As always,

Me-me157: I know, I'm sorry it took me so long... again :( Yeah, those people are plain mean and they kind of brought it up on them, to be honest. This chapter is algo filled with a lot of action and... drama. Hope you forgive me! Thank you so much!

THEMoDePo: Yay, they found each other again, of course! Yeah, that woman made me sad too, bc she just gave her life for Sam, which is a big thing even if she had no one left. Hope you survive the next chapter! Thank you so much!

Mildlifecrissis: yeah, in the end they all understood what it needed to be done, especially considering everything Blaine and Sam had done for everyone from the beginning. Yeah, Cooper knows how to keep Blaine in check better than anyone, he has years of experience after all! ;) I'm so glad you liked the chapter after all the effort. Hope you like the new one too, and that you don't hate me after it! Thank you so much!

Darrinia: Cariñín! Awww, thanks! Yes, they're still in big danger, and you know the bad feeling is right. Hope you can forgive me after this! Un besazo, preciosa!

Blamsturbation: Wow, you're not even real, thanks for all the support! i reeeeeeally really hope you like this chapter too (lots of action again) and that you'll find the way to forgive me! Thank you so much!

A/N: Well, the moment we were all dreading is finally here... i'm so sorry :( I hope that you find it in you to forgive me!

CHAPTER 31

"Run!" Cooper yelled at the top of his lungs, and he didn't wait to see if the others were obeying before he started running himself towards the spot in the wall they had used to enter before.

Blaine strengthened his grip in Sam's hand and ran behind his brother, pulling Sam along without giving him the time to think. Fortunately for him, Sam trusted the Anderson brothers unconditionally –he had seen enough of them to know he wouldn't want to be with anyone else in a situation like that–, and he quickly recovered from the shock and ran next to his boyfriend, glad of the grip they were keeping between their hands and that reminded him he was not alone this time.

Cooper stopped right in the same place they had used to get in, and only took a moment to look at the walkers, getting closer to them, before he grabbed Sam's shoulder and moved him to stand in front of him.

"Ok, Sam goes first" Cooper explained, using his age as a leadership right as he joined his hands and motioned for Sam to get his foot on them. "We can lift him up between the two of us as Sebastian and Trent did with us"

"Cooper…" Blaine tried to protest, imagining where his brother was going with that, but Cooper didn't give him the chance and kept on with his plan.

"Then I'll lift you" he continued explaining, even though he kept himself from looking at his brother so Blaine wouldn't be able to read his intentions. But of course Blaine knew him better than that and didn't even need to.

"No, Cooper" he immediately opposed, while Sam looked alternatively at the two brothers, not completely understanding what was happening as he still didn't know how they had managed to enter the fort.

"You aren't that heavy and I think I'll be able to do it on my own" Cooper continued, ignoring Blaine's protests.

"Coop, stop"

"…you're agile, I know that with just the right push…"

"Stop!" Blaine yelled at him, cupping both his cheeks to force him to look at him and make more of an impression. "We aren't going anywhere without you!"

"But Blaine…" Cooper tried to protest, even though it was useless because his brother had immediately read his intentions.

"If Sam and I jump to the other side there won't be anybody to help you! There is no way you can make it to the other side on your own, and we're not leaving without you, ok?" Blaine continued, his eyes full of anger at the mere thought that his brother could think he was going to do something like that.

"It's the only way" Cooper tried to sound stern, as their age difference had always given him some authority over his usually respectful brother, but he knew this time Blaine was not going to obey, no matter what he said.

"Then we'll have to find another way, but I'm not leaving this damned place unless I do it with both of you!" Blaine yelled, leaving no room for argument as he shook his brother's arms to let him know how serious he was.

"We don't have any firearms"

"Then we'll have to fight them hand-to-hand. It's not like it's the first time we do that"

"Ok" Cooper finally relented, half angry that his brother wouldn't listen to him, half moved at how moved at the intensity of Blaine's emotions and his refusal to leave without him. "Then… let's fight"

The three of them turned to face the huge group of walkers making their way towards them and their hearts trembled with fear at the thought that they might be too many for them to fight. Blaine handed Sam the machete his brother had given him, knowing the blond was still unarmed, and unconsciously pushed him behind him in an absurd attempt of protection, knowing Sam was still a bit confused and stiff after so many hours sitting down with his arms tied and in the dark.

But another look at the hell in front of him, and he knew he was not going to be able to protect Sam any longer: they had to fight.

"Sebastian, wait!" Trent yelled behind him, knowing his friend was way faster than he was and he would never reach him otherwise.

"We've got to help them!" Sebastian protested over his shoulder, not wanting to waste even one second if it could mean any difference for their friends inside.

"Getting yourself killed it's not going to make any good!" Trent rebuked, and there had to be a lot of desperation in his voice because this time Sebastian listened to him and stopped, even if the shaking of his body clearly belied how much he wanted to start running again.

"What?"

"Let's be reasonable" Trent continued, this time addressing everybody. "It's not only the walkers we have to deal with, we don't know for sure if everyone in there died with the fall"

"You're right" Santana lamented with a sigh. "They could very well be hidden behind the wall to ambush us"

"But we need to take advantage of the fact that all those walkers are busy… eating right now" Sebastian contradicted him, not wanting to put into words the horrible scene they were being witnesses of even from afar.

"That's true" Mike easily agreed, as it would be so much easier to fight them that way.

"I say we advance slowly and kill as many of those monsters while they're still eating" Puck suggested. "And a couple of us should go on the front and make sure there's nobody behind the wall waiting for us"

"That's too risky" Trent objected.

"Do you have any other ideas?" Puck said, looking intently at the former warbler. "Because you saw how many walkers got it. There weren't so many people up there so as to satisfy all the walkers, and I'm sure there are a lot of them making their way inside, with Blaine, Sam and Cooper. We need to help them, there are only three of them against dozens of those beasts, even hundreds, and that assuming they found Sam and he is good enough to fight"

"Ok" Trent easily agreed, knowing Puck was right and well… that's why they were there after all, right? To help Blaine and Cooper find Sam. "Let's do it"

"I will go in front" Puck immediately offered, wanting to make up for his previous resistance in that crusade.

"I'll go too" Kitty added before anyone else had the chance, knowing she was one of the best shooters anyway.

Sebastian felt deflated for a moment he hadn't been quicker to volunteer, such was his need for action, but he knew he could trust Puck and Kitty and he was going to be right behind them, anyway, fighting as if there was no tomorrow.

Blaine gulped at the huge amount of walkers that were starting to corner them against the wall. Surely they had fought a thousand times before, but he doubted there had ever been so many of those monsters. And they didn't even have a lot of weapons: he had handed Sam his own machete, so all he was left with was a couple of knives, too short for his taste because it implied having to get really close to the walkers to kill them and needing to be very precise in his attacks. And, as Cooper had pointed out, none of them had firearms.

What pained him the most was having to fight next to the two people that meant the world to him: if one of them didn't make it, it would destroy him because that would mean either losing the brother who had practically raised him and had crossed half the country to find him, or the man he loved as he had never loved before, the only one who gave meaning to the hell they were living and whom hadn't separated from him from the moment he had admitted his feelings towards him, making him happy even in the middle of all that madness.

And he knew those two wonderful men were probably having similar thoughts towards him, praying they wouldn't have to see him die, knowing their hearts would never recover from such a loss. And if only for that, Blaine knew he had to fight until the last ounce of strength in him. And that was what he intended to do.

Screaming in rage and encouragement to the other two, Blaine reinforced the grip on his knives and ran towards the walkers, knowing it was better to meet them half way instead of waiting for them to completely trap them against the wall. It was the only chance they had, and he had embedded one of his weapons in a walker's skull before Sam and Cooper were even able to react.

"Now!" Mike said in a low voice, once the plan had been carefully designed, as a signal for them to start running towards the fallen entrance.

Everyone immediately obeyed, knowing it was better to run than to walk because it wouldn't give the walkers time to react, distracted as they were in finishing off their victims. They tried to be as silent as possible, though, so as not to attract any undesirable attention, either from the biters or from any possible survivor inside.

Puck and Kitty followed the plan and walked in front of the rest. The idea was for everyone to start silently killing as many of the walkers concentrated on eating as they could before they started reacting, while Puck and Kitty went ahead and made sure there was no one waiting for them passed the wall.

The gruesome scene was more and more unbearable the closer they got: disemboweled bodies, severed limbs, walkers ripping pieces of meat with their teeth… Marley got nauseous as she discovered one of those people still breathing slightly as she was being devoured so slowly, and the occasional whimper they could hear showed them that woman was not the only one still alive. And yes, even if they were their enemies and they had demonstrated how much they deserved to get a taste of their own medicine, the youngsters couldn't forget they were –or had been– people, and that they had suffered the worst probable death right in front of their eyes.

Once they were practically to the entrance, and they reached the first walkers, they started silently embedding their weapons on the monsters' brains, not wanting to use their firearms if they could help it both to avoid the racket and to save ammunition. It worked at first, as walkers were really not intelligent creatures, and the students could easily move forward quite a bit. But it wasn't much later when the walkers seemed to pick on their essence and, as soon as they finished off their last victim, they started getting on their feet to pursue their next prey. And then fighting became a necessity, as they started becoming surrounded by walkers whose hunger didn't seem to be satisfied at all.

Puck and Kitty were practically to the wall now, and Kitty turned to look at the boy as if to ask if he was ready. So when Puck nodded, Kitty breathed deeply and took a couple of steps forward through the whole in the wall, her gun pointed in front of her as her eyes turned all around her, searching for any sign of trouble. But she hadn't made it too far before a shot suddenly broke the silence of the place and she fell to the floor.

Cooper and Sam quickly reacted and followed Blaine in his battle, and soon the three of them were killing machines, moving graciously between the walkers and needing only one attempt to finish them off most of the time. After all, they were all very skilled in fighting because they had needed to do it before. But never before they had had so many rivals.

No matter how many he killed, as soon as Blaine recovered his position there were what seemed to be a thousand more walkers about to bite him. He couldn't even see the end of it, so absorbed into the mass of rotten flesh he was. He could hardly get a glimpse of his boyfriend a couple of feet from him, and he was grateful at the little grunt Cooper let out every time he killed one of those monsters because he couldn't even see him and it was the only way for him to know he was still alive.

It was agonizing. The repulsive odor of the walking corpses and the amount of them circling him and leaving him practically with no air was starting to asphyxiate him and he felt he was going to pass out. Of course the fact he was still weak from his shot wound –which was becoming a raging pain with all the movement–, that he had a concussion and that he had hardly gotten any rest since Sam was kidnapped were starting to take their toll on him, and he could feel himself getting slower and slower with each passing second.

He continued fighting, which he knew he was going to do until his last breath –because whatever happened, he was surely not going to surrender–. He couldn't even tell one walker from another: he just threw his knives over and over again on every one of those blurry images that appeared in front of him. Getting more and more desperate, his heart aching with the fact he didn't even know if the two people he loved the most in the world were still alive, he started shouting with each effort, using both his knives and hands to get rid of the monsters around him. But he was not infallible, and unfortunately the time came when he missed one of his targets.

His knife didn't make contact with the skull directly in front of him, and the impulse he had taken –and which hadn't met any resistance– made him lose his balance a bit in a way that it only took him a little push from behind to fall on his knees. That didn't mean he was ready to give up, and he fought with all that was left in him to rise to his feet again so as not to be so vulnerable. But the pressure of so many walkers around him didn't give him the space enough to get up, and from his position he couldn't reach their brains in any way. Almost unable to breathe, Blaine got his knife ready when he saw the walker in front of him bend over to bite him and took the chance to embed it on its brains. But he hadn't even gotten his weapon out of its skull when two other walkers did the same and Blaine felt their odor invade his nostrils, almost making him retch. He knew he was doomed, as there was no way he could kill them in time to protect himself, especially considering that two or three more would replace them immediately even if he could kill them, so he closed his eyes in fear. But when some hands grabbed his arms and pulled him upright, his survival instinct revived again and he struggled to disentangle from their grip. And only when the walker closer to him was killed and all its blood fell on his face, Blaine dared to open his eyes.

"Blaine, it's me!" Sam practically yelled in his ears, begging for his boyfriend to let himself be helped.

"Sam?" Blaine asked in confusion, immediately stopping his struggle at the safety his boyfriend's voice always provided and letting himself be pulled until he was on his feet again.

"There is no way we can fight them all" Cooper lamented at his other side –he obviously had been the one to kill the walkers around him–, looking desperately all around him as if trying to find a solution, anywhere they could hide until the others found them.

Unfortunately they were completely surrounded by those monsters, and there was no way they could go past them to reach the nearest houses, and even then they didn't know if they would be open or they were safe, and they surely didn't have the time to investigate. All in all, it seemed as if the only thing they could do was to hide into the tool hut at their backs and wait for the others to find them and get them out of there. It was not an ideal solution by any means but… it was the only one they had.

"Get inside the hut, now!" Cooper ordered as he pushed both the boys to get them moving and then he followed them inside.

Cooper strongly closed the door behind him and between him and Sam they moved the only piece of furniture in the hut against it, a table that they hoped the walkers would not be able to move even if it wasn't nearly as heavy as they would have liked by any means.

"Let's hope the others find us before they tear the hut down" Cooper said.

But the growing noise Blaine could hear all along the flimsy hut as the walkers surrounded it made him wonder if his brother wasn't being too optimistic and getting inside that place had been a mistake.

Puck's heart stopped a beat as he saw Kitty fall, but before he ran to her he searched with his eyes the houses in front of them from where he thought the shot might have come to make sure no one else ended up with a bullet in them. His quick eyes detected some movement on the roof of one of the houses, and he quickly aimed, before that person had the chance to run or hide, and shot without contemplations. And he was sure he had succeeded when a man shouted and fell from said roof some yards from then.

It was then when Puck dared to run to the fallen girl, even if he knew there was a very real risk that there would be more shooters keeping an eye on them. He kneeled at her side and almost screamed at the blood he could easily see falling on her face. But one closer look at the wound on her forehead, and he was relieved to see it wasn't a whole but a deep scratch, which probably meant that the bullet had just grazed her –and not entered his head– and she was unconscious only because of the blow. He drove a couple of fingers to her neck, just to be completely sure she was alive, and he was glad to hear her steady heartbeat.

He hadn't realized he had let his own guard down until he felt a hand on his shoulder and a very familiar hissing sound told him it didn't belong to any of his friends. He jumped to his feet and turned around in a shift movement and killed the walker before it was a real threat. But only when he raised his gaze after that, he was able to see the dozens of walkers that were approaching from afar, obviously attracted by all the noise the previous shooting had done. And which they would never be able to fight.

"Everyone just run inside!" he yelled at the top of his lungs while he took Kitty's still unconscious body in his arms, getting everyone's attention immediately. "We need to barricade this entrance somehow!"

"What's wrong?" Mike asked, immediately noticed the deep distress in his friend's voice, but his face changed dramatically as he turned towards the direction Puck was pointing and he saw what seemed to be a whole army of those damn bitters. "Forget about these walkers and do what Puck says!" Mike yelled too until everyone got into action.

"We can't stay here, we need to help Blaine and the others!" Sebastian immediately opposed: that's why there were there after all, right?"

"Seb, we have to concentrate on this first" Trent tried to reason with him, even if he felt practically the same way.

"You saw how many walkers entered before, they must be trapped somewhere in there!" Sebastian protested, not even wanting to think the state they could be in. "Blaine, Cooper and Sam need us!"

"If you want to help them we've got to make sure no more walkers get in!" Trent yelled, grabbing Sebastian's lapels to make more of an impression. "Otherwise they won't be able to make it for sure, and neither will we! Plus we can't leave Kitty like that, can we?"

"No, but I could…" Sebastian tried to offer himself, but of course his friend didn't even want to hear it.

"If you go on your own you're dead" Trent insisted, his eyes getting glassy with tears of fear that his friend wouldn't listen to him and would go anyway. "If the three of them can't fight those monsters, what makes you think you will be able on your own?"

"They could be dying as we speak" Sebastian insisted with half a sob.

"I know. But we could also be saving their lives this way" Trent said, more softly, as he put his arms around Sebastian for a second for a comforting embrace. "Please, Sebastian, help us barricade the entrance and keep those walkers outside. Then I promise I'll go with you to find them even if no one else comes"

"Alright" Sebastian let himself be convinced, knowing that Trent's arguments made complete sense, before letting go of him and starting working like a madman.

The three men remained in silence inside the hut, trying to ignore all the noise coming from outside as the walkers surrounded the place, obviously attracted by their presence. The tension was so palpable that they couldn't even utter a word, and only their heavy breathings could be heard above that odious hissing they knew so well.

Blaine jumped from his skin at the first blow against the wall, which indicated that those biters where starting to hit it to find their way in, and was only momentarily relieved when Sam rested a warm hand on his shoulder. But even that was not enough to calm his nerves when another blow sounded on the other side of the hut.

"We are totally surrounded by them" Blaine whispered, almost afraid that it would become true if he said it louder, and Sam's squeeze on his shoulder felt more afraid than comforting this time.

"Let's just hope this damned hut will stand until the others find us" Cooper answered before jumping in fright when two other blows resounded in different walls of the little house.

And before any of them could say anything else, the silence of the place was broken with what sounded like thousands of hits and knocks in every corner of the hut, so strong and frequent that they were making the walls tremble and their hearts shrink with fear. There was no way they were going to make it out of there alive. It just didn't seem possible.

Everyone ran inside what was left of the wall and obeyed, grabbing everything they could think of to close the big opening that had been made. Of course it was no easy deal, as they had to keep fighting the few walkers still around and there wasn't a lot of stuff they could use for a barricade. Puck left Kitty on the ground and motioned for Sugar to keep her safe and protect her from the walkers, knowing he was stronger and quicker than the girl and would be more useful.

The wooden planks and trunks they had used for the wall might be useful, but not enough, considering half of them had been broken during the fall. Besides, if it hadn't been enough to stop the walkers before, it surely wouldn't be enough now. They knew that whatever they did wouldn't be a permanent solution, but they just hoped it would give them enough time to take care of Kitty and find Blaine, Cooper and, hopefully, Sam too.

Puck could have cried with excitement when he saw a small truck a few yards from them that would go great to block part of the entrance. Of course he didn't have the keys to it, but he was sure he would still be able to remember how to hot-wire a vehicle –and he had never been gladder of the wildest part of him than he was at that moment–.

"Jake!" he yelled at his brother. "Come with me, we need to get this trunk over here"

Jake didn't lose a second in obeying and, with a last glance towards Marley to make sure she was alright, he ran after Puck, getting his gun out of his waistband just in case he needed it. None of them was particularly fast, but that time they ran like the devil, knowing that time was against them and there were quite a few people depending on them.

Only twice they needed to fight a couple of stray walkers, as all the rest where either at the entrance –most of them dead by now– or gone in the same direction they knew Blaine and Cooper had left. Puck took a second to think about their friends, hating the fact that there was nothing he could do for them at the moment apart from stopping more walkers going their way, and for that getting that truck was absolutely essential.

"Puck, be careful!" Jake's terrified scream got him out of his reverie, and he only had time to see his brother crouching down before a shot landed only inches from him.

Puck yelled in anger, even if he hadn't been hurt, and turned to see who the hell was shooting at him. In front of him there was that damned man who had thrown their prisoner to the walkers from the top of the now fallen entrance. He had a bit of blood in his face and a big stain in his side but he seemed to have survived the fall and escaped the walkers somehow. And on top of everything, he was just standing in front of them, pointing his gun at them.

"Throw your gun to the floor right now" Puck ordered him with the most threatening voice he could muster, but he didn't seem to have a lot of effect because the man didn't obey.

"Or what?" he asked with a smirk.

"Or we will kill you" Jake answered, but it was obvious he didn't sound as convincing as his brother when he elicited a hearty laugh on the man.

"You are going to kill me?" the man repeated with a snort. "You who didn't even try to aim during the shooting before?"

"That we didn't try to kill you before does not mean we are not ready to do it now" Puck intervened. "Two against one. You better do as you're told"

"Right, because you're going to keep me alive if I give you my gun"

"Yes, if you help us find my friend" Puck answered, suddenly realizing that man probably knew about Sam, considering it had been him bringing the other prisoner.

"Oh, you came for the boy?" the man asked, and from the tone of his voice he seemed to be having a lot of fun.

"Yes"

"And if I help you, you will let me live"

"Yes"

The last thing the Puckerman brothers expected was for the man to break in a maniac laughter as he did. Was he crazy? Was he maybe too desperate to be thinking clearly?

"And how will you manage to keep me alive, you little bastards?" the man said as he lifted his sweater.

Jake felt a great need of vomiting at the awful vision in front of him: the side of that man had been torn apart and he could even see his insides through it. Yes, he had escaped from the walkers, but not before they had put a countdown on him. How he was still able to stand with such a wound was beyond him.

"Your friend is dead" the man lied, wanting to hurt these people that had destroyed everything in the worst possible way. "He was a tasty morsel for those biters. You should have seen them, they even licked their own lips with pleasure"

"You liar!" Puck yelled, his eyes filling with tears at the possibility that Sam had died such a horrible death.

The man laughed again at Puck's agony, as hurting them was the only thing left for him before he died, and then he raised his gun again and pointed it at Jake. But Puck was not going to let that man hurt anyone else, much less his brother, and without a second thought he lifted his gun and shot at the man's head, killing him in an instant.

Jake remained in silence, looking as the man fell in front of him and Puck broke down in sobs at the loss of one of his best friends.

"Puck…" he tried, resting a hand between his brother's shoulder blades.

"Come on" Puck said as he instantly recovered and moved from his brother's touch at the same time that he dried his tears. "Blaine and Cooper need our help more than ever"

Just the thought of sweet Blaine losing the love of his life like that almost made him break down in tears again, but he didn't let himself fall into despair and continued until he was inside the truck. Fortunately for him, it was not difficult to get it working, and he hurried to take it to the entrance so they could barricade it.

Blaine, Sam and Cooper could hardly breathe as they waited, hoping for a miracle. There was no way they could go out now because the deafening hits all around the hurt clearly indicated they were completely surrounded by walkers. The only hope they had was for the others to find them in time, but the shots they kept hearing in the distance from time to time told them they were still fighting in the entrance.

The sound of glass breaking made them turn around and they were appalled to see the walkers had broken one of the windows with their insistence. It was too small for them to go through –nor did they had the ability to climb to do it–, but a couple of hands made their way in, trying to grab the people inside, which only made it all the more terrifying.

"Stand back, boys" Cooper said, trying to remain calm as he gently pushed them away from the window, afraid they would be grabbed at the smallest distraction.

The sound of breaking wood, though, immediately caught their attention and they screamed when they saw a small hole opening in one of the corners, through which they could see all the walkers fighting to enter. And even with everything the three of them had gone through since hell broke loose, never before had they felt as close to death as they did in that moment.

Puck, with Jake at his side, drove the truck as well as he could –considering he had never driven anything like that before– towards the entrance.

"We did it!" Puck yelled through his open window.

"Great!" Mike exclaimed, daring to smile for the first time since everything started. "Try and park it right there, next to those wood planks we've already piled"

Puck immediately obeyed –not being able to help a little smile when he consciously ran over a walker behind the vehicle– and he maneuvered the truck to the place Mike had pointed. But he was not as habile with it as he would have liked, and he ended up hitting the planks Mike had mentioned and sending them to the floor –and on Santana.

The girl barely had time to scream before the fragile wall they had been building fell on her and almost completely buried her. But Brittany, who had seen the whole incident, screamed for her and ran to push the wood from her, even with the broken arm she had been dealing with since the attack at McKinley.

"Santana!" she screamed as she diligently worked. "Santana, can you hear me?"

"Yes" Santana rushed to answer even if her voice sounded weak under all the debris. "I'm alright, Britt, don't worry"

"I'm so sorry!" Puck said while getting out of the truck and hurrying to help them. "I didn't think driving that thing was so difficult, I'm so sorry"

"Don't worry about that and help me get her out of here" Brittany said in an understanding tone.

With the Puckerman brothers' help it was only a moment before they unburied the girl, and even if Santana's life didn't seem to be at risk, it was clear she was quite battered by the way she doubled over herself when they got her on her feet –she probably had some broken ribs– and she was going to be their second injured companion.

"I don't think we can do better than this" Mike announced as he finished giving the last touches at one of the ends of the whole in the wall. "Fortunately the truck blocks most of the way, and I think the wood will do for a while"

"So now let's…" Sebastian started suggesting, but before he could finish he was interrupted by a shot coming from a roof again.

Fortunately it didn't it anyone, but it was immediately followed by another one, and then another that got everybody into action.

"The survivors have reunited!" Marley shouted, quickly understanding what was happening. "We need to take cover!"

"To the house!" Trent suggested, pointing at the house closer to them and from which they hadn't heard any shot coming.

Jake took the still unconscious Kitty in his arms and Puck and Brittany helped Santana as everyone ran to the house. Both Trent and Sugar heard bullets passing right next to their ears, so they knew those people weren't joking even if they were not great shooters –the weak fort they had created just showed how little they knew about survival–.

"I'll go first and see if it's safe to go in" Mike offered once they were in the porch, from which the shooters couldn't see them unless they came out of their hiding places.

The rest of them also entered the house behind him and only when he had quickly scanned the whole house and made sure there was no one there, the others rushed to close the door as best as they could, not daring yet to seal it in case Blaine and Cooper made their way back to them.

"There is nothing we can do until those people make the first move, if we go out there they will kill us in an instant" Puck announced as he watched Unique find some supplies to take care of the wound on Kitty's forehead.

"But Blaine, Cooper and Sam…" Sebastian tried to object, but Puck interrupted him.

"Sam is dead" Puck announced with a grave voice, lowering his gaze so he wouldn't have to see the pain in everybody's eyes at the new bit of information.

"Why do you say that?" Brittany asked, her eyes already filling with tears.

"Because the man who made that poor woman jump from the entrance told us so"

"And you're going to believe it just like that?" Sebastian intervened, not even wanting to think about the possibility that it could be true.

"Why would he lie to us?" Puck asked, trying to be patient because he knew how difficult it was to accept something like that.

"To hurt us!"

"Sebastian, I know you don't want to believe it but…"

"You're right, I'm not going to believe it" Sebastian retorted, not even giving him the chance to try and convince him. "And even if was true, Blaine and Cooper are still out there"

"I know" Puck answered with a frustrated sigh, as there was nothing he hated more than to leave one of them behind. "But there is nothing we can do for them while those shooters are out there. We won't be of much use to them if we get ourselves killed, you know"

"Damn it, I know" Sebastian was forced to admit after a whole minute.

But the anxiety in him didn't let him rest, and he walked to the window and didn't move from it, hoping to get a glimpse of the Anderson brothers if they were able to escape.

The situation in the hut was getting more and more desperate by the minute. The other window had been broken too and small holes were opening all around the walls as the walkers pressed and pounded on the walls. Even the table that was blocking the door had moved a few inches with the movement. None of them thought the hut was going to last much longer, but they didn't dare to say it so as not to make the others lose hope.

"Fuck!" Blaine yelled as something touched his back, and just one look behind him confirmed his worst suspicions: one of the walkers had already been able to get its arm through the planks. And it was just a matter of time until more of them did.

His heart in his throat, Cooper grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him a step forward to get him away from those hands threatening to grab him, although he could see how useless it was, as there were other hands wanting to reach them in the opposite wall through the broken windows.

"We're going to die in here" Sam whispered in the end, almost to himself, but Blaine heard him and hurried to put his arms around him in an embrace meant both to give and take comfort from the person he loved, as they both broke down in tears of desperation.

Cooper's heart ached a bit more with each knock and pounding resounding on the walls of that damned hut, knowing it was just a matter of time until the first walker managed to enter and opened the way for all the rest. And damn it, it was his fault: he had been the one to suggest they should wait there for the others to find them. But of course he had never thought the hut would be so fragile, nor that the others would fail to find them in time. And now it was too late.

What pained him the most was how he was going to have to watch his brother being devoured alive by those monsters. He wasn't so afraid for himself, but he couldn't stand the thought of his little brother's life ending like that. Because Blaine had always been the most important person in his life, he had always loved him more than life itself, and thinking he was going to suffer and die like that was more than he could stand, and just that thought was enough to send rivulets of tears down his cheeks.

Unless… not all of them needed to die, right? Maybe if one of them served as a distraction for the walkers… maybe that way the other two could make an escape. The people who had kidnapped Sam were horrible, but he had to admit their idea was good: if one of them sacrificed himself and went outside, the walkers would immediately jump on him and maybe the others would find the chance to fly. He didn't know if it could work, but it was surely worth the try.

Cooper looked at the two younger boys, deeply encased in each other's arms as they sobbed together, cursing their fate that they were going to die precisely now that they had found each other. Cooper remembered the determination in Blaine's eyes when he had woken up after the blow he had received and had discovered Sam wasn't there; or the panic in him when that woman had been thrown out to the walkers and he feared Sam might have had the same fate. He remembered how Sam had raised a gun on him the first time they met when he thought he was a threat to Blaine, or how he had entered in a raging river without any protection just to make sure Blaine would make it to the other side.

How much they were ready to risk for each other was an obvious proof of how much they loved each other, but it wasn't just that. There were so many little things between them that made that hell of a life worth it… How they smiled at each other, the way they entwined their fingers together whenever they held hands, the constant little kisses to cheeks, foreheads and temples between them, their usual words of encouragement and love. Cooper also remembered how Sam had made all of them trick Blaine at the farm so he would willingly go to sleep because he knew him so deeply that he knew it was the only way. Because he loved him that much.

There was no way Cooper was going to deprave his brother of that. Blaine had willingly stayed in that damned hospital, scared and alone, for two weeks just to protect Sam, because he simply couldn't conceive his life without him. And even if Cooper knew his brother also loved him to no end and was going to suffer a lot with his loss, he'd learn to live without him, if he had Sam at his side to take care of him. As long as Sam made it, Blaine would be okay.

It wasn't such a sacrifice, he thought, as he was going to die anyway: the only difference was that he may give his brother a chance. So it wasn't such a difficult decision in the end: he would do anything in his power to keep his brother safe.

Of course he couldn't just explain his plan to them: Blaine had made it perfectly clear that he didn't intent to leave without him, so he would manage a way to stop him or to convince him not to try it. And Cooper had never been more positive about what he needed to do than he did at the moment.

He met Sam's gaze above Blaine's head and looked intently at him for a second before nodding at him. And even if Sam wouldn't probably understand what he was asking him to, at least he would know he was asking him to do whatever it took to save Blaine's life.

"Blaine" Cooper said, immediately getting his brother's attention.

Blaine broke the embrace with Sam to turn to his brother, his eyes full of tears and his face the perfect mask of desolation. Cooper wanted nothing more than to take him into his arms and embrace him until he could make it all better, like he did when Blaine was little and he thought Cooper could fix anything. But he couldn't do it this time.

"I love you, little brother" Cooper said, his voice shaking with emotion before moving to kiss Blaine's forehead. "More than you could ever imagine. Please, never forget it"

"Coop, what…?" Blaine tried to ask, confused at the sudden solemnity in Cooper's stance. But Cooper never let him finish the question.

Without any kind of warning, Cooper moved the table holding the door just enough for him to be able to open the door and ran outside under the other boys' shocked eye.

"Cooper!" Blaine yelled at the top of his lungs and made to follow his brother, but Sam quickly understood what the older man had asked of him and grabbed Blaine strongly around his middle to stop him, even if he couldn't stop his desperate shouting. "Cooper!"

"Blaine, no" Sam said, his voice breaking at the sacrifice Cooper had just done for them –and the effects it was going to have on his little brother.

Cooper tried to ignore his brother's heartbreaking screams as he tried to put some distance between them –the furthest he could reach, all the more space he could give the boys to run when the walkers followed him–, but the mass of biters was so big that he couldn't make it more than a few yards before they blocked their way and the first hands starting grabbing him all around his body.

Even if he had never been a believer, he prayed that it would go quickly and he wouldn't feel too much pain. And when he felt the first bite on his shoulder, he hissed but promised himself he wasn't going to scream, not while his brother could still hear him. That was going to be his last gift to him, whatever it took. And he kept his promise until his last breath.

"Blaine, come on, we need to get out of here" Sam insisted as he tried to move Blaine to escape from the hut.

But Blaine was totally beyond himself. He knew Sam wanted to get him away from there, when the only thing he wanted was to get to his brother, so he grabbed on the table and didn't let himself be moved as he kept shouting for Cooper, his mind refusing to register how he was already gone and there was nothing he could do for him.

"Blaine, damn it, let go! We need to get out of here now!" Sam angrily ordered him in desperation.

"He's my brother, Sam!" Blaine protested even if he could hardly speak between the sobs ripping through his chest.

"I know" Sam answered in an understanding voice, hoping that trying to convince him would be more useful than using force in a moment like that. "I know, love, but he sacrificed himself for us, don't make him do it in vain"

"No!" Blaine shouted in an agonizing scream that only helped to break Sam's heart even further. "Coop!"

"Blaine, please, come on" Sam begged as he kept pulling on his boyfriend's arm, but he could see Blaine was not himself at the moment, that he had entered in a hysterics trance so it was not going to be possible to reason with him.

For once ignoring Blaine's feelings, even if it broke his heart to do it even if he knew it was needed to save his life, Sam opted for more drastic measures and stopped insisting to roughly grab Blaine's hands to separate them from the table and then he immobilized his arms with a strong embrace from behind, taking advantage of his superior strength and Blaine's weakness.

"No!" Blaine screamed as he fought and squirmed against Sam's arms that were restraining, even if the strength of their grip was not diminishing one bit. "Let go of me!"

"I'm sorry, Blaine, I hope you can forgive me for this someday" Sam apologized as he reinforced his grip on the smaller guy, terrified that the latter would end up succeeding in his attempts of escaping, while tears fell unnoticed from his cheeks at the pain he knew he was inflicting on him, even if it was for his own good.

Sam moved to the same door Cooper had used only a few seconds ago and made sure none of the walkers were too close to be a problem, now that they were distracted with… he couldn't even say it. But of course getting closer to where his brother had disappeared under the walkers only contributed to shake Blaine's state even further, and he fought more strongly to extricate from Sam's grip, only thinking about getting to his brother and getting him away from those monsters.

"Cooper!" Blaine shouted again with all his forces.

"Blaine, please" Sam begged as he covered Blaine's mouth with his hand so strongly that he was sure he had to be hurting him, but he couldn't risk for him to keep making so much noise if they didn't want to attract the walkers to them again. "We have to go"

Sam could feel his chest aching with grief when Blaine's screaming turned into desperate sobbing at the impossibility to open his mouth, but he knew their life depended solely on him now and he was not going to waste the chance Cooper had given them. So with a last glance at the gruesome spectacle and a silent prayer that Blaine would not make it more difficult, he finally got out of the hut and started running in the opposite direction, pulling at Blaine and slightly lifting him from the floor against his will so as to make the escape easier. After all, he knew he only had a few seconds until the walkers who were not occupied realized about their presence and started following them.

It was not easy to run with Blaine still fighting every step of the way, even if for the life of him, Sam couldn't blame him. His heart broke as he wondered how Blaine was going to be able to get over something like that, to learn to live without that brother who had always been his hero. He knew Blaine was the strongest person he had ever known, but that was too much, even for him.

But no, it wasn't. It was going to be hard, but they were going to make it. Together. Sam was going to make sure of that, whatever it took.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a shot immediately followed by a deep and unexpected pain in his leg that suddenly made him lose all strength in it and sent him and Blaine to the floor, where they stayed stunned for a second.

Blaine was the first to react and he quickly kneeled up and crawled the small distance separating him from his boyfriend, his eyes widening impossibly with panic at the blood stain growing on the side of his knee.

"Sam!" Blaine practically yelled as the vision of his boyfriend writhing in pain on the floor seemed to efficiently get him out of his stupor.

"I'm okay" Sam immediately tried to reassure him, silently glad that Blaine seemed to have gone back into his senses with the fear of seeing him wounded –and that was Blaine, wasn't it? If there was something that was going to make him react, was the vision of Sam injured and the need to keep him safe.

"We've got to get out of here" Blaine desperately answered through his tears as he put Sam's arm around his own shoulders and helped him stand up through a hand to his waist, letting him rest as much weight as he needed to walk.

But they hadn't taken more than two steps when a rain of bullets started falling on them from a nearby roof.