The Ravage
Sam called Tina to let her know that he was coming to the Magic Mirror. She wondered what the problem was, immediately worried that some other tragedy had befallen their family. "I don't know if we can trust everyone, but I believe that I can trust you with everything."
"You don't know if we can trust everyone? Sam, these are people that I've known my entire life I don't easily trust anyone, and I trust every single person involved in what we're doing, right now."
"I don't. I think that Emma has surveillance in her bed and breakfast and I think that the enemy has access to that surveillance," Sam said, straight up.
"Emma," Tina repeated, incredulously. "Sam, I would have been more convinced if you said Quinn, than Emma. I would've even doubted myself if you called me a rat than for you to accuse Emma. God, that's a bold statement and the implications would make Emma a part of what killed Puck and my sister. Is that really what you're meaning to imply to me, right now?"
Sam took a deep breath and said, "Emma is Will Schuester's younger sister. They have the same father, were born a few months apart, and raised up with each other. They've known since high school that their parents had an affair. Emma told me before we began brainstorming, right in front of her, and spilling everything. Think about it… has anyone ever actually gone after your sister? But, suddenly, after you told me what you did, she's targeted. Puck had been untouched throughout everything, but suddenly – when Mercy and I have a tiff about how much he means to her and I keep kinda harping on it, he ends up dead from mysterious alcohol, laced with drugs…"
"Sam… the only person who was actually around for every single thing indicated here, besides me was you," Tina said. "Oh my God… How could I have been so stupid?"
"What are you saying, T?" Sam asked. Tina sounded like she was accusing…
"It's YOU!" She squealed.
"Tina, why would I be the one? I'm being targeted!" He practically yelled, getting into the van.
"By who? Who, besides Matt Rutherford has actually reached out and tried to do you any kind of harm, Sam?" Sam heard the crying in her voice.
"Tina, just give me a chance to reach you and I'll explain everything and why I'm following the train of thought that I'm following. You could be in very real danger of being in a great deal of trouble!" Sam said, putting the phone on his shoulder so that he could drive.
"There is no way that Emma would do anything to hurt any of us! But, we already know that you are capable of it, and why would you spare any of us? Why would you want to turn your back on the things you believed in so much that you are covered in tattoos? Do not come to the Magic Mirror. I don't want to see you," Tina fussed and hung up on him. Sam stared at the phone, in a state of shock. His next thought was to call Mercedes. That would be hard, because if Tina' s reaction was that way.. God only knew how Mercy would receive the idea. But, before he could dial out, a text came through, from Tina: Meet at Mercy's apartment in 20 minutes. I don't know where else is safe to talk. What if Magic Mirror has been bugged? I know that I'm paranoid – but, these people are clearly extreme. Delete this text.
Quinn and Santana both watched as Sam entered the building and marched towards the elevator. Quinn tilted her head and asked, "Where are you going?"
"Mercy's apartment," he said. Quinn stared at him, confused. Mercedes was not even in her apartment. She was still at Emma's as everyone was. But, within a few moments, Mercedes came into the building with Tina and Kurt, upset and fussing at them. Sam went to greet them and Tina shoved him aside. "Tina…"
"I don't want to hear another word of it, Sam!" Tina fussed.
Mercedes reached around for him, "Sam? Sam, where are you?" He grabbed her hand and she pulled him with her onto the elevator. "Tina, I'm not even trying to listen to this for one minute, but Sam has the right to defend himself against you!"
Quinn began to follow them, but Kurt put his hands on her shoulders and told her, "Now isn't the best time, but – I'll try to keep you posted." They knew that Quinn was sometimes a weak link, if not an absolute drama queen and she was going through enough trying to console her daughter through never seeing her daddy again. Quinn looked very sad, indeed. Tina began to lash out at Sam, on the elevator, as Mercedes defended him and Kurt got into the thing, asking everyone to please try to be calm…
"What. The. Hell?" Santana asked Quinn. "Did Tina just accuse Sam of being a spy?"
"I didn't hear a word," Quinn said, absentmindedly. She cleared her throat and turned around, flipping her short blond hair aside as she did. "Let's get back to work."
If Emma's place somehow was bugged, maybe others' places were too. Mercedes' apartment was probably the only place that it would have been impossible to get inside of, in the past month. Maybe even the shop itself had something inside. Tina was utterly paranoid. It was possible that none of those places had taps or bugs, or whatever; but she couldn't rest on a maybe. Tina set her purse down on the floor of the elevator, took Mercedes' tote bag and did the same. Kurt followed suit with his man purse.
When they got off of the elevator, Sam looked at Tina, still a bit confused as to what she was doing. "Emma's place may have had cameras or recorders inside of it," Tina said, frantically rubbing her arms. "Sam pointed out the fact that things that we discussed seem to have been targeted. It can't be coincidence that Mercy and Sam discuss how important Puck is to her and I talk about how important my sister is to me, then they both end up dead."
Mercedes sat down on her couch and reminded them, "We were in the bedroom when we discussed Puck and I don't remember you talking about Kim, at all."
"Sam and I talked about her, when you and Mike went on to bed without us," Tina admitted. "We had a very detailed and serious conversation, on the couch, about how much I care about her." Tina was shaking, now. "If they have that information, you guys…" She shook her head. Not only might she run the risk of being locked up, but what about the wrath of Paul Karofsky, to find that she was actually responsible for the death of his beloved son?
Sam said, "We have to confront Emma."
"Confront Emma?" Mercedes repeated. "You think that she might have known that there were cameras or whatever in her place, if that's even the case? No way, Sam. You have no proof and she has no motive. Why would she try to get us hurt or worse? Why would she want to try to stop us from getting rid of the people that are trying to do these things to us?"
Sam rubbed his face and said, "I thought that I was doing you a favor, by not telling you this, but Emma is closer to Schuester than you guys even thought. They're family."
Kurt smiled and said, "Yes, she told us, Sam. But, that doesn't mean that she's a part of his system. I mean, technically, Tina and Karofsky are family and Quinn and Russel Fabray."
"That's why we need to confront Emma. We need to get a reading of her and see if she stands up to our testing her. She's the sister of one of the highest up white supremacists in all of Ohio. Her partner is the ex wife of one of the most infamous soldiers for them. Several of you have been victimized by them, already. Did she tell you how she came to be so fond of most of you?"
Tina froze and asked, "What do you know?"
He sighed and said, "The main reason that most of you know Emma is because she had this habit of trying to take in victims of her brother and his friends' evil. Tina – your entire childhood was ruined by one of them, Quinn's abuse, what I did to Shane, and… Mercedes… Emma told me that your father worked for Will's father. The things that got him arrested, he didn't just set out to do them. He was propositioned to do them, and probably set up to get caught." Mercedes fell onto the couch with a flop. Her knees had given away. "So, technically, nearly every problem that you've had has stemmed from them, too."
"Why would you tell her that, Sam?" Kurt fussed and rushed over to Mercedes' side to hold her hand and rub her back.
"Because - we are not dealing with some pesky bully, Kurt. Those guys intend to kick the living sh*t out of us and they've began killing. They fight dirty and they use whatever they can., without any regard to anyone and we have to be prepared to face that, if we want to make it through this together." He rushed to kneel in front of Mercedes and took both of her hands into his. "Babydoll… this is going to be extremely emotional. I'm sure that they know your weaknesses… probably all of your weaknesses. Kim and Puck were just an introduction. Look at how easily they swept them away after doing what they did to them." He stood up and addressed the others, "They wanted us to believe that they can do whatever they want to us and to the people that we care about and not have to answer for it."
"I'm starting to believe them," Kurt said, sadly. "Sam, I don't know how I feel about any of this."
Sam said, "You have money. I strongly suggest that you leave town. It's not safe at Emma's. Don't tell anyone where you're going. You and Blaine just take some time to get away, to give me enough time to square things away." He pointed at Tina, "That goes double for you and Mike. You've lost enough to them."
Tina shuddered and nodded her head, "You're right. I think that it's best that I leave."
"If anyone asks you; you didn't trust me and thought you think that I'm gonna bring all of you down," Sam said.
"I know, Sam. That much was my idea," Tina said. "I don't know that I want to even hear anymore about Emma or any of it. I'm heading back to the house, then Mike and I are going to pack up and make ourselves scarce."
Sam warned, "They might try to lure you back in with something terrible."
Tina smiled sadly and said, "There is nothing worse that they can do to me. I still have Mike and I'm not going to lose him. Please, Sam… whatever you need to do – make them stop." Tears fell from her eyes and she got onto the elevator. When Tina rushed off of the elevator, she was crying and Quinn went to check on her.
"Tina, what is it?" She asked.
"It's Sam! He's… I don't trust him and I refuse to be anywhere near him!"
"Why? What did he do, Tina?" Quinn asked.
"I'm not convinced that he's not still with them. I don't know what his angle is, but I'm not going to stick around to find out!" She hurried out of the place, wondering if she should text Quinn to let her in on the loop, but it was more important for her to call Mike and make arrangements for the two of them to leave. The others would catch Quinn up to speed.
Quinn got onto the elevator and went up to the apartment to hear Sam and Kurt arguing and to see Mercedes, crying, on the couch. "We are stronger, together! We can't manage if we separate, Sam!"
"You'll all be fine! This way, the only person really in jeopardy is me! You just don't tell us where you're going and don't send anything that has an address on it. I don't know if they can check cell phone towers. They may have law enforcement on their side…"
"What the hell is going on?" Quinn asked.
Mercedes blurted out, "Sam thinks that Emma has her place bugged and that she's working with Will to undermine us." Quinn gave Sam a look of disgust and outrage.
"Quinn, you and Beth have any place that you can pack up and go to until I can get things handled?"
"Yes, but… what's this about Emma?" Quinn asked.
Kurt was crying, now, too. "There is no way that Emma would do anything to hurt any of us."
Sam said, "The biggest problem that we have is that if the place was bugged, the enemy KNOWS what we intend to try to do – to join up with Matt and to try to find out what it was that Rutherford had on Schuester. That's them knowing entirely too much and we have no idea if they've already started on an angle against us on Matt's end. That's why I'm meeting with him tomorrow."
"You need a wingman?" Mercedes asked, wiping her face.
"Got one, Babydoll. I don't want you anywhere near this while I know that there's probably a huge target on you, still. Joe's coming with, well – he's meeting me there." Sam told her. "Matt's going to come with Aphasia, and she thinks that after he's had a chance to get everything off of his chest that there might be a chance that he'll try to listen to some reason about Will Schuester and helping us to take him down. I've told her some of the details about what we think of Will and she's supposed to share it with him. After that, if what he wants to do is give me the hell for the rest of his everlasting years, I don't care. I'm ready."
"I'm not," Quinn said. "Look, Sam – I hate that Matt has brought all of this upon you. I'm not ready for any of this, and I'm not looking forward to being willing to die, or willing to lose. I'm not going to be able to do anything that puts my now fatherless daughter in the way of any danger."
"She's already in danger, Quinn…" Sam said.
"I have to take Beth somewhere that I know she'll be safe – away from all of this." Quinn took a deep breath and said, "I'll go stay with my sister and her husband. They don't keep in touch with my dad, and they live out of state. I have to think about Beth's safety." Quinn began crying, very hard. "Mercedes, I want you to come with me, please?"
Sam interrupted to say, "I was going to suggest that you leave immediately, but Mercy's not coming with you, Quinn. I understand that you want to take care of her. I fully understand it, but I need you to understand that this is my responsibility, now. You have a daughter to think of, as you said. Let me think of Mercy."
"If you were thinking of Mercy, you would let her come with me, where it's safe," Quinn blurted. She simply just could not deal with the thought of leaving Mercedes here and something happening to her, like it happened to Puck. Puck was supposed to come out better than before, and he didn't come out, at all! The f***ing world would crumble into dust for Quinn if anything EVER happened to Mercedes.
"I'm staying with Sam," Mercedes said.
"Mercedes," Quinn began.
"I'm grown, Quinn. I've made the choice. If I close the store, how will I sustain myself? You need the chance to get away and I'll have to run the shop. We'll have a guard here, like the Magic Mirror. I'll be fine." Mercedes reached both of her hands out and Quinn rushed to them to hug her, then quickly took off. She was going to gather Beth and their things up and leave, at once.
Tina simply could not resist confronting Emma, herself. If Sam was right, this woman was a willing instrument in trying to ruin her life – someone that she considered a role model and a friend, but had betrayed her. As far as she knew, there were no current tenants, besides she and her friends, for safety purposes and also because the cross burning made the news and people were hesitant about stopping in. Brittany would be at lunch, right now – probably gone. Lauren would probably be in her room, resting. The others were at work. Emma, if she was there, would be alone and either in the kitchen, reading, in her office, or out in the garden.
The kitchen was closest, so Tina went in and thought that she saw blood on the floor. There was definitely a thick red pool of something. She went to kneel down and was pretty sure that it was blood and not something else. There were drops of it heading to the office. She pulled out her knife and headed for the office. Maybe she should have gotten out of there, but at the time, she decided to check to see if Emma was alright, or if someone else was there. When she got into the office, she saw Emma, bleeding and reaching for her desk. Someone stood over her with a mask on, holding a knife.
Tina rushed at the assailant with her own weapon and he turned around just in time enough to swing his weapon at her. Tina leaned back, and avoided getting cut, but he'd tried to leave. Tina chased the masked stabber and threw herself at him, stabbing him in the neck as she landed on him. The man groaned and fell to the floor. Tina pulled the mask off of his face and said, "You're Thad! The guy who threatened Santana." He held the wound in his neck and bared his teeth at her, in pain. She kicked his knife out of his reach and began to call for help. When she hung up, she heard Emma call out to her in a weak voice.
"You go to see about her, you know that you lose me," he taunted.
"I have a feeling you won't get far, with your little wound," Tina said, with a satisfied grin. "I have a feeling that you might not make it to see tomorrow."
"You just love killing white men, don't you, chink-b*tch? Funny how none of them are him. And you know that they never will be. You'll never touch him or any of them!" He laughed, right in her face, like he wasn't the least bit concerned that he was injured and trapped. "We know about what you did to Dave and what you helped do to Jesse. I may fall today, but what they will do to your pre-med dreamboat should not even be put into words!"
Tina bent over and sliced the backs of both of his feet, right on the creases above his heels. Thad groaned and cussed at her, but she felt confident enough to check on Emma. "What happened?" She asked Emma, not wanting to touch her.
"The house. Will's had the house monitored. I didn't know, Tina. I swear. They expected Sam to come and find me. You all would have thought…" Emma paused as her eyes rolled around inside of her head. "Can you call Shannon?" Now, the softie in Tina came through and she bent down to try to see about Emma, "No, no! Don't touch me. I'm barely hanging on, here. I need you to stop Sam from going to see Matt."
"I can't do that," Tina said. Emma's voice was getting weaker as she tried to speak. "Stop wasting your energy," Tina commanded.
"They're watching. They're waiting. You don't understand. We were wrong…"
"Shh, Emma. You're bleeding to death!" Tina fussed.
"Mercedes was never the target. They wanted to…" She ran out of breath.
"Emma, please…"
"Call Shannon," Emma said.
"I will, now you just shut up!" Tina began to call the woman, for Emma and noticed that Thad was crawling away. She almost laughed, but wanted to try something, instead. Something she had been practicing – knife throwing. Just in case someone came after her and she couldn't get close enough to cut them. She threw the knife as he was reaching for the back door and it stabbed him right in the plush of his tight little butt. The man yelled out in pain and collapsed on the floor. Tina could hear the sirens of the ambulance, as Beiste was answering on the other line, "Something happened at the house. The ambulance is arriving now. It's Emma."
Sam was getting all kinds of calls and messages from his friends, but he turned the phone off and put it in his pocket, because they weren't going to distract him from what he aimed to do. Tina asked him to try to delay the meeting with Matt, when they were at the hospital, waiting on word about Emma. Their plans to try to make the enemy think that there was dissention in their midst as well as the plans for several of them to leave town were all misplaced when Emma was attacked.
She had bled significantly and was in critical condition. The doctors could not get her to awaken, and no one was really allowed to see her. However, they insisted upon staying at the hospital, especially to make sure no unwanted enemies came around. The police talked to Tina several times and she was quite nervous about the fact that she knew that somewhere was a tape of her confessing to helping Dave Karofsky kill himself.
Mike and she decided to leave, soon after they convened with the others in the waiting room. She couldn't get over what Thad said about something bad happening to Mike. They didn't even get most of their stuff when they took off. Quinn had already left with Beth. Mercedes, Kurt and Blaine stayed at the hospital, all night. Sam told them that the place should be safe. He was pleased that Tina had been there to catch Thad, because the thug was going to try to set things up to look like Sam had killed Emma… What motive they were going to plant or make up was beyond him, but he did know that there was nothing that would keep him from his appointment with Matt the next day.
Aphasia suggested that Sam bring flowers to the graveyard. Apparently, when Sam was released from prison, the same day – someone desecrated the graves of Matt's family members. Aphasia thought it would be nice of Sam to do something to pay his respects. Matt's dead family was his greatest weakness. Sam did not only get flowers for all of the graves, but he also arranged candles, brought along some other special things that he would share with Matt and said prayers, at the site, before any of the others got there. He looked into the sky and asked, "God, please have Your way with this meeting."
After a while, he saw Joe approaching, from the distance. When he reached the portion of the ground reserved for the Rutherford family, he said, "Sam, don't let your heart be troubled. God is in control." Sam reached out and gave Joe a hug. As he did, he could see Aphasia and Matt, walking up. Aphasia looked amazing. She had on a colorful dress, with a wide belt around her midsection and he thought she looked like she had make up on. Sam let go of Joe and watched the two arrive.
Matt came up to the site and said, "Step away from the grave." He pointed to a more appropriate place for Sam Evans to be. Sam obeyed, along with Joe and Matt threw down a small cushion, sat down on the cement and opened his computer bag. He began to pull out his computer and other things, while Aphasia simply found a spot a little ways away to stand. Joe walked over to join her. Matt was setting something up, but Sam didn't want to interrupt and possibly upset him. He would wait until Matt addressed him. Matt had been there all morning, wondering if Sam had something up his sleeve. He watched as Sam decorated each grave and said a prayer. He watched as Sam set up candles and lit them and looked up to the sky. That was around the time that he saw Aphasia getting out of her car and he walked over to her, from where he had been hiding.
Sam glanced at Aphasia and she turned her face away from him. He raised an eyebrow, confused, but was not so concerned that he didn't wonder what Matt was doing. Aphasia lowered her head. What the HELL was wrong with her? She thought about Sam, more than she should. It was like her mind couldn't separate him from this person who not only owned up to what he did, but tried to do something about it. She thought that she had been impressed by the fact that he had taken care of Jesse, shortly after speaking to her. It made her feel kind of special… Like he had done this thing for her, and the others – but he had not talked to or seen any of them, only her.
Now, he had listened to her suggestion to do something nice for the graves AND, he had shared information with her. He shared suspicions with her, just like he would a dear friend. Aphasia found herself thinking more and more about him all of the time and a truce between Matt and Sam was extremely important to her, because she wanted both of them happy… but she wanted more than anything, for Sam to be able to have a life.
When she saw the flier for the first time, she remembered being upset of the things that she read, but the thing that affected her the most were the insinuations that he had something going on with a black woman. Aphasia sometimes checked Matt's website, to read different things he was spouting off about. She mostly enjoyed the hate mail that was posted there. Matt was a terrible person, as far as she was concerned, having the nerve to attack other people for their injustices when she watched him embrace Jesse St. James for years. But she became increasingly interested in the things that he would post about Sam Evans and she knew that if she wanted to learn more, she would have to reach Matt. She simply had no idea that she would look inside of Matt and find an actual person… and a good person.
Her heart loved that person and wanted to know everything about him. Her heart wanted that person inside of it, but her heart also seemed to want to reserve a place for Sam Evans – a place that even the person who she was spending most of her time getting to know was not going to take. Aphasia sighed and went to stoop next to Matt, "Hey… you gonna start soon?"
"I'm waiting," he said and looked next to him. His sister was there, she was still soaked in blood, but she looked more like herself. Matt had realized that he hardly ever looked at her photos, the videos, and things that she made for him. He realized that over the years, he had forgotten what she actually looked like. He could remember a girl, but his memory had been toying with him. When he looked at the video of her, he could not remember her ever looking so pretty, ever looking so bright! Had she always been that way? Or did she become more beautiful when he could no longer tell her how proud of her he was? Did she become more talented when she no longer had the chance to become a star? "I'm waiting for him to come over here and look at this," Matt said.
He looked up at Sam, making eye contact with him for the first time ever. God, he looked so incredibly different. Matt realized that whenever he looked at Sam, he didn't generally see this man standing in front of him, either. He saw the teenager with the shaved head who was constantly being admonished by teachers for not covering his offensive tattoos when he came to school, and being either sent home or forced to put on an overshirt. Since then, he had only seen him from afar and could not look at him for very long without becoming nauseous with anger. Joe gave Sam a little push and Sam went to sit on the concrete, next to Matt. "Before you say anything, I just want you to see this. I actually made it just for you, and I'm going to give you your copy." Sam took a swallow and nodded his head. Lord only knew what Matt was about to show him, but he had already prayed about this day.
When the screen read: Remembering the Rutherfords, and Sam heard the music to The Living Years by Mike+ the Mechanics… he already knew that this would be difficult. But, he determined not to look away and to make sure that he would try to listen to whatever Matt would say.