Chapter 5

One Week Later

Santana's POV

We're out at the mall shopping for Beth's party. Quinn called a couple days after we met and said that Beth insisted on inviting the twins to her party. It's a princess theme, so the kids have to dress up as princes and princesses.

"How about this one Callie?" I show her the green dress and she shakes her head immediately.

"No mami, I want a pink dress! And a tiara! And a wand!"

"Okay mija. Calm down, we'll get your pink dress, with a tiara and a wand." Costa is standing next me, looking down at his feet. "Don't you want to pick out your prince costume mijo?"

"No." He answers quietly.

"Why not? Don't you want to go to the party? There will be cake." I say with a wink as I nudge his shoulder.

"I don't wanna be a prince." He pouts and crosses his arms.

"Oh. Well do you wanna be a princess?"

"Mami, boys can't be princesses!" Callie tells me with what I think is supposed to be a stern look on her face.

"I don't wanna be a princess." Costa says making a face at Callie. "I wanna be a knight so I can protect the queen."

"Baby, you don't have to worry about protecting anyone. It's going to be a party and everyone is going to have fun." I tell him.

"I wanna be a knight mami." He says, giving me puppy eyes.

"Okay, okay. Let's go get your armor."

"And a sword!" He yells enthusiastically.

Once I bought their costumes and Beth's gift we headed to the diner near the motel we've been staying in. I grab one of the newspapers and we find a booth near the back. I let out a sigh of relief as I sit down. The few hours we spent at the mall took a lot out of me.

I was looking through the real estate section of the newspaper and Costa and Callie were coloring their kid's menu while we waited for our food. A little while later, we were enjoying our food and I was still circling places to check out.

Suddenly someone placed their hands on the table. By the size of them, I assumed they belonged to a large man. I look up slowly to see a man looking down at me.

"I've been seeing you around quite a bit babe." He says reaching over to touch my arm. I flinch and take a breath to calm my nerves but I nearly vomit. He's wearing Adrian's cologne. "I'm Azimio. What's your name beautiful?"

I feel sick to my stomach. I reach into my purse and throw some money on the table. I get up and grab Callie from the booth with Costa following behind her. As I try to walk away he grabs my uninjured arm and I freeze.

"Hey I'm talking to y-" I feel his arm yanked off of me and I push the twins towards the exit, not looking back.

"Leave her alone Adams." I hear as we walk out.

We're rushing back to the motel when I hear someone call after me.

"Hey miss wait up!" It sounds like the same person that pulled that guy off of me but I keep walking with my head down and the twins slightly ahead of me. "Hey wait, you forgot this." He says finally catching up to me and handing me the newspaper I was reading.

I give him a quiet thank you and usher the kids to continue walking.

"I see you're looking for a place to stay." He states as he follows me down the street. "I actually know of a fully furnished apartment not too far from here. It's pretty nice and not too expensive. I can show you now if you want."

I shake my head. I don't trust him. He has no reason to help me and I don't want to put my babies in any danger. I just keep walking.

"Okay then how about I give you my number and if you change your mind, you give me a call." He says while writing his number down on the newspaper. "I'm Noah."

I give him a short nod, he smiles back and walks away.

We make it back to the motel a few minutes after Noah left.

"Mami I didn't get to finish my chicken strips." Callie pouts.

"I know baby I'm sorry but how about tomorrow you have ice cream for breakfast?" I suggest hoping to stop the tantrum she planned on having. She eagerly nods and starts jumping on the bed. "Callie, I told you no jumping on the bed."

"Sorry." She says quietly.

"It's alright, now come on let's get you two in the bath and ready for bed."

"Can we stay up and watch cartoons?" Costa asks timidly.

"Yes. But only for a little while, Mami's tired."

After the twins have their baths, we watch cartoons until they fell asleep. I hopped in the shower and then went over to the pull out couch and went to sleep.

I wake up to the twins giggling loudly.

"Shhh. You're gonna wake your mami." I hear.

"Okay daddy." Callie says.

'No. No. No no no no.' I turn my head and see Adrian tickling Costa with Callie on his back. "No." I let out in a barely audible whisper.

Adrian looks at me with nothing but pure evil in his eyes.

"Hey baby," he starts "did you miss me?" My eyes widen and start to water straightaway and he smirks. "Costa, Callie go take your dollies and dinosaurs for a swim in the bathtub. Don't come out until I say so, okay?" The twins grab their toys and go to the bathroom.

"Did you really think you could just take my kids away from me?" He says in an eerily low voice, walking towards me. I shake my head, scooting back on the bed till I reach the edge and have to stand up. "Did you not think I would find you, you stupid slut?"

"No. I-I'm sorry." I cry backing up against the wall. I have nowhere else to go as he closes in on me. "Please I'm sorry!" I shout sliding down the wall and cowering in fear.

"Shut up!" He raises his hand to hit me and brings it down swiftly.

I shoot up out of the bed panting, sweating, and crying. I rush to the bathroom to the toilet and empty the contents of my stomach. When I finally finished, I rinsed my mouth out.

"Mami's sick?" I turn to see Callie standing at the door, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"A little but I'm okay." I tell her as I pull her into a hug. "I'm okay." I repeat while kissing the top of her head.

Quinn's POV

Beth starts school tomorrow and she's so excited. She hasn't stopped talking about it. I wonder if the twins are as excited as her. I talked to the principal at Lima Elementary and they still have spaces open so Santana enrolled them there. Beth and Costa are in the same class but Callie will be in a different one.

I should ask Santana if she wants to carpool. I pull out my phone and find Santana in my contacts. The phone rings for a while but she finally answers.

"H-hello?" It sounds like she's crying or just finished crying.

"Hey Santana, you alright?" I ask slightly worried.

"Yeah. Yes. I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm uhh, I'm good. I was just calling to see if you wanted to carpool tomorrow. You know, seeing as how the twins are the same age as Beth and they'll probably end up being really good friends and yeah. So do you want to?"

"Oh. Umm I'd love to but I don't have car seats for the twins. I was just going to take them on the bus."

"Why don't we go buy them today? I have to go to the mall anyway so you can just ride with me and get their car seats and anything else you might need." I suggest hopefully.

"I-I can't. I have no one to watch the twins and-" I cut her off.

"You can just bring them to my house and leave them with Beth's babysitter. She's really sweet. I'm sure she wouldn't mind watching them too."

"Are you sure? I don't know if I would be comfortable leaving them with a stranger."

"Come on, do you really think I'd leave Beth with someone I don't trust? I promise they'll be fine." I try to convince her.

There's a long pause before she sighs and answers.

"Okay. I'll go." She pauses again. "Give me an hour."

After I got off the phone with Santana, I called the babysitter and asked if she could also watch the twins. She didn't have a problem with it. She was happy for the extra pay.

I had just finished getting Beth dressed when there was a knock on the door. As soon as I opened it, Callie comes running in past me.

"Beth!" She shouts, hugging my daughter.

"Callie, you know you can't just run into someone else's house without speaking to them." Santana scorned with a sigh. "I'm so sorry Quinn. She got really excited when I told her she would see Beth today." She says timidly, looking at her feet.

"It's totally fine Santana." I assure her. "Beth was really happy to hear that the twins were coming over too. Come in, Marley should be here soon and then we can go."

She goes and sits on the couch with Costa in her lap. As I was closing the door, Marley calls out to me.

"Hey Quinn." She greets. "Where's the little munchkin?"

"Hey, give me a sec to get her and then you can meet the twins and their mom." I tell her before I head to Beth's room to get the girls. "Beth, sweetheart, you and Callie need to come in the living room for a bit okay." Both of them nod and rush out of the room. "Be careful!" I call after them.

I enter the living room and begin the introductions.

"Santana, this is Marley. She watches Beth for me. She's working to save money for when she goes off to college next year." I explain pointing to Marley. "Marley, this is Santana, she just moved here not too long ago. And these two, are her adorable children, Costa and Callie." I say gesturing to the twins. Callie smiles at her then her and Beth rush back to Beth's room.

Santana gives Marley a small smile and I do a victory dance in my head because I'm pretty sure that means that she is okay with Marley keeping her kids.

"So you ready to go?" I ask Santana. She nods and puts Costa down telling him to go play with the girls and to behave. He shakes his head and grabs onto her uninjured arm.

"I don't wanna stay mami." He says sticking out his bottom lip. "I wanna go with you." His lip starts to quiver and then he's crying. Santana picks him up as quickly as she can with one arm.

"Shh. Mijo don't cry." She whispers, trying to calm him down. "I'll be right back. Me voy a comprar algunas cosas para ti y su hermana para la escuela."

He shakes his head again and starts crying harder, clinging to her even more.

"Baby listen," she starts but I can't hear the last part of what she says but whatever it was worked because he just hugged her one more time and then went to play with his sister and Beth.

"Sorry about that." She tells me.

I tell Marley we'll be back in a couple hours and we leave.

Santana has been pretty quiet the entire time we've been shopping. We got all the school supplies for the kids and now we're stopping at the food court to eat.

"Do you want anything in particular?" I ask her.

"Hmm, not really, no. Maybe something spicy or salty. Maybe just a lemon." She rattles off as she looks around to see what restaurants are there. I tilt my head, looking at her curiously. She notices and clears her throat. "It doesn't matter, what would- Oh I'm gonna get a burrito and some gelato." She decides suddenly.

She walks over A Lot O' Gelato to get her gelato first. She gets a triple scoop with pistachio, blood orange, and mascarpone. I scrunch my nose at the odd combination and shake my head when she asks if I want some.

We find a seat after we order. Santana ordered a burrito big enough for three people and I end up ordering some Thai food.

As Santana offers me some of her burrito, I hear my phone beep letting me know I have a message. I politely decline and pull my phone out to check it. I frown as soon as I unlock the screen. I had several missed calls and a few messages from Rachel urging me to call back immediately.

"Shit." I mutter under my breath.

"Everything okay?" Santana asks. "Oh god are the kids okay?! Did something happen?!" She asks becoming hysteric.

"No, no calm down. They're fine." I assured her. "I just missed a bunch of calls from my… my friend and she's a bit high-strung and I can tell she's pissed by the last text she sent me. Let me just call her back real quick." She nods and turns her attention back to her burrito.

I call Rachel back and she picks up on the second ring.

"Quinn! What the hell?! I've been calling you all morning!" She shouts into the phone.

"Rach I'm sorry, I didn't h-" I start before she interrupts me.

"I've been trying to making sure that you remembered to pick me up tomorrow from the airport but you can't even be bothered to answer your phone! What is so important that you had to ignore me? ME! Of all people Quinn. Really?! I called you at least eight times in the last fucking hour!"

She's shouting so loud I had to move the phone away from my ear. I look up from the table to see Santana staring at the phone in my hand almost in a trance. Every once in a while she winces when Rachel raises her voice even louder than it already is.

"Rachel!" I cut off her rant. "I didn't answer because I didn't hear my phone. I'm at the mall getting a few things for the party and my phone has been in my purse. And yes I remember that I have to pick you up tomorrow. I'm going straight to the airport after I drop Beth off." I sigh exasperatedly.

It's quiet on her end for a while before she finally says something, in a much quieter tone thank God. "I'm sorry babe. I just.. I miss you and I thought you were ignoring me." I can practically hear her pout over the phone.

"It's fine Rach. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye. I love you."

"Love you too." I reply then hang up. "Sorry about that." I say to Santana with a weak smile. She smiles back sweetly and I finish my food.

"How in the world did you finish that whole thing?" I ask her in shock. I didn't even finish my food and I'm positive I didn't have nearly as much as she did.

She shrugs with a shy smile, rubbing the back of her neck. She gathers all the trash and goes to throw it away. I pulled my phone and called Marley to check on the kids. She told me they were fine and were taking a nap.

I looked around for Santana noticing that she still hadn't come back from the trash. I saw a big guy leaning on the trash bin. It looked like he was talking to someone so I got up and looked around him. I saw Santana standing there looking extremely uncomfortable. I soon realized that the guy was Azimio Adams.

Santana's POV

I'm a little embarrassed when Quinn comments on how much food I ate. I can't help it, I get really hungry when I'm pregnant. I immediately get up to take our stuff to the trash.

I just sat our trays on top of the bin but freeze when I feel a presence next to me.

"We can't keep running into each other like this sweet cheeks." I turn to see the guy from the diner leaning against the trash. "It must be destined for us to go out." He says wiggling his eyebrows and winking.

I want to walk away but my legs don't seem to work. I look to the ground and keep my eyes down.

"Come on now babe, no reason to act shy." He says brushing my hair out of my face and then resting his hand on my shoulder.

Suddenly I feel like I can't breathe. Quinn comes out of nowhere slapping his hand off of my arm.

"Azimio, can't you see she's uncomfortable?" I hear her say. "Get out of here and learn how to take no for an answer."

"She didn't exactly say no, did you babe?" He says addressing me with a smirk.

"Get the hell out of here now!" Quinn growls. He raises his hands and walks away still smirking.

She then turns to me, grabs my good hand and places it on her chest. "Santana, I need you to follow my breathing okay?" She inhales deeply and then exhales. "In, out. In, out."

She repeats as I try to mimic her breathing. I can't seem gain control of my breathing and I feel myself start to fall to the floor.

"Shit. Come on San stay with me." I hear Quinn as she tries to catch me before everything goes black.