So, first and foremost I want to thank everybody for their patience. I appreciate all the encouraging words and everybody offering to step up and do my homework for me :)
Just a quick note before we get going. I'm putting up a warning for this chapter for some strong language and sensitive topics. As always, you can PM me with any comments/concerns.
Chapter 15:
Rachel forces herself to follow Shelby's orders to go to her car, turning over her shoulder only once along the way to watch her mother disappear into the darkness of the brush.
The girl does not linger, terrified that if she does, she will lose her nerve. The danger might be to her back at the moment, but to everybody else, it is still very much in the forefront and Rachel cannot rest until she knows that everybody she loves is safe.
Rachel ducks quietly into the trees that lead to the road. Her clothes are caked with dirt and leaves. Her hair had been down when she'd walked into Darlene's house earlier, but is now matted into a rope that settles between her shoulder blades. Twigs and thorns dig into her skin hard enough to draw blood. She can feel each pinch, not to mention the throbbing in her arm.
Rachel spots Shelby's Range Rover exactly where the woman said it would be. She is thrilled to see it, and in her excitement, rushes the last couple of feet towards the car.
She climbs into the driver's seat silently. The interior is beige and leather and for a moment, Rachel is afraid that Shelby will be mad at her for sitting on the seat with all this mud and blood all over her until she remembers that Shelby has a million other things to be mad at her about, all of which trumps her dirtying up her car.
Her trembling fingers fumble with the car keys Shelby had handed to her. It takes several seconds for her to steady herself enough to get the key into the ignition and twist.
The sound of the engine whirring to life is completely silent. Thank God for hybrids. The radio has already been punched off by Shelby. From inside of this car, there is only silence. The absence of even the sounds of the night is alarmingly obvious to Rachel. The only thing she can hear is her own breathing.
Rachel sits in the darkness for a long time. She keeps her ears poised for the sound of another gunshot, or of a commotion coming from the direction of the house, but for now, she hears nothing and she forces herself to take that as a good sign.
But she knows she cannot do nothing. Shelby seemed convinced in her ability to rescue Quinn, but she hadn't been inside of that house earlier. She hadn't watched Darlene shoot Peter or drag her away with a cruel callousness that indicated that she didn't care what happened to anybody around her. Shelby would never make it on her own. If only Rachel could provide some sort of a distraction…
Before Rachel even realizes that she knows what she has to do, her body settles into the driver's seat of Shelby's car. Her hands reach up, clutching the steering wheel. She is a good driver under normal circumstances, but her hands are trembling and she is not sure how much control she can expect to have behind the wheel.
She ignores her uncertainty and throws the car into drive. She slams her eyes shut, not wanting to see what is going to happen next before she remembers that she still has to see where she is going and opens them again.
Rachel rolls the Range Rover slowly back towards the driveway. She leaves the headlights off. She doesn't want to be seen until she is ready to be.
The girl takes a deep breath and presses forward, realizing that if Darlene doesn't get the chance to kill her first, Shelby most definitely will once she realizes that Rachel has decided to defy her orders again.
Quinn's eyes are starting to burn, but she refuses to blink, afraid that if she does, Joe will pull a fast one on her while she is left defenseless. She refuses to end up lying on this filthy floor next to Peter.
The blonde is so engaged in her stare-down, searching for any possible weakness in this Joe character that when she hears the first gunshots from outside, it takes her breath away.
"Sounds like your little girlfriend wasn't smart enough to just shut up and listen."
Joe is actually laughing at his own comment and it makes Quinn wish that she had finished him off with that pipe when she had the chance.
Quinn is still processing the sound of the first shot when she hears another one and then another and another.
Her breath quickens inside of her chest as she struggles not to panic, although it is hard not to. She is struggling to picture any scenario inside of her head that does not involve Rachel being at the receiving end of those shots.
"Give it up, kid," Joe tells her, and it is only then that Quinn realizes that there are tears in her eyes. "Darlene is the best shot in the state. Your little girlfriend is as good as dead."
A sob escapes from the back of Quinn's throat. She hates to admit that this man – who seems to be as stupid as he is ugly – is probably right, but the more she tries to convince herself otherwise, the less she believes it.
She knows that she has to see what is happening for herself. Maybe Rachel got away. Maybe she was hurt. If that was the case, Quinn knows that she has to get to her, to do what she could to keep her alive long enough for help to arrive.
She has to move fast. If Rachel is out there bleeding from a gunshot wound, time would be less on their side than it already is. She has to get away from Joe.
Quickly, Quinn scans the deepest recesses of her mind for a plan. She cannot do anything with Joe guarding her, but as though the universe is trying to make up for everything it has put Quinn through tonight, Joe chooses that moment to turn his back on Quinn to look out the window.
Quinn watches him trip over Peter's body on the way. The bleeding man on the floor groans, which surprises Quinn seeing how she thought he was dead.
Joe tips the tattered blinds away from the window facing the front of the house and peers into the darkness.
He stares for a long time, searching for answers to what is going on out there. Meanwhile, Quinn doesn't hesitate. The hallway that Joe had kicked her pipe down earlier is just past the man and if only she can catch Joe off guard, she knows that she can get past him and get to it.
The blonde bursts into a full sprint, rushing down the hallway. She hears Joe make a roaring sound of disapproval when he notices what she is doing and start to chase after her, but she doesn't dare look over her shoulder.
She is feet from the pipe when she feels a thick arm catch her around the waist. Her balance falters. She goes down hard on her right hip. Her broken hand crumples underneath her and stars erupt inside of her vision. Her entire right side goes numb.
For a moment, she forgets why she had been running in the first place, and then she feels a hand wrap around her ankle, attempting to reel her in. Joe is on the ground behind her. He had tackled her in an effort to subdue her, and now he is trying to finish her off for good.
Quinn knows that if she lets Joe get to his feet before her, it will be all over for her. She starts to kick violently and feels her foot slip out of Joe's grip.
The blonde attempts to get onto her hands and knees to crawl to the pipe that is only inches in front of her, but her right side is only just starting to get feeling back and she can't seem to move fast enough.
Joe lunges forward. Both of his hands wrap around Quinn's right knee and the blonde cries out with both pain and frustration as she stretches her shoulder to its maximum capacity to reach for the pipe, only to have her fingertips just miss it.
She tries to kick her leg free again, but Joe is prepared this time. His grip is too tight, never letting up.
Quinn knows that this isn't getting her anywhere so instead, she reels back her left leg and kicks hard. She feels the sole of her sneaker connect with the side of Joe's face at his already-wounded jaw.
The man lets out a scream of pain and releases Quinn as his hands come up automatically to cradle his face.
Quinn does not hesitate long enough to look at the damage. Instead, she lunges the last couple of inches towards the pipe, finally wrapping her hands around it.
The blonde leaps to her feet. In the split second it takes for her to reel her arm back and descend upon Joe, she notices just how quiet the world outside has grown. It hardly makes her feel confident about what Rachel's fate might be if she finally does get to her.
No, Quinn tells herself, swinging the pipe around as hard as she can, knocking Joe out cold with a single blow to the back of his head.
When I finally get to her.
Two months go by, and Shelby still hasn't managed to find the strength to talk to Peter – or anybody for that matter – about what happened that night or to even break up with him. Instead, she keeps going through every day knowing that she has made it this far. There is only one month left until graduation. She can make it a little further.
While Shelby prepares to flee to New York, Peter also seems to be embedding himself further and further into the family business.
Need drugs? Go to Peter. Are you a pimply loser who wants to lose his virginity before college? Go to Peter. Does the kid in your homeroom owe you money? Go to Peter.
Shelby used to have a lot to say about Peter's business arrangements, but for the most part, it keeps him away from her, so she's started keeping her mouth shut about it.
Despite her distance, she remains frightened enough of Peter that she continues to bow down to his every will. That is why when he invites her out to the woods on the weekend before prom, she shows up.
The spot is a popular hangout among the students of William McKinley. It's where kids go to drink cheap beer and shoot at the empty bottles and cans with their BB guns. The only reason Shelby agrees to meet him at all is because she knows that there will probably be other people around to stop Peter from doing anything stupid.
Then again, there had been other people around that night too…
It turns out, there are other people in the woods when Shelby gets there. The high school senior recognizes them immediately. They are a troupe of girls from the other side of town who have been building a rapid and notorious reputation around not only William McKinley, but all of Lima.
The group was headed by a girl who looked like what one might expect the child of an oak tree and a particularly ugly pug to look like. Her name was Darlene Coots, but she preferred to be called The Skank while the girls who she recruited as friends went as her Skankettes
It made absolutely no sense to Shelby; the name or why Peter might be hanging out with them and Shelby finds herself hesitating upon her approach, suddenly wondering if this was a good idea after all.
"What's Shelby Corcoran doing here?" Darlene sneers. She is sitting on the hood of a rotted-out VW Bug that has probably been sitting in that spot since the 70s, but she still looks poised and ready to attack if need be.
Peter pushes to the front. He is holding a large can of malt liquor in his hands, but Shelby notices that same glazed, dilated look in his eyes as she had on the night of Winter Formal. She hadn't thought that that was the result of just alcohol then, and she doesn't now.
Secretly, she wonders what Peter has gotten himself into and hates that she actually feels worried for him and just a little bit sorry.
"She's my girlfriend Darlene, get over it," Peter rolls his eyes. He approaches Shelby with uneven footsteps and wraps his arm around her waist. His touch makes Shelby shudder.
Darlene responds with an eyeroll, but she does not linger. Instead, she turns back to the homemade targets that she has created with beer bottles roughly twenty-five yards in front of her, raises a gun that Shelby had not noticed before, and starts to fire.
Shelby jumps at the sound. She has seen plenty of people doing this in the past, but they always used BB guns or airsoft rifles. Darlene looks like she has a very real pistol.
There is another shot and then another. Each is accompanied by the shattering of glass as the bullet shreds its intended bottle into a thousand pieces. She doesn't miss a single shot.
"Sorry about her," Peter apologizes to Shelby on Darlene's behalf. "She's not much of a people person."
"Then what are you doing hanging out with her?"
"She's giving me some extra business," Peter shrugs.
"She's been in high school for seven years, Peter. How much business can she be giving you?"
Usually, Shelby wouldn't be so opinionated, but she feels strongly about this. The last few months have been hard enough with Peter standing her shoulder everywhere she went. What would she do now that he had the Skanks with him too?
"I'm expanding!" Peter turns on Shelby, feral in her audacity to question him. "I need to prove to my father that I can keep up or I'll never get anywhere."
"Okay, I'm sorry…" Shelby stutters. "I'm just saying, they have a reputation. I… I don't want to see you get hurt is all."
If Shelby was being honest, she would say that she doesn't particularly care if Peter gets hurt. She doesn't care if he screws up a business deal that she's pretty sure his father knows nothing about, and she certainly doesn't care what the consequences of that might be. Still, she knows that if Peter fails, he will take it out on her, and she certainly doesn't want that either.
"I know that you care," Peter finally breathes, his face relaxing. "And I know that the Skanks are a bit much."
"They scare me," Shelby admits. Peter lets out a little laugh like he thinks it so typically of Shelby to cower in the face of all this.
"They're harmless."
"That Darlene girl has a gun, Peter!" Shelby hisses. "She's an animal."
"I won't let them hurt you," Peter promises. He offers Shelby a familiar smile and reaches his hand up to graze her cheek. His touch is soft, but it still burns and Shelby has to actively stop herself from pulling away.
Shelby has been in a lot of formidable situations in her life, but this is the first time she's ever had a gun pointed at her.
Her arms are raised in a message of defeat. She refuses to make any sudden movements.
"That's a cute kid you've got there, Shelby," Darlene comments. "That's who that is, isn't it? You and Peter's kid?"
"Yes," Shelby answers curtly. Her voice is dripping with venom, but she still knows better than to lie to a woman who is pointing a gun at her.
"Yeah, she's a cute one," Darlene repeats. "Stupid as all hell, but cute. She'll make me a lot of money."
Shelby tries and fails to mask a breath that sounds more like a huff. She doesn't want Darlene to see her anger. If this girl is anything like she was in high school – and Shelby is inclined to believe that she is – Shelby knows that she cannot show any weakness.
Unfortunately, it doesn't go unnoticed by Darlene.
"Am I getting under your skin, Shelby?" Darlene taunts. "You know, Peter told me he knocked you up. He said that you got rid of it, though. Well… he said that you wouldn't get rid of it so he had to step in."
Shelby closes her eyes and tries desperately not to let Darlene into her head despite the terrible memories that the woman is bringing up. Darlene is monologuing. Shelby thought that that was something bad guys only did in the movies, but it turns out that it is real.
"He offered me money, you know," she continues when Shelby refuses to take the bite. "You know… to take care of the problem. His old man wouldn't cough up the dough, though; said he was too irresponsible with his finances or something like that. He went to a gas station to try to steal the money, but he got caught. Peter always got caught."
Shelby swallows, but refuses to show any emotion in her face. She has never heard this version of events before. She thought that Peter robbing that gas station the summer before Rachel was born had more to do with his arrogance and impulsivity. She never thought that it was so he could get enough money to put a hit out against her.
What would have happened to her if Peter had gotten away at the gas station that day? Darlene would have shown up to her house that summer night instead of Peter and if that had happened, Shelby is certain she wouldn't have walked away from it.
As it is, Darlene might just get her chance to end her here tonight anyway.
"I heard that he tried to do it himself," Darlene tells Shelby. "Pushed you down the stairs or something?"
"He did," Shelby growls. Darlene shrugs indifferently.
"He always thought he was tougher than he actually was, Peter," the larger woman continues. "He made his way out here to find me after his father removed him from the family business. I'd already made a bit of a name for myself here. Peter was begging for a job. Shit, I thought he would be the one to make a million dollars after high school, but he didn't. He was a junkie. A liability. That's why I shot him."
"He's dead?" Shelby risks asking. Rachel had mentioned that Peter was shot, but she hadn't been able to provide the details, and Shelby hates that she cares so much about them.
"Who knows," Darlene shrugs uninterested. "I didn't have time to sit around and babysit him. I've been busy chasing around your little brat and her friend all night. They've been a real pain in my ass."
Shelby feels her finger furl into fists. She doesn't know how to feel about all of this information. On one hand, she is relieved that the gunshot she'd heard earlier hadn't been directed at Rachel or Quinn. On the other, did she really hate Peter enough that she wanted him dead?
"Now, it's been nice catching up with you Shelby, but frankly, you're getting in my way. I'll tell you what; when your kid is of no use to me anymore and I kill her too, I'll throw her in the woods next to you."
Darlene's voice is casual, even as she raises her arm a little bit higher and points her gun between Shelby's eyes. The woman realizes that this is it; the final line she has to cross before her time is up.
While Shelby was once uncertain about Peter's newfound relationship with the Skanks, she finds that now that they have hooked up, he is around a lot less.
The more Peter keeps his distance, the more Shelby feels her confidence seep back into her. With his shadow no longer hovering over her, she is free to plan her trip to New York, make some extra money working in the ice cream shop on the Boulevard, apply to some colleges last minute…
Shelby takes her mind off of everything that happened to her that night by pouring her concentration into her future. She applies to NYADA and Julliard and Tisch. She hears back from all of them that they're interested in seeing her audition.
She focuses all her free time in rehearsing. In fact, she is so busy that she doesn't even notice when her body starts to push back against her.
Fatigue, nausea, mood swings… When she looks up her symptoms in a medical textbook in the library, she decides that she is merely suffering from stress. Then, her mother asked her if she needed anymore Maxi Pads on the way to the grocery store one day and Shelby realized that the box she had bought months ago was still full.
She used her free period the following day to drive two towns over to a drug store where she purchased all the pregnancy test that she could afford with her cheeks flaming red with embarrassment.
A few months ago, Shelby had fallen head over heels in love with Peter Gabbanelli. Today, sitting on the toilet bowl in her high school bathroom, staring at the two pink lines of the fifth pregnancy test she had taken, Shelby just feels like she's falling.
The first thing that she does is go to Peter's house. Her devastation has already swollen into anger. She has spent weeks trying to forget what Peter has done to her, but now the memory of that night has literally become a part of her.
"What are you doing here?" Peter asks when he opens the door, but he invites her inside anyway.
His parents don't appear to be home, but Darlene is here, picking through the fake fruit on the dining room table, looking shifty. Shelby looks at her warily. Darlene Coots is the last person Shelby wants to know about her pregnancy.
"Can we talk privately?" Shelby asks with a whisper.
"Fine," Peter groans. He doesn't sound pleased by the interruption but he grabs onto Shelby's elbow anyway and drags her away from Darlene and into his father's office anyway.
Peter goes straight to the bar cart and pours himself a glass of vodka. He pours Shelby one too, but when he offers it to her, she only shakes her head.
"What's up with you?" he asks after a long sip. His voice is neutral. He sounds like he can care less about what's up with her despite being the one to ask.
"I'm pregnant," Shelby blurts. She had decided on her way here that that would be the best way to tell him. Now, as she watches Peter glare at her before finally draining the rest of his drink in one sip, she finds that she isn't so sure this was her best approach.
"Excuse me?" he finally asks. His voice is icy. His eyes look at her like a warning, as though he is telling Shelby that he is giving her one opportunity only to take back what she'd just said.
"I… I took a test," she stutters, feeling her nerve diminish. "Actually, I took five. They were all positive."
"It's not mine," Peter tells her defiantly, and he actually has the audacity to look like he believes that.
"What do you mean it's not yours?" Shelby asked, abashed by his response. She stares at him, astonished by the fact that the boy in front of her has become a complete stranger.
A complete stranger who just so happens to be the father of her child.
"You're the only person that I have ever been with Peter!" she snaps, feeling her anger grow. "It must have happened the night of Winter Formal."
It is the first time that Shelby has mentioned that night to him, but that is the last time they were together, and Shelby knows he hadn't worn a condom.
Shelby watches Peter's eyes flash red.
"Nothing happened that night," he growls, and despite the fact that he is denying any wrong doing, it is the first time that Shelby realizes that he does remember what he had done to her that night; he's just chosen to pretend that he doesn't.
Somehow, that hurts even more, and Shelby feels something inside of her snap.
"I didn't want it!" she feels the sob that has been forming in the back of her throat for the last two months swell and escape. Tears well inside of her eyes. They spill before she can stop them. "I didn't want to have sex that night and I told you that but you did it anyway and now I'm pregnant!"
Despite how terrified she has been in front of Peter since that night, standing here, confronting him in a way she has only ever dreamed of before this moment, she feels remarkably strong.
But then Peter lunges at her. A large hand darts out and wraps around Shelby's throat. He uses his strength to push her backwards into the wall. Shelby hears the full glass of vodka that Peter had offered her only moments before tip off the shelf and shatter against the floor.
"You better do yourself a favor and make sure that is the last time you every say that," he growls. "I didn't do anything that night that you didn't ask for. I'm your boyfriend, Shelby. That's how these things work. You were drunk that night, so if you want to start pointing fingers at people, start with yourself."
Peter lets go of her neck, but not before using the leverage to throw Shelby onto the ground. She lands hard on her hands and knees and instinctively wraps her arms around her stomach.
"You're sick!" she gasps, but that only makes Peter angrier. His face twisted with rage, he reaches down and grabs Shelby by the wrist, twisting it until the pain is so severe that Shelby's eyes start to water.
"You're damn right I'm sick," he tells her. "I'm sick of you trying to ruin my life at every turn just because you're too afraid or two stupid to realize that your nothing but a whore!"
Shelby wants to cry; out of anger or humiliation, she isn't sure. Maybe both.
Peter finally releases his grip on her wrist and she scrambles backwards to get away from him before he can get ahold of her again, but he never tries.
"Get rid of it," he growls under his breath. His voice is low and dangerous and leaves no question about what he is talking about. "Get rid of it or I swear Shelby I'll do it myself."
With that, Peter storms out of the office, leaving Shelby to find her own way out. When he is gone, Shelby shrinks into the floor. Peter's words are still burning into her. That is how she knows that – for once in his life – Peter has every intention on keeping his promise.
Shelby closes her eyes. If she is going to die here, she doesn't want to see it coming.
She has only just accepted her fate when a flash of light nearly blinds her.
She wonders if she had died without even noticing and is just starting to think how screwed she is if that bright light at the end of the tunnel is actually real when she snaps her eyes open and recognizes the high beams of her own Range Rover staring back at her.
Neither Shelby nor Darlene has time to react. The most that Darlene can do is turn over her shoulder just in time to see the SUV barreling towards her.
The front of the car strikes her before she can so much as blink.
It catches her around the middle with a crunch that makes Shelby cringe and almost feel bad for her… Almost.
The blow sends the woman flying. She lands ten feet from where she had been hit and rolls onto her back. A bubbling sound escapes from the base of her throat. She attempts to get up once, fails, and then falls back down, still.
The Range Rover's driver door opens and Rachel stumbles out, drunk with emotion.
"Oh my god, oh my god…" the tiny girl mutters over and over as she attempts to grapple with what she'd just done. "Is she dead? I was just trying to distract her long enough for you to get away. I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't mean to. Oh my god, I killed her!"
"It's okay Rachel, it's fine. Get away from there." Shelby makes her insistence quickly. She grabs onto Rachel's small shoulders and steers her away from Darlene. She is far less convinced than Rachel is that Darlene is dead. She doesn't want Rachel getting too close.
Shelby doesn't want to waste too much time on Darlene, either. She pulls Rachel away and takes only a second or two to check over the crumpled woman. The headlights from the Range Rover drape over her body. Her face is covered in blood, but Shelby cannot tell if that is from the car hitting her or if it's from earlier when Shelby had hit her with the stone…
Shelby reaches forward and picks up the gun that Darlene had just tried to kill her with, pocketing it. She cannot tell if Darlene is breathing or not, but she knows that if she is, and she wakes up, she will be angrier than ever. It would be in all of their best interests to keep this gun as far away from Darlene as possible.
"Is she dead?" Rachel asks when Shelby stands back up. Her voice is shaking.
"I don't know," Shelby admits. She knows that the idea that she had just killed somebody – even somebody like Darlene – is terrifying to Rachel. Shelby finds that while she has very little sympathy for Darlene, her heart breaks for her daughter. The only reason she hopes that Darlene is still alive is for Rachel's sake.
"I don't think that we should stick around to find out though, Rach," Shelby insists. "We should go find Quinn."
Rachel swallows, but nods. Shelby is right; they don't have the privilege of dwelling. Besides – Rachel tries to justify – Darlene had been the one who had been trying to kill them first.
Mother and daughter race quickly towards the house, desperate to get to Quinn yet at the same time, terrified by what they might find inside.
Shelby reaches the front door first. She reaches out and grabs onto the doorknob. She hesitates before opening the door just long enough for Rachel to notice, but muscles through her fear and forces the door open with her shoulder.
"Quinn!"
Shelby only just thrusts the front door open when she is greeted by a knotted mass of tangled blonde hair.
Rachel recognizes her first. She pushes past Shelby to wrap her arms around the blonde's neck and reel her in close with relief.
Quinn's entire body seems to relax the moment Rachel touches her. The blonde sinks into her arms. She closes her eyes and presses her forehead into Rachel's shoulder and wraps her arms across Rachel's back trying to remind herself not to cry.
She is so happy to see Rachel alive that for a moment, she doesn't even notice Shelby standing behind them, watching the two girls interact like she is almost afraid to interfere.
"You made it?" Quinn sniffles, wiping her eyes with the back of her left hand as she looks up at Shelby. "The directions worked?"
The older woman nods. She makes a quick assessment of Quinn, searching for injuries. Her already-broken knuckles are covered with blood again. At first, Shelby thinks that maybe the blonde had re-aggravated her old injury, but then she notices that Quinn is still clutching onto a pipe dripping with blood in that same hand, and Shelby realizes that her and Rachel are not the only ones who'd found out what they are capable of doing in order to survive tonight…
"Just got a little lost," she attempts to joke but her voice is stiff, still amazed by Rachel and Quinn's hidden pockets of strength as they stand before her.
"What happened in here?" Rachel whispers to Quinn after a moment.
"I… I heard those gunshots outside Rachel, and I panicked. I thought… well, I thought… I knew I needed to get away and find you. I'll fill you in on the details later. There's a phone in the kitchen. We should call the police."
Quinn grabs onto Rachel's hand and drags her through the house towards the phone. Shelby stands slightly behind them, searching for signs of danger. She spots streaks of blood staining across the walls and the floor. The scene seems amazing; what is even more amazing is that Quinn and Rachel seem to have fared the best out of anybody.
They are halfway to the kitchen when Shelby hears the first signs of somebody else inside of the house.
The noise is hardly threatening. It is a small cough followed by gurgling that is so quiet that Shelby doesn't think she would have even heard it had her senses not be so heightened.
Shelby has been through too much tonight not to interpret every stray sound as a threat. She grabs onto Rachel and Quinn and pushes them both tight against the wall, trying to make them as small as possible.
"What was that?" she asks the girls hastily.
"It's probably Peter," Quinn rationalizes.
"He's still alive?" Rachel asks. She sounds surprised by the information like she hadn't been expecting it. Shelby had completely forgotten that Peter had shot. She had put the concern far in the back of her mind at the time, having classified it as a low priority.
Shelby is still struggling to grapple with the idea that Peter – injured or not – is right on the other side of this wall when Rachel pulls away from her and Quinn and starts to move towards the direction of the noise.
"Rachel, no!" Shelby hisses between clenched teeth, but Rachel doesn't listen to her and Shelby has to actively suppress the frustration that Rachel still didn't want to listen to her about avoiding Peter Gabbanelli.
"Quinn, go call 911," Shelby demands quickly of the blonde. Her voice is no-nonsense. She is daring Quinn to defy her. "I'll go get Rachel."
Quinn hesitates for a fraction of a second. She is reluctantly to trust anybody but herself with Rachel, but quickly rationalizes that Shelby has proven herself trustworthy tonight. She offers Shelby a stiff nod and turns towards the phone.
"Rachel?" Shelby calls out as loud as she dares as she walks on tip-toes towards her daughter.
There is a man who she doesn't recognize unconscious on the floor. Shelby quickly reasons that this is what Quinn was talking about when she promised to fill them in on how she escaped later.
It is the person lying next to this man that Shelby is far more interested in. It is a man that Shelby is seeing for the first time in eighteen years, and he is lying on the floor surrounded by a halo of his own blood.
Shelby hesitates. She knows that they are pressed for time, but she just can't help it.
Rachel is standing a few feet in front of Peter. When Shelby presses up behind her, it does not go unnoticed that this is the first time all three of them are here, together in the same room.
If it was up to Shelby, this never would have happened at all, and with that thought in mind, Shelby realizes that she is not disappointed to see Peter like this.
It is just that, even bleeding out on the floor Shelby can remember what he was like before he had shown her his true colors, and she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to remember his voice. She doesn't want to remember his face or his touch or how much she hates him.
Especially, however, she doesn't want to remember how much she had once loved him.
Looking at Peter now, Shelby realizes just how thoroughly and completely he has managed to destroy himself in the last eighteen years. That fact is sad enough, sure, but all Shelby has to do is remind herself that he had tried to take both her and her daughter out with him, and immediately, her sympathy wanes.
Rachel is staring down at the man, looking at him hard.
Despite everything he has done to her tonight, she feels a remarkable sense of obligation towards him. It is as though she needs to prove to herself that if only she can display this most basic sense of empathy, she can forget the pieces of him that are written inside of her genetic code.
Rachel doesn't know much about medicine. She lasted about a week in the Girl Scouts when she was a kid and skipped the lesson in first aid because she felt squeamish around blood.
She does know however, that when somebody is bleeding, you're supposed to apply pressure so Rachel hesitantly drops to her knees in front of the man. She leans forward, about to press her bare palms into Peter's chest to try to stop the bleeding herself, but before she can, she feels somebody grab onto her shoulder and pull her back.
"Don't touch him, Rachel," Shelby warns. She doesn't want Rachel to be near Peter on a normal day, let alone while he is covered in blood and her with no protection.
"But… but he's dying," Rachel comments. Her voice sounds almost confused, like she is still trying to figure out how she'd gotten here; like she still doesn't believe it.
Shelby allows her eyes to swing from Rachel down to Peter and for the first time, she forces herself to take him in, to really take him in.
At first, she thinks that this has to be some sort of mistake. This isn't Peter Gabbanelli. It can't be.
But then the man's eyes blink open. His head turns a little bit and he looks at Shelby and the woman can no longer pretend.
Peter doesn't say anything. The only thing he does is stare; stare with those same eyes that Shelby saw every time she looked at her daughter.
These are the eyes that had made her run away from Rachel the first time she met the girl, that is how unprepared she had been to see them. It is even worse seeing them on him.
Peter Gabbanelli has existed like a ghost in her life since high school, and unfortunately, ghosts were not so easy to get rid of.
Shelby scrunches her face. Peter has done a lot to her, but that had been years ago. He has done a lot to Rachel just tonight, and Rachel still wants to help him.
Shelby can't help but to think that she doesn't particularly care whether or not Peter lives or dies. He had made his bed years ago and it was time for him to lie in it. But Rachel seems insistent, and that girl had a tight hold on Shelby for being such a tiny thing.
Determined to stop the cycle of failing her daughter, Shelby decides that she will no longer live based on fear for Peter, but love for Rachel. She shrugs out of her jacket and kneels above Peter.
The gun that she had taken from Darlene earlier is still in her pocket. She pulls it out and places it on the floor before pressing the coat into the center of Peter's chest where the blood seems to be concentrating the most and pushes down hard.
Blood seeps through the fabric of her favorite jacket and destroys it. Shelby knows that she shouldn't be surprised. Peter Gabbanelli has been destroying the things she loves since high school.
"Shelby…" Peter gasps as soon as the woman gets close enough that he can recognize her.
"Don't talk," Shelby snarls, ignoring the way her heart skips a beat at the sound of his voice. She doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to give him any opportunity to sweet talk his way under her skin like he was always so good at doing.
"I'm dying," he coughs, ignoring her demand. That is a common theme for him.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Shelby mutters. "Then again, I seem to recall that being an ongoing problem for you."
Peter hesitates. His eyes scan between Rachel and Shelby as fast as his current state will allow.
"She looks like you," he whispers after a moment. Shelby feels herself tense. The pressure she is placing against Peter's chest tightens and the man groans with pain. Shelby finds that she doesn't feel bad about that.
"Don't talk about Rachel," she warns. "You lost that right a long time ago."
"I'm sorry…" he breathes, but does not argue. "I just… I think… you did the right thing… giving her up."
Shelby's eyes narrow as she stares down at Peter. Their eyes meet. A long time ago, Shelby used to stay up at night wondering what she might say to Peter if she ever saw him again. She wondered if she would cry or yell or run… Now, she realizes that she's always had the advantage.
Shelby is still not ready to forgive Peter; she doesn't think she'll ever be. She is not sorry that he ended up here seeing as the only person whose fault it is, is his. Still, she feels a tiny semblance of closure and that is more than she ever thought she would get from him.
"Thank you," Shelby forces, even though her voice is still tight. "Now please stop talking."
"You can't save me," Peter insists. "Get the girls out of here and leave."
Shelby swallows. Peter has a point.
The look on her face sour, Shelby glances over towards Rachel, who is still searching for a miracle.
"Why are you stopping?" Rachel accuses when she notices the way Shelby has eased up on the pressure on Peter's chest.
"Rachel…" Shelby breathes, but she doesn't know what to say next; she doesn't know how to put into words what they all know is true; it is too late to save Peter. "We can't stay here. We're not safe. We need to leave."
As though trying to prove Shelby's point, the front door bursts open suddenly. For a split second, Shelby thinks that Quinn had managed to get a hold of the police and that they have arrived in record time. Then, she notices that the shadow hanging above her is lumbering and threatening and a far cry from safety…
Shelby stiffens in anticipation. She didn't think that the impact Darlene had made with her Range Rover earlier had done anything other than knock her out cold. She had been expecting this, but that didn't make it any less terrifying.
Rachel had certainly caused some damage, however. The woman is scraped up and bleeding prominently, including from the cut in the center of her head that Shelby had caused when she'd hit her with the rock. She walks slowly with a crooked gait. Each step looks excruciating. Her left arm is held tight into her side.
Shelby would hardly consider her a threat if it wasn't for the gun inside of her hands, and she has to resist the urge to groan. She had taken away the pistol in Darlene's immediate possession, but should have known that in a place like this, the supply of firearms would be limitless. It felt like fighting the Hydra; for every head that was cut off, two more grew back in its place.
The woman wears an expression of rage that goes far beyond what Shelby has ever seen on a human being's face.
Earlier, Darlene had merely been irritated and that had made her arrogant and ruthless. Now, there is a frenzied madness in her eyes. She is looking for revenge, and Shelby has a sinking feeling that she is looking to start with Rachel for what the girl had done to her.
Injured or not, it would only take one shot, Shelby knows. Even if they were eventually able to overpower her, Shelby would not risk taking on Darlene if it meant losing Rachel.
She wishes that she hadn't put down the gun she had taken away from Darlene earlier, but she did. It was a foolish move which she now regrets, but she had done it so that she could help Peter.
Shelby curses under her breath. This man has a tendency to make her life difficult even when he wasn't trying to.
The handgun is sitting just a few feet in front of Shelby, but she knows that there is no way for her to reach out and grab it without attracting attention to herself. She knows that Darlene is hurt, but she hardly forgets that day in the forest so many years ago, watching her blow out those old beer bottles with the accuracy of a professional marksman.
She never missed a single shot. Rachel had already escaped being seriously injured by a bullet by mere inches once tonight, Shelby isn't willing to risk that again.
But Darlene's gun is already raised. It is trained at the center of Rachel's chest and the woman's teeth are grit like she is going to enjoy shooting Rachel very much.
Sensing that she is about to shoot, Shelby reacts without thinking because she knows that she doesn't have time to think.
She fans her arms out like an eagle and drapes them over Rachel. She puts her entire body in front of the girl, trying to ensure that as little of her is exposed to Darlene as possible. She hears the gunshot just as she is throwing Rachel to the floor.
Shelby lands on top of Rachel with a dull thud and squeezes her eyes closed as the sound of the shot firing fades into silence and the dust starts to settle all around them.
The mother blinks her eyes open. She certainly doesn't feel shot, although she rationalizes she has no idea what that might feel like.
Turning over her shoulder, she looks towards where Darlene is still standing in the doorway.
The woman is still holding onto her gun, except it is no longer pointed up at Rachel. Instead, both her arms are slack and hanging down at her side.
She staggers a little bit and stumbles closer to where Rachel and Shelby are still on the floor and only then does Shelby notice that the woman is bleeding more than she had been before, and that that bloodstain is growing steadily straight from the center of her chest.
She remains on her feet for only a few more seconds, her eyes wide and glazed over and then, she stumbles backwards and lands on her back inside of the doorway.
Eyes wide with a strange combination of fear and confusion, Shelby stands up slowly, her entire body shaking.
She turns from Darlene to Peter and catches the man just in time to see the gun that she had left next to him slip from his fingers. It falls to the hardwood floor with a loud bang. The pistol grip and trigger are covered with his own blood.
Shelby watches the man slump like the effort of shooting Darlene had taken the last bit of energy out of him.
Shelby stares at the man for a long time. She waits for him to move again, but he never does and she knows that he is gone even before Rachel jumps to her feet, presses herself tight into Shelby's side, and releases a sob that settles painfully deep inside of the mother's gut.
Shelby doesn't know what to do. The only thing she can think is to wrap her arms around Rachel and hold her in close. When Quinn comes back in from the kitchen, she holds the blonde on the other side.
Together, the three of them stand like that, unsure what to do with these feelings swirling around inside of them, even as they finally hear the sound of police sirens coming closer and closer.
This ordeal might be over, but all three can't help but to wonder if they had really managed to survive it after all.