Shelter
Part One
Chapter Eight: It's Not That Easy

Ships: Brittana with Sam/Brittany, Santofsky, Puck/Brittany, Quinntana friendships. Very minor Quick.
Summary: The only thing worse than being reaped is volunteering for someone you love. Because then they have something to use against you. Brittany and Santana learn that the hard way.
Other: This is a Hunger Games AU. Every chapter will be named after a line from a Glee song with contextual or sometimes more literal relevance to the chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or The Hunger Games.

Author's Note: I'm really sorry that the updates are slowing down, but my semester is definitely harder than my last. I just have a lot less time to do anything, including write. I'm trying to write as often as I can, but it's tough with the courses I'm juggling. Anyways, I figure better late than never, so here's chapter eight.

Santana watched as Brittany walked out of the small room, struggling with how her new heels felt on her feet. She smiled fondly, remembering how Brittany loved to walk barefoot whenever she could and how her mother would scold her and tell her that she would hurt herself. She suddenly thought of where Brittany was headed and became very nervous. She prayed that Brittany would only listen to what she had said. The last thing that she needed were any sleazy rich sponsors and Santana prayed that she wouldn't try to get any.

She was broken out of her daydream when she heard a high-pitched squeal that sounded like a pig being slaughtered. She stayed quiet and looked around the room, hoping to locate the source of the noise. The sound didn't come again, so Santana cautiously stepped out of the room and into the hall. She turned her head to the right and saw Puck talking to a balding business executive named Sandy Ryerson. She narrowed her eyes in disgust when Sandy placed his hand on Puck's hand and let out the fakest laugh she had ever seen. She saw a flash of dark red in the corner of her right eye and she darted her head to her right. With a squeal identical to the one she had heard minutes before and the short red haired boy jumped in fear.

"Jacob!" she cried out. She glanced down at the small handheld camera in his hand pointed inside the room. "What the f- How long have you been here?"

"L-long enough to know that you told someone has a little crush on their blondie Tribute," he stuttered at first but soon gained confidence when he saw that Santana's eyes widened and mouth narrowed into a thin line. He recognized her fear immediately. "Just wait until the good citizens of the Capitol hear about this."

"No, you can't," Santana tried to say forcefully, but it came out weak and strangled. "Please don't."

"It's my duty as a journalist to tell the people what they want to know," Jacob said, his scratchy voice sounding dignified. "And the people will definitely want to know this."

"Jacob," Santana pleaded with him. "Come on, don't."

"This is good stuff. A Mentor and Tribute affair. I don't see why you're so defensive over this one," Jacob raised an eyebrow. "You've never had a problem with your exploits being public before."

Santana's stature immediately changed when she saw him challenging her. Her eyes darkened and narrowed at the same time. Her teeth were grinding together, almost audibly and she put her hands on her waist. The change in her face was almost animalistic.

"Do you know who I am?" Santana challenged and Jacob took a step back and gulped. "I'm Santana fucking Lopez and I will rip your fucking-"

"Whoa, back off!"

Puck stuck his arms out in front of Santana and pushed her back into the room. Santana was seething as the muscular boy pulled her into the room and kept his arms wrapped tightly around her like a vice grip. She struggled in his arms, now waving her arms and legs violently at Jacob who smirked at her before scurrying off. Puck shut the door and released his grip on Santana.

"What the fuck?" Santana shouted at Puck. "Get your hands off of me, Puckerman."

"Chill!" he put his hands up, showing that he didn't mean to harm her. He stepped back, leaving about a metre of space between them. "Who was that guy anyway?"

"Jacob Ben Israel," Santana grumbled and crossed her arms over her chest. "He's a slime-bag reporter and he was recording me and Brittany talking."

"Oh shit," Puck mumbled, with a guilty look on his face. "I didn't know."

"Whatever. I'll deal with him later; it's fine," Santana pushed the hair out of her face. It wasn't really fine.

"Okay," Puck said, still uneasy. "Look, I was thinking about what you offered this morning."

"And?" Santana was suddenly interested. She crossed over her arms and leaned on one leg.

"I'm not doing it. Dave thinks I have a lot of potential and so does the interviewer guy and I just talked to this awesome guy Sandy who just off-" Puck began listing off the reasons when Santana held a hand up in from of him.

"Okay, let me stop you right there. Sandy Ryerson," she raised an eyebrow. "Is a predatory gay. I saw him feeling up your bicep out in the hall."

"He's just a nice guy," Puck defended, his cheeks flushing pink as his own suspicions were proven correct. "Whatever. He's offering to sponsor me so why should I care? I can win this thing with his help."

"Don't you want to see your baby?"

"Are you threatening my child?" Puck stepped toward Santana, challenging her.

"Fuck, no. I love Quinn, okay," Santana said exasperatedly. "I just… If you win, you're probably never going to see your kid. If you make this deal with me, then I can at least guarantee that you will."

"What? That doesn't even make sense," Puck said, frustrated.

Santana sighed deeply and rubbed at her temples. She knew what she had to do, but she wasn't sure that she wanted to do it. She had been put in this dilemma often, lately. But she knew that the only way to get Puck to really trust her, would be to tell him the cold hard truth. She hadn't ever told anyone before. Quinn knew, but Santana didn't tell her, but besides her no one else knew the truth.

"Do you know what happened to my parents?" Santana began slowly.

"Yeah," Puck nodded, not seeing the point that Santana was trying to prove. "Everyone knows. Your parents were out on the boat and they capsized."

"No," Santana shook her head, laughing bitterly. "Someone did something to their boat because I chose not to co-operate with what the Capitol wanted."

"What? No, it was on the news. They capsized," Puck shook his head and restated his previous statement.

"You think two people from our district, let alone a fisherman and his wife would drown at sea? Really, do you?"

Santana could feel her throat choking up and cleared her throat. It had been months since she last pushed the thought of her parents out of her mind and like always, thinking of them was painful, almost unbearably so.

"That doesn't make sense. Why would anyone do that? Just because you didn't do something?" Puck furrowed his eyebrows.

"They wanted me to do something that I didn't want to do," Santana told him. "And if you win, they're going to try to get you to do it and when you don't, because trust me, you won't, they'll make you."

"Make me?" Puck was confused and intrigued, simultaneously. "How?"

"They'll go for your mom and sister first and they'll keep going until there's no one left you care about," The words started spilling out her mouth and once she started, she couldn't stop. She needed to do this. "If you think that they'll think twice about killing the Mayor's daughter, you're wrong. If you think they'll think twice about killing a baby, you're wrong again."

"You're lying," Puck spat, angrily.

"I'm not fucking lying," Santana spat back. "It fucking happened to me."

"Well, I can protect them," Puck countered. He was strong enough to protect his family. "That's my family. I will protect them."

"If you really love them, they're better off without you."

"Just because my dad was a tool, doesn't mean shit. I'll be a good father." Puck barked.

"That's not what I mean. I just mean that the only way you can protect them is if they don't need anything to be protected from."

Santana knew that she was allowing her emotions to get the best of her, but she couldn't help herself. She was pretty sure that Puck had caught on to her little slip up, because reading his diagnostic file proved that he was probably just as perceptive as she remembered him to be. There was a change in his facial expression after a few seconds of blank stares and she knew that he knew.

"That's why you stopped talking to Brittany," Puck acknowledged. Santana's lack of an answer was confirmation enough for him.

"They killed them while I was on the train home," Santana lamented. She didn't want to tell him, but she needed to. "And when I found out, I knew it wasn't an accident so I did what I needed to do."

"So you just ignored Brittany and then they didn't go after her? That's seems so simple."

"It's not. If you survive these Games, you're their pawn. You're going to end up doing what they want you to do anyway so you just shouldn't argue," They both knew she discovered that the hard way, but left the statement open. "Staying away was just a precaution. I couldn't risk anything."

"What did they make you do?"

Santana ignored his question.

"If you help her survive, I'll make sure you'll get to see your baby and I'll make sure your baby knows who you are," she ensured him, putting on a comforting voice.

"How is that even going to work? Is that even allowed?" Puck's voice was scratchier at that point and Santana recognized that he was becoming teary-eyed. She chose not to acknowledge it though, because she knew that he was just as proud as she was.

"Anything is allowed. And I'll make sure it happens. Quinn means a lot to me, too. I'll make sure that it happens for you and her." Santana said. "You know, sometimes you do things for the people you care about even if it hurts you."

Santana could see the metaphorical cogs turning in Puck's head. He was weighing the pros and cons and possible things that could go wrong with trusting Santana. When he looked back up at her, tears were shining in his eyes freely and Santana knew his answer before he had a chance to vocalize it.

"Okay,"

His answer was reluctant, uneasy and distrustful, but it was an answer that she was looking for. She nodded and pressed her lips together in a thin tight line before averting her gaze from him to the television screen in front of her. She watched as Brittany seemed to float onto the screen and waved at the audience in a shy yet sweet way. She felt the edges of her lips turn up in a slight smile. Her plan was set in motion.

The curtains of Santana's room were open and although it was past midnight, the night sky was littered with bright colourful lights. The people of the Capitol never slept. The interviews and introductions to the Tributes had just ended and surely now, the businessmen were selling other people's souls and the younger people were out wasting the night away on pills and alcohol.

She was standing behind the huge window that overlooked a particularly busy area of the Capitol. Her cell phone was in her hand and her eyes were on the LCD screen of the phone. She kept pressing her fingers against the touch screen to call a certain contact but then pressing the back button right before the call went through. She was afraid.

Her mind jumped to the words that she had said to Puck earlier that day when trying to convince him to basically die for Brittany and his family. Sometimes you do things for the people you care about even if it hurts you, she had said. Her words now drew chills up her slender back, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand and goosebumps appear on her smooth, tanned arms. In no way did she want to do this. But she needed to.

She pressed down forcefully on the touch screen and raised her cell phone to her ear. She felt her pulse quickening as the call went through. After the second ring, a man answered the other line, out of breath and almost like he had ran to answer her call.

"It's me," she spoke into the phone.

"What can I do for you on this fine evening?" the man asked in a sleazy and low tone.

"I need you to get rid of whatever Jacob Ben Israel has on me," Santana asserted as she kept her eyes on a blinking light in a building straight ahead of her.

"Of course," she could practically her the grin on his face. "Anything else, my dear?"

"Sponsor Brittany Pierce. Don't make a spectacle of it, but during the Games, send her whatever she needs," Santana rattled off immediately. She knew she was asking for a lot, but she was counting on him.

"Why should I do that?" the man inquired. "She has no shot of winning."

"Because," Santana shut her eyes and gritted her teeth. Her next words were going to be physically painful for her to say. "I'll make it worth your while."

The man on the phone didn't say anything but Santana didn't need the sound of his heavy breathing to know that he was still on the line and considering her offer. She heard him inhale sharply before exhaling again. This was it.

"It's a deal."

The line went dead.

Santana stood in the small room in the Training Center, sorting out weapons for Puck and for Brittany. Today was the morning of their second training session and first full one, and it would be the first time she would see Brittany since her interviews the week before. She was content because Brittany actually listened to what she had said. She had been really quiet and shy and awkward in her interview, just giving one word answers and not joking around or anything like the others did.

Honestly, Santana was doubtful that Brittany would obey her. She had thought that Brittany would react like Puck and see sponsors as necessary for her survival in the Games, but she was glad that she hadn't. Now everyone would leave her alone.

Mags slipped into the room silently and waved a quiet hello to Santana, who just nodded her head in acknowledgement. She sat on the single chair by the table that Santana had unleashed her anger on the day before and pulled a book from her handbag. She folded one leg over the other and began to read in her own little world.

When Dave walked in the room in his matching synthetic suit, he goofily grinned at Santana and tossed a bright blue folder over to her and then to Mags. She looked at it and flipped through the papers it contained, curious to see what Dave had chosen for their first real lesson. Kill strikes, she noted as she flipped through familiar looking pages of curved knives and diagrams of pressure points on the human anatomy. Her stomach lurched thinking about the impending next two hours and how it would affect Brittany. Brittany could hardly stand to eat a fish if she saw it being caught. How could she possibly kill someone?

"Are you sure it's a good idea to start off will kill strikes?" Santana carefully planted the doubt in Dave's head. She moved closer towards Dave and leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. "I'm just saying because we hardly got anything done last time."

"And who's fault was that?" Dave retorted. "You know that no one likes the first few minutes of this lesson, but you know better than anyone how fun it could be."

"I got carried away," Santana scoffed. "And that was our fourth session. I just think we should wait until we know them better."

"What's this really about?" Mags inquired. "From what I've noticed, you seem to know them pretty well."

"Look, it doesn't matter because we're prepared for kill strikes and they're here now so there's no turning back," Dave ended the conversation as the Tributes toed into the room, evidently nervous because of the previous day's session.

"Welcome, Tributes. Today, you will be taught about kill strikes." Mags announced after Dave and Santana didn't take the lead.

She nodded to Dave, signalling an action and he nodded back before leaving the room. He returned shortly with a life-sized human replica. Santana recognized it immediately as their usual training models and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand. The lifelike form always seemed to creep her out. Mags looked to Santana expectantly and Santana moved from her position on the wall and walked toward the table. She picked up a leather sheath and pulled the weapon from inside.

Brittany's big blue eyes seemed to widen to twice their size when she saw the knife. It's blade was about six inches long and two inches wide. One edge was smoothed and straight and the other was curved and jagged messily. It was Santana's weapon of choice and the one that she had used in the arena. She sauntered over to the immediate left of the training dummy and held her knife to face level.

"Kill strikes are points on the body that, if you stab or slash hard enough, will kill your enemy within minutes or even. I'm going to show a few examples and then we'll teach you the proper techniques for each," Santana stepped behind the dummy and grabbed it by its neck, making it lean back onto her. She took the knife and drove upward into the dummy's torso, between ribs. She looked over the shoulder of the dummy and saw Brittany and Puck both jump in surprise.

"Through the ribs and up," Dave explained. "It'll puncture a lung and maybe, if you're lucky, hit the heart."

Brittany's faced turned stark white as she watched Santana yank the knife out of the dummy's torso and move to the front of the dummy.

"A quick slash around the neck," Dave said as Santana traced a line from one side of the neck to the other. "Will cut open the carotid artery and the jugular vein. It's not an instant kill, but they're not going anywhere, trust me."

Santana wiped her knife off on her leg, although it was so clean that it was shining and Brittany cringed. She watched in horror as Santana stabbed the lower torso of the figure, jerked sideways, twisting the knife, and pulled it out horizontally.

"That'll release bile into the anatomy. It seriously fucks shit up."

It was alarming to Brittany and even to Puck how nonchalant Dave was being about everything. They were practically watching Santana tear apart someone. Although she was just demonstrating on the dummy, her face didn't change as she repeatedly stabbed it. She wasn't bothered by it at all and judging by the fact that she didn't even break a sweat, she wasn't doing half of what she was capable of.

"And the last one we'll be covering today," Dave drawled off.

Santana walked behind the dummy again and bent down slightly. She slashed a diagonal line in its upper thigh and slightly twisted the knife as she dragged it through the fake body.

"Femoral artery slash. It'll kill your target in about three minutes tops."

Santana calmly slid her knife against her leg again before sheathing it once more and sliding into her belt.

"I'm going to go and get your dummies," Mags said, rubbing her hands together. "Santana will provide with a few weapons to see which ones you fare best with."

Santana watched as Brittany and Puck reluctantly walked over to her. Her eyes flickered to Brittany's lower lip, which was trembling ever so slightly. Brittany saw that Santana noticed it and immediately drew it between her teeth. Santana sighed because she had told Dave that neither of the pair was ready for this. She looked past the various knives on the table and rested her eyes on the rubber training knives. She held out a long rubber knife that looked like a machete to Puck and one that was similar in size to her own to Brittany.

"We'll start with these," Santana said and Puck let out a deep breath and reached forward, taking the fake weapon in his hand.

Brittany, however, didn't move. Her eyes were glued on Santana's sheathed knife. Santana followed her line of sight and nervously tilted her body to the side. She quickly glanced at Brittany's hands and saw that her fingers were shaking. She looked up into Brittany's blue eyes and saw that tears were beginning to form. She looked up at Mags, who was talking to Puck, and Dave, who was setting up the dummies on two sides of the room.

"Brittany," Santana trailed off. "Do you want to maybe do something else today?"

Brittany nodded and her unshed tears fell to the ground in large droplets. Santana put the fake knife back with the rest and took Brittany's hand in hers. She felt the quickening pulse beating through Brittany's body and rubbed her thumb along the back of Brittany's hand comfortingly.

"Okay," Santana whispered in a barely audible yet tender voice. "It's okay. We'll do something else."

She grasped Brittany's hand tighter and led her out of the room, ignoring Mags calls and Dave's questioning glances. She knew she probably shouldn't have done it, considering Mags and Dave's ever-growing curiosity, Jacob Ben Israel's sudden interest in Brittany, and Will Schuester habit of 'checking up on her', but she didn't care. When she heard Brittany stop sniffling and tighten the firm hold that Santana had on her, all the doubts flew out of Santana's head and she continued to lead her away.

This chapter was kind of short compared to the last, but I'd still love to know what you all think. Also, I was messaging one reader and we started talking about the meaning of the story's title. I want to know is where you think the title comes from, besides the awesome song by the xx. Thanks to my anonymous reviewers, Mackie92, from-me-to-you-ale, and Youhoo.

PS- If Google really tracks your search history, I'm going to have a tough time explaining "places to stab for instant death".