Author's Note: I own nothing except the plot of this story. Everything up until Journey happened. I used the same names from "Details In the Fabric" (Aaron and Rob) for Rachel's parents because as of yet their names have not been revealed on the show, correct?
Terror
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
-From Maya Angelou's Still I Rise
Rachel could hear her garage door open. She could feel her car shift with the weight of the two men sitting down and a second later the engine roared to life. When the car pulled out of her driveway, she tried to keep track of where she was. After just a few minutes, she lost track of the turns they had made and began to cry harder. She had no idea where they were taking her or what they were going to do with her. She had taken note of the fact that her back seat had not been filled with much in the way of loot. Her laptop, as well as both her fathers, had been taken. She was sure they had found the cash in her Daddy's office. That caused her mind to wander. If they didn't take much in the way of valuables, maybe that's not why they were in the house in the first place. Maybe the electronics and jewelry were just bonuses. Her Daddy was a History professor, nothing worth mentioning really. But her Dad was a lawyer, and she knew that the thieves had gone directly to his office. If they were disgruntled clients, or worse yet people he had at one time put away, there was no telling what they would do to her.
After what Rachel guessed to be 15 minutes of driving, she realized that her left arm had gone numb from the awkward way she was laying on her shoulder. Seeing as she had nothing better to do, she decided to put her flexibility to the test. It took 9 tries, and one giant whack on the head against the emergency kit in the trunk with her, but Rachel eventually managed to maneuver herself so that her arms were no longer behind her. Instead, they were now resting against her stomach. She promptly pulled the duct tape off of her mouth, but kept quiet even though she wanted to let out a yelp of pain. She didn't want to alert her captors of her new found freedom, no matter how small it was. However, a victory was a victory and she was still Rachel Berry so for the briefest moment, she let a triumphant smirk adorn her stinging lips.
Suddenly, a thought popped into Rachel's head and she let out a hysterical giggle. She immediately pulled her cell phone out of her waistband and said a silent prayer of thanks as she dialed and held the phone to her ear.
"911, this is Nick speaking, what is your emergency?"
"My name is Rachel Berry. I've been kidnapped. I called 911 when two men broke into my house and they found me in my closet. They put me in my trunk," she whispered.
"Can you tell me the make and model of your car, Rachel?" Nick asked urgently. She could hear him yell for what she assumed was a superior while he typed frantically on his computer.
"It's a silver 2000 Volkswagen Jetta, the license plate is RNM 389, I have no idea where I am. I tried to pay attention to where they were turning but I got confused," Rachel half sobbed into the phone apologetically.
"Honey, Rachel it's okay, sweetie, it's Lauren. I know you are so scared right now honey but you are doing everything right, okay? We have the police looking for you and we are going to find you, honey, I promise," Lauren's soothed. Rachel instantly relaxed at the sound of the familiar voice. Suddenly, she felt the car stop, and after that she could hear what sounded like a garage door closing. She snapped the phone shut and shoved it back into her shorts, terrified of being caught. She tried to take a few deep breaths to slow her breathing and keep herself from going into a complete panic. The trunk opened and Brian's face appeared.
"What did you do!" He exclaimed, giving her a stern look.
"Listen to me, we are NOT going to hurt you. I've convinced Todd to leave you somewhere outside of Lima so that you'll be able to get to help eventually. It'll still buy us some time if you don't know where you are, though, you know? Right now we're at...well, we're somewhere so that we can get some sleep for our getaway. I told him I was just checking to make sure you were still taped up so I gotta get inside but please, please, just lay here and wait, okay? We're going to let you go tomorrow morning and I'm going to even get you something to eat, okay? We didn't know you would be home and we just kind of panicked. I'm sorry about all of this. Just please be good," Brian pleaded. Rachel nodded her head once as more tears filled her eyes. The sun was starting to rise, and she had a flicker of fear that she would never see it set again. Brian seemed almost more scared than she was, and she wondered if this was truly all a mistake or if he was just trying to earn her trust so she would behave. He gave her a small nod and slammed the trunk shut again.
-GLEE-
The shrill ringing of the hotel room telephone rudely pulled Rob from his relaxed slumber. He slapped a hand against his husbands back and mumbled into his pillow for his husband to answer it. Grumbling, Aaron lifted himself up onto an elbow before he picked up the phone.
"Hello?" He grunted, his voice thick with sleep. It wasn't even 3 am and he was going to be very angry if this phone call was a prank from another hotel guest.
"Aaron? This is Kristen Grey from down the street. I don't mean to alarm you, but you mentioned the name of the hotel you were staying at and I tracked you down. Please don't panic, but I thought you needed to know that the police are at your house right now. I think the house was broken into. I know you and your family are on vacation but I-"
Kristen was cut off as Aaron let out a terrified yelp. He sat up and clicked on the light, causing his husband to lift his head off of the pillow and look at him in alarm and confusion.
"What's going on?" He hissed.
"Kristen, please. God, you have to go talk to the police! Rachel isn't with us, it's our anniversary. You need to go see if she's okay, please!" He pleaded. Rob immediately leaped from the bed and grabbed his cell phone off of the table, ripping the charger out of the bottom. He turned it on and frantically dialed what Aaron assumed was Rachel's number.
-GLEE-
True to his word, Brian returned moments later with a bottle of water and a granola bar.
"I'm sorry that this is all I have. We're only going to stay a few more hours and then-" he abruptly stopped talking when Rachel flinched suddenly. He could hear the steady hum of a cell phone ringing and anger immediately flashed in his eyes.
"I told you to be good!" He barked at her. He grabbed her bound wrists and yanked them above her head. Feeling the buzzing coming from her shorts he reached inside of them to retrieve her cell phone. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut and felt hot tears forming underneath her eyelids. Brian let go of her wrists and seconds later she heard her phone shatter against the concrete of the garage floor. She brought her hands to her face and couldn't control her sobs.
"I'm sorry," she cried. "I just want to go home. Please let me go. I didn't do anything wrong, please. Just let me go, please don't hurt me. Please, please," she started repeating the word over and over, as if she no longer had any control over what passed through her lips. She was sobbing, her breath catching every few seconds. Brian felt as though his heart was being broken in two. He never meant for this to happen. He never meant for this innocent girl to become scarred for life because of his stupidity.
"Damn it!" He yelled, punching the frame of the trunk. Rachel jerked away and began screaming in fear, covering her head and face as well as she could with her bound hands.
"Stop it! I'm not going to hurt you, stop screaming before he comes out here. Stop!" He ordered. Her screams became whimpers as she tried to control herself. He could see the terror pouring off of her in waves, her body shaking uncontrollably.
"Please look at me," he said softly. She lowered her hands from her face and rolled onto her back a little. Her eyes were bloodshot and her bottom lip was trembling, but she met his gaze. "Come on, I can't leave you in the trunk now. Apparently you need to be supervised." He tried to keep his tone light. She reluctantly sat up, and then let him help her out of the trunk. She tried to keep her gaze on the floor as he led her into the house with a gentle grip on her arm. Soon, she found herself in front of a closet in what appeared to be a young man's bedroom. More likely, Brian's bedroom. He opened the door and nudged her in, and watched as she sat on the floor and brought her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs and waited to be shut in the darkness. After a second, she looked up and realized he wasn't even standing there anymore. A second later he returned to the door frame holding a pillow and blanket.
"I know it's not much but...try to get some sleep. This will all be over tomorrow and I promise, you won't have a scratch on you. I promise," he said softly, before closing the door. She could hear a lot of loud rustling and clamoring and knew without even trying that she was locked in there for good. Briefly, she wondered if they would let her out if the house caught fire. She calmed herself with the thought that she had been burglarized and kidnapped already that night, she probably had reached her quota for traumatic experiences. At least she hoped so. She shoved the pillow and blanket aside and her grip on her knees tightened.
-GLEE-
At 7:00 am on the dot, Principal Figgins walked into his office to the wide, scared eyes of his secretary.
"Kathy, what's wrong?" He asked her, alarmed.
"Sir, you need to take this. It's line 1," was all she said. Quickly, he grabbed his usual morning announcements and notices off of her desk and then entered his office, closing the door behind him. He sat at his desk and took a deep, calming breath, and then picked up his phone.
"Figgins," he said cautiously. He heard a shaky intake of breath, and felt his stomach instantly drop to his feet. This was not going to be good.
"Mr. Figgins, this is Aaron Berry. I'm just calling to keep you abreast of the," he paused," situation. Last night, our home was broken into. Rachel was the only one home and she was taken." Principal Figgins was speechless. Rachel Berry was kidnapped by burglars. He wasn't even sure if his brain could process that information.
"Oh, dear lord," he breathed into the phone. "Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything? What do you know?"
"All we know is that they found her in her closet. They didn't know she had called 911 so they panicked and they," his voice cracked and Figgins could hear him suppress a sob," They took her and forced her into her trunk. She had hidden her cell phone and called 911 again but the last time she was heard from was at 2:25 this morning. Her phone is just going directly to voice mail now."
"Mr. Berry, I am so very sorry. Please, let me know when they find her. And they will find her," he said, his voice completely confident.
"Thank you. Someone will call you. I just wanted the school to be informed, because I think the police will be arriving soon to question her classmates. I didn't want you to be bombarded."
After a few more minutes, Figgins hung up with Aaron and let his face fall into his hands. One of his kids. One of his kids could be...he couldn't even bring himself to think of the horror that Rachel might be experiencing. Wiping a hand over his face, he pressed his intercom button.
"Kathy, please page Will Schuester for me."
-GLEE-
At 7:45 that morning, Will was pacing the choir room. Eventually all of his kids filed in, minus his star member. There was a tremendous amount of buzz floating around the school already, though no one had made the connection between the police and Rachel being absent. Will had wanted to be the one to break the news to his kids before the cops began their questioning. He asked everyone to sit down, and then pulled up a chair in front of their half circle.
"Something bad has happened, guys," he said.
"Shouldn't you wait for Rachel to get here before you tell us?" Finn questioned innocently.
"Did Figgins change his mind? Is Glee over? Cause then yeah, we shouldn't wait. I definitely don't want to be anywhere within hearing distance when Rachel hears that!" Mercedes giggled. There were a couple of laughs and agreements that became abruptly silent at the look on Mr. Schuester's face.
"Rachel was home alone when her house was broken into early this morning," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "They kidnapped and she hasn't been found yet."
There was silence in the room as everyone tried to process what Mr. Schue just said. Tina and Quinn began to sniffle quietly, leaning into their respective partners. Finn looked like he was about to crumble and Mike began clenching and un-clenching his fists. Before any of them had any more time to process what they had been told, there was a knock at the door and a detective walked in followed by Principal Figgins and a couple of uniformed officers. Will looked at the devastated and shocked faces of his kids and felt a tug at his heart. It was going to be a bad day.
Author's Note 2: I put a tiny, completely insignificant nod to Rachel and Mike in here. Did anyone catch it? Anyway, thanks for the reviews and all of the alerts! I hope this chapter was up to your expectations. Feel free to let me know, or throw in requests or ideas (though I can't promise I will use all.)
