beat bass and the chirp of distant electronic singing.
Coach Sue sighed in exaggerated annoyance and pulled her phone out. She handed it to the captain on her left to answer while the rest of the squad held its pose.
Brittany could feel a quake below her, and a glance told her which girl was wavering. Brittany wriggled her toe and her second spotter gripped Brittany's shoe tighter to compensate.
"It's the office," the captain told Coach, holding the phone away from her mouth. "Call for Lopez."
"Lopez!" barked Coach, looking from face to face with obvious boredom. When she saw Santana spotting someone on the far right—as if Coach hadn't done the choreography herself, with more than enough eye for detail to know where every Cheerio was at any given time—she gave another loud sigh and crooked her finger. "Break formation. Get your ass over here."
Santana's flier fell gracefully and, once she was on her feet, Santana left her and the group and trotted over to Coach Sue. "What is it?" she asked, right as the captain hung up the phone.
Coach Sue fixed her eyes just above Santana's head and blatantly ignored her. The captain sneered. "Call from the office," she said. "Something about your mom. Said you weren't answering your phone."
From Brittany's strained position, frozen in center, she could only see Santana shake her head. Her words didn't reach as far as the captain's; she was probably talking quietly.
"Do you want to leave practice early?" asked Coach Sue, more a threat than a question, as she crossed her arms over the bullhorn and pinned Santana with a clearly disapproving glare.
"No," Santana said louder, shaking her head firmly.
The captain looked unimpressed, but deferred to Coach's judgment. Coach finally sniffed, regained her look of disinterest, and shrugged. "You'd better go call your mommy, Lopez. I'd hate to get you in trouble."
Santana stayed still for a moment. Trying to find a way out.
Brittany's leg twitched just behind the knee. Her hamstring was starting to ache from the held split. The third flier, to her left, had dropped her leg several minutes past, and now stood solidly on her spotters' hands.
"Can I make up practice later?" asked Santana, knowing the answer.
"Well, I don't know," Coach said in her looping, sarcastic voice. "Ya could, but some of us have to get home and make a nice, nutritious dinner for our dozens and dozens of championship trophies. Maybe if you kept better track of your schedule, you, too, could have that responsibility to look forward to."
"Tomorrow morning," Santana said, louder. Pushing. Her hands were fists at her sides. "Before your middle school clinic."
Coach Sue blinked. She seemed surprised, either at Santana's initiative or her knowledge of the clinic.
"I took it three years running," Santana explained quickly, before Coach could turn her down. "Through Fordham."
"Well, that's very interesting," Coach said, her tone sarcastic but her eyes genuine. She dropped back to her gruff bark: "Fine. Tomorrow morning, six sharp, here. Now get out of my sight."
Santana nodded, ducked her chin at the captain's glare, and hustled off the field.
Brittany's leg twitched.
"Get down," Coach directed, annoyed. "I didn't tell you to stay up there." Brittany startled and dropped easily; the girl on the left followed suit.
Santana disappeared into the gym doors. Brittany blew hair out of her eyes.
As expected, Santana was long gone by the end of practice. Brittany took a shower in the locker room—a practice she usually avoided, since Santana never did it—and followed a clump of slow-walking Cheerios out to the parking lot with her bag over her shoulder.
She'd planned to just walk home and enjoy the cool weather, especially since her ride disappeared into vague family matters, but she spotted Puck throwing his backpack into his pickup again and jogged over on a whim.
"Blondie," he said, grinning as he closed the hatch.
"Hey, Puck," Brittany said. "Think I could grab a ride?"
Puck shrugged, happy and easy, and strolled toward the front. "Hop in."
Brittany rounded the back, threw her backpack over the side, and climbed in the passenger seat. "Where to?" Puck asked amiably as he turned the key.
"Just home," Brittany said. She frowned at a small, flat pouch, hanging from his keychain. "What's that?"
"What's what?" Puck was already moving, wheeling around the near-empty lot and poking the truck's nose into the street.
Brittany nodded at his key, though he wasn't looking. "Your keychain."
"My—" He glanced down and chuckled. "Oh. I don't know," he admitted with a shrug, turning the wheel with Santana's casual surety, "some weird good luck thing from Quinn."
Brittany blinked. "Quinn?"
"Yeah." Puck hooked his elbow over the open window and braced his arm straight over the wheel: a nonchalant cold shoulder. Another Santana trick. "She gave it to me when football started."
"Cool." Brittany gave the pouch a last long look before turning to the window. She wondered if Finn had one.
"I guess. Left up here, right?" he slid his hands around the wheel.
Brittany squirmed in her seat. "Actually, do you wanna hang out for a little?"
Puck glanced at her, eyebrow raised, and rolled to a full stop at the stop sign. "You tryna mooch off my ganja again?" he asked with a grin. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the idea.
"No…" Brittany cleared her throat and sat up straighter. "I just don't wanna hang out with my parents all afternoon. You wanna go get a milkshake or something?"
"There's no sock'n'hop in Lima, complimary to popular belief," he joked, but he pulled away toward town anyway.
"I like milkshakes," Brittany said earnestly. "What's not to like about milkshakes?"
Puck glanced at her again. Almost curious. "It's a good point, I guess. Can't go wrong with dessert."
It felt like progress—establishing legal common interests. Brittany let the silence sink in while Puck took them down other side streets. She recognized a few from her roundabout ride the night before.
"So you did meet Santana's mom?" she asked hesitantly. She doubted what clues she did remember from their conversation, but Puck was her safest option to learn about Santana.
Since Santana was clearly an off-limits danger zone, anyway.
Puck's shoulder came up again; his other elbow on the window. "Once or twice, yeah. Why?"
Brittany shrugged and looked out the passenger window. "I met her the other day."
Night.
Whatever.
"She's a real treat," Puck said. He tried to scoff, but the words sounded dark.
Brittany wet her lips and watched the houses pass. "She didn't like you, either?"
"Well, I kinda met her in flagrante, or halfway into flagrante, anyway." Puck shrugged his raised shoulder.
"Oh." Brittany felt her face warm instantly. The tips of her ears. She leaned her head against the glass and sighed at its coolness. She dug back into their last conversation. "Who calls her, again?"
She could sense Puck slant his eyes toward her, quickly. "Who calls Santana, you mean?" he asked, hedging, like he wasn't sure what he should tell her.
"Yeah." Brittany sat up and turned to him again. "At school. About her mom."
Puck eyed her warily before turning back to the road. He pulled into the McDonald's lot and into the drive-thru line. "You mean Rafael?"
"Right."
He pulled forward one space, lips pursed. "You already knew his name, right? I mean…"
"He called during Glee," Brittany answered.
"Right." Puck snorted. "Forgot you guys got dragged into that faggot fest."
"Don't say that," Brittany said without thinking. Puck glanced at her, eyebrow raised. The driver ahead of them was shouting at the machine taking his order. Brittany shrugged uneasily and made something up. "Faggots are just fat maggots, and it's mean to call people maggots. Or fat."
Puck's expression turned dubious instantly, like he wasn't sure why he'd agreed to this in the first place. The person ahead moved to the next window and Puck pulled up. He ordered two chocolate milkshakes without asking what Brittany wanted.
"Who's Rafael, though?" asked Brittany, watching her hands as she dug out her pink wallet, even though she knew just where it was.
The truck lurched forward. Puck sounded nervous, skittish, when he answered, "He's… works at this bar in town. He calls her when her mom, like, needs her and stuff."
Brittany sat up and put two dollars in his hand as he stopped beside the window. He paid and took the milkshakes as Brittany echoed, "Needs her."
Puck gave her one and stuffed his in the cupholder. He drove out of the lot and headed back toward Brittany's house. "No, like, offense, but why are you asking me all this stuff?"
"What do you mean?" Brittany licked the cherry off the whipped cream. Puck didn't notice. He kept biting his lip as he turned the wheel.
"I dunno," he said with a gush of air. He blew through a stop sign. His face contracted in a confused frown. "Why don't you just ask her?"
Brittany stopped with her mouth half-open. She turned slightly but couldn't think of an answer to give him. Nothing could prove that nothing was wrong.
Puck glanced at her again. "Aren't you two, like, super close?"
"Let me out here," Brittany blurted. They'd just reached an empty intersection. Puck stopped at the sign and looked at her incredulously. "I forgot, I have to meet Katie," Brittany lied easily, yanking the door open.
"Okay," said Puck, bewildered.
"I'll see you at school."