Santana closes the fridge with her hip, her arms too full with the hoard of food piled nearly a foot high. She has oranges and eggs and every delicacy she can get her hands on. Purposefully ignoring the fact that stealing food from the Regent's personal kitchen probably wasn't the way to get back on their good side. If today was going to be her last day, or last few hours, on earth, she was going to make the most of it.

She had stayed up nearly all night trying to fight the anxiety at her certain death. They were going to kill her. She knew it. No matter what she did now, she was sure her life was over.

But that didn't mean she was going to cower in fear.

No. If they were going to rip out her organs or subject her to whatever painful death they had planned for her, they wouldn't get to see her afraid.

Maybe at least, they would make it quick.

"Glad to see you're making yourself at home." Quinn notes dryly, leaning against the doorway.

Santana had been so focused on not caring that her life would be ending at any second that she hadn't even heard Quinn's approach. Caught so off guard, she startles, dropping her armful of food all over the floor. She glances up at Quinn, frowning before putting on a mask of feigned indifference. "Oh. Hey." She shivers when Charlie suddenly appears behind her and reaches for the box of ironic cereal. She swallows at how close she is, wondering if it's some sort of trick to make her feel safe.

Quinn sighs studying her twin a frown on her face. "I understand that you are addicted to sugar, but could you please have some fruit to go with it."

Charlie stops from where she is currently pouring a generous helping of milk and puts the milk down and picks up an orange that Santana had dropped. She puts it on the table and takes a seat and begins to dig into the sugary breakfast.

"Part of nutritious breakfast my ass," Quinn rolled her eyes and moved into the kitchen and flicked her eyes towards Santana. "Are you going to clean that up?" Quinn asked pointing at the food that was on the floor, before walking towards her fridge.

Santana swallowed but held her head high, "If you're going to kill me I'd prefer not to do chores before I go." Charlie stops eating her cereal and makes a gesture at her, "I can't understand you when you don't write things down for me," she reminds Charlie.

Charlie makes a face at that statement and turns to her twin. She points at Quinn and then at Santana and then takes a bite of her cereal, a frown on her face.

Quinn snorts, "If we were going to kill you it would have been last night. Then we could have continued what we were doing," Quinn turns to look at Charlie who smiles and takes another bite of her cereal. "Let me be clear. We don't care that you know. I do however care that you interrupted the mood. I certainly care that you interrupted us before my orgasm. If you do it again, I swear it will be the last thing you do. No one gave you permission to enter our room without fucking permission."

Charlie rests her head on her hand as she leans into the table watching her twin, her eyes dancing with mischief. She looks at Santana and flashes her a toothy smile and makes a quick hand gesture with her free hand.

"Understood," Santana mumbles and immediately bends down to start cleaning the mess she made. For the past, few hours she had been more concerned with Quinn or Charlie killing her, she personally hadn't given much thought to the fact that she had caught the two of them sleeping together. She certainly wasn't going to push her luck on asking any questions. Quinn seemed irritable and she wasn't sure Charlie would intervene if Quinn decided to murder her.

Quinn flicked her eyes towards Charlie and then back to Santana, "Oh, Charlie wants you to know that she appreciated you wearing the outfit."

Santana flushed, she didn't want to think about the damn outfit, she just wanted to forget that last night had ever happened. "I wasn't doing it for—" Santana sighs and places the food items on the counter. "I just—I was under the opinion that we could maybe start over again. I mean I watched you save that child and then saw the fear and jealousy that came from something that was supposed to be a good thing. She didn't even say thank you, and I get that you could have just left that baby to die. But you didn't."

Quinn stared at Santana, her eyes searching her for a moment before she returned to making breakfast. She finally grabs a knife and a cutting board and begins to cut up some fresh fruit only to stop after the first chop and turn to her twin who had finished her cereal and had brought the bowl to her lips. "What child?"

Charlie shrugged and waved her hand as if it was nothing.

Quinn turned her attention back to Santana, "What child?"

Santana glanced at Charlie who had begun to peel her orange, she didn't really seem to care about explaining the story. "A toddler walked out into traffic. She stopped traffic," Santana nodded towards Charlie.

Quinn flicks her eyes back to Charlie who shrugs once more. Quinn shakes her head, "There are still terrorists out there Charlie." When Charlie shoots her a flat look Quinn smiles, "Who said I was worried about you? It's not exactly a fair contest, now is it?"

Santana shivers when Quinn extends her fangs. She didn't quite know what Quinn meant but she was certain she didn't want to know. For now, she'd have to be on her best behavior, pissing the two of them off seemed to be like a terrible idea.

~O~

Even though the Regents have gone back to their regular routines and have probably forgotten about her intrusion, it's not something that she could easily forget about. They were sisters—twins for fuck sakes and they were together. Truthfully it was all that she could think about, she wanted to ask questions but she couldn't—even if they were pretending that nothing had happened she was sure she was on thin ice. She wasn't going to run her mouth and get herself in more trouble and she had only seen Sam in passing these past few days.

There was a tense silence that seemed to grip the entire house, even Blaine seemed on edge. But she isn't stupid and people forget that she's even there, which is how she hears the rumors that she's certain she's not supposed to know. Things aren't going well, with the neighboring province encroaching on Regent's territory, blood going missing and the fact that members of the red court might be dropping in to pledge their continued support. It's the latter that has Blaine cleaning like a madman. Making sure that everything is perfect, that she has the right clothes that the Regents have the right clothes. It was amusing to watch him annoy the crap out of them about proper procedures when they didn't seem to care.

Quinn was spending time in her garden and Charlie was busy watching cartoons, as if the world wasn't going to hell around them. The two of them have been remarkably absent and she really doesn't want to think about what they could be getting up to—though the flash of the two of them naked immediately comes to her mind. It's enough to cause her cheeks to warm up.

Finally, more out of boredom than anything else, she turns on the TV. Television wasn't something she wasted a lot of time with in the past. It gets a little old to see the government funded propaganda that paints every human as a blood-thirsty terrorist that deserves the shit-treatment that has been heaped upon them.

But this time it seems different and she's surprised when the government-run news outlet is pre-empting the mind-numbing daytime programming with what looked to be continuing coverage.

'At this point, Ken, the security force have assured the public that they are routinely patrolling the area. As you witnessed the violence is getting out of hand. What our sources are telling us is that at least seven people are dead many more are injured. Human and Therianthrope—an act of senseless violence.'

'Thanks.' The balding, pot-bellied man on TV nods his approval. 'We'll be keeping you updated on this developing story. For those of you who are just joining us, two bombs have gone off downtown, causing mass pandemonium and panic. Many people believe this is the result of the human terrorist group from before but no one has taken credit for it. The pandemonium that this event has caused—'

Santana stared in horror at the picture of people being carried away on stretchers. Blood pouring from wounds, she nearly hurls at the sight of a thick piece of metal shrapnel sticking out of someone's arm. The news guy was right, this was nothing more than senseless violence and she had no idea which human group would target other humans. It wouldn't get them on their side. It would just piss off the people even more, it would turn people against each other.

She pulls away and immediately heads to find the regents they needed to do something, anything to stop what was happening. She's not truly surprised to see that there are people moving about with urgency. Which probably meant the regents were moving around. She's about to head to the main room when she passes the recreation room, and stops. There laying on the couch eating chocolate was Charlie as she watched something animated on the screen. "What are you doing?"

Charlie turns to look at Santana and smiles at her shifting so she can make room for her on the couch. She pats the now free spot beside her.

Santana narrows her eyes, maybe Quinn was leading the defense or whatever but Charlie was a Regent as well. "People are dying in the streets—and you're—you're here eating candy?" She has no idea what possesses her to march into the room and grab the remote control from Charlie's hands but she does. She immediately changes the channel to the news. "People—your people are dying."

Charlie stares at Santana blankly and then makes a face, and motions for Santana to change the channel back.

"Look, look at them, humans and shifters are getting injured. Don't you care?" Santana snapped in frustration. Charlie was just holding her hand out for the remote. They didn't care. Of course they didn't care that people were dying. "This, this right here is why that people don't fucking trust you. That they fear you, all this power and you aren't using it to help people."

Charlie leans back in her chair and makes a gesture with her hand.

Santana nearly threw the remote in frustration, "I don't—look there are people who need you! There was some sort of attack and you can't just be one of those people who just—say fanciful words but does absolutely nothing. It's meaningless, and it leads to resentment."

"Charlie isn't going to be saying fanciful words to anyone," Quinn informed Santana, she adjusted the basket of fruit in her arms and tilted her head at her sister who smiled and motioned for the remote. "You're lucky that my sister enjoys your presence. I haven't quite figured out the reason why she likes you because the last time I took the remote from her, things got—interesting."

Santana spins to face Quinn incredulously. "Interesting? People are dying and you're worried about who gets to control the remote?"

"It was a particularly pointed moment." Quinn dismisses, placing the basket on the table. "Any moment, people are dying. Charlie and I both have been around long enough that we don't care to get involved in regular mortality issues." Quinn extends her hand out for the remote only for Charlie to hold her hand up and get off the couch a frown on her face.

"Regular mortality issues? What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means that we can't save everyone, and we have fire departments, we have our police force who have a job. They are currently doing that job, unless there is something that only we can handle then I don't see the point of helping—it's our day off."

Charlie leans in and squints at the television for a moment, before scowling and tapping the screen and looking at Quinn.

Quinn scowls. "What?"

Charlie taps the screen again, before she disappears from the room.

"Who cares if it's your day off? There are people hurting—" Santana crosses her arms over her chest, but stops talking with Quinn approaches the television and stares at it. She shivers when Quinn's eyes glow an angry red for a moment. Almost immediately she drops the remote. "It's a remote."

"Fuck." Quinn turns and turns to leave the room when Charlie reappears, in a completely different outfit, dressed in all black leather, with a red accent on the side. "You are not going alone. It's going to take everyone here to hunt them down, and make sure no one else turns. I'm going to have Blaine call ahead and have Sam lock down the entire area. Everyone will need to be checked and they will need to be put in a quarantine."

The sudden reversal makes Santana furrow her brow. Finally, it seems as if the Regents are going to do something. The sudden flash of what appears to be silver catches her eye and Santana realizes that Charlie is currently strapping on what appears to be a pistol to her hip. Charlie touches her back and makes a face. "This isn't a situation that calls for killing people."

Quinn watches as Charlie flashes to the television and points to someone on the screen. "Yes, unfortunately it does. This was a terrorist attack, but not by a group of humans who want to burn the system down and leave themselves open to becoming that." Quinn tilts her head. "Blaine!"

Santana shakes her head and looks at the screen, the only thing that the news was talking about was possible terror suspects attacking people. The footage was from a distance and she wasn't quite sure what she was looking at. It just looked like a human's being stupid. "I don't know what I'm looking at—"

"My ladyship—" Blaine says appearing in the room with a bow. He quickly realizes that Charlie is also in the room and shifts slightly so he can give her the due respect as well. "How may I be of assistance?"

Quinn immediately took charge, "Alert the security force that this isn't a simple rescue mission that they are going to need to lockdown the area, any vampire within the vicinity is going to need to help with containment. No one in and out of that area."

Blaine hesitated, before a look of horror appeared on his face. "Your ladyship—you can't possibly mean—"

"Yes, I do. You will remain here and make sure that this place isn't taken in our absence." Normally one of them would remain but this called for swift and decisive action. It probably wouldn't take long.

"I don't understand. What the hell is going on?" Santana asked, attempting to demand answers.

Quinn ignored Santana's question, "Make sure everyone is on alert as well. If there are ghouls, then that must mean their fucking masters are nearby." Quinn suddenly moved and grabbed Charlie's arm forcing her to stay in one place. Charlie flashed her an irritated look. "You are not going out there by yourself."

Charlie made a gesture and pointed to her back.

"Yes, I understand that you forgot your damn sword, but we will go together and we will take care of it. So long as you don't poke someone's eye out with that damn sword of yours. You are not a character in one of your odd cartoons."

Charlie waves Quinn off and heads to leave the room only to stop and turn around and pat Santana on the head. She flashes her a smile that shows her fangs. She winks before disappearing.

"The black court can't be here Quinn!" Quinn narrows her eyes and Blaine swallows. "Your eminence. I mean—it's so far and—what the hell are they doing here?"

"Pull yourself together Blaine, my sister and I will handle it. But once we leave no one is allowed into our out of this building until this matter is handled." Quinn turns to Santana finally after a moment. "Stay in your room, do not invite anyone inside your room. Do you understand?"

"I—"

"I don't have time for your attitude Santana, this is for your own safety. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." Quinn turns her attention back to Blaine for a moment before her head snaps to the hallway. "Stop."

Santana turned but she didn't quite see anything.

"I see you. What did I say about going off on your own?"

Santana scrambled back as a dark shadow that was on the wall seemed to melt and Charlie stepped into the light a guilty look on her face. She had thought that Quinn's glowing eye trick was fucking terrifying, this was something out of her nightmares. She didn't know that vampires had abilities like that. "What the—"

Quinn frowned and shook her head, "We're wasting time. Blaine, I expect to see everyone. I need to get my things. You can wait for that, long can't you?" Charlie shrugs for a moment until Quinn narrows her eyes and she nods. With that Quinn moves leaving the room.

Santana stumbles when Charlie approaches her and picks her up and carries her to her room, placing her on her bed and patting her head. She holds her hand up in a stop motion and then smiles, it's only for a second before the serious look is back and Charlie leaves, making sure to close the door behind her. She's alone in her room and the only thing that Santana knows for certain is that she's scared. If the Regents were worried, then she was fucking terrified. And then there was the matter of abilities, Charlie had just—she had stepped out of the shadows like it was nothing. None of the vampire books had said that they had the ability—if anything it made them more dangerous than they were and she'd have to be extra careful of what she said. They could be watching. They had said that they weren't like regular vampires, was this what they meant?