A/N: Here we are, my friends. The final chapter. It's been such an amazingly long ride and I'm glad for each and every one of you that kept with me until the end. I know now that the show is done a lot of you have left, but even those that have, thank you. I couldn't have done this without you. Thank you to LeMasquerade who is often my sanity between multiple plot threads, character inconsistencies, and sheer volume. None of this could have been possible without her expert insight and prodding to put us on the right direction. We might have sailed away on this ship, but I have a feeling we'll travel a few more together.
To everyone that has followed Brittany's story since it started, thank you for seeing it to its end. I'm sure she is as grateful as I am.
Stay tuned for an epilogue.
Chapter 22
eleven days since last feed
The blast rolls your bed a few feet away.
There's an explosion of sound, the shriek of shattering glass and disintegrating cement, an ungodly groan as metal and plastic give out. An alarm immediately begins to blare, howling through the sterile halls, and dozens of feet pound towards the noise. You swallow as the lights flicker—everything is dark for a minute before the generator roars to life, yet another drone against the backdrop of mayhem.
Your door opens. Syu's feet are panicked as she yanks at your restraints, freeing your ankles before unclasping your wrists. There's a trickle of blood running from her temple and it makes your body sing electric.
"Your friends blew the west wall open," she reveals, fumbling around in her coat for something, "they don't have long until they lock the entire place down."
"Abby can get them inside," you say, starting to stagger up on your knees before she pushes you back down.
"Quinn is in the next room, but she's been undergoing chemotherapy to get rid of her bone marrow. She's very weak."
"Will she be okay?"
"She should recover if you get her out."
Syu fishes out a needle, yanking your IV out of the current bag of solution before injecting you with the new medicine. You know what it is the second it hits your bloodstream.
"This morphine should get rid of the most of the pain, but it won't last forever. You need to hurry."
She pulls the rest of the probes from you and you stagger out of bed, leaning heavily against the wall for a few moments. The painkiller seems to unfurl your spine, untangling your nerves from your bones, and you straighten yourself with white noise shooting between your neurons.
Syu grips your biceps. "Sylvester is in room 24A. She says she has a plan."
"Of course she does."
You push off the wall. The world swims out of focus for a moment before returning. The familiar tingle in your gums begins, pulling fire from your blood and putting it behind your eyes.
"Get out of here," you rasp, limping for the door, "you shouldn't die for me."
"I haven't come this far just to abandon you."
"Then stay out of the way."
The hall is strangely silent despite the alarms squealing in every direction. All the guards have disappeared to go help with the explosion, and you're stranded in a white-washed world. Syu takes lookout, peering anxiously down the corridor.
You slink into the operating room. Quinn's bare feet poke out from a clean blue sheet, lily-white and trembling. Restraints cut into her fragile skin. There's another figure skulking around, his silhouette rummaging about the counters between you and Quinn. Agitated. His heart hammers in his chest.
Crouching is easier than it should be with the morphine. You slide near-effortlessly up to Quinn's bedside, a predator in the half-light. She smells... different. Like you, almost. You brush her hand and she jumps, flinching in her restraints, but you put a hand over her mouth before she can cry out. Her eyes skate over your face in disbelief, and you wonder exactly how feral you must look.
"The others are coming," you breathe, "can you walk?"
Quinn shakes her head feebly. You smell the chemicals in her, turning her new blood into acid.
The man by the counter turns and you skitter away, crawling to the foot of her bed. He leans over with a smile under his mask.
"I know the chemo made you feel like shit, but no need to look so scared. The doctor says your marrow is making an amazing recovery! Doesn't that make you feel good?"
Quinn turns her head with effort and scowls, her lips dry and chapped.
"I feel the opposite of good."
"You'll feel amazing once you have Brittany's liver. And zombie-proof! You'll be a scientific marvel, you should be honored."
She coughs, spitting red-tinged gunk right in his face.
"Honor that."
His hands tighten on the sides of her bed. You recognize the scent of his anger.
Whitefield.
A haze descends over your vision; you unfurl yourself from your hiding place like a phantom, a living grudge, and take two quick strides towards him. He's barely recognized your presence before you slam him against the wall—you reach into his pocket and whip the taser to the opposite side of the room before he even has the chance to whimper.
"Remember me?" you grin, all glistening teeth and blown eyes, and it doesn't take long before the familiar stench of urine fills the space. Pathetic.
You interrupt his garbled praying with a solid headbutt. Blood goes spraying out his nose, and you gulp down air to stop from exploding with desire.
"Keycard," you snarl. "Now."
He all but throws it at you.
It's a tempting thought, ripping out his throat in the exact location you've scarred from his taser, but you hear Quinn shuffling on her bed, straining to get to you, and you loosen your grasp a little. He looks at you like one would a demon, a dark god, past mistakes taken root into vengeance.
"Britt," Quinn mumbles, and you slam his head into the cement wall instead. Blood cascades down his back but you use your red hands to unstrap Quinn from her bed. Whitefield slumps down to the floor, motionless. Let him burn.
The hug you share is so tight your spine threatens to crack. She's so frail, so sick, and when she slings her arm over your neck it reminds you of who you used to be.
"I hurt too," you rasp, helping her stand, "I can't carry you."
"I know. I just need help."
Together you wobble in the direction of the loading garage. Syu walks by her side, hand hooked firmly under her arm; the tension rolls from her like an unending tsunami. You make a quick detour to grab your radio, and Quinn holds it to your mouth as it crackles to life.
"Britt!" Santana's voice is hard, but you hear the panic curling around the edges. "Fuck, are you okay?"
"Y-yeah," you pant, sweat dripping down your temples. "I have Quinn."
"Thank God. Listen, they... they took Abby. We can't get in."
"It's okay. I have a key. Just wait."
"Hurry, baby. The whole place is going crazy. I don't know how much longer we can stay undetected."
The radio rests in Quinn's free hand. Even without looking at her, you can feel the raised brow.
"Baby?"
"A lot happened."
"No kidding."
You gently deposit her in the shadows behind a few large boxes. Your entire body aches, but the morphine cuts the worst of the pain. It won't stop you. Two guards stand by the garage, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other. Their radios hiss with a non-stop flow of information. Syu slinks down behind the boxes, and her hand skates along the metal canister that she'd placed there only a few days ago.
"Get me a weapon and I can take them out," Quinn whispers before she uncurls your fist to place a stolen scalpel into your hand, "just distract them. I'm slow."
Dropping into a crouch, you make your way from one dark corner to the next, scalpel clutched in your sweaty hand. It's like the first time you saved them, setting that entire base ablaze, running them over with the dead.
(Now there's a thought, filed away for later.)
As you're making your way forwards, one of the guards breaks.
"Fuck this, man, I'm going to go see what's going on."
"We were told to stay here. I'm sure it's nothing."
"They said it looked like a bomb. Does that sound like nothing?"
"Maybe it was a gas line?"
"Yeah, right." The first guard takes a few steps forward, his back to you. You lick your lips in deliberation. "You know how suspicious the people outside are getting. Maybe some of them are doing something about it."
One more step sideways. You can see the patterns on his vest.
You lunge.
Your back is pressed against his with lightning speed, the scalpel pressed against the soft junction of his jaw and throat. The other one whips his weapon up but dares not shoot, your body molded against his partner's. Stalemate.
Quinn's shadow, dragging itself across the floor, catches your attention.
"Drop the gun," you grunt, letting a thin river of blood seep from your hostage when he doesn't immediately comply, "now! Over there."
Both sets of rifles are slid over to the side of the room. You keep their eyes on you the entire time Quinn's hand reaches out to grab one.
"I know you," the free one says, his hands held in the air, "you're the miracle patient, right? Pierce?"
"You don't know shit."
He can see how thin you are. He takes a step towards you, slow and calculating.
"I know you've caused a lot of trouble."
"Guilty."
"Why don't we just all put the weapons away, and we can talk."
There's a pistol strapped to his thigh. His hand slowly floats down to reach it, but you tighten your grip.
"I'll slit his throat."
"I don't believe that."
A glint of metal from the shadows. The other guy sees it, opens his mouth to warn his partner. His blood sprays out in a sputtering arc as you rake the scalpel across his neck.
The pistol draw from the other soldier is cut short as Quinn takes her shot, splattering brain matter across the far wall. You let your hostage's corpse fall soundlessly, twitching, as he gushes blood from his severed arteries. The smell is indescribably tempting.
"Britt, the door!"
You blink yourself out of your haze and slap Whitefield's keycard against the blinking sensor, and a moment later the garage door groans open. You hide yourself in the shadows as four sets of legs come into view, but it doesn't take you long to recognize Santana's prized combat boots. They've barely ducked inside when you all but throw yourself at her, ignoring the way the other three hoist their weapons at your face.
For a moment, you breathe in her scent. It's a welcome reprieve from this nightmare.
All too soon you part, her hands running down your arms.
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Shit, you're covered in blood."
"It's not mine."
Her eyes flicker to the dead guards at your feet.
"I helped," Quinn calls out weakly; Kurt and Finn rush to her side.
"God, I'm so glad you're okay." She kisses you hard, a bruising reminder that you're still alive. "And you too, Fabray."
"Good to know you care, Satan." Quinn's arms are grudgingly thrown around Finn's neck, Kurt flitting anxiously around them. Tina hugs you until you feel like your neck will snap.
"What's the plan?"
"We don't have one," she admits, "this was earlier than we anticipated."
Quinn groans. You share the sentiment.
"We need to get to Sue," you say, wiping the scalpel off on your pants, "she has a plan."
"Of course she does," Santana echoes. "How do we get there?"
"Hidden hallways," Syu says, lifting herself from her hiding place, "use them."
The others glance at you.
"She's with us." You pull the tactical knife out from the first corpse's sheath. Guns never work right when you're around.
There's another bang; your ears ring and you all stumble as the entire compound shakes viciously on its foundation. Red lights begin to blink in the hallways, casting the entire place in a blood-soaked glow. Your teeth vibrate.
"You need to find her now. Take Quinn out of here."
"Like hell," Quinn grunts, shifted over to Finn's back. "I'm not running to hide while you guys are out here."
"You can't even walk."
"Finn here will be my legs," she pats Finn on the shoulder, who looks like the weight of the entire group has come down over the wide spread of his back, "isn't that right?"
"Yeah..."
You make to protest again but your radios crackle to life.
"I thought we only had two?" you mutter, bringing it to your ear.
"Artie rigged a third one to this frequency."
Clever.
Mike's garbled voice filters in through both radios. It's almost impossible to tell what he's saying, but you can hear gunshots in the background, the distant roar of people shouting and screaming. There's a siren that comes through, but you realize it's actually coming from the mouth of the garage, far too close for comfort.
Quinn hits it a few times and the signal clears for a moment.
"— been shot, I don't know where to go!"
"Who's been shot, Mike?"
"Quinn? Oh fuck, thank God," the tears in his voice are impossible to ignore, "t-they shot Artie. Th-they tried to shoot me, b-but got him instead. I can feel his blood all over me."
"Is Rachel with you?"
"Y-yeah, she's fine."
"Okay. Come to the garage, we're all here. Try not to let them see you."
The silence that follows isn't quiet at all, gunfire and the whistling whine of explosions from all over the base. All the sick for miles and miles must be on their slow, lumbering way to the heavy fence that separates you from the outside world.
"I have an idea," you say suddenly, and Santana twitches against your side.
"Your ideas generally involve a lot of people dying," Quinn responds dryly.
"Well... yes. But not us."
Everyone looks between themselves as you describe the holding pen, the legions of rot trapped in the darkness. Santana's twitch turns into a dull tremor.
"And you'll... what? Let them run rampant?"
"They don't really run."
"You know that's not what she meant," Santana hisses. Quinn's signature eyebrow rises up and she responds with a single finger.
You glance around at your companions, all looking everywhere but the two of you. It just takes a gentle tug of Santana's wrist and she follows helplessly, as if she never has a choice in the first place.
"What's wrong?" you ask once you're safe in the shadowed corner.
"Nothing's—" she catches your blank stare and crosses her arms tightly over her chest. "You're injured. You shouldn't be going anywhere alone."
"It barely hurts. See?"
You jump a little on the spot, but she still catches the flicker of a wince across your face.
"I want to go with you."
"You can't," you grab at her hands, smoothing out the complex of blue and red rivers on the top of her palms. The proximity to her pulse makes every part of you shiver, "you know that. Zombies are bad for normal people."
"They're bad for everyone."
"Which is why we need them to help. You know I'm right."
"Shit gets really bad real fast when you're right," she mutters, blowing out a breath. "You've thought about this, haven't you? Before."
"It's why I make sense. I got the idea when I still had a head to think with."
Santana studies your eyes, the whites bursting with broken blood vessels. "How long has it been since they fed you?"
"I don't know. It feels like years. The morphine helps, but the monster is loud."
"I know I should have more faith in you," she says quietly, "but every time you're out of my sight you nearly die. I can't leave here without you. I don't want to."
"You won't have to." You lean forward—her boots put you on equal grounds but she still jumps a little when you kiss her. "I promise I'll stay alive. Okay? I came back for you once. I can do it again."
A long time ago you felt like a marionette in her presence, her fingers pulling invisible strings in your chest, but the way your smile mirrors hers is the most genuine thing you've ever felt.
"Okay."
A commotion at the garage's mouth draws the two of you out of your reverie. She spins on her heel and you stride to follow, the group rushing forward as Rachel comes stumbling into the space, brow slick with sweat. Next is Mike, breath steaming into the night air, a sticky mixture of blood and tears staining his cheeks ruddy and dark. A head of brown hair rests limply on his coat-padded shoulder.
Kurt catches Artie as Mike gingerly slides him from his back, laying him carefully on the ground. You can already smell the stench of death inside his blood and on the unnatural paleness of his skin. Through the slit of his closed eyelids comes the barest hints of milky blue eyes.
Quinn drags herself up to his side and pushes open his coat, revealing the wide red flower opened on top of his heart.
She glances at you. You shake your head slightly, hooking your fingers into Santana's.
"Did it hit you?"
"A little bit."
He turns to reveal a neat hole in his jacket. When shucked off, his grey shirt is damp with blood. Tina flits around him, holding his angular jaw in her hands, but he reassures her with a quiet kiss to her wrist.
"It's not deep," Quinn says eventually, spreading the bullet-hole open with her fingertips, "we should be able to get it out."
"I don't care about me," Mike snaps, jerking away, "you need to help him!"
"Mike..."
He skids onto his knees and cradles Artie's head against his thighs. "He was moving a few minutes ago, come on. Someone knows how to do CPR, right?"
"Baby," Tina starts, but Mike's gone deaf to everyone around him.
Artie hasn't moved by himself in a while.
You glance to the hallway. The shadows continue to whisper, Sam's invisible silhouette slinking around the corners, but a new sound has joined him now; the squeaking of wheels on the tile and the whisper of metal joints rotating on their axis. He doesn't even get his legs back in death.
From the corner, a jumbled stream of information hisses from the guards' forgotten radios. The hole in the far wall has been secured, and the soldiers are beginning the steady task of crushing whatever resistance they may encounter. Quinn grimaces, motioning to Finn so that she can anchor herself over his back.
"We have to go."
"I'm not leaving without him," Mike whimpers, but you crouch and touch his hand buried in Artie's hair.
"He left a long time ago," you say, tracing your finger over the muscles of his neck that have started to go hard and prominent. "You have to say goodbye."
The group all crouch down to say their farewells and you and Syu stand off to the side, gazing anxiously down the hallway.
"Did you know him?" she asks as Tina wipes under Mike's eyes.
"Not well enough," you respond, watching Kurt straighten out Artie's glasses. "But he believed me. That was a lot."
They heft him onto a row of boxes and lay his coat down over his face. There are sirens in the distance, shrieking out into the night, and you close the garage door with your keycard before taking the heavy end of an assault rifle to the sensor. It showers you in tiny blinding sparks.
All too soon it's time to leave Artie behind. The group proceeds in stony silence to the closest hidden door, with Mike's sniffles being the only thing to be heard above the distant wail of the sirens. In every direction comes the quiet, pervasive sound of boots on the ground. Kurt and Rachel push until it gives way, exposing the hidden complex that snakes through the entire building.
Strapped to her waist, the radio Tina stole crackles. They're close.
You glance right, into the shadowy descent of the basement. Your imagination mumbles in your ears with their rotten breath.
They start up the stairs, but you catch Santana's hand before she can disappear, too.
"I'm going to do it," you say, and this time she doesn't argue. She can hear the clock ticking as well as anyone else.
"Be careful."
"I'm never careful."
She gives a weak smile—you kiss it away and tug on the door.
"We'll wait. Promise."
They better.
The door closes.
Alone, you let yourself sag a little. Your head is swimming, your steps veering in and out of focus, and the animal in your head has taken to whispering in your ears. It hisses from the vents, underneath doorways, down the red-washed hall. Without the living to temper your madness it drools from the corner of your mouth, ricocheting through your red, red eyes.
Let it feed you, move you. It's the only way you'll get out of this alive.
In your slow trek back into the depths of the basement, you catch the faintest murmur of heartbeats thrumming through the wall. Prisoners, sequestered away even further than the zoms. Men, women, children, trapped in the dark and shackled to the cold earth. Their fear-stink wafts through the entire floor.
You stop, glancing down the thin hallway that leads to them. There's only time for one.
Another crash. The distant sound of gunfire peppers the air.
With a slow swallow, you keep walking. Their ghosts begin to form, primordial flickerings just outside of your vision. Maybe this is what your father feels like every time another experiment expires on his table.
This section of the hall is abandoned. You've made it deep underground now, deeper than the prison, and you see the familiar glint of black glass to your right. They mill about quietly, whispering rot to each other, but you know it won't last once you release them.
"I'm opening the door," you mutter into your radio, "the basement isn't safe."
Without waiting for a reply, you grasp the heavy looking lever bolted into their door and—
—foam at the mouth as someone jabs a taser into your side.
Your entire body locks up as electricity pours through your body for the third time in as many weeks. The hand on the lever spasms, clenching so hard you might have popped a tendon, and when it finally ends you crumple bonelessly to the floor.
Fuck, it would be so much easier if someone just punched you.
You roll onto your back to face your attacker. Boroyan pants through an open mouth, one of the sleeves his coat ripped and stained with soot and blood; his hair has escaped from his bandana and the right lens of his glasses has cracked, spiderwebbing in all directions.
"This was you," he seethes, stepping towards you, "wasn't it? A mind-blowing discovery, derailed. A perfect donor set free. Don't you see what you're putting in jeopardy?" You worm on your back to retreat, casting a helpless glance at the holding pen door. The end of the hallway bumps at the crown of your head.
"All because you don't want to lie down and accept your place."
He places a foot square on your chest. Gone is the excited, giddy surgeon you saw only an hour ago. In his wake comes a wild-eyed stranger that you've seen many times before, someone with precious little to lose.
"You're the reason I'm still here," you cough, shifting for breath against his weight, "your stupid testing. I tried to die."
"I don't want you dead," the high-pitched whine of the taser starts again, and you begin to struggle in earnest as he leans down. "I just want you broken."
The first shock doesn't last too long. You have enough time to gasp for air before the second comes, but the third and the fourth stay longer and harder, pressed into the crook of your jaw. Boroyan grins as he applies the fifth, and the light dims in the corners of your vision.
Shocked to death, betrayed by a heart you don't even need. You can taste the irony.
Or maybe that's blood.
Your lungs fail on the sixth application. It's almost possible to hear your neurons frying, overloaded with the bursts of electricity that crawl through your skull. Boroyan's laughing—a high, manic sound, tinged with desperation on the edges. He doesn't care about the science now. Just that you get what you deserve.
(And maybe you do deserve it for all the things you've done to keep this broken body alive.)
Something touches your face as your fingertips numb. You can't see it, can't see much at all, but there's a glint of metal dangling above your face and a halo of clear, cold light washing away the squealing red alarm. Boroyan's laughter dissipates.
Come on, B. You're so close.
The metal thing is a necklace. There's someone holding your head, cradling your pounding temples, and you catch a glimpse of a familiar shirt hovering above your vision.
I told you I'd be here, didn't I?
Despite your entire body screaming in protest, you force yourself to surge upwards when Boroyan pauses his shock. The two of you go sprawling across the floor, that dreaded taser skittering across the slippery hallway. It reeks of cooked meat where he's burned straight through the surface tissue of your neck.
You clamber on top of him, pinning his shoulders under your knees and dropping a hard, heavy fist into his face. He jerks once, and you let another fall, and another, and another.
"You stupid," thump, "fucking," thump, "waste of," thump, "space!" His collar, stained with blood, crinkles in your hands as you bring him up towards you and slam his head down into the floor. Red splatters along the walls. "I said I'd kill you! Kill you and eat you and enjoy every last fucking minute, you piece of shit! You had no right to do this to me! I'm your mistake!"
Heaving, you glance up at the door to the holding pen. He gargles under the thickness of his own blood and you grin, pink foam dripping from behind your teeth. "I want to eat. So much. But there's a better end for you."
You stagger upright, muscles tired and cramping, and find the lever again. The zombies behind the door have heard the commotion, their whisper now a wheeze, and you lick your salty lips as you throw your entire weight onto it. It groans but doesn't open, and you pull until your shoulders almost separate from their sockets. It gives way with an eventual howl of grinding metal and you hit the floor with a whump as the door swings open, exposing the shadowy caverns of the pen. A foul blast of rot hits you square in the face and you gag a little, unused to the sheer volume of decay.
Before he can try to crawl away you grasp Boroyan's ankle and drag him, kicking only feebly, into the pen. His shattered skull will make it impossible to fight back but he knows full well what awaits him, clinging onto the doorway with wet, bloodied hands. The zombies surge past you, gripping onto his pants and shirt, digging their fingers into his flesh to taste the succulent meat underneath. He wears a red crown, streaming from all parts of his scalp, but the king will rule no more.
You limp to the hallway as the sick draw him further into their cage. They've begun to gnaw at his ankles, snapping the tendons there, wrenching off his toes. There'll be nothing left by the time it's done.
When you crouch, his eyes are filled with pink tears.
"See you in Hell," you hiss, kicking at his fingers until he lets go of the doorframe and gets dragged into the dark, dank abyss of their pen.
They'll be distracted for a little while. You turn on your heel and begin to hobble as quickly as you can back to the hidden hallway, gingerly pressing your bloody fingers against the lopsided circle of charred flesh under your jaw. It doesn't hurt as much as it should, not yet.
The stairs are hard. Your back aches as you haul yourself up, your wasted muscles angry at the incline. Still, you follow the scent of your friends, of their grief and their fear, winding up a steep three stories until a single plate announces Floor 2. They'd turned right, down a dim passage with a door unlocked by Syu's key. Whitefield's dings softly as it lets you through and you slip into the darkness.
"Where are you?" you whisper into the radio, and to your left is an answering di-ding as Santana's radio hums.
"Just ahead," she breathes, equally quiet. You slip into their ranks like you'd never left.
Santana squeezes your hand briefly, her eyes running over the circle of red and black skin. You shake your head. Later.
The door that leads into Sue's room is sturdy and old, secured in place with a heavy bolt. There isn't even an outline of light that seeps in through the meeting of door and frame.
"It's not hidden like the ones in the basement," Syu says, glancing over her shoulder. "If you open that, you'll turn into swiss cheese."
"I don't even like cheese," Finn mutters.
"We can't go in blind," Tina grimaces, shifting her backpack on her shoulders. "Even Coach Sylvester can't save us from guys with assault rifles."
"Maybe we can distract them?"
"How? Knock on the door? 'Excuse me, I seem to have gotten lost. Could you point me in the right direction?'"
Santana glances to the guard's radio strapped to Tina's waist. "Lure them with a broadcast?"
Everyone looks at it, then at her. She crosses her arms over her chest.
"What? It's better than any of the other shit ideas I've been hearing."
"Genius," Quinn breathes. "Who wants to go be lookout?"
Varying chimes of not it echo through the hall. Mike, previously silent, shrugs a shoulder.
"I'll do it." His red-rimmed eyes blink slowly as Santana hands him her radio, disappearing around the corner with a whisper of a footstep. Tina whispers something into his ear as he goes and he smiles weakly, kissing her temple before murmuring something in return. You always thought the two of them fit together perfectly.
(Rocks morph and merge under pressure, right? Maybe it's the same for people.)
Syu takes the guard's radio, sucking in a deep breath through her nose.
"I thought you didn't want to be involved," you say as she fiddles with the dial.
"I didn't," she sighs, "but it looks like I don't have a choice anymore. Half the people in this place have gone insane."
The radio beeps as she raises it to her mouth. "All units on floor two, please report to room 20C immediately. I repeat, all units on floor two, please report to 20C. This is an emergency."
There's a vague commotion a few seconds later, and it doesn't take long for Mike to confirm that two guards have left Sue's room.
The bolt scrapes open and it takes two of you to open the heavy door. You go tumbling into the space, guns raised, but the space is empty save for a lone figure tied to a metal chair in the center of the room, set in front of a metal table and surrounded by concrete walls. An inorganic void.
Sue smirks, her split lip stretching awkwardly over her face.
"Took you long enough."
"Sorry, Coach," Quinn says but she's grinning wider than everyone else, taking a few shaky steps away from Finn to sling her arms over Sue's neck. The older woman hisses and your leader recoils, tugging down the neck of her bloodied uniform to reveal a deep purple bruise spreading over most of her shoulder.
"Broke my clavicle about a week ago," Sue reveals simply, relief passing over her features as Santana cuts through the rope binding her hands behind her back. "Hasn't had time to start healing in this position."
She scans her eyes over Quinn. "What happened to you, Fabray?"
"Radiation happened. They were going to give me Brittany's liver or something, but we put that on hold with a bomb or two."
"They don't give radiation to transplant patients."
"They do for bone marrow," you say.
You aren't sure who looks worse, you or Sue. When she looks at you it's through one eye, the other swollen shut and almost black. Cuts and bruises litter her arms, and the skin around her wrists has been worn away to an angry red shimmer. It smells like she hasn't bathed since she was taken. Maybe she hasn't.
"They gave Quinn your bone marrow?"
"I think so. She smells like me now."
"Does... does that mean you're zombie-proof too?" Finn whispers, but Quinn shrugs.
"Who knows. It doesn't matter now."
"Quinn's right," Rachel says from the doorway, peering outside, "I hear voices. I believe they've figured out it was a false alarm."
Mike's voice comes through over the radio. "I'm coming back. We need to go."
"What's this plan of yours, Coach? Does it involve explosions?"
"Hold your tits down, Lopez. No explosions. But there is a helicopter on the roof."
"Can you even fly it?"
Sue scoffs. "You're asking Sue Sylvester if she can do something." The group returns to the hidden corridors, Sue's strides rather confident despite her outward appearance. "However, we need the key. I'm not going to hot-wire a helicopter when roughly ten thousand things could go wrong."
"Do you know where it is?"
"Don't worry your constipated little body, Hudson. I know exactly where it is." A shrieking alarm begins to go off, and you slide the bolt across just in case.
"However, it's going to be difficult now that the entire base knows I've been freed."
"What would you have us do? Execute the guards through the vents?" Rachel huffs.
"Your tone is so dry it's going to ruin your mediocre singing voice."
Quinn snickers.
"Don't you think they'll just come after us once this is over, though?" Tina asks, brow furrowed.
"Good question, Chang One. And the answer to that is not really. They'll be too busy grieving over the loss of their guinea pigs—that's what this base is primarily, a research lab. Once we get Brittany, and by extension now Quinn, out of here, they'll scramble to make up for lost time."
"Won't they come after them? Britt is kinda important."
"They might, at first," Sue agrees, "but they don't have as many resources as you're anticipating. In terms of time and materials, air travel is a gaping pit of expenses. Once we clear far enough, even finding us in this frozen pit of a country is damn near impossible."
Carefully, you open a door that leads into the main hallway, making a mad dash for the other side and concealing yourself again inside the walls. Out of the corner of your eye you spot the red elevator you thought was only in your nightmares, its light still on at the top. You're yanked inside, but not before you hesitate in its direction.
"The key is, of course, heavily guarded, but once we clear this blasted place we can let them get back to their experiments and finally make our own decisions."
Her voice disappears as you consider your future. Resting easy has never been a viable possibility for someone like you, but the knowledge that your decoded cells rest between pages and pages of failed experiments makes your spine coil uneasily, a poisoned serpent. Once they clear the zombies from this place and restart anew, how many more subjects will be taken before they find something that can help? If they can find something that will help?
(Sometimes you wonder if it should just be given time, the only mistress whose call no one can refuse. Eventually, the sick will rot to their bones and fall to the earth, and humanity will be able to crawl from the darkness like its ancestors before.)
Your arrival kicked this nightmare into a frenzy. The small, altruistic part of you that hasn't been eaten whole begs that you end it.
(Or maybe you just want revenge. You aren't perfect.)
Sue notices the shift in your face.
"You're about to tell me you want to do something stupid."
"I need to go back to the basement."
At least four voices raise their protest, but you keep your eyes locked with Sue as she considers it.
"Their research is still here. Once we leave, it'll get worse. I don't think anyone is meant to be cured."
"Easy for you to say," Finn mutters, yelping when Quinn cuffs him over the ear.
"You can't go any faster than a walk. How are you going to get down there?"
"The elevator still works."
"You can't take anyone with you with all the zoms," Tina protests, but you shrug.
"I know."
You need to eat, too. Every part of you is beginning to vibrate, so much sweat and blood in one small space. Santana sees it when she toys with the ends of your shortened hair, how you lean into her grounding touch despite the pain that flares up your back. You don't want them to see you like the dead have.
"Fine," Sue grunts eventually. The soldier in her knows better than the guardian. "But you have an hour before we all leave for the roof, understood?"
You nod.
"Then go burn things, Pierce. And don't die."
Santana places a feather-light kiss to your burnt jaw.
"See you in an hour," she whispers, looking back over her shoulder as she disappears down the corridor with the others.
You aren't allowed to die; she hasn't said goodbye.
It feels weirdly normal, waiting for the elevator. You half expect Sam to walk in alongside you as you step into the metal box, but you're alone with your ghosts as you watch the numbers grow smaller and smaller until a single yellow 'B' shines from the corner. The doors groan open slowly, inch by inch revealing the mess that's become of the compound's lowest floor.
The sick are everywhere. The hallways are thick with them, staggering around aimlessly, pacing from one end to the next. Doors that lead to the main stairwells are locked electronically and keep them herded in the basement, what must be hundreds cooped up into a few narrow hallways. You push through the mass of rotting bodies, brushing so close you smell like one, too.
God, you're so hungry.
The canister is exactly where you left it. Your handiwork has kept the garage door closed, and Artie's body is limp and still underneath the sheet. It smells so strongly of metal that breathing through your mouth just makes you taste it, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. You heft the container on your shoulder and try not to think about the way your stomach moans, hollow and desperate.
It's a slow, steady process through the hall. The canister is heavy and you're weak, trembling with each step, sweat dripping down your brow. The zoms will keep people away. You have time.
(It's been borrowed time for years now. Maybe it's finally running out.)
When you reach the closed door of the laboratory, you hear it. A shuffle, a light step on the ground, followed by the hiss of stressed breathing. A heartbeat. Your body burns.
It's pointless to resist the bloodlust. You know the steps to this dance.
You stand outside and let yourself give into the frenzy. It's not a sudden shift, a blank in your consciousness, but gradual paddle into deep waters, rushing over your head, swallowing you into its depths. The monster you fought so long to keep chained crawls over your frontal lobes until all you can think about is the prey in the next room.
It's the only way, you think until you lose that, too, I have to, I need it oh fuck I need it so badly it's mine mine mine.
With a silent step, you push on the laboratory doors. Locked. You resist the snarl that bubbles in your throat, putting the canister down and slinking instead into the corridor you know runs adjacent, deep inside the wall. You're washed in an angel's demented halo as you skirt the room, pulling the connecting door open into the locker you fell through what seems like years ago.
There's a lone person hunched over a long metal table, flipping through papers, letting the ones it doesn't need fall to the floor. A bloodstain from the other side of the room is unoccupied—the first one you knocked senseless must have escaped. Pity.
Its white coat stokes a fury in you, a hatred for the ones who broke open your bones and left you to die. When you push at the locker doors the test tubes rattle, forgotten in your haste. It jumps, whirling around, and you shove so that the glass clatters to the floor.
This is it, so close to your goal, so close to salvation and redemption and all the things you don't know but feel, feel in the depths of your diseased bones—
It tries to say something, hands held out, but your sight is void of thought and your lips are peeling back over your teeth, hard and eager. It tries to back up but you launch yourself at it with a snarling howl, fingers outstretched and grasping, your desperate mouth snapping so very close to its face. The person is larger than you, but nothing is more important than the pulse by its neck as it realizes who you are, what you are, the mindless direction in your red-pricked eyes.
Every part of you shrieks in unison as you get your first taste. Your mouth clamps onto their forearm and blood bursts in your mouth like an overfilled balloon. Everything whites out as it screams and you scream and the two of you go down to the floor in a tangle of struggling limbs.
When the monster releases its reigns, you have a slippery chunk of meat in your mouth and the person underneath you still struggles. It's feeble, not long now until the darkness takes them, and your hands twist in their coat turned wet and crimson. Everything settles in your head but you still feel off, running on their borrowed adrenaline. You glance up to their face, only to see the eyes that raised you stare back.
You stall, your fingers brushing the embroidered name on their chest. Pierce.
Part of your father's liver falls from your open mouth.
"D-dad?" you whisper, crawling up his body. He mumbles something, frothing blood from the corners of his mouth, but you've ripped out one side of his ribs. His breath refuses to come.
You consider trying to stop the bleeding, but you're sitting in an ever-widening pool and you can see the soft beat of his heart from underneath his breastbone. There's no hope for him, not now.
Your stomach roils, but your body refuses to throw up the nutrients that brings your mind back into your head. Despite all he's done to you, all he was willing to do, you can't help but see week-long camping trips and clandestine visits to the lab and his face in the front row of your dancing competition, the only one that really mattered. Him and your mother, dancing soundlessly to the music in their heads, recreating their wedding day for you and your clapping sister. Refusing to accept the doctor's diagnosis because he thought you were more than that.
"I'm so sorry," you stroke at his wet jaw, pressing your forehead to his temple, "I don't want you to die. Not anymore."
His death won't be clean. You know how much it hurts.
He mouths something and you hover next to his face as he struggles through lungs that refuse to open. One of his hands trembles as he touches your wrist, and you quickly lace your fingers together. These were the hands that fixed your toy airplane after Sophie threw it down the stairs, the ones that put bandaids on your wounds and never let you fall off your bike.
"B... Br..."
"I'm here," you snake one hand under his head, wiping the blood from his chin, "you're okay."
You don't even know if he wants you here after you ripped his chest apart.
"If I ever talk to Mom again, I promise I'll tell her you loved her. I know you still do. And Sophie."
His glassy eyes focus somewhere on your forehead.
"M's... srr...y."
"I know."
You watch the slow, trembling beat of his heart from under the bony case of his breastbone. Minutes tick by as it stutters, and death comes as a shadow into the room.
"L... l'v...y..."
It gives out with a wet thump, and you brush your fingers over his damp eyelids.
"I love you too."
Redemption doesn't come from dying. Maybe it never comes at all. But, you think as you slowly stand up, blood dripping from your hair, maybe someone will take pity on him.
Maybe John will lead him somewhere other than the shadows.
You step gingerly over his body and glance through what he was looking at. Countless pages of science, chemical formulas, complex diagrams and sketches, a confusingly large table. All meaningless without someone to decipher them. You debate taking the pages he saved but scowl, scattering them all over the floor. They'll burn like everything else. The little vial with propellant is popped into your mouth and shattered before being spat all over the research, soaked with liquid hydrocarbon.
With a grunt of effort you unlock the front door and drag the canister into the room, loosening the spout and beginning the process of thoroughly soaking everything in sight. Nothing is spared, not even your father—gas is sprayed on him, gathering in the hollow dip of his spine, pooling beside his heart. Years of research is dampened, ink leaking out of the papers. You pull out the bodies kept in their frozen coffins, smearing them too.
One of them blinks sightless, milky eyes at you. You splash fuel in its face and hope it doesn't take too long to burn.
A box of matches is hidden in one of the drawers. Your eyes run over the tables, the charts, the xrays, all parts of a life you'd rather forget. The match hisses as you light it.
Just before throwing it down you catch a glimmer from your father's pocket. A little vial filled with clear liquid and topped with a hollow needle, simply dubbed X. It smells like zoms, but also like you, and something you've never encountered before. You slip it into your pocket.
It's decidedly anti-climatic as everything goes up in flames until the heat reaches an unseen tank hidden in the back. There's a flash of light and you're blasted backwards from the shockwave, the glass windows blowing out with a bang. You hit the opposite wall in the hallway and crack your head, barely getting time to see your handiwork before your lights go out.
It takes a few moments to notice the hissing noise when you wake up.
Blood trickles down your neck from the impact with the wall—everything shrieks with a high pitch squeal that comes from inside your own head. When you spit, it comes back red and frothy, and the tips of your fingers are numb as you probe at the large gash behind your head. There's a flap of skin that droops, and you can feel the hard ridge of your skull.
Tina can fix it, you think, but trying to get up sends an excruciating spike of pain through your side. You press a hand to your ribs and breathe the best you can—your right side shifts awkwardly, rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. It hurts so badly you lose your vision for a moment. Broken.
"Fuck," you wheeze when your chest spasms in a cough. Blood dribbles down your chin.
Fuck, you repeat, in too much pain to say it. Your hand ghosts around for the radio, almost biting through your lip when you have to lean over to grab it. It's dented in a few places, but it still crackles when you press the button.
"Santana?" it comes out as little more than a whisper, and your entire torso screams as you take a deeper breath to try again. "San?"
"Britt? Oh fuck, finally. Where are you? It's almost been an hour."
"I... I fucked up."
"What? What happened?"
"Explosion. My ribs... I can't... can't move."
Slumped against the wall, you can see the zoms disappearing through the main stairwell. The explosion must have knocked out the power and let them through.
"Fuck... can you get to the elevator?"
"Power's... off. Can't."
If you could, you'd laugh. So close to the end and your body just... gives out. Serves you right.
"Just... leave me. Go. Don't risk it."
"Like hell I am. Are you close to the hidden door?"
"Twenty feet, maybe."
"Okay. Can you drag yourself there? I'm coming to get you."
"You... no, San. There are still zoms."
"I don't give a shit. I'm not leaving you to die here."
The connection finishes with the distant sound of a slamming door, no doubt the stairwell. You shove the radio into the pocket of your pants and roll your head to the side. Twenty feet has never looked so long.
Ever so slowly, you straighten yourself out. One knee is bent, then the other. Rocking into a kneeling position is out of the question, so instead you let your leg flop to the side, your torso following to minimize any twisting. Tears prick the insides of your eyes as your left arm pushes against the wall for support.
You've gotten through worse than this. You can do it.
Except the morphine is gone now, and what your ribs can't handle isn't able to be shifted to your lower back. Hunching over makes the base of your spine scream like a banshee, but straightening up makes you black out for a second. Your right hand plants on the floor as you finally get yourself onto your knees, heaving one foot from underneath you.
It takes five tries until you manage to stand up, and each grueling second, you wish the blast killed you. This time you actually do throw up, mostly bile, and the pain sinks you back down to your knees.
"I'm here, Britt," Santana broadcasts, worry etched into every syllable, "where are you?"
"I can't do it," you gasp, hand fisting in the loose material of your shirt, "it hurts."
"I know, baby. You only have another few feet to go and then it's over. I'm not saying goodbye."
With a hiss of agony you slide yourself to a standing position, using the wall as your crutch. One foot in front of the other in a tunnel, one after another, inch after inch. It never seems to get any closer, but after what feels like an eternity, you reach the familiar seam.
"I'm here," you wheeze into the radio. The door whispers as it's pushed on from the other side, and moments later you see Santana's face peering out from the open sliver. She carefully helps you inside before slamming the door closed, shutting it with a firm bolt. The sick batter weakly at the other side.
"Let me see," she murmurs, lifting up the side of your shirt. An unbelievably thick band of dark red bruising stretches out over your entire right side, from hip to armpit, speckles of purple beginning to change the shape.
Santana swallows, but you don't need to see it yourself to know how bad it is. You start to say something but she hushes you, gingerly putting your left arm over her shoulder. Her right hooks under your other arm, careful to push up rather than in. "We've got the key," she fills as you begin your achingly slow ascent up the stairs, one foot at a time, "we need to get to the roof."
"You... shouldn't have come back," you mumble, oozing blood from your mouth, "too dangerous."
"I wasn't abandoning you," she grunts, rounding the first landing, "not again. Not like last time."
"That wasn't... your fault."
"Maybe, but this would have been."
There's a few beats of silence, her determination pushing you onwards.
You smile, a red crescent of gore. "I love you."
She falters, and the jump nearly makes you puke again. "W-what?"
"You said it... earlier. I didn't. But... I do. I just—" you cough, sagging into her side for a second, "wanted you to... know."
Santana's smile is tempered, sneaking out despite her attempts to control it. "Once this is over, you'll have to tell me over and over again."
"Plan on it."
It takes a good ten minutes to get to the second floor. Sue's been flinging threats for the past five, but you know she wouldn't leave without both of you, even if she had to kick zoms off the helicopter with her bare feet. One more floor to go.
You get to a closed door that blocks off your progress.
"What the fuck?" Santana mutters, kicking at it a few times. It doesn't budge.
"You have to take the main stairwell," Tina's voice crackles when you ask, "they only have one roof access point."
But you can hear lungs shuffling through the larger hallway, taking their slow time up the stairs when you were unconscious. Though more spread out, it's still too many for your slow and halting progress.
"Do we really have a choice?" Santana asks sourly, the lines of her face drawn and anxious. Her heartbeat thrums twice as hard as yours, still sluggish and unsure after the explosion. You squeeze her shoulder.
"I'll be... your direction," you try to assure her, but you can barely hear anything over the rushing in your own head. She nods, taking a deep breath, before backing out of the safe, secret tunnels.
You sacrifice speed for stealth. It's the first time you've ever felt threatened by the sick, their predatory nature clashing with your own. Being the prey is a feeling you'll never quite get used to. One of the sick wanders so close and you push her back around the corner, hunching over with a distinct rattle and hiss to your chest. It looks at you blandly for a moment but your broken body is of no interest and quietly shuffles away.
Her eyebrows furrow. I hate it when you sound like that.
So do they.
She's so covered in your blood that it masks her smell a little, but you aren't sure how much of their noses they use, or if it's just you. Every precaution is kept to keep your steps light, however, knowing just how sharp their hearing tends to be.
When you round the next corner, the stairwell comes into sight. You let out a sharp, shallow breath of relief. Her hand is about to reach for the handle when your radio roars to life.
"Hurry the fuck up, we have a problem!"
It's a strange feeling, knowing every single being on the floor has been notified of your presence. Stealth gone, the two of you stumble into the staircase where you can hear slow, plodding footsteps echoing down below. The door slams with a thump and they, too, narrow in on you.
You're too slow to make it in time.
She breathes a regretful sorry before stooping down to pick you up, the sudden curl of your torso making your vision disappear for a few seconds.
When you blink back into the present world she's hammering up the stairs with you in her arms, breath whistling through her clenched teeth. It's another flight to the top and you feel her lagging, months of insufficient food and constant stress wearing her muscles down to the point where your added weight is an unbelievable burden. Behind her, the fastest of the sick round the nearest landing.
"You can do it," you breathe into her ear, "we're almost there. Almost home."
She growls and accelerates the best she can, and you bite your lip to stop her from knowing just how much it hurts. Her shoulder ducked, she slams through the roof door, dropping more than putting you down as she stumbles backwards to press herself against it so they can't get through.
As you pick yourself up off the floor, the first thing you notice is the noise. The chopper roars even though it only hovers about a foot off the ground, tethered by a corded rope; most of the group are already inside the chassis, but Quinn is nearly hanging out the edge, gesturing wildly to a hazy figure with his back turned. She's furious, her too-pale face ruddy with fury, and the others shift in discomfort.
He's holding the rope, refusing to let go. The wind from the helicopter wafts his smell to you. Puck.
Quinn catches your eye and he turns, his face twisting into a feral grimace. There's blood and soot all over him, matting his hair down to his scalp, bullet grazes and burns dotting his hands. He's aged ten years in a matter of hours.
Santana gives a cry of protest as he storms in your direction, but the zoms have reached the door and she can't leave her post. You've barely staggered to your feet when his fist travels in a high arc, and you see it coming long before it hits, but your broken body refuses to move out of the way. All you can do is brace for the full brunt of his blow that will eject your bones straight from your body.
It doesn't disappoint.
The pain knocks the sense out of you for a second. Your broken ribs shriek, and your back howls, and the exposed mass of your skull whimpers as you tumble to the ground. Things scatter out of your pockets and your fingers reach for the single little capsule left, stashing it between your cheek and teeth before he has a chance to kick it away. Everything else rolls out of reach.
Your raise your eyes to a rifle hovering inches in front of your face.
"Are you... going to shoot me again? You weren't very... good at it last... time."
He can't hear you over the helicopter, not with your shattered ribs, but your lips move well enough. Puck's face darkens and the rifle slams next to your nose. Lights burst behind your left eye.
"Don't make this any worse for yourself than it's going to be, bitch."
"Leave her alone, Fuckerman!" Santana warns from the corner, but he whips his rifle up to her, jaw working furiously.
"Stay out of this, you fucking traitor! I should shoot you too, just for all the shit you've put us through."
"What," you rasp, "not... having sex with you?"
His eyes flash. If you could just get him a little closer...
"You were never... good enough. That's why... they look up... to Quinn. She's the leader you... couldn't be." You swallow, his teeth grinding in their place. "Kill me, but... you still lose. I have Santana now. She actually likes me. No, loves me. She chose me over you."
You grin, full of pink teeth. "I'm not... surprised. You couldn't even... save your own... sister."
He drops down so suddenly you don't even have time to brace before he's on you.
All your energy has been exhausted at this point, and you can do little more than squeeze your eyes shut as he slams the butt of his gun into your face over and over. Warm blood trickles into your mouth, mixing with your saliva until you have this foamy, thick mass clogging your throat. It makes it impossible to breathe, so you don't.
He's sitting square on your chest and you don't remember anything ever being that heavy. You catch his arms the best you can but he's so strong and the frenzy has left you, tearing from your chest, leaving nothing but a weak and quiet husk in its wake. You manage to grab the butt of the rifle before it comes down on your bloodied cheekbone for a fourth time, nose spewing blood, and the two of you wrestle for control. His weight caves in your broken ribs, and the resistance you give is feeble at best.
The people on the helicopter are beside themselves, but they're all strapped in and Quinn can't move on her own and Sue's booming voice orders them to fucking stay inside, are you bat-shit insane despite the worried eyes she casts at you from the cockpit.
"I'm going to fucking murder you!" Puck screams, gripping onto the barrel, "and when I'm done, I'm going to rip you apart limb by fucking limb and feed you to your little zombie friends!"
"S'at how your sister died?" you gargle, and he slams the barrel downwards in an effort to wrench the butt from your hands. It cracks you sideways over the nose and you lose your vision again, but the finishing blow you expect never comes as he's thrown from your chest in the middle of a whirlwind of curses. You catch only the slightest glimpse of Santana's charcoal hair as you roll onto your side, wheezing for breath.
She's stuck a piece of piping through the lock. It strains awkwardly, weak with rust, but it'll hold for now.
They roll over and over, the gun fallen to the edge of the roof, fists flying and threats wild. She looks positively murderous, onyx eyes blazing, and if you weren't about to black out you'd find it entrancing.
"You're going to kill all of us!" she growls, delivering a solid elbow into his face. He bunches his legs under her and sends her flying across the roof, staggering to his knees.
"Not if you'd just—" thwack "let me kill her! Why the fuck do you care so much?"
"Unlike you, I'm capable of having actual relationships!"
"Coulda fooled me."
She wrenches her head up, ducking under his fist. "Wait, are you fucking kidding me? Are you mad that I'm not with you?"
"I'm mad that you were a fucking slut until you decided to shack up with some half-dead white chick! She tried to eat one of us, Lopez!"
"You always try and ruin any little good thing I have," she hisses, "and I'm fucking tired of it."
Puck gets her across the face but she staggers away, cupping her bleeding nose. There's a groan from the other side of the roof as the pipe starts to give, and you lock eyes for a moment, indecision flickering across her face. You've managed to stand, and you crack the last little capsule between your teeth.
"Go," you wheeze, and she bolts to keep the door shut. Puck goes to follow but you stumble into him, gripping his arm and that stupid strip of hair, ignoring the awkward angle and the pain and the sound that is most definitely not zombies being contained. He thrashes and you cling and in the chaos you open your drooling jaws, dripping filth and disease, wondering if this is what one of the sick feels like before you manage to break through his skin.
The chunk of flesh you rip out from the junction of his neck and shoulder isn't as large as you'd like, but the damage is done all the same. He recoils but you cling on, teeth cutting through muscle and sinew, tongue laving your tainted blood all over the wound.
A perverse sense of vengeance fills you as he tries to shake you off like a parasite but you refuse to let go. Your fingers scrabble over his face and find purchase in his eye sockets, and his scream is a sound you've been dreaming about ever since he shot you in the mud as you dig and dig and dig, pushing past his squishy eyeballs to the back of his sockets. They give with a loud squelch, spraying outwards, but you just laugh as your nails scrape his optic nerve and he goes tumbling onto the ground.
"You'll turn soon," you hiss as he howls, gathering your things, "and then you'll be just like your sister."
As he falls you shout for Santana—she's grappling with grey arms sticking through the doorframe, pulling her further in before she can wrench herself away. They've knotted in her hair, reeling her inward, and all the muscles in her neck strain unearthly hard to stop from being yanked into the hallway. You pull the tactical knife from your belt and limp until you put yourself between them, knife against the wrist of the hand that refuses to let go. It separates from the forearm once she brings down her trusted crowbar on the bones and the severed appendage goes flying across the roof.
She shoves it into the weak lock-anchor, looking at you with an expression you can't decipher. You take her hand, endorphins running rampant through your veins.
You run.
Well, more of a desperate hop, but you're halfway across the space when you hear the door fly open and rolling into the chassis when they reach the edge. Sue pulls up hard and you go soaring into the sky, pressed down into the metal by gravity, but the chopper jerks and strains, refusing to go over a few feet into the air. The sick groan, just out of reach from their prize.
What's going on? Sue roars over the radio, her hidden hands flicking over switches and dials.
"The rope," Tina cries, glancing down, "it's still attached!"
A simple double loop, but no way Sue would be able to fly out of it by herself.
There's a dull indecision in the chassis as she hovers just over the tether, the last thing separating you from freedom. Trying to pull up might result in the whole bottom of the helicopter ripping off.
Something rustles. Rachel peers over the edge, hair falling into her face.
"Berry, get away from there," Quinn says tiredly, running her hands through her hair.
But she doesn't. She turns and smiles, lips quirking into a watery smile.
"It's been an honor surviving with all of you."
Before anyone has time to shout, she's slipped off the edge into the waiting arms of the zombies below.
Finn doesn't start screaming until the helicopter gives a great clunk, heaving a few feet into the sky. Rachel's gone down in a mass of frothing bodies, her shrieks unusually high-pitched, and it's impossible not to hear the squelch of ripping flesh. Quinn drags herself up over to the edge as you hover, rifle resting on the lip of the chassis, and holds her breath as she delivers a lead bullet straight between her eyes. Perfect shot.
(Her eyes glisten, but you don't say anything. You can't, not over Finn's crying.)
The mood is somber with Finn's soft sobs in the background, but with Santana's help you stand, refusing to kiss her until you know the taint is gone from your mouth. Almost immediately you droop into her body, winding your bloody arms around her neck, breathing in the scent of her body here and alive.
"I can't believe we did it," you murmur as the burning base retreats farther into the horizon. "We're out."
Your group is a little smaller than it used to be, a little more bruised and battered, but not broken.
"Yeah," she says hoarsely, but won't meet your gaze, choosing to just bury her face into your neck. Together you sway with the metal bird, the vibrations from the engines almost making it seem like she's crying.
Except, when she pulls away, your shoulder is damp with saltwater. You touch her jaw with a trembling hand to reveal the tears in her eyes.
"What?" you whisper, but she shakes your head. She wasn't that close with Artie, and especially not Rachel. Puck?
"It's nothing," she mutters back, wiping at her eyes with her wrist, but you catch it in your hand. She hisses, jerking away; the others are grieving in their own way, and you press her into a dark, silent corner. Nowhere to hide.
Under your stare, she pulls the sleeve of her jacket back to reveal a bite-mark, identical to your own, on the opposite arm; a deep, dark crescent moon still glistening with fresh blood. You go as white as new-fallen snow.
I can't lose you again, I can't.
(It goes for both of you now. You can only live if it's with her after you've spent so much time existing without. If this is love, it feels like dying all over again.)
She supports you as you slide down to sit, your feet dangling out of the helicopter. The sun burns in a beautiful array of color, but it's all been washed out into a monotone scale, bleeding out of the world as your blood drains from your face. The two of you watch it with your shared breath being ripped away by the wind.
"What now?" you ask, lacing your fingers between hers.
"I guess we find somewhere safe for you to stay, and then..." she trails off, pulling her pistol from her pocket. Her fingers tremble.
She refused to shoot you in the barn the first time. You won't be the one to pull the trigger now. "We made it," you choke out, "we were supposed to win. I... I thought we did."
Santana smiles, her shoulders hitching on a swallowed sob. "Maybe there aren't any winners here."
You're immune. You have to be able to do something. Your whole fucking life was a mistake, you should be able to do this one good thing for someone who deserves it far more than you. The hand not gripping onto hers bunches in the spare fabric of your pants, flinching back when something sharp pokes your palm.
Tentatively, you reach into your pocket. The thing your father guarded so closely rests in the cup of your hand; you bring it into her vision, and a flicker of hope comes back into those dark, dark eyes.
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
"Do you... do you want to keep it?"
If you could, you'd kiss her so fiercely she'd forget her own name. But your mouth still tastes like death and you can smell the fear inside her, next to the sick and the blood of her friends, how she looks away like she knows the answer. Now isn't the time for fire. A touch of your hand upon her temple, feather-light and reverent, brings her stare forward.
"I'd rather die with you."
Her hand curls around yours as the two of you press it deep into her thigh. The liquid drains in without fanfare, nary a hitched breath between you. You don't break gazes.
The sunset burns orange. It paints her in flames despite the frost, colours you would have never loved without her.
But I'll follow, no matter where it takes you, you think as you let Santana rest her head on your shoulder, becoming the haven she has been so many times for you, even into another life.
fin