A/N: I know, I know, it's been forever. University is so much more of a time-suck than I was anticipating. But summer is here! Which means I have nothing to do except lift, work, sleep, and write. Oh, and play games. A lot of games.

Thank you to LeMasquerade, who doesn't get nearly as much of a break as I do from winter's woes. We're getting close to the end, my friends. I can start to taste it. But there's still plenty more adventure until we find it. Enjoy!

Chapter 18

3 days since last feed

You count to three before you're nearly tackled off the porch.

There's arms around you and hair in your mouth and you dimly recognize a riot starting inside, people rousing from their tasks to come and see the commotion, but Tina is warm and solid and here in a way you never thought you'd know again. Your fingers curl into the fabric of her shirt until your knuckles go colorless.

Wind tugs at the oversized hood of your parka as she cups your face in her hands, turning you to catch the harsh winter sun. She's smiling so wide and you can't help but mirror her, looping your hands around her wrists. Her good hands travel through you like a thunderbolt.

"I... I can't—" it takes her a few false starts and the heel of her hand wipes at her eyes. It doesn't do much to erase the tears leaking from the corners, but you let her pretend. "You're here! Oh, Britt, I thought you were dead! We all did!"

She pulls you in again and over her shoulder you see Mike charging towards you—the world wobbles as he crushes you against his chest and the three of you are spinning, weightless and worryless above the ground. You laugh for the first time in months without it having an underlying echo of apathy.

His iron grip bends your brittle bones and he must notice, more through Tina's grimace than your own—he sets you down ever so gently but his lips have been cinched into an eternal grin. The three of you escape from the cold and you've barely set foot inside their house before you're bombarded with questions.

"How did you survive?"

"Did you follow us?"

"Are you still zombified?"

"Dude, it's been six months!"

"Everyone, shut the hell up!"

Blonde hair flashes and your heart gives a little jump; there was never any question that Quinn would still be alive, but you're relieved to see her face regardless. She clasps your hands for a brief moment, searching your eyes.

"I knew you'd find your way back."

You grin. "A ghost of yours helped me."

Her smile is bewildered for a second, but it flickers into incredulous with barely a breath between them.

"She's here?"

"In charge of something important. I tune out sometimes when she rants."

Your eyes scan the faces crammed into the tiny house. There are a few missing, absent from their posts. Despite all of them together, the new symphony of missing heartbeats is hard to listen to. Your quizzical gaze cuts to Tina; she sighs.

"A few days after, uh," she gestures to your abdomen, "Mr. Schue got caught by a rogue zom. He made us put him down."

"Mercedes?"

"Drank somethin' nasty," Artie chimes in, his lips pulled down. "She passed a few days before we got here. We buried her in the forest."

A shadow settles over the group. You chew on your lower lip, something not quite strong enough to be sadness gnawing at your stomach. Despite your falling out, she was good to you at the start.

(Guilt, perhaps? It's still so hard to distinguish one emotion from another, lost in a sea of sameness.)

"Rachel's gone out to try and bargain more fuel for our stove," Kurt says, pushing his way into the circle. "She should be back soon."

You eye the swan-smooth span of his neck, the fuse for your months of crawling through the mud. His eyes go kind and pliant, clasping his hands behind his back.

"It's okay, Britt. I forgive you."

Forgiveness wasn't what you were looking for, not really, but you'll take it. The unspoken question lingers between you.

"Puck's still here," he finally reveals, "out with Finn. Gathering wood, or some such rustic thing. They like to wander around the camp and try to impress the soldiers."

You try to stamp down the residual panic that flares in your throat, remnants of his glare in the dark as he left you to die. There's one left unaccounted for.

"What about—"

A thud sounds from the doorway. Six pairs of eyes turn to the silhouette frozen half way through the open door, a mere sliver of darkness against the blindingly bright backdrop of trodden snow. A backpack lies forgotten on the floor. You trace the hand that was holding onto it—scarred and chapped, dark like the brown diamonds that sat on your mother's engagement ring. Your chest stills as you hear her breath leave her body.

"B... Brittany?"

The others part soundlessly. They're background noise, a static loop—you take three firm strides and her feet break the bond they have with the ground. Things that used to matter, secrets and prejudice and lies, are nothing more that distant memories as her desperate hands cup your too-sharp cheekbones and the curve of your skull, crushing her lips to yours as if you're quicksand threatening to melt away. Santana feels just like you remember; a lit match, city streets at night, an endless string of universes.

Someone mutters finally, and you can't help but agree.

When you break away she breathes into your neck, her nails pricking your scalp. You sway together on the creaky floorboards and feel her trying not to shake apart.

"How... what happened?"

"Sue found me," you murmur into her hair, "she put me back together."

Santana's head jerks back a little.

"Sue? Like, Coach Sue?"

"In the flesh, Sandbags."

Her lanky frame steps through the doorway and you roll your eyes a little, but you can't be mad when Santana's entire body perks up, like a long-lost family member has come back into the fold. There's a degree of shouting and excitement but no one dares speak anything concrete until Quinn takes her turn; the girl with the stone eyes shakes, just a little, her ragged combat boots scuffing on the floor.

Sue goes soft in a way you've never seen.

"I knew you'd make it, Fabray."

Quinn emits a choked sound and rushes into her arms, nearly flinging herself at her mentor. Sue catches her, a tall pine enveloping a wolf come to den. Santana steps forward but slides her hand down through yours. You follow. You always will.

Sue doesn't say much, simply accepting Santana into her embrace. She's quieter than Quinn, simply laying her head on her shoulder, but melts into the older woman all the same. Sue eyes your hands and raises a questioning brow.

You didn't tell me.

You didn't ask.

The other kids come one by one until you're a resting mass of limbs. Their heartbeats slow until they beat in sync and yours almost stops entirely. Was this what it was like, back in their home town?

Somehow, you doubt it.

There's another set of footsteps that you recognize down to your very marrow; your body stiffens and it travels through the group, a ripple of unease. Santana opens her eyes in time for yours to meet before the door opens, and Sue's hand instinctively curls around your shoulder as the icy winter wind blows through the small space.

"The hell's going on in here?"

Three sets of eyes squint into the gloom; Sue turns, they all widen.

"C-coach Sylvester?" Rachel. Her smile, though confused, is genuine.

Your attention isn't on her.

You shuffle behind Sue, just a little, as you and Puck finally lock gazes. He'd been in your dreams a lot before you stopped having them entirely, floating around the emptiness of your head, haunting you like a ghost not yet dead. It's strange how normal he seems to you now, no longer the demon glaring down in the rain. Your abdomen stings.

His hand barely moves an inch before Sue levels her gun at him. The barrel doesn't waver, nor does her scowl. She won't miss.

"We can talk like rational adults, or I can blow your skull off. Your call."

A beat of time, an agitated huff of air.

"Whatever."

The room sighs.

"... and now I'm here."

You take a sip of lukewarm water, pressing your thigh against Santana's. She hovers so close like you'll vanish as quickly as you returned.

"So..." Tina frowns, "they're running experiments on you?"

"Not on me. With what they take from me."

You wiggle out of your coat and push up the sleeves of your too-long shirt. The crook of your elbow is a mass of tender flesh, one needle mark after another, drawing more and more from you until Dr. Martinez scolds and shoos them away. Santana's cold fingers feel good on the maimed skin.

"Do you know what they're doing with it?"

"Not—" A loud thump interrupts you. Puck has retreated to the back of the room, angrily rearranging the supplies. The crates make grooves on the floor. Sue keeps a watchful eye, her gun visible in her lap. "Not really. My dad says they're going to try and make another cure."

Artie lets out a breath of air. "That's fucked. Can you really trust him? I read what was in those files."

"I don't," you reply, "but I can't do anything. They asked, but it wasn't really a question."

"Did they give you anything to fix you?" Kurt asks, immediately backtracking at Santana's fierce scowl. "I-I just... before, we were lucky if anything you said made sense. You're more together now."

"Sue gives me her blood. It's not much, but it keeps the crazy at bay." You glance at Santana, her hand on your knee. "I'm still sick. I'll always be sick."

"You feed it to her?" Finn gawks, his lanky limbs folded awkwardly on the couch. "Like a vampire?"

"In a glass, Fetus-Face," Sue snipes, "we aren't all savages yet."

"That is so rad," Artie whispers.

Quinn eyes you up and down. "Have they asked you to do anything yet?"

No, you're about to say, but you see the briefest flicker in Sue's expression.

"I don't know," you respond instead. Her eyes broadcast a warning, sharp and sincere. You leave it for another time.

Sue's radio crackles, and she winces as she brings it to her face. There's a burst of static, a garbled command. There's a ripple of unease underneath the radiowaves, a murmur of an argument. She stands, and so do you.

"Time to go, Pierce," Sue mutters, holstering her gun. Santana clutches your hand so tightly your bones grind in their place. If you could, you'd fuse your flesh together.

"Do we have to?" It's a futile question, you know—when Sue's face gets tight like that there's something inevitable coming next. It was the face that you saw as they made you walk before you were ready, that made you eat before your stomach was healed, and the one that held your hand when they put needles in your spine.

"Coach, wait—"

Sue places a heavy hand on Santana's shoulder.

"We'll come back," she promises, and in it you hear a million previous conversations. "She's not going anywhere."

The tenseness in Santana's shoulders unravels. She nods, squeezing your hand, but her smile is sad. You wipe your thumb over the apple of her cheek.

"Don't worry," you reassure her, "Sue doesn't lie. Not to me."

"Okay," she whispers, and lets you go. Her trust haunts you.

You wave as you leave, and almost all of them wave back.

"Where are we going?" you ask once you return to the path outside, a profound sense of loss deepening in you the further you walk from Santana. Your hand burns where she held it and her scent lingers behind.

"Not sure," Sue begins, but her pace slows. You look up at the uniforms approaching you. They might have different faces, but they all smell the same. Fragile.

"Evening, Master Sergeant," one says. The youngest of the group can't stop looking at you, gawking, his hand firm on his gun. You wonder how loose his trigger finger is. "We'll take it from here."

"Like hell you will." They form a box around you and you're both herded along—it hurts your feet but if you try to slow down they bump into you and you stumble to avoid falling. Sue grabs you by the bicep tightly, her nails digging into your skin. You don't mind the sting. "What's this about, soldier?"

"Just following orders, ma'am. The General's requested her presence."

You hear Sue's intake of breath.

"I'm her guardian. He's not getting her without me."

Sue's glare could break down a giant. The soldier yields almost immediately, his imaginary tail tucked between his legs.

"Very good, Master Sergeant." He mutters something into his radio. You're escorted inside, through another maze of hallways. Your boots rub at your ankles—you begin to limp. Everything from your hips to your feet ache.

Mid-stride, Sue scoops you up and marches down the hallway with you cradled like an oversized baby. You make to protest, but the hurt in your bones vanishes. You settle for staring at her temple in hopes that she'll understand your displeasure. Her lips twist into the barest hints of a smirk.

(You wonder if one of her joys in life is antagonizing you. From Santana's stories, you wouldn't be surprised.)

The air gets colder as the ground slopes. You descend deeper into the complex—the air takes on the smell of dirt, frozen in the deepest reaches of winter. Cameras whirr in every third corner.

Eventually, you take a right, coming into a small room with a large window. There are a lot of heartbeats in here, and only one is off-tempo.

The General is a squat, balding man, with a face like an inbred pug. Every breath whistles through his upturned nose. You wonder if his grandmother mated with a pig. Medals glitter from his pristine uniform.

Sue's hand snaps up into a salute, somehow managing not to drop you.

"Is there a reason for this?" His voice is as nasally as you were expecting.

"She's still weak," Sue replies, "she can't walk far."

He looks at you with the same disdain you've been getting ever since she carried you into the first complex, already dead inside. Your teeth tingle as you eye the fleshy slab of his neck.

The General turns to the other occupants in the room—scientists. You see your father.

"This is the girl?"

"I assure you, General, she's the one."

"I hardly think all this security is necessary—"

"Your pacemaker is dying."

Silence. He turns to you, his thick brows furrowing.

"What did you say?"

"I can hear it in your chest," you tap your temple, "the rhythm is wrong. You're supposed to all sound the same."

(Just like they smell.)

Sue's fingers flex on your thigh. You feel the question.

"I'm tired of being treated like I'm not enough," you mutter into her ear.

One of the white-coats tentatively approaches the General, but he's waved away with a scoff.

"We're wasting time," the General mutters, but you hear his treacherous heart. "Get on with this damned experiment."

"What experiment?" you ask, drowned by the shuffling of boots. Sue is told to put you down.

"Not until you tell me what this is about," she snaps. Your fingers tighten on her shoulder.

"Put her down, Master Sergeant," growls the General. "That is an order."

Five guns are leveled in her direction. Sue's grip is strong, but you manage to wiggle your way out. It's okay, you say with your eyes. She glares back.

"What do you want?"

They open a door you haven't seen before. It leads into a white room that the window can see into. There's a nagging feeling of discomfort in you, growing stronger as your father fidgets nervously.

"We've been testing a few new things," says one white-coat. You recognize him. He's the lead scientist, seen skulking around your room when no one is there to ward him away. Dr. Martinez hates him, you can see it running through every fiber of his being, and you wish he was here. "We'd like to see if they were successful."

"What is it?"

"We can't tell you, or else you'll be looking for it," his grin is like a wolf, all teeth. "I promise you won't be hurt."

They put little monitors on you, clamping one to your finger and others across your chest. A steady beep fills the room—your heartbeat.

"Please go inside."

You do. Your boot squeaks on the white floor. It smells sterile, like washed death. The door shuts behind you with a whoosh.

It's impossible to see them from behind the window, but you hear them. Your reflection stares back at you.

"Okay, Brittany, what do you see?" The voice crackles from the unseen speaker.

"Nothing. It's all white."

"What about now?"

A green light flashes at the other end of the room.

"A light. It's green... oh, now red. Now it's blue."

It flickers out for a moment, returning as some strange hybrid between blue and violet. You squint.

"I dunno... purple? White?"

There's an astonished murmuring from the other room, and the light disappears. Pens scratch on clipboards. They start whispering about 'ultra' something, but soon quiet again.

The next thing is a sound—a low hiss, gas escaping. It smells burnt. Your throat starts to burn when you breathe it in, so you stop breathing. Your eyes water, so you shut them. You're not sure how long you stand there, unbreathing, unmoving, but the steady beep of your heart doesn't waver. After a few minutes whatever had seeped into the space clears and you can breathe again. More murmuring, more disbelief.

There are footsteps from the far side of the room—another door opens, just like your own. A man is shoved inside, and it shuts quick enough that all he catches is the unfeeling wall against his fists. He's yelling, shouting obscenities, demanding to be let out. His sweat is stale, but not his fear. There are red burns around his wrists; they'd obviously kept him somewhere else for a long time.

Eventually he gets tired of beating against the door, and turns with his back to it. His eyes meet yours, his brow furrows. He isn't wearing the same monitoring gear that you are.

"Brittany," comes the voice again, and the man visibly flinches, "what can you tell me about him?"

You breathe in deeply, taking in his scent. You smell his family—a wife and a little child, still clinging to the smell of a newborn, tender marrow and skin not yet sloughed off.

"He has a wife," you say, "and a new baby. A boy. Very young."

The man looks up, twisting his wedding ring. "How do you know that?" he hisses, but you continue. His clothing is riddled with mildew and damp earth, the stain of fear-sweat both new and old.

"You kept him underground," you mutter. The earth almost appears underneath your fingers. "He was there a long time. There... there were others?"

Yes... fear lingers behind his ears, in the creases of his fingers. Not his own. It stirs something in you—you stamp it down. The voice tells you to keep going.

It's hard to get past the scent of his skin now. It's obstructing everything you sense, invading your thoughts. You lick your dry lips and shake your head out of this fog that's appeared, but it lingers. The world swims a little.

There's another hissing noise that you hadn't noticed. The man looks around for it, peering into the crevices between the walls.

"What else is there, Brittany?"

"I..."

You hold your head and crouch down, suddenly dizzy. The air has turned sweet, cloying, and your body recognizes it long before your mind does.

Memories come back to you; night, the forest, the boy whose blood you drowned in. The base burned alive by your hands. You embraced the frenzy then.

"No," you moan, pressing your forehead onto the floor. "Not this, please. Not again. Don't make me." You remember smearing this scent onto your skin, drawing the sick to you, bringing them to the slaughter. The shepherd leading the dead.

"Please," you cry to the window, "I don't want to be a monster again!"

There's a commotion in the control room—you can hear Sue yelling, demanding it to stop, scrambling for the controls. She finds an unlikely ally in your father but it's too late now. This place is soaked in it and you're soaked in it and the man at the other end of the room sees your pain, is coming to help, help with his fleshy limbs and his pure blood and his heart that goes thump thump thump and God it's so loud, so fucking loud, you just want to—

"Stay away," you snarl as he comes near and he meets your eyes, bloodshot and constricted, pinpricks of agony. His pulse beats furiously in his throat. He's trapped with nowhere to run and your prey is ever so close, so soft and sweet and rich.

He says something but your own blood is banging through your head and you stagger upright—saliva escapes your lips in great strings as your lips pull back to expose your wicked teeth. The fear of the other people mixes with his own, old and new, a cycle that comes again – it pulls, magnetic, and you lurch with a speed you didn't think you had.

It's almost pitiful how easily he falls. His fist finds your forehead but it's a glancing blow off your temple and you hear his wrist crack. He hardly has time to dwell on the agony as your teeth snap over the bottom of his jaw, pulling the first bit of flesh from his bone.

When he screams, your hand finds his throat. Even though he shows the bite of malnourishment he's much heavier than you, and he manages to gather his legs under your abdomen to launch you away. You go sprawling across the floor but scramble to your feet with nary a breath of pause, his blood thick in your mouth.

It's been so long since you've fed completely. Your body cries out for it, begging.

He's cupping his face, howling, blood spurting from between his fingers. His bloody hands beat where the door once opened and he leaves handprints on the white walls as he begs to be let out. There's nowhere to run.

It's easy for your snapping teeth to find his throat. You tear it out with a precision that comes from practice, that low rattle coming from deep within your chest as you swallow the first chunk. It sits heavily in your stomach, a living weight.

You don't care.

Blood pools on the hard floor as you rip his tendons away. He's still alive, his heart beating weakly in his chest, and you suckle at the blood that pumps from his neck. The whites of his eyes dart sightlessly across the ceiling and his mouth whispers words that drive you mad—you snarl, digging your thumbs into his eyes until his screaming is nothing more than a gurgle of wasted air. He's so warm and sweet and you wipe his blood across yourself, dragging your nails across your collarbone, letting more and more of his flesh turn into your strength.

The gas bleeds out of the room. The fog leaves you, the animal savagery that screams for prey. It's the pop of one of his fingers being twisted from its socket that brings your mind back to the white room that's now covered with red. Your new boots are wet with blood.

You drop his finger, turning your hands over and over. They glisten from reaching into him.

You barely have time to think of anything at all before something is pressed to the back of your neck, followed by a shock so strong your entire vision whites out. Your muscles lock, your voice cracks, and you collapse over the corpse of the man.

There's copper in your mouth when you wake up.

Your pillow is damp and you try and shift away from it, rolling onto your wet hair. Your nose crinkles but it's whatever's holding onto your hand that stirs you, something sharp poking at the tips of your fingers. Grit stings your eyes when you open them.

Sue's face is blurry, and you wipe at your face until she clears. She's been cleaning something from underneath your nails.

"Wh'happ'ned?" you mumble, licking at the backs of your teeth. Metal?

"They hit you with five hundred thousand volts, that's what," Sue mutters. You've never seen her so displeased. "You've been out a day and a half."

Sun is just beginning to rise through your window. You rub at your eyes.

"Pierce... do you remember what happened?"

You think back. Meeting Santana, leaving, seeing your father. That man, his baby, and then...

Oh.

"Yeah." Your voice is a hoarse whisper. You can taste him even more now.

There's silence for a few minutes. Sue's cleaning blood from underneath your nails.

Your hands were black with it.

"Are you going to leave?"

You haven't sounded this small in a long time. She glances up, almost as if the idea surprises her.

"Why would I?"

"You... you saw what I did. What I can do... w-what I've done before. I eat people. I can't stop myself."

She stops her cleaning job, grabbing your jaw in her large hand. You flinch, but her grip is iron. You lock eyes.

"You're my soldier," she hisses, "and I don't leave my own behind. What they did to you was horseshit, Pierce. I saw it. Whatever they put in there... it turned you into a monster. You didn't want it."

You want to talk about the thing in your head that whispers and lies, that lets you watch as people die without blinking, but her gaze is blue steel and you find yourself unable to argue. Eventually you nod and she releases you, about to go back to her task, but the door swings open before she can restart. White coats whirl through the space and you resist the urge to snarl.

"Good, you're awake," it's the lead scientist, completely ignorant of your hateful gaze, "we thought we might have to inject you."

"You're lucky I didn't shoot you," Sue hisses, and he looks at her from overtop his glasses.

"And you would have died too, Master Sergeant. You're not in control here."

The other white-coats rustle awkwardly.

"Where's the General?"

"Getting his pacemaker fixed. It seemed that Brittany here was right about his little.. mechanical mishap."

"I'll rip it out of his chest," you spit, and he raises his brows.

"That sounds like a threat."

Sue puts one hand over your wrist, but your hurt burns so hot it extinguishes the barriers in your head.

"You made me kill that man."

"You did that entirely by yourself, Brittany. We didn't tell you to do it."

"That's not true! I remember the gas! It's the same as—" you catch yourself, shaking your head. His interested eyes follow the movement. "It brings the monster. It turns me into an animal."

His pen scratches on his clipboard. "It was unfortunate," the way he says it sounds like it was exactly the outcome he wanted, "but he was just... collateral."

(You remember the boy you killed, the father mad with grief that vowed to gut you like the animal you'd become. Collateral.)

Frustrated tears sting your eyes.

"They promised it would be different."

The door swings open again. Another white-coat, but a familiar one this time. Dr. Martinez looks like an angry bear.

"What the hell has been going on?" he roars, glancing at the blood still crusted under and over your nails. How did the rest of it wash off? Your hair is still tinted red. "Someone needs to speak now."

"David, calm down," says the lead, "it's just part of the project."

"Project Bite My Ass," he snarls, "she's a human being, not some science experiment! You don't get to do what you want, Boroyan."

"The General put my name on the file," Boroyan retorts, and you remember him from your father's journals, "which means I'm in control. It's the end of the world, Martinez. Ethics don't get you far."

"Ethics keep you human."

"She isn't any more. Why should we be?"

"Out," he grinds out, and the white-coats leave reluctantly. The only one that's left is your father, anxiously wringing his hands. Your gaze is dead as it passes over him.

"You lied," you mutter, "you promised I'd know."

"I didn't want it to happen, Britty," he hushes, "I tried to stop it. I did."

"You still let them do it. I killed someone. He had a baby."

Your face twitches into what could be a scowl. "I ate him. Just like I've eaten others."

"Britt—"

"Go," you say, the fight gone from you. "I'm tired."

With both Sue and Dr. Martinez glaring, he slinks away, but you know he'll return again and again. His search for forgiveness seems as eternal as your betrayal.

David crouches by the bed, taking your bony hand in his.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there to stop them. I was at another base, and I couldn't get back in time. I knew something bad was going to happen."

"It's okay." You stroke his dry hands, so big against your own. "It's not your fault."

You see the guilt that eats at him, turns his hair silver. You smile. "You should sleep. I know you haven't."

He bites at his lip. "But—"

"You couldn't do anything, David. I'm sad you weren't there, but... I think it's better. I don't want you to see what I can do."

He's one of the last people that believe in your humanity, even when you don't.

He gets up reluctantly. Exhaustion shadows his tall silhouette. David leaves with a promise to be back as soon as he sleeps a few hours.

Sue sighs.

"I underestimated them."

She gathers her things, putting her knife she was using to clean your nails back into her pocket. "They're smarter and more vicious than I thought. Sometimes, I forget it's the end of the world and they don't have anything left to lose."

For a second she looks almost remorseful, but it soon disappears. She draws something yellow out of her bag and places it in your hand.

"It charges with the crank on the side," she says cryptically before slipping out of the room.

You frown, turning it over in your hands. It looks like a handheld speaker with a little button on the side. You turn the crank—a burst of static meets you, followed by a hesitant voice.

"Britt? Are you there?"

Your smile is instantaneous.

"Santana!"

She doesn't respond for a few seconds, and then she chuckles.

"You have to press the button on the side for me to hear you."

Oh.

"Hi," you whisper sheepishly. You can feel her grin from your bed.

"Hi," she whispers back. "It's... it's really good to hear your voice."

Even though you're still so angry, so hurt, so lost, something bright unfurls in your chest.

"Yeah... I missed you."

"I missed you too, B. So much."