As always,
Midlifecrissis: Hehehe, just wait until this new chapter's cliffhanger, you're going to hate me! Sorry about taking so long! Thank you so much!
Me-me157: You always make my day with your long and thougthful messages so thank you! About no one being gravely injured... I'm sorry, but I'm afraid it's going to be bad. Of course Sam and Blaine still care about each other so much, even if they are at odds! But this is much bigger than that, whatever they have to fix they can do it once they're sure the other one is safe. Thank you so much!
Darrinia: I can't promise you that, sorry ;) Thank you so much, preciosa!
THEMoDePo: I know, I'm so mean XD Thank you so much, dear!
Misz: I'm sorry it took me so long! Thank you so much!
A/N: Sorry again for the delay but, as some of you already now, someone gave me the evil eye this week and I've been busy with small accidents and wasting my time in the ER! But it's finally here, so enjoy! :)
CHAPTER 17
The rumble of the explosion was nothing compared with the noise that one of the walls on the main entrance made when it fell on some of the students who had been perching on it on their battle. Most of them were quick enough to avoid getting hurt –Trent, Sam and Unique only got some scratches from flying debris–, though others were not so fortunate: Santana received a hard blow to the head that knocked her out for a minute and Joe completely disappeared under the rubble.
"It was a trap!" Sam announced as he ran to the fallen wall and started moving the debris to unbury Joe. "Keep shooting! Don't let them get any closer!"
"Santana!" Brittany shouted as she ran to the other girl and gently shook her to bring her back to consciousness.
Sam and Trent worked without pause to unbury Joe, afraid for the big blow he had received and the fact he yet had to make a sound. The shots around them intensified, as Puck and the others fought more fiercely, as it was more important and difficult to keep the other shooters away from the place now that one of the walls had been brought to shambles.
"I can see his hand now" Trent announced as he intensified his efforts, and only a couple more stones and they uncovered his face.
His face and every part of his body they could see were covered in blood and even if his eyes were open, his gaze was totally void of any life. His heart breaking, Sam knew he was not going to find a pulse, though he hurried to press his fingers under Joe's jaw hoping against hoping he would be wrong. He wasn't.
"He's dead" Sam announced with a strained voice as his hand gently closed Joe's eyelids out of respect.
"You're going to pay for this!" Puck yelled at the top of his lungs as he resumed his shooting and didn't stop until he had to recharge his weapon.
Sebastian and Blaine remained on their knees and quickly covered their heads as best they could when some chunks of the damaged ceiling fell on them after the explosion. As Sebastian had been embracing Blaine before the detonation, he protected him with his body and he bore the worst brunt when some of the debris hit him on the side of his head, making him groan before he was able to stop himself.
"Seb, you okay?" Blaine immediately asked when nothing else fell on them, drowning his need to cry and shout at what that explosion could mean for the others under the immediate worry for his friend. At least the fact that they could still hear shots meant they were still fighting.
"Ouch!" Sebastian exclaimed as he brought his hand to the side of his head and discovered some blood and quite a bit of pain, though he knew it was nothing life threatening. "Yeah, yeah, I'm alright"
"You're bleeding" Blaine explained as he quickly got a handkerchief of his pocket and carefully pressed it to Sebastian's wound. "Let me help you"
"It's okay, don't worry" Sebastian answered, but he let Blaine take care of him knowing it was a way to keep him calm and occupied.
Even as he worked on his wound, Sebastian could feel Blaine's hands shaking, and he couldn't even imagine what his friend was feeling at the moment. His theory had been proven right, and everything had been a trap. Now another explosion had taken place and they had no way of knowing if all the others –Sam included– were alright, or even alive. They knew not all of them had died, as shots could still be heard and it seemed they were still fighting, but that didn't mean all of them had made it.
"Blaine, I'm okay" Sebastian said as he took the hand Blaine still had pressed on the side of his head to make him stop –and squeezed it in his in a poor attempt of comfort. "It's just a scratch"
Blaine nodded with a devastated sigh as he sat down on the floor, not really knowing what to do: they were still trapped and in no position to help the others. Almost as if he was trying not to let any possible tears fall, he raised his head and let it rest on the wall behind him, and it was then when he got a better view of his surroundings and noticed a small hole had been made in the wall with the explosion.
"Hey, look!" he excitedly said as he jumped on his feet and pointed at his discovery for Sebastian to see. "I bet we can pass through here!"
"There is no way we can fit through that, Blaine" Sebastian answered, moving to stand by his side, more than a little afraid Blaine would try to pass through the small hole and get stuck in it.
"We can if we make it bigger" he replied as he impatiently started hitting the bricks around the hole.
It was clear he was not going to be successful that way, as nothing was moving and Blaine's hands wouldn't stand that kind of treatment much longer.
"Blaine, stop it, this is useless" Sebastian said as he grabbed Blaine's wrists and tried to take them from the wall.
"Let go of me!" Blaine retorted, angrily extricating his arms from his friend's grip. "Try and find something we can use instead of just trying to stop me!"
Sebastian could see Blaine was right, and he would be more useful if he tried to find any tool that could help them instead of just assuming they couldn't do anything. And of course he wasn't offended at the fact that Blaine had yelled at him –he knew what the other boy was going through, so he should have tried to be more understanding–. But he was almost afraid of letting Blaine alone, as he knew he was going to try to work with his bare hands as soon as Sebastian turned his back on him, and the last thing Sebastian wanted was for his friend to hurt himself. But knowing he really didn't have any other option, Sebastian finally nodded at him and ran towards the cells to try and find anything that would help them make a bigger hole and find their way out of the place.
Meanwhile the others were still keeping their positions, fighting their tears for their fallen friend while not being able to stop to bury him or pay him the tribute he deserved, because if they stopped they could all suffer the same fate. Santana had regained consciousness, and was sitting next to Brittany, who was back to shooting too as she protected the other girl.
"Guys, aim better!" Puck encouraged them as he was horrified to discover those men were indeed coming closer this time –and they didn't know if they were going to come up with something else–. "We can't just shoot randomly to keep them at bay now, you have to kill them! Otherwise they will kill us!"
Sam hated himself for not practicing his shooting all those years after his grandfather taught him the use of weapons –though how was he to know he was going to need it someday?–, because all the bullets he had wasted and he was not sure he had even hit any of their attackers. And meanwhile Joe was dead, everyone was in danger and Blaine and Sebastian were trapped, probably going out of their heads. And there was apparently nothing he could do about it.
His concentration was broken for a moment when he heard the horrible gurgling noise of a walker near. Great, as if they didn't have enough with the shooters, now that the wall was gone they needed to worry about walkers too.
"Guys, be careful, I can hear walkers very near" Sam warned his friends, surprised he couldn't see any of those monsters in front of him in spite of how close he could hear them.
"Sam, watch out!" Tina yelled from the other corner of the room. "Behind you!"
Sam didn't lose a moment to turn around at Tina's warning and he was astonished to find the source of the noise behind him, so he lifted his gun and shoot directly at its forehead. It wasn't until the walker was killed and lying on the floor that he realized it was Joe.
"What the…?" he exclaimed, not being able to finish his sentence because of how shocked he was feeling. How the hell had Joe turned into a walker, if the cause of his death had been the falling wall? "He was not bitten!"
"Are you sure?" Kitty asked, horrified at what she had seen and what Sam had been forced to do.
"Yes, it's impossible that he was, there was no walker here!" Sam answered, sounding angry and surprised, clearly not wanting to go into how he had killed his friend even if he was not really alive anymore. "He died because of the wall falling on him!"
"Maybe… maybe everything is contaminated by now" Mike explained with a sad sigh. "Maybe we are so contaminated that we turn into one of them when we die even if it's not them killing us"
That elicited a silence between all the youngsters as each of them got lost in their own thoughts, knowing Mike was probably right. Just when they thought things couldn't get any worse, something like that appeared out of nothing, Sam realized. The notion of any corpse turning into a walker, whatever they way it had died, just made it all the more dangerous to be trapped in closed spaces. Like Blaine was right now with Sebastian. If something happened to one of them…
"Then we need to be extra careful" Sam answered. "Any dead body is a potential walker"
"If you kill anybody make sure to hit them on the head so they won't revive" Puck answered coldly, though Sam knew better and knew he was just as affected by the new discovery as anybody else, but trying not to deflate in everybody's sake.
"What are they doing?" Marley asked as she looked through a window at the back of the room at a small group of men coming their way on the quiet with something in their hands. With all the Joe debacle, they hadn't realized there were hardly any shots anymore.
"Is that…?" Jake started to ask, but stopped himself when he realized he was looking at what was about to be the third explosion, as what those men were carrying seemed to be explosives.
"Everybody out!" Mike yelled at the top of his lungs when he also understood what was happening, not being able to believe they had fallen on their trap again. "We can't be trapped here if the place falls down on us!"
With their hearts in their throats, everybody seemed to obey and they started leaving the place through the doors or through the holes on the wall. Everybody except for Sam, who was starting to run in the opposite direction, apparently wanting to go deeper inside the place instead of out until Puck unceremoniously grabbed the back of his shirt and made him stop.
"We need to go out now!" he yelled, shaking Sam all the way to get some reason into him.
"Blaine and Sebastian are trapped in there!" Sam replied as he tried to extricate himself from Puck's grip, Blaine's welfare the only thing in his mind.
"And you risking your life when there is nothing you can do to get them out isn't going to help them!" Puck answered, yelling even louder than before. "Let's get out of here and find the way to help them from outside!"
Sam could see Puck's words made more sense: even if he ran to the corridor that separated them from the cells, it would be as blocked as before and there wouldn't be anything he could do to get to Blaine as much as he wanted. Getting himself killed wasn't going to save Blaine. If only he could at least make sure Blaine was still alright…
"Alright" Sam surrendered as he let himself be pulled by Puck towards the exit, knowing Puck was not going to leave without him and that he would be putting him at risk for no reason. But once outside, no one was going to stop him from finding the way to get Blaine out of his imprisonment, even if it was the last thing he did.
Sebastian ran from one cell to the other looking for any tools that might help them, but no screwdrivers or monkey wrenches were going to help them. The only thing he could think of that could be useful was the hammer Unique had been keeping since she found it in the janitor's closet at school, and once he found it he ran back to the last place he had seen Blaine, praying he hadn't done anything crazy.
Of course his hopes were shattered as soon as he left the last of the cells and went back, and even from afar he could see how Blaine's hands were bleeding from multiple cuts and scratches as he diligently worked at pulling and pushing at the bricks surrounding the hole. Sebastian could see he had made some advances, and the hole seemed a bit larger than before, but it was not enough yet and he would have to stop Blaine before he damaged his hands forever.
"Blaine, stop!" Sebastian yelled as he reached him.
"No, just a little bit more, it's almost big enough" Blaine pleaded for Sebastian to not try to stop him this time as he continued with his task, apparently immune to the pain he had to be feeling with injuries like that.
"Your hands are bleeding" Sebastian said as he grabbed his wrists and brought them in front of him, so he could inspect how badly hurt Blaine's hands were.
"Seb, I don't care" Blaine answered in a broken voice, and there was so much pain and sorrow in his voice that Sebastian could only sigh in surrender as he let go of his hands.
"Ok, let me help you but carefully" Sebastian answered as he showed Blaine the hammer.
"Ok" Blaine agreed as he reluctantly moved slightly aside to let Sebastian work with the tool.
Of course going outside wasn't an ideal solution either, and as soon as they set a foot outside –with no idea where or how the others were–, Sam and Puck had to run towards the containers area to hide from the bullets coming at them. Maybe from there they would be able to shoot the men carrying the explosives before they set them off, still worried about Blaine's and Sebastian's situation inside the building.
"Shoot at them!" Sam desperately ordered his friend when they were safely half hidden behind the containers. "We have to stop them!"
"I'm trying" Puck answered in frustration, as the angle they were in from the men didn't let him aim as well as he would have liked. "I can't seem to get them from here!"
"I'm going out" Sam announced, but he was not quick enough to run before Puck could grab his arm and stop him again.
"Don't you even think about it, you go out there and you're a dead man" Puck said in a threatening tone. "If you're near that when it explodes you'll end up like Joe. Not to mention all the other guys hidden around here waiting to shoot at you"
"We have to do something!" Sam insisted.
"If you get yourself killed who's going to get Blaine out of there?" Puck insisted, feeling guilty about how manipulative he was being, but he was willing to say anything to keep his friend out of danger.
Sam hesitated for a second, not being able to decide if Puck was right or he was just trying to convince him to let it go. It was only a second but it was enough: before he could say anything else, the third explosion took place right before their eyes and they were appalled to see half the building turning into ashes.
Even though the explosion hadn't been anywhere near them, Blaine and Sebastian ended up on the floor with the force of it, again trying to protect themselves from chunks of wall and roof falling on them with their arms over their heads. Fortunately neither one of them were hurt this time and they were relieved and delighted to see the hole had been made bigger.
"We can fit through here!" Blaine excitedly yelled, smiling for the first time in what felt like forever as he jumped on his feet.
"Probably" Sebastian agreed, smiling himself, as he followed his friend a bit more slowly.
"Help me up" Blaine pleaded to his friend, as the hole was a bit too high in the wall for him to reach it comfortably.
Sebastian didn't lose a second and entwined his own hands so Blaine could put his foot onto them and he would be able to lift him. Fortunately Blaine wasn't too heavy and was very agile, so Sebastian only needed to give a small push up to get Blaine to grab onto the hole and get himself through it.
Blaine remained perched on the hole so he could help Sebastian from it, and he grabbed his hand and pulled at the same time Sebastian jumped so he was able to reach the edge of the hole on the wall too. And for Sebastian to have enough room to go through the hole, Blaine needed to jump to the other side, and so he did. But he was so focused in getting out of there as soon as possible that he forgot to be cautious, and as soon as his feet touched the ground a walker lurking around jumped on him and made him fall to the floor.
"Careful!" Sebastian yelled as he took the matter into his own hands after he also jumped to the floor and shot directly at the walker's head, making its movements cease in an instant.
"Shit" was the only thing Blaine could exclaim when he was able to regain the ability to talk after the fright.
"You okay?" Sebastian quickly asked while offering him a hand to help him stand.
"Gosh, I'd totally forgotten about walkers" Blaine answered with an embarrassed blush as he let himself be helped on his feel.
"Well, don't forget again, you idiot" Sebastian angrily replied, and Blaine smiled in spite of himself as he realized Sebastian was not as angry as he was scared.
"Sorry" Blaine apologized to his friend for causing him any worry. "And now let's go and see where the others are" or in what condition, he added to himself.
Sam and Puck were relieved than any of their friends –that they could see– were close enough to be injured with the explosion, though they knew the place was completely ruined for them even if they managed to survive. And all of that just for some supplies? Those guys must thought they were storing a lot of things. Well, they were going to be disappointed.
"There is nothing we can do to save the place anymore" Sam lamented. "The only thing left for us to do is get Blaine and Sebastian out of there and run away, and hope we can find the others"
"I can't see the shooters, but there are still bullets flying by" Puck commented, surprised those men were nowhere to be seen.
"They must be hiding somewhere" Sam answered as he looked around, but his eyes only found Tina some yards away from them instead, apparently looking for some place to hide or simply trying to escape.
Sam was about to call her so she would join them, as the girl looked really scared and it was always better to stay together, but before he could even open his mouth, another shot was heard and Tina collapsed face first, unmoving.
"No!" Sam said, trying hard not to shout so they wouldn't be discovered either, even if he could hardly believe he had just seen one of his best friends being killed in front of him. "Fuck, Tina! Fuck! Fuck!" he exclaimed, hitting the wall with the palm of his hands as a way to try to deal with his pain before he made an attempt to run to her.
"Sam, stop!" Puck said, grabbing Sam's forearms to shake him out of his shock, as they didn't have the time for that –and he was afraid Sam would leave their hidden place and end up killed too. "She was shot in the head, you can't do anything for her now"
Only the tears in Puck's eyes were able to make Sam understand the gravity of the situation and how he was not the only one suffering, so he made an effort to calm himself down and accept that, just as Joe, Tina was gone now. At least she wouldn't be turning into a walker, as she had been shot in the head, he said to himself for comfort.
"Oh my God, when Mike finds out…" Sam lamented, his mind inevitably going to how he would feel if he lost Blaine and making his heart physically ache with just the thought of it.
"We'll take care of him" Puck assured him, in a rush to start making a plan about what to do from then on. "But we can't think about that now: there is a shooter up there" Puck explained while pointing at the little terrace on top of the building, finally understanding where those shots were coming from. "We won't be able to get anything done until we get rid of him, or else he'll end up killing us all from his position"
"You think we should go up that terrace?"
"I think it's the only thing left for us to do"
"Ok, let's do it"
Meanwhile Sebastian and Blaine were running towards the other area of the block they had just left –making sure to keep themselves protected from the bullets still flying around them, even if they had diminished their intensity–, and were horrified to discover a part of it had been turned into rubble. Which meant they had lost the first place they had kind of considered a home since the whole thing started. And they hoped it didn't mean they had lost much more than that.
"Is that…?" Blaine started to ask from his place outside as they saw Joe's body lying forgotten inside the building, but he couldn't bring himself to finish his question.
"Yeah" Sebastian answered sadly, silently mourning the loss of yet another friend, but he hadn't had the time to dwell on the feeling before Blaine went crazy and started running towards the place with the intention of going inside.
"Sam!" he desperately yelled, his heart forgetting to beat at the chance that Joe wasn't the only corpse in the place.
"No, Blaine, wait!" Sebastian said as he caught with him and stopped him with his a ferocious grip on his upper arms. "Those guys half blew the place up for a reason, they are probably inside by now!"
"But the others…" Blaine tried to protest as he tried to rid himself from Sebastian's grip, to no avail.
"The others must have run away… Otherwise there would be more corpses, can't you see it?" Sebastian tried to convince his friend while still holding onto him, terrified of what his fate would be if he let go of him.
"And what if they didn't? What if they are inside, with those criminals?" Blaine pleaded for Sebastian to understand his worry.
"They're not" Sebastian unsurprisingly replied, looking intently at the shorter boy. "We need to look for them and save ourselves. Let's not get ourselves killed for nothing"
Blaine nodded, even if he wasn't entirely convinced.
Sam and Puck went up the stairs leading them to the terrace above the half destroyed block in total silence, knowing how important it was to catch the shooter unaware. They hadn't talked about it, but both of them knew they would probably have to kill him, as taking him as a prisoner didn't make any sense nor they could take the time to watch him. And even if they knew they didn't have any other option, and that bastard had killed Tina just in front of them, they knew it wasn't going to be easy to take his life like that.
Opening the door as quietly as they could manage, they both went outside and immediately saw the man they were looking for at the other end of the terrace, lying on his stomach to shoot at ground's level as the protective wall had been destroyed with the explosion. It seemed like he hadn't heard them, and Puck nodded at Sam before lifting his weapon to point it at the man, trying not to think he was killing a human from behind.
But before he could even think about squeezing the trigger, another gun made contact with his temple as another man they hadn't noticed behind the door appeared and pointed their gun at them.
"Leave your guns on the floor right now or your little Chinese friend won't be the last to die" the man said, and the boys could only obey.
Blaine and Sebastian were slowly making their way around the place, always making sure to stay hidden away from any possible shooter, even though it had been a long time since they had seen any of them –as by then, as Sebastian had said, they were probably inside the place, looking for any supplies they could carry–, when they practically stumbled over Trent, who was carefully hiding in a corner behind some bushes. He looked pale and he was holding his ankle with his hands, so they immediately supposed he was hurt.
"Trent!" Sebastian said as he kneeled at his side. "What happened? Are you okay?"
"I'm okay, don't worry" Trent immediately tried to reassure the two worried boys. "I just sprained my ankle, I think"
"Where are the others?" Blaine asked, trying not to sound too impatient.
"They are scattered around, it was too dangerous to stay inside" Trent answered, understanding Blaine's worries immediately.
"Can you move?" Sebastian asked.
"I don't know" Trent honestly answered, but before he could even try Blaine insisted again.
"Do you know where Sam is?" Blaine asked, not even trying to pretend Sam was the one he was the most worried about.
"I saw him going up to the terrace upstairs with Puck, there is a shooter there and I guess they wanted to finish him off, but…"
"But what?" Blaine asked, willing Trent to say what he had to say.
"It was some time ago, and… the shooter is still doing his job up there" Trent admitted, his heart breaking at having to be the one to give Blaine news like that.
Blaine's emotions were perfectly readable at his face: at first, there was only desolation. But it soon was replaced by hope, and when his gaze started to show the determination that was so typical of him, Sebastian rushed to hold him down by grabbing his shoulders.
"Don't you even think about it" Sebastian said in a threatening voice.
"I need to make sure" Blaine answered, and when Sebastian saw he was not even trying to convince him, but just affirming it, he knew there was no way he was going to stop him.
"It's suicide to go up there alone, I won't let you" Sebastian tried anyway, hoping Blaine would listen to him for once, but it was not his lucky day.
"I'm sorry, Seb, but there is no way you can't stop me" Blaine answered before standing up and running in a rush, before Sebastian could even react. "Stay with Trent!"
"Blaine, wait!" Sebastian yelled at his back as he fought the urge to follow him and push him to the floor until all danger was over. But he knew he couldn't leave Trent alone, not when he was injured, so in the end he could only watch as Blaine disappeared from his side. "Damn you, you fool" he whispered to himself as a very bad feeling settled in his chest without him being able to stop it.
Blaine ran as quickly as he could manage even if he wasn't sure his heart was still beating at the possibility that something had happened to Sam. He didn't even think about the possible robbers wandering around the place as he reached the stairs, desperate as he was to get to what was left of the terrace as soon as possible. Twice he came across a couple of walkers who had also made their way inside, but he was experienced enough for them not to be a real threat and he managed to avoid them so he wouldn't lose any time.
As he went up the narrow stairs taking him to the terrace, he could hear some of those walkers following him up, but fortunately they were much slower than he was. He thought maybe he should confront them and get rid of them, but he didn't have the time to stop. So in the end he decided that he would take care of them later, if it came to that, once he was sure Sam was alright.
As he had no idea of what he was going to find, he opened the door slowly, his weapon in front of him ready to be fired in case of need. And he thought his heart was going to come out of his chest when he saw Sam and Puck were alive, but being directly pointed at with a rifle but one of those men, so he remained hidden behind the door to see what was really happening.
"Just make it easier on yourself and tell us where you are storing everything" the man yelled at them.
"Go to hell, you're going to kill us anyway" Puck cockily answered, and Blaine almost admired him for not losing his stance even in a time like this.
"Yes, but I promise to make it quick" the man answered.
And that's when Blaine knew enough was enough. He felt nauseous just at the thought of killing a man like that, but he could see there was another one on the other side of the terrace, still aiming downstairs, so if he tried to threaten the first man to lower his gun, the second one would turn to them and Sam's life –along with Puck and his own– would be at risk. Plus he very well knew it was either them or those men, and making prisoners didn't make any sense.
The decision was made for him, though, when the man started getting impatient, seeing Sam and Puck were not going to collaborate, and raised his gun to Sam's face. Before he could even think about what he was doing, Blaine quickly aimed his gun at the man and shot, killing him in an instant.
Everybody stayed rooted to the place from shock for a second: Sam and Puck astonished at the fact they were alive and the man about to kill them was not, and the fact that Blaine had appeared out of nothing when he was supposed to be trapped inside the building. And Blaine stood petrified at the thought of just having killed a man.
Too shocked to react, Blaine fought against the urge to vomit at what he had just done, and Sam's heart broke at the image and about how bad he knew Blaine was feeling at the moment because of his big heart. He was going to go to him and try to comfort him when he remembered about the guy at the other end of the terrace and turned to look at him to discover horrified he had turned around and was now aiming his gun at Blaine.
Without a second thought, Sam took the gun from the dead man's hands and as quickly as he could manage he shot at the man in the distance. He didn't die instantly, and he still had time to fire one last time, though thanks to his injury the shot was clearly deflected.
At the same time, while Blaine had been standing immobile next to the door, Puck saw how the walkers that had been following him were about to reach him.
"Blaine, watch out!" Puck yelled as he shot at the walker closest to his friend, and even if he hit it, he was not quick enough to keep the monster from getting to Blaine.
Even with the ruckus of all the shooting around them, Sam could still hear a little grunt of pain escaping from Blaine's lips as the walker finally got to him and made him fall from the edge of the terrace with the force of the impact. The last glimpse Sam caught out of his lover was that of his chest getting covered with blood. And then, just like that, he was gone.
A/N: So do you hate me yet? :)