The bike skidded to a halt outside the warehouse and Rachel jumped off, sprinting towards the door before Cara had even had a chance to react.
"Rachel, wait!" She heard the redhead call from behind her. She ignored her and banged on the door, yelling at whoever was behind it to hurry up. "Rachel!" Cara said again, grabbing her arm and spinning her round. "Please, you need to…"
"What I need is to get Shelby to get her people off their asses and get back there now!" Rachel yelled, slapping her hand away. "We left them there, Cara! We just left them!"
"We didn't have a choice!" The girl replied as the door flew open. Rachel pushed the protesting guard out of the way and stormed into the building, leaving Cara to deal with his ranting and stop him from chasing after her.
She flew down the corridor and barged through Shelby's door without knocking, then slid to a stop as she took in the scene before her.
"What the fuck is this?" She hissed, her hands instantly clenching into fists.
"Rachel, wait…" Shelby held her hands up in front of her, her eyes flicking to the man standing with her.
"What the fuck is he doing here, Shelby?" Rachel yelled. "Have you been playing us this whole time?"
"Rachel, calm down, let me explain…"
"Don't fucking tell me to calm down, Shelby!" Rachel screamed, advancing towards her. "You're standing here with the person who betrayed us! He told Sue where we were and now she has Santana and Puck!"
"Actually…" Sebastian started, only to be cut off by Shelby holding up her hand.
"She has Santana and Puck?" Shelby asked. "What happened? Where's Jesse?"
"Jesse is dead, Shelby!" Rachel slammed her hands down on the table as Shelby sunk down into her chair, head in her hands. "It was a trap, alright? Your 'source' was lying to you to draw you in! Where did this information really come from, huh? Was it him?" She pointed at Sebastian, her hand shaking with rage.
"I didn't betray you, Rachel." Sebastian said calmly.
"Bullshit!" Rachel spat back. "They told us you did!"
"No," He drawled with a slight shake of his head. "They told you that a man Santana went to see last week told Sue where she was."
"Yes! Which was you!"
"I am not the only person Santana went to see last week though, am I?" He smirked as Rachel paused in realisation. "Do you know who Martin Weyland is, Rachel?"
"No." She replied through gritted teeth, her hands once more clenching into fists. She wanted nothing more than to jump over the table and beat this smarmy asshole into the ground.
"He's a small time arms dealer, has his fingers in various different pies around town. The one that I would imagine will be the most lucrative, if he doesn't overstep his bounds, is a loose arrangement he has with a much more well connected Japanese dealer named Yutani. He has very strong ties with Sue Sylvester that Weyland didn't know about. He was very interested when Santana told him what she had seen." He folded his arms and cocked his head to the side. "Of course, she didn't realise that by giving him that piece of information she would also be giving him the key to discovering who she was and how he could get closer to Yutani and Sue."
"What are you talking about?"
"She told him what time she was there, Rachel. All he had to do was hack into Sue's feed and bingo, he sees Santana riding past the compound on her extremely conspicuous motorcycle."
"So what?" Rachel spat. "He'd already seen her in person, what difference would seeing her bike make?"
"None." Sebastian shrugged. "But seeing it on Sue Sylvester's security feed, along with the alert that someone riding past on a black Ducati Monster in a red leather jacket would obviously generate...well, even a low rent punk like Weyland is going to put a tail on whoever sparked that alert. Especially if they are standing in front of you and fit the physical description the alert details."
"Well, that all sounds extremely plausible and exactly like some bullshit story you would make up to get yourself off the hook." Rachel said, folding her arms in front of her, her mind in a spin.
"He's telling the truth, Rachel." Tina's voice said from behind her. She spun round, her eyes widening in shock as she saw not only Tina but Mike, Mercedes and Sam gathered in the doorway.
"What…? How?!" She spluttered in confusion.
"We went back for the others like we said." Tina explained. "When we told them what was happening they came back with us to help."
"Only when we got back you were gone and the gym was under surveillance." Mike finished.
"So how did you find us?" Rachel asked.
"Well, the guys watching weren't very discreet so we didn't stop, just kept going and tried to think where you would go." Tina said. "But then we noticed we had a tail and...well, long story short we did not manage to shake it and it turned out to be one of Sebastian's guys who told us he could take us to you."
"So here we are." Mercedes smiled at her sadly and walked forward to pull her into a hug. "It's good to see you, girl."
Rachel stood there for a few seconds unsure of what to do. Finally she brought her hands up and returned Mercedes hug stiffly.
"It's good to see you too." She sighed. "But I have to go. I need to go back and get her."
"Rachel, we came back to help you." Mercedes said, pulling back with a confused look on her face. "We will get them back but we need a plan."
"And we have one, but since you guys stormed in there and ruined it I will have to tweek a few things first. Namely, make sure they haven't discovered our source and killed him." Sebastian said sarcastically, leaning back over the table.
"Okay, see now the part where you think I am going anywhere or doing anything with you?" Rachel laughed, turning back round to glare at him. "That's the part where I am not interested. If you think for one second that I believe anything that comes out of your mouth…"
"Rachel.." Mercedes ran her hand gently up her back.
"No, Mercedes!" She wheeled round angrily. "We went to this guy for help and he wouldn't give it to us unless we gave him Blaine, do you understand that?" She whipped back around and jabbed her finger at Sebastian. "You could have stopped this, all of this, if you weren't such a self centered asshole! You could have helped us and instead Sue Sylvester has my girlfriend and my best friend and is doing God knows what to them as we speak, and Jesse is dead. Because of you."
"See, that's where you're wrong." Sebastian folded his arms and leaned against the wall. "I had every intention of helping you. Do you think I like living like this?"
Rachel scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"Ever since Sue Sylvester embarked on her reign of terror my life has been shit. I've gone from living in a mansion and doing whatever the fuck I want all day, every day, to living in a hovel and running skanky clubs filled with some of the most unattractive people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter." He shook his head. "If there was even a chance that you could get rid of her then I wanted to help you. But I needed time to make sure I could trust you and everyone in your group. I knew you wouldn't get me Blaine but it gave me time to dig into who you were working with and.."
"That is such bullshit!" Rachel yelled at him. "You know us, you know what we have been through! You asking us to get Blaine was your pathetic little power trip, just like back in high school."
"I have no idea who you are, Rachel." He replied calmly. "I knew you back in high school, sure. Back then you would do what was right. You would find the higher ground and whatever solution was morally right. You were way too trusting, you didn't play dirty, you didn't fight back. Even when Santana found a non violent solution to me blinding Blaine you wouldn't let her use it."
"So, what, because we are good people you didn't want to help us?"
"No, I needed to know that you weren't the naive schoolgirls I knew back in Lima." He spat. "Giving the information I had to those two girls would only have ended up one way, with both of you dead."
"Do you know what, I don't want to hear it. You don't get to make those kind of judgements over us, you misogynistic prick. You wanted us to get you Blaine because you've wanted to fuck him from the minute you laid eyes on him and you thought we were two pathetic little girls who would just give up and go home without you, leading you straight to him." Rachel slammed her hands down on the table and glared at him. "Well guess what, Sebastian? We are stronger and better than you will ever realise. I don't want, or need your help. I am going back in there, finding my girlfriend and ending this, and if I ever see you again I swear to God I will make you sorry ever thought me so weak."
With that Rachel turned on her heel and pushed through her friends into the corridor. She stormed down the hallway towards her room, her mind twisting and turning, trying to come up with any kind of plan to get her into Sue's compound unnoticed. She banged through the door into her room and looked about. The sheets on the bed were still rumpled and she slammed her eyes shut at the memory of lying there wrapped up in Santana's arms hours earlier. Her heart began to race with fear as she imagined what was happening to her now. Was she hurt? Or worse? She couldn't stay here, she needed to go back. She turned towards the door and was reaching out to open it when it shot open and Tina came marching in closely followed by Mercedes.
"Rachel, you need to stop." Tina said, holding her hands up in front of her.
"No, I need to go and help my girlfriend so get out of my way."
"You need to calm down is what you need to do." Mercedes snapped back, blocking her exit from the room.
"Why does everyone keep telling me to calm down?" Rachel yelled. "Do none of you understand where Santana is? What they're doing to her?"
"Of course we do, Rachel, and we want to help her and Puck just as much as you do but this isn't the way!" Tina replied.
"Then what is, Tina? Blindly following that twisted, lying sack of shit in there?"
"He's not lying, Rachel!" Mercedes tried.
"How the fuck would you know, Mercedes?" Rachel snapped at her. "You've been back two minutes! You have no idea what we've been through!"
"You're right, I don't. But I know what I've been through, and what we all went through in Lima." She squared up to her, hands on hips. "I may not have been here with you, Rachel, but that doesn't mean I haven't suffered. Kurt and Finn were my friends too. Santana and Puck are my friends too."
Rachel scoffed and rolled her eyes at her but her words hit home and she flopped down into the chair, some of her rage dissipating and sadness and fear weighing down on her.
"What happened to you Rachel?" Mercedes asked quietly.
"Are you serious?" Rachel glared at her.
"I get that you're hurting and I know what you've been through, but you're like a different person."
"Because I have to be!" She yelled. "You know what's at stake here."
"Of course I do, and that's precisely why we need you to be you!" Mercedes shot back. "Back in Lima you were our leader, you made the plans, you kept us calm, you got it done. But now it's like 'tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the role of Santana Lopez will be played by Miss Rachel Berry.'"
"Fuck you, Mercedes." Rachel stood up and squared up to her. "Don't you dare…"
"Hey, I'm not saying Santana is a bad person, or leader for that matter." Mercedes held her hands up. "I love Santana, you know that. She's just not you and right now we need you to be you. She needs you to be you."
"Rachel, please listen to us." Tina begged. "They need us and they're running out of time, but you need to get it together first."
Rachel stared at them in anger, her whole body tense, and then suddenly the truth of their words hit her and the grief and fear washed through her.
"I don't know what to do." She cried, sinking back down into the chair. "I'm so scared for them and I don't know what to do."
"And that's alright." Tina said gently, dropping down in front of her and taking her hands. "Because we're here now and we're going to help."
"We'll get through this Rachel." Mercedes said, putting her hand gently on her shoulder. "We'll get them back."