Hey guys, sorry for the break in updating, I was in Scotland and then I was sick for a while too, Thanks for the continued support and feedback, I really appreciate it. Let me know what you think of this chapter, hopefully the next one will be up in a few days, although I can't make any promises. Anyway, enjoy.
"I don't care what you say Quinn! She's dangerous! Why is that so hard for you to see?"
Puck is still refusing to allow Rachel to come with us. He's furious with me and I'm just as frustrated with him. How can he be so narrow minded? Rachel is not a zombie, she's just lost most of her humanity and she's getting better.
"Puck! Would you please just look at her?"
"No Quinn, you look at her! How would you like to wake up and find everybody dead or changed because you let her stay with us? She is a monster by nature now, I don't care what you think about this so-called cure. I shouldn't have let you bring her this far, and I'm not letting her come any further with us, and if you want to stay with her, then do, but I never thought you'd be that stupid!"
Anger is building rapidly in my throat and I'm ready to let all hell loose from my mouth at him but Santana steps in. "Puck, leave, the heats getting to you, get ready to leave again, we can't stay here much longer."
"We're not bringing the zombie Santana!"
"She's not a zombie! And she has a name, you ass!" I shout back.
"Puck! Just go!" Santana snaps before changing her tone. She speaks to me with a solemn, low voice."Quinn, we need to talk."
I look at her with suspicious eyes, I know this tone, something is up. "You want to leave her behind too? Santana! You said you'd help me, you'd help her!"
"No Quinn, that's not it," She mumbles.
"Then what?"
"Rachel is," she pauses to breathe, "gone."
"What?" I ask. "Gone where? Tell her to come back. We have to leave now Santana!"
"No Quinn, I mean she's gone away, she left us," she shakes her head. "When you two were fighting, she began to head towards the trees. I caught up after her but she told me she had to leave, she didn't want to stay here anymore. She told me not to look for her. She said she couldn't take this anymore, she was really miserable."
"You're lying!" I hiss.
"Q, when have I lied to you? You have to believe me, I tried to hold on to her, and make her stay, but she pushed me away, onto the ground, that's why I'm covered in mud! She took off, and she was so fast Quinn, I just couldn't catch her."
I hear Santana's words, but it takes some minutes for them to actually make sense. I can't understand any of this. I know that Santana would never lie to me but this is just not right.
"No, why would she just leave? This doesn't make any sense! I'm going after her!" I pant.
"Quinn!" Santana shouts, alarmed but I'm already running past the countless trees, screaming out my girlfriend's name.
I feel my heart rate increasing as my feet hit the earthen ground below heavily with each hastened step I take through the dense wood. "Rachel! Where are you? We have to leave!"
"Quinn!" I hear a voice shout.
"Rachel?" I cry back, I keep running trying in the direction of the voice.
"Quinn come back to us!" The voice calls clearer this time, my face falls realizing it's not Rachel. I look behind and I see the others catching up on me. I quicken my pace, they want to take me out of here and leave Rachel behind, I can't let them do that. I need to find her.
I run and I don't stop, but neither do the group chasing me. I'm running so fast that everything around me is a blur, but where is Rachel? This wood isn't that big.
Suddenly, I see something in the distance. A figure.
"Rachel!" I shout. The figure turns towards me and all I can make out are her alarmed black eyes. She scrambles away and further into the trees.
"Rachel no!" I scream, continuing to run. I'm tired and almost out of breath but I'm so determined not to stop. Without warning, something catches my leg, and I fall to the ground face first.
Some hard, cold and sharp object hits me in the temple, making everything blurry. All I can do is look down at my right foot which has gotten caught up in some branch. My head is pounding from the hit and I can't find it in me to move out of place. The cries behind me are getting louder, I try to struggle free but I can't. I keep calling out her name with whatever breath I have left until everything fades away, and I am left in cold and lonely darkness.
"Ssh! She's waking up!"
I can't help but let out a groan as I regain consciousness. I reach my hand up to my forehead, to feel something cold and wet bound tightly around my head.
"Quinn?" somebody stammers nervously. I open my eyes to see Kurt above me.
"Santana," I croak. "Where's Santana?"
"I'm here Quinn," She calls back as she appears before me. "How's your head?"
"Santana, what happened?" I ask, wincing from the throbbing pain in my forehead. I know Santana will tell me the plain,straight truth. "Where is Rachel?"
She sighs sadly. "You fell and hit your head on a rock. It was bleeding really badly. You passed out."
"Santana, I want to know where she is!"
"Quinn, I'm sorry, we couldn't find her, I tried waking you up but it was getting late. You've been out for almost four hours."
"Where are we now?" I demand.
"I'm not really sure, it's some type of old house, but it's really small and creepy, we're not sure how far away we are from the border, we were driving for about two hours when we said we should pull in for the night, especially because you were unconscious."
"Two hours? Santana, I have to go back! I have to find her!"
"Quinn," she whispers, she grabs me firmly by the shoulder. "You can't. Rachel could be anywhere by now, plus it's getting dark, it's too dangerous out there. We left the other car behind, we figured it was faster with just one, you can't take the truck or we'll all be stuck here."
"No this isn't fair!" I cry angrily. "I need to find her!"
"Quinn, please, this is what Rachel wanted, she left on her own will, I'm sure she did it to protect you, she couldn't stay around us forever, she moves at different times to us, she can't tolerate the heat and her diet is not the same, it was only logical that she left but I am she wants you to keep going," Santana whispers quietly in my ear, I can see that the other bystanders,Puck, Kurt, Blaine and Brittany are all looking at me anxiously.
I bury my head in her shoulder and let my endless tears soak the shoulder of her shirt. "No, no, I can't keep going! Not without Rachel. Santana, I can't lose her again."
"It'll be ok Quinn," she sighs. "In time."
I try to compose myself, I must look so pathetic, crying while they look on with pity. "I need some space," I state in a bitter tone.
"Come on guys, let's give her a few minutes," Blaine says to the others. I feel Santana watching me with regard.
"Santana, come on," Blaine beckons as the five of them leave the room, closing the door gently behind them.
I feel, even for just a minute, that I can breathe. I need this space to try to make sense of all this, though I'm fully aware that the others are probably standing right outside the door. Shaking, I stand up, the wooden floorboards creak beneath my feet. The room is dark and the only light source is some candles which stand on a small table beside the falling apart sofa which I was lying on. The one window in the room has been boarded up with rotting planks of wood with small cracks in between and the whole room carries a damp and rotting stench. This place is really falling apart.
How could Rachel leave us? Everything was going so well, we were going to get her to Canada and then that one small incident with Carol happened. That must have been it. Santana said she was miserable as she left, that she was desperate to get away from us. But couldn't she understand that the cure was spreading? That she was getting better?
I feel worse now than I did before she found us. I took a risk by deciding not to kill her, it just happened to turn out for the better, well at first.
I watched her sleeping peacefully, taking large heavy breaths. The bleeding had stopped and the fall of drops was replaced by my tears. My Rachel was slipping away from me, I only had moments before she woke up as a zombie but my grip on the gun was slipping. How could I put a bullet through something so perfect? How could I take all this away from the world? Rachel could never be a monster, no matter how much of the virus filled her body. She was my Rachel, she would never be anything but perfect.
From the beginning, I believed if humans could create this virus they could surely destroy it. There was a cure out there somewhere, whether it was in progress or complete. If there was, Rachel could be cured as a zombie but if I shot Rachel then, that was it. The end. No return, no chance of living again. I had to take the risk. I admit it was selfish but I couldn't give up on her, not yet, even as she lay like this, the virus running through her veins. The promise I had made to her was just one I couldn't keep. I put the gun back in my pocket and I placed a kiss on her lips. I left her there, as she slept peacefully and perfectly, like an angel.
I made the decision on Rachel's life that day and when she showed up it seemed like the right decision, but from what Santana told me about Rachel's departure, maybe I was wrong. I never wanted Rachel to be unhappy. Making her live like this, in between humanity and darkness, to have to live and feed like other zombies but still have some human conscience. Only now do i realize how awful that must be. Rachel has to live like that and it's all my fault.
I stare out a crack in the wooden boards, in the darkness I can just about make out one lonely, flowerless wilting rosebush being hit by gusts of wind on the front lawn, it shows no signs of petals or color. I can't stop looking at it, and that's when it occurs to me, I am just like that rosebush, miserable, cold and alone.
