Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please (I Don't Want To Be Your Hero) (28/29)
Title: Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please (I Don’t Want To Be Your Hero) (28/29)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
“Really, this is just such an ugly situation.”
He is summing it up rather well, Quinn thinks, although she never would have sounded so cavalier about it. Not with Kurt lying broken so many feet away. Not with Rachel being cradled by a killer.
How on earth did they get to this place?
“It would be so easy,” he is in the middle of saying in that low, smooth voice that makes Quinn want to tear his head clean off. “You’re strong, aren’t you? A strong little lady. You could do whatever you like.”
No, she retorts silently, I can’t. Because that will only end in blood.
She hates the way he seems to be able to read her mind. It’s possible that he actually has that ability, although she doubts it. She hasn’t felt even the barest stirrings within her skull from anything other than her own beastly instincts. His words-self-assured, superior-mean nothing. She shouldn’t even listen.
But it’s so hard to tune him out with Rachel over there, nails digging violently into his arm. Maybe a stronger person would be able to do it, but Quinn? Quinn feels like her head is coming apart.
She’s toeing a dangerous line, she recognizes, but with the relentless hissing of, Now, now, now echoing over and over again, there doesn’t feel like much she can do about it.
Mine, the voice snaps when Rayne’s arm tightens another fraction of an inch. Mine, Rachel is mine.
Ours, she wants to gripe back, which is all breeds of stupid. Who cares about arguing possessively over Rachel with her demented other half? This is most definitely not the time for petty bantering with herself.
She locks eyes with him, silently vowing to rip him apart if he so much as urges one more breath from Rachel’s lungs before she’s ready to give it up. Knowingly, he smiles.
“You want to do it, don’t you? You want to hurt me? I won’t hold it against you, I promise. It’s understandable, that you wouldn’t get what I’m going for here. And hey, I’ve got your little girlfriend all bound up. I could snap her like a twig if I so chose. Thank your friend with the super-strength for that one; you’d be surprised how easy it gets to break things when they weigh next to nothing.”
Keep going, the power begs, keep pushing. We can take him down, we can spread bits of him from here to the other side of this hotel. The more he talks-
The more he talks, the angrier Quinn gets, and she suspects that’s sort of his point. She shouldn’t be listening, she tells herself again. He isn’t talking for his health here, and he sure as hell can’t be doing it to strike fear into the hearts of the others. Especially not Rachel. He knows Rachel, knows what she can do, knows exactly what to expect from her.
It’s Quinn he’s interested in, Quinn who is a perfect wild card in this situation. That is the only reason, she senses, for him not killing each and every one of them where they stand. He could-he could so clearly do exactly what he has done God only knows how many times to innumerable others, culling their powers one by one and striking them down with brutal abandon. He could. He is just choosing not to.
Because of her.
Because she interests him.
Giving in now is exactly what he craves.
She can see the command reflected boldly in Rachel’s wide brown eyes: do not act. She is not to move, or speak, or give him the slightest inkling as to what’s going on inside her head. She is not to break.
But Rachel, under all of her elegance and strength, looks scared-maybe not for herself, but the fear is there all the same, and it’s driving Quinn insane to face it so helplessly. She’s never seen Rachel flat-out scared before, and she doesn’t like it now. Barely caged, barely restrained in a prison of flesh and blood, the beast howls with maddening rage.
Mine, mine, it claims repeatedly, rattling her thoroughly in the process. Take her back, take her away from him. He can’t touch. No right, not his.
Shut up, she replies hotly, not even caring that she is-boiled down-talking to herself. It slams forward again, rocking her system.
“Tell me what you want,” Rayne pressures, forcing Rachel to lean back against his chest. “Tell me what you’re waiting for. For me to make a promise, perhaps? Are you setting aside all instinct until I swear to you that your precious little Manipulator will be safe? Or is it a move you’re betting on-whether or not you can get to me before I pop her delicate little head right off these slim shoulders? Tell me. I can relax you, I promise, if you’ll only let me in.”
Never. Except…except there’s Kurt, lying in a rumpled heap across the room, too wounded even to curl into the fetal position. Brittany and Matt hover over him anxiously; the rest of the group stands exactly where they have been since walking through that door. No one moves. It feels to Quinn as though no one is even breathing. Everything hinges on her.
She can’t take that.
She never signed on for this. She never signed on to bear the genetic ability to destroy everything in her path. She definitely never signed on to fall head over heels for a lunatic with a similar power, much less one who has appointed herself the head of the only rebel task force in New York who actually cares enough to fight-violently, even to the point of self-sacrifice-for the mother of all minority causes. If there were such a thing as a superhero faction of the American Civil Liberties Union, Quinn is positive Rachel would be working day and night in its favor.
The idea is almost enough to make her smile.
But the thing is, that’s not the way this world works. No one likes powers-not even, it has become so apparent, many of those who carry the gene in the first place. So why is this happening? Why are they expected to fight-to die-for this cause? And who the hell picked her?
It’s his fault, the voice hisses. It’s him. Not Rachel. Not anyone else. He wants you to fail. He wants to kill you, us, everyone in this room. His fault. His doing. He has damned us.
Kill him. Kill him before he kills you.
She wishes the voice would just shut up almost as much as she wishes Rachel would just snap free. Use her frightening ability to clamber inside Rayne’s revoltingly awful brain and just-move. Escape. She wishes Finn could teleport them all away from here, maybe to somewhere warm and considerably more remote than New York. Fiji, perhaps, or some odd corner of India.
“Why so silent?” Rayne asks with that nasty smile. “Oh dear me, Rachel, I do believe I’ve broken your girlfriend. What do you think?”
Rachel’s head gives a nearly imperceptible twitch. “Quinn.”
No, no, don’t ask me, don’t talk to me, I can’t. She can’t think, can’t hold on. There might not be much use in escaping to a mentally-constructed Fijian outcropping, but it’s better than standing here in this ballroom, feeling hopeless and on the last verge of control. It has to be.
“Quinn,” Rachel says again, voice shuddering when Rayne pulls her in tighter. “You’re okay, Quinn.”
I’m not, she wants to cry, and why the hell isn’t anyone moving? Why are they leaving it all up to her, when Rachel is their leader, even their friend? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?
Because she’s ours, the voice reminds her as a violent itch swoops through her bloodstream. Because she belongs to-
I don’t own Rachel, she snaps, trying her best to ignore the interested expression on Rayne’s face as he witnesses this whole bizarre mental struggle. She doesn’t belong to anyone.
Mine, the beast responds stubbornly. Ours. Get her. Now.
Up until now, the pull has been impossible to ignore, but not so bad that she felt out of control. In fact, perhaps that has been the only thing about this to go in a halfway decent direction: she still has control. Some. Not much, but enough to feel like maybe this won’t end in a desperate bid for her life.
Now, though…now she’s not overly certain about that. Or about the control. Or about anything, really.
Except-
Get her. Get her now. Get her away from him.
She hates that he can read her eyes so clearly. The arm around Rachel’s throat slackens just enough for him to push the young woman tauntingly away, grasping the back of her shirt with his free hand. “You want this? Take her. She’s yours if you just reach out. I know you can do it.”
No, no, no, she thinks, because that is so obviously what he wants her to do. But that’s logic speaking. And, as hard as she’s railing against it, there isn’t much room left for logic in her head. The power is spreading, flowing hungrily through her body, lighting up every nerve ending like it’s Christmas-damn-day. She’s trying to hold on; her eyes meet Rachel’s, desperate to find something there to sink her claws into, that final hand gripping her tether. She’s fighting more frantically than she’s ever fought for anything in her life.
But she has to admit, it is fighting that much harder.
She lets out a shaky breath, fists opening at her sides. The bowstaff, dead weight in a hand that has no memory of using human weapons, clatters to the ground.
The tether snaps.
It only takes that second, that singular beat of desperation, and Quinn Fabray is gone.
So far gone, in fact, that it feels like she has just stepped onto the world’s most crowded bus and been shoved violently to the very back. She is thoroughly unprepared for the velocity at which the power surges forward, clenching its fists around whatever measure of control she once held dear and squeezing possessively.
“Ahh, so this is what it looks like,” Rayne whispers, uncomfortably awestruck. “Beautiful.”
See how beautiful he thinks I am when I’m tearing out his throat, Quinn rages, because for all the control she does not have, there is that much power. Sheer, unfathomable, ridiculous power. And if it’s going to be loose, she sure as hell wants it to be loose upon him.
Her body has coiled and launched before her conscious brain would be able to formulate a plan. Rachel’s eyes go wide as Quinn grabs for her, ripping her from Rayne’s grasp and hurling her unceremoniously back into Tina and Mike. Rayne, for his part, doesn’t even step back.
She’s going to shred the smile he’s wearing, bit by arrogant bit. Maybe she’ll do it while strangling him within an inch of his life. Whatever she does, it will have to be fast, and it will have to hurt-that’s all she knows for sure.
Her hands extend before the command has completed its journey from instinct to intellect, her short nails inching to dig into his skin. Sneering, she prepares to grip just beneath his jawline and imagines how gloriously vulnerable his skin will feel, how wide his eyes will go when he realizes that this is something he cannot beat.
It isn’t until her legs stop on their own that she realizes just how bad an idea this is.
Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.
“I’m going to go ahead and assume you didn’t really think this plan through,” Rayne observes smugly, eyebrows arched. Though his hand does not raise from his side, she can see the spread of his fingers.
No, she thinks desperately, this isn’t possible. Except the situation is undeniable: she’s stuck on freeze frame, posed like an idiot with her arms stretched towards his throat. The beast howls furiously, which only makes Quinn feel worse than ever-if she thought it was bad being trapped in the back of her head while an uncontrollable force ran her body, being stuck between that and a madman puppeteer is so much scarier.
“Oops,” he says, his voice so calm, she aches with frustration. “Looks like someone thought she was immune to string-pulling. Rookie mistake, my lovely, you can’t be faulted for it. Certainly, if no one ever told you the danger of the situation-how, for example, the only person who has yet to fall under my direction is your darling mind-control girlfriend here?-well. Who could blame you?”
Kill him, the beast insists. Kill the bastard right now.
And she would, she’s fairly confident-if only she could remember how to work her body. If she could convince the adrenaline circling her system to flow to the muscles in her legs and arms, if she could so much as twist her head to look at the others, she would be all over the brutal murder train. For the first time in her life, she knows this is someone who deserves it.
Which does nothing to change the fact that she has been changed in the blink of an eye to a life-size Quinn-the-Silencer action figure, and the man holding her batteries is the same one whose destruction she craves.
“See, the thing is, sweetheart,” he’s saying as he lifts his hand and points one finger her way, “you’re tough, and I do like that. I like that a lot. If you had your priorities in order, I could use that sparklin’ little quality. But something tells me, if I ask you to, for example, commit treason by throttling your girlfriend, you would-“
“Go to hell,” Quinn manages to bite out before he’s finished, face flushed with the effort. He grins.
“Say that. Look at you, all predictable and noble. It’s too bad I have no use for nobility.”
She-no, her body-is turning now, smooth as you please. Her back is to Rayne, her eyes pointed towards her friends. The darkest of chills, like a midnight winter wind, sweeps down her spine.
No. No, no, no.
“You’re of no use to me,” he says again, “but your power certainly is. I think, if you could do me a few favors before I remove that little burden from your shoulders, that would be…fair. Don’t you?”
Her left leg takes the first menacing step forward. Realization dawns on the faces of her friends, one by horrified one. Puck raises his sword.
“I don’t want to do this,” Quinn growls. “You can’t make me.”
“Pretty sure you’re not going to have a choice,” Rayne sing-songs behind her. “It’s really a pity, I know, that things have to come to such barbarity, but look. It’s either do things this way, quick and neat, or expend a whole lot of energy doing for myself what you could so easily take care of for me. And in the second scenario, there’s all the effort of learning how to use your power, and gee-I just don’t have the hours to put into that right now. I need this thorn out of my side. You can vaporize it in an instant. I can’t see an issue here.”
“Fabray,” Puck hisses. “Do something.”
“She can’t,” Finn says dumbly. “She-oh, shit. Oh, shit, you guys.”
“Freakishly Tall and Goofy knows what’s up,” Rayne announces amiably. “I think maybe he should be first?”
Finn’s forehead creases, his lanky body automatically falling into a defensive stance as Quinn rounds on him. She closes her eyes, praying with every ounce of energy she’s got left that something will stop this before it begins.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Rayne’s voice drops, solemn for the first time. “Get them.”
Suddenly, she’s moving, a whirlwind of force she doesn’t have the first clue how to contain. She can hear the screams and curses, can even put a name to a few of the voices, but it doesn’t matter: she’s gone. Her body has pushed into the fray, and her brain no longer counts for anything.
Her eyes still register what is happening: Finn, blinking in and out of sight, unwilling to lay a hand on her; Puck, sword lit up, head drenched with sweat as he struggles not to land a blow; Tina, fingers crackling with energy she keeps firing at the ground around Quinn’s dancing feet. Mike, staying on the other side of Santana at all times, alert, but largely defenseless. It isn’t as though hand-to-hand combat will do any of them a lick of good by this point-not with the beast at the helm.
It sickens her, how pleased it is, how triumphant its roars have grown. These are her friends, and she knows it, but the power couldn’t care less. It is free, whirling and stretching, and that is all it is interested in knowing. It has hungered for this moment for so long, caged within her unwilling body, and now-
“Move!” Puck snarls, shoving Finn nearly hard enough to send him sprawling. “Don’t let her touch you. Don’t let her-fuck.”
The beast has landed a blow, fist crashing into the side of Puck’s skull. He staggers, blinking dazedly, fingers loosening around the sword hilt. Trapped inside herself, Quinn grits her teeth.
Stop, she commands weakly, don’t hurt them.
The beast only cackles in response, lashing out with a sharp kick to Tina’s ribcage. A spark of electricity catches Quinn around the ankle, torching the cuff of her pants before fizzling out. Her brain registers the pain, but her body pushes through it. She wonders if she’ll be alive long enough to deal with the consequences of the burn.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Puck demands, feinting left and swinging hard. Quinn catches his arm and twists, bitterly noticing the strength she should not have against a man twice her size. Behind her, she dimly registers Rachel’s panicked voice.
“Don’t hurt her!”
“Easier said than done, babe,” Puck grunts. “Sort of lookin’ to not die today, if you know what I-fuck!”
She connects twice in a row, smashing in his nose with a force she can only imagine rightfully belonging to a professional boxer. He staggers, sword clattering against the floor as he instinctively covers his face, groaning.
Rachel cries her name again, and deep inside, Quinn trembles with the fierce urge to run to her. The beast snuffles appreciatively, filing the notion away for the end of this despicable bloodbath.
Mine, it reminds her excitedly. She wonders how thrilled it will be when Rayne is yanking her strings in Rachel’s direction.
Not that it matters right now, because Rachel isn’t the target. Tina, Mike, Santana, Puck-they are the ones in her way. Santana, with her sharp yowls and flashing claws, darting around from behind like she thinks she is in any way more cunning than the rage in Quinn’s veins. Mike, with his pathetic pop-n-lock attempts at violence, in no way the ninja she once suspected him to be. Tina, still refusing to aim for anything higher than her shins, ever the bleeding heart. They are worthless, the voice in her head insists-just a bunch of scared kids who let their feelings make them weak.
They’re my friends, she tries to insist, but it’s no use. The beast doesn’t care about friends-it never has, and she can’t see why it should start now. All it has ever dwelled upon is hunger, and whatever it takes to feed that appetite.
And right now, killing seems in its best interest.
She can hear Rayne behind her, laughing his fool head off like this is some fucking stand-up comedian routine, and she hates him. She hates him more than she has ever hated anything else. How much would it take, really, to turn around and snap his neck? How hard could it possibly be?
Turn, she wills her body, turn and take him down.
Her feet continue to charge in the direction of her friends. Her eyes continue to zero in on faces she cannot bear to see bloody. Without any command from her brain, one booted foot lashes out and catches Santana in the side. The muscled cat goes down with a yip, crashing against Finn as he pops for a second into the exact wrong place.
This is a mess, Quinn registers, a giant fucking circus with no ringleader. So far, no one has let her close enough to take them down, but they’re wearing out fast. A trickle of blood snakes along Puck’s lip; Santana is wheezing for breath. They won’t be able to hold her off for much longer.
And then there’s Rachel. Beautiful, powerful Rachel, who is standing with her eyes burning into Quinn. Beautiful, naïve Rachel, so desperately searching for a way in. Quinn can feel her battering against the edges of her sanity, doing everything in her power to force her way past impossible barriers. If only Rachel were that much stronger, able to override the beast long enough to let Quinn back into the driver’s seat, maybe-maybe this could end.
Come on, she prays, Rachel, come on. I’m letting you in. This is me letting you in. Do something.
“It’s so cute that you’re trying,” Rayne notes with disgusting mirth. “They don’t usually fight this hard. I’m all kinds of impressed.”
Fuck you. Fuck you and your fucking god complex. I’ll fucking kill you-
Except her body still isn’t obeying that murderous command. Try as she might, it’s like headbutting a steel wall: she hasn’t made even a dent, has only managed to give herself a massive headache for her troubles.
And Puck is getting weaker.
They all are, she sees, but Puck is the one the power keeps honing in on. Puck is big, and strong, and generally speaking, a force to be reckoned with. Puck is the enemy right now, and the beast wants nothing more than to tear him limb from limb.
She lashes out-a blow to the face, to the ribs, to the groin. Her fingers extend, searching for that stupid mohawk. All she has to do is reach a little farther, dig her fingers into his scalp, hold him still, and then-then…
Dark skin. Serious eyes. The collar of his shirt is in her hand, and she’s not sure how it got there. Where did he even come from?
He doesn’t say a word, only stares her straight in the eye, calm as you please. He always seems calm. She’s envious; he would have had a plan. In her shoes, he would have figured something out before all of this started, before Santana lay broken on the floor, before the destruction of Puck’s precious bone structure.
Her fingers slide up his throat, curl around, squeeze lightly. Preparing. The beast is starving.
“Wait,” Rayne orders behind her. Her hand stills, every muscle taut. Displeased, the beast nudges forward impatiently.
The weight of it all is suffocating: Rachel, putting pressure on boundaries Quinn wishes she could let down; Rayne, holding her in freeze-frame as he steps in close; Matt, serene, with her hand around his neck. She wants to disappear, to sink into the floor and become nothing. Nothing wouldn’t be hurting anyone.
“Not yet,” Rayne says softly, though her fingers strain against his grasp, eager to clench tight and drain Matt of everything he’s got. “I need him alive, you see. Can’t do the deed if the dude is dead, you know how it goes.”
I don’t, she thinks desperately. Explain it to me.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he steps lightly around to Matt’s other side, pressing his hands against the younger man’s shoulders and sighing with-she thinks disgustedly-anticipation.
“Not sure who you are,” he tells Matt cheerfully, tightening his grip until the shirt bunches unattractively. “Can’t say I really care. One of those sacrificial lamb types, yeah? How sweet. I gotta say, I’d prefer starting with one of your less…forgettable friends. The kitty-cat, maybe. But you’ll do. Gotta start somewhere. And hey, a little surprise! I’d love to see what sort of filling you’ve got.”
To his credit, Matt barely blinks in acknowledgment. His gaze remains locked with Quinn’s, his lips forming a perfectly straight line. And-
Is he leaning into me?
“You ready for this, darlin’?” Rayne asks, squeezing Matt’s shoulders. “Gonna be fun. Up close and personal, not many people know what that feels like. You’ll have to let me know how the show is when it’s all over.”
The son of a bitch actually winks at her, but Quinn is too busy staring at Matt’s unnervingly placid face to care. It’s as though he knows something she should be aware of too, but is trying to pass the information along through his eyeballs-which, if she were Rachel, might be legitimately helpful. Under the circumstances, Quinn’s pretty sure he’s trying to mind-meld with the wrong girl.
She wants to scream in his face, to demand what it is he wants from her, but her mouth refuses to work. Her fingers twitch around his throat as the beast, tempted beyond reason with a fresh kill, slams viciously against Rayne’s leash.
Matt’s eyebrows lift and drop.
Rayne’s eyes close.
Before she’s ready for it, the whole world drops away.
For that heady second, everything goes still: the voice in her head quiets, the raging terror subsides, and even Rachel’s frantic pounding against her senses fades. For just one second, she can feel the three of them, a circuit of sheer power, and in that second, Quinn gets it.
The simmering urge to scream rises to an instant boil.
Stop, she tries to shout, except her mouth still won’t work and her hand doesn’t seem interested in falling away from Matt’s surprisingly smooth skin. Helplessly, she watches as his head jerks backwards, his lips parting in shock.
Don’t do this, she begs the beast, but it’s far too late; already, she can feel the stirrings of that funnel again, the force she felt with Santana in the basement. Already, she can feel herself seeping into Matt, a fist punched straight through him, clenching around the essence of this man she never bothered to get to know and drawing it right back out again. His dark face lightens rapidly, his whole body spasming reflexively as his hands come up, clawing desperately at her wrist.
Over his shoulder, she sees Rayne’s brow tighten and relax, his eyes slowly fluttering open. Not much time, the voice in her head warns. Finish.
It doesn’t have to tell her again; Matt is fading fast, much faster than she is prepared for. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registers that this is her first real kill.
Yet another thing she never expected to be faced with.
Rayne is starting to draw away, she senses, starting to focus his energy back upon her. Matt’s body is going limp, the light in his eyes turning dull. This is wrong, all fucking wrong-yet, somehow, it feels essential. Maybe it’s the fact that it was Matt’s idea, or maybe it’s just the absolutely glorious high she’s riding; either way, Quinn feels right. When his body slumps and she finds herself able to lift her own head, it only cements that sick certainty.
Rayne is staring at his own hands, clenching and unclenching them repeatedly. “Huh.”
He doesn’t feel any different, Quinn thinks, wracked with revulsion, because he didn’t get anything out of that.
I did.
The voice in her head has gone disturbingly silent, the energy pumping through her body still. She feels exactly like she did in that basement: collared, contained-and secure. For the first time since stepping foot into this building, Quinn Fabray feels like she has control of the situation.
If only Matt didn’t have to die for this to happen.
She can’t explain how she knows what he was thinking-truth be told, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe it’s all guesswork here. All she knows is, Matt walked into her clutching hands for a reason. He is-was-much smarter than she suspected from his stoic silence; she never would have thought of wiring his power that way, of using Rayne in such a fucked-up circuit board. Hell, she never knew that was possible. But here she stands: wheel firmly in hand, power suitably quieted. And there he is.
Baffled. Angry. Still failing to understand.
She supposes she can’t blame him for that. It’s a far cry from logical, what Matt has done. Giving himself away like that, forcing her hand-it was insane. Undeniably so. How could he even be sure it would work?
Doesn’t matter, she thinks, shoulders straightening. He didn’t want anyone else to die. Easy as that. Give a little to get a little, that’s all it was. He got it.
Rayne, it appears, still doesn’t.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he mumbles. “Thought he had something. Why didn’t he have something?”
He hasn’t realized she’s out of his hands, Quinn understands. Too focused on his own self. How surprising.
She needs to do this before he notices. She needs to focus. The only problem is, she doesn’t have the first clue how to use Matt’s power-or, really, if she even can. Does it even work that way? She suspects this isn’t a typical thing, sacrificing oneself so the all-terrifying Silencer can strip away the one power that can control her each and every time and harness it for herself. She’s pretty sure that’s new.
Can she use it to keep herself from blindly murdering her friends? Apparently.
Can she use it to keep Rayne from ever doing so again?
Matt, friend, you really should have given me an instruction manual first.
She feels a small hand slide into hers, warm and comforting. Rachel’s eyes are hard when Quinn meets them, but there is something safe behind the tension. She squeezes back urgently, resisting the need to close her eyes and block all of this out.
Instead, she focuses on finishing this whole awful thing. She has to admit, she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing; Rayne looks decidedly unhappy-frustrated, mostly, and a little psychopathic-but not as though his power is being forcibly restrained. And there isn’t exactly a button marked ‘This One’ settled within her system, so-
Fuck. What now?
Rachel’s hand squeezes again, insistently this time. Quinn’s gaze flashes to her, unsteady, just in time to feel a gentle prod against her consciousness.
As little as she likes that sensation, she can’t help but smile a bit this time.
“When I count to three,” Rachel says, so softly Quinn nearly misses the words, “go. Fast.”
It’s hard to let up just enough-a not-so-small part of her is petrified the beast will see the opening and punch through it, undoing everything that has just happened. Certainly, when she raises that internal gate a fraction of an inch, she can sense its rage, its anxiety at being caged. Whatever camaraderie they once had, it seems a thing of the past now; she is the new enemy.
Fear won’t help, she reminds herself. It thrives on fear, on sensing weakness and exploiting it. The old Quinn was scared shitless by this whole deal, but the new Quinn? New Quinn doesn’t have that luxury.
Her hands are around his neck before he can move. She suspects Rachel might have a hand in this, but there’s no way of knowing for sure. All that counts is the split second of terror that crosses his face.
Good.
“What now?” she demands, because there’s no point in fucking around at this point. “Rach. Help me.”
She could kill him, she knows, and she could do it in an instant. How easy it would be, to open up just enough to suck him dry-or, just as good, strangle him for good. How easy it would be, to end this now.
Her fingers flex, knuckles going white with the strain. End him, the voice whispers. Finally.
Except…
She turns imploringly to Rachel. It’s pathetic, undoubtedly, to feel what she is feeling. This man is evil-if such a thing exists within the human condition, he certainly is it. He has killed unabashedly, done so much damage-more times than she knows for sure, and he would so happily do it again. To her. To her friends. To Rachel. She should tear him apart.
But she has already killed today-a necessary death, perhaps, but that doesn’t feel like it makes a difference. Matt was a good man, and anyway, it shouldn’t matter. Death is death, and Quinn has had enough of it.
When Rachel’s fingers brush against her own, surprisingly tender, she grits her teeth. She won’t kill this man, no matter how much he deserves it. It is amazing how much that decision hurts.
Doing the right thing, she understands on an entirely novel level, really sucks.
“I want this over with,” she decides aloud. “Tell me how to do it.”
She isn’t sure if Rachel is reading her mind in the literal sense or not; she is just thankful when the smaller girl leans against her shoulder, placing one hand on Rayne’s temple. He bucks instinctively, cowed only when Quinn tightens her grip on his windpipe.
“Relax,” Rachel advises, a dash of irony coating her tone. “It’ll smart less.”
Her eyes close. Following her lead, Quinn does the same, putting all of her attention on the sensation of skin beneath her fingertips. She can smell his fear, the sudden failure of inborn arrogance, can hear his pulse thundering within her grasp. There is something perfectly delicious about the whole experience, as much as she hates to admit it.
She can feel Rachel, nudging her way inside. Without the power in control, the wall around her mind is gone, replaced by little more than a rope Rachel can duck under. With anyone else, this level of vulnerability would be horrifying. With Rachel…
She shrugs off the thought. Now isn’t the time.
Rachel roots around within her mind for a moment, searching for something Quinn can’t locate herself. It’s uncomfortable, but when Rachel grasps hold of the thing-the remnants of Matt’s power, which so obviously does not belong, and yet already feels so essential to her being-Quinn hears herself gasp. It’s as though Rachel has located the edge of a thick blanket and tugged before she was ready to be uncovered.
That concern returns for a moment, the fear that the beast might choose this moment to break loose and begin its rampage once more, but nothing comes. Rachel is not taking the blanket away, she understands. She is simply stretching it to cover a larger area.
Specifically, Rayne.
He hates it, Quinn can tell; as they both watch Rachel work, spreading the blanket over him inch by careful inch, he squirms, kicking his feet against the tile, flailing both hands madly. For the briefest moment, she almost forgets who he is and what he has done, a pang of concern sparking for his panic.
Rachel’s hand tightens around hers again, grounding her. It’s all she needs to focus.
She can’t tally up how much time it takes for Rachel to finish the job and break the circuit. When the foreign presence finally disappears from her head, she sags sideways, releasing Rayne on instinct. The room comes rushing solidly back: her friends, staring at them with open uncertainty and pain; Matt’s body, cradled between Finn and Mike; Kurt, supported by a swaying Brittany.
And Rayne. On his knees, head pressed against the ground. Shaking.
It is the only part of this that feels right.
“Is that it?” she asks, breathing too heavily. Rachel tiredly nods.
“He’s done.”
“For good?” Quinn demands. “That’s it?”
Another nod. Rachel has never looked so exhausted. Quinn crushes her against her side, sucking in a deep breath.
That’s it.
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
“Really, this is just such an ugly situation.”
He is summing it up rather well, Quinn thinks, although she never would have sounded so cavalier about it. Not with Kurt lying broken so many feet away. Not with Rachel being cradled by a killer.
How on earth did they get to this place?
“It would be so easy,” he is in the middle of saying in that low, smooth voice that makes Quinn want to tear his head clean off. “You’re strong, aren’t you? A strong little lady. You could do whatever you like.”
No, she retorts silently, I can’t. Because that will only end in blood.
She hates the way he seems to be able to read her mind. It’s possible that he actually has that ability, although she doubts it. She hasn’t felt even the barest stirrings within her skull from anything other than her own beastly instincts. His words-self-assured, superior-mean nothing. She shouldn’t even listen.
But it’s so hard to tune him out with Rachel over there, nails digging violently into his arm. Maybe a stronger person would be able to do it, but Quinn? Quinn feels like her head is coming apart.
She’s toeing a dangerous line, she recognizes, but with the relentless hissing of, Now, now, now echoing over and over again, there doesn’t feel like much she can do about it.
Mine, the voice snaps when Rayne’s arm tightens another fraction of an inch. Mine, Rachel is mine.
Ours, she wants to gripe back, which is all breeds of stupid. Who cares about arguing possessively over Rachel with her demented other half? This is most definitely not the time for petty bantering with herself.
She locks eyes with him, silently vowing to rip him apart if he so much as urges one more breath from Rachel’s lungs before she’s ready to give it up. Knowingly, he smiles.
“You want to do it, don’t you? You want to hurt me? I won’t hold it against you, I promise. It’s understandable, that you wouldn’t get what I’m going for here. And hey, I’ve got your little girlfriend all bound up. I could snap her like a twig if I so chose. Thank your friend with the super-strength for that one; you’d be surprised how easy it gets to break things when they weigh next to nothing.”
Keep going, the power begs, keep pushing. We can take him down, we can spread bits of him from here to the other side of this hotel. The more he talks-
The more he talks, the angrier Quinn gets, and she suspects that’s sort of his point. She shouldn’t be listening, she tells herself again. He isn’t talking for his health here, and he sure as hell can’t be doing it to strike fear into the hearts of the others. Especially not Rachel. He knows Rachel, knows what she can do, knows exactly what to expect from her.
It’s Quinn he’s interested in, Quinn who is a perfect wild card in this situation. That is the only reason, she senses, for him not killing each and every one of them where they stand. He could-he could so clearly do exactly what he has done God only knows how many times to innumerable others, culling their powers one by one and striking them down with brutal abandon. He could. He is just choosing not to.
Because of her.
Because she interests him.
Giving in now is exactly what he craves.
She can see the command reflected boldly in Rachel’s wide brown eyes: do not act. She is not to move, or speak, or give him the slightest inkling as to what’s going on inside her head. She is not to break.
But Rachel, under all of her elegance and strength, looks scared-maybe not for herself, but the fear is there all the same, and it’s driving Quinn insane to face it so helplessly. She’s never seen Rachel flat-out scared before, and she doesn’t like it now. Barely caged, barely restrained in a prison of flesh and blood, the beast howls with maddening rage.
Mine, mine, it claims repeatedly, rattling her thoroughly in the process. Take her back, take her away from him. He can’t touch. No right, not his.
Shut up, she replies hotly, not even caring that she is-boiled down-talking to herself. It slams forward again, rocking her system.
“Tell me what you want,” Rayne pressures, forcing Rachel to lean back against his chest. “Tell me what you’re waiting for. For me to make a promise, perhaps? Are you setting aside all instinct until I swear to you that your precious little Manipulator will be safe? Or is it a move you’re betting on-whether or not you can get to me before I pop her delicate little head right off these slim shoulders? Tell me. I can relax you, I promise, if you’ll only let me in.”
Never. Except…except there’s Kurt, lying in a rumpled heap across the room, too wounded even to curl into the fetal position. Brittany and Matt hover over him anxiously; the rest of the group stands exactly where they have been since walking through that door. No one moves. It feels to Quinn as though no one is even breathing. Everything hinges on her.
She can’t take that.
She never signed on for this. She never signed on to bear the genetic ability to destroy everything in her path. She definitely never signed on to fall head over heels for a lunatic with a similar power, much less one who has appointed herself the head of the only rebel task force in New York who actually cares enough to fight-violently, even to the point of self-sacrifice-for the mother of all minority causes. If there were such a thing as a superhero faction of the American Civil Liberties Union, Quinn is positive Rachel would be working day and night in its favor.
The idea is almost enough to make her smile.
But the thing is, that’s not the way this world works. No one likes powers-not even, it has become so apparent, many of those who carry the gene in the first place. So why is this happening? Why are they expected to fight-to die-for this cause? And who the hell picked her?
It’s his fault, the voice hisses. It’s him. Not Rachel. Not anyone else. He wants you to fail. He wants to kill you, us, everyone in this room. His fault. His doing. He has damned us.
Kill him. Kill him before he kills you.
She wishes the voice would just shut up almost as much as she wishes Rachel would just snap free. Use her frightening ability to clamber inside Rayne’s revoltingly awful brain and just-move. Escape. She wishes Finn could teleport them all away from here, maybe to somewhere warm and considerably more remote than New York. Fiji, perhaps, or some odd corner of India.
“Why so silent?” Rayne asks with that nasty smile. “Oh dear me, Rachel, I do believe I’ve broken your girlfriend. What do you think?”
Rachel’s head gives a nearly imperceptible twitch. “Quinn.”
No, no, don’t ask me, don’t talk to me, I can’t. She can’t think, can’t hold on. There might not be much use in escaping to a mentally-constructed Fijian outcropping, but it’s better than standing here in this ballroom, feeling hopeless and on the last verge of control. It has to be.
“Quinn,” Rachel says again, voice shuddering when Rayne pulls her in tighter. “You’re okay, Quinn.”
I’m not, she wants to cry, and why the hell isn’t anyone moving? Why are they leaving it all up to her, when Rachel is their leader, even their friend? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?
Because she’s ours, the voice reminds her as a violent itch swoops through her bloodstream. Because she belongs to-
I don’t own Rachel, she snaps, trying her best to ignore the interested expression on Rayne’s face as he witnesses this whole bizarre mental struggle. She doesn’t belong to anyone.
Mine, the beast responds stubbornly. Ours. Get her. Now.
Up until now, the pull has been impossible to ignore, but not so bad that she felt out of control. In fact, perhaps that has been the only thing about this to go in a halfway decent direction: she still has control. Some. Not much, but enough to feel like maybe this won’t end in a desperate bid for her life.
Now, though…now she’s not overly certain about that. Or about the control. Or about anything, really.
Except-
Get her. Get her now. Get her away from him.
She hates that he can read her eyes so clearly. The arm around Rachel’s throat slackens just enough for him to push the young woman tauntingly away, grasping the back of her shirt with his free hand. “You want this? Take her. She’s yours if you just reach out. I know you can do it.”
No, no, no, she thinks, because that is so obviously what he wants her to do. But that’s logic speaking. And, as hard as she’s railing against it, there isn’t much room left for logic in her head. The power is spreading, flowing hungrily through her body, lighting up every nerve ending like it’s Christmas-damn-day. She’s trying to hold on; her eyes meet Rachel’s, desperate to find something there to sink her claws into, that final hand gripping her tether. She’s fighting more frantically than she’s ever fought for anything in her life.
But she has to admit, it is fighting that much harder.
She lets out a shaky breath, fists opening at her sides. The bowstaff, dead weight in a hand that has no memory of using human weapons, clatters to the ground.
The tether snaps.
It only takes that second, that singular beat of desperation, and Quinn Fabray is gone.
So far gone, in fact, that it feels like she has just stepped onto the world’s most crowded bus and been shoved violently to the very back. She is thoroughly unprepared for the velocity at which the power surges forward, clenching its fists around whatever measure of control she once held dear and squeezing possessively.
“Ahh, so this is what it looks like,” Rayne whispers, uncomfortably awestruck. “Beautiful.”
See how beautiful he thinks I am when I’m tearing out his throat, Quinn rages, because for all the control she does not have, there is that much power. Sheer, unfathomable, ridiculous power. And if it’s going to be loose, she sure as hell wants it to be loose upon him.
Her body has coiled and launched before her conscious brain would be able to formulate a plan. Rachel’s eyes go wide as Quinn grabs for her, ripping her from Rayne’s grasp and hurling her unceremoniously back into Tina and Mike. Rayne, for his part, doesn’t even step back.
She’s going to shred the smile he’s wearing, bit by arrogant bit. Maybe she’ll do it while strangling him within an inch of his life. Whatever she does, it will have to be fast, and it will have to hurt-that’s all she knows for sure.
Her hands extend before the command has completed its journey from instinct to intellect, her short nails inching to dig into his skin. Sneering, she prepares to grip just beneath his jawline and imagines how gloriously vulnerable his skin will feel, how wide his eyes will go when he realizes that this is something he cannot beat.
It isn’t until her legs stop on their own that she realizes just how bad an idea this is.
Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.
“I’m going to go ahead and assume you didn’t really think this plan through,” Rayne observes smugly, eyebrows arched. Though his hand does not raise from his side, she can see the spread of his fingers.
No, she thinks desperately, this isn’t possible. Except the situation is undeniable: she’s stuck on freeze frame, posed like an idiot with her arms stretched towards his throat. The beast howls furiously, which only makes Quinn feel worse than ever-if she thought it was bad being trapped in the back of her head while an uncontrollable force ran her body, being stuck between that and a madman puppeteer is so much scarier.
“Oops,” he says, his voice so calm, she aches with frustration. “Looks like someone thought she was immune to string-pulling. Rookie mistake, my lovely, you can’t be faulted for it. Certainly, if no one ever told you the danger of the situation-how, for example, the only person who has yet to fall under my direction is your darling mind-control girlfriend here?-well. Who could blame you?”
Kill him, the beast insists. Kill the bastard right now.
And she would, she’s fairly confident-if only she could remember how to work her body. If she could convince the adrenaline circling her system to flow to the muscles in her legs and arms, if she could so much as twist her head to look at the others, she would be all over the brutal murder train. For the first time in her life, she knows this is someone who deserves it.
Which does nothing to change the fact that she has been changed in the blink of an eye to a life-size Quinn-the-Silencer action figure, and the man holding her batteries is the same one whose destruction she craves.
“See, the thing is, sweetheart,” he’s saying as he lifts his hand and points one finger her way, “you’re tough, and I do like that. I like that a lot. If you had your priorities in order, I could use that sparklin’ little quality. But something tells me, if I ask you to, for example, commit treason by throttling your girlfriend, you would-“
“Go to hell,” Quinn manages to bite out before he’s finished, face flushed with the effort. He grins.
“Say that. Look at you, all predictable and noble. It’s too bad I have no use for nobility.”
She-no, her body-is turning now, smooth as you please. Her back is to Rayne, her eyes pointed towards her friends. The darkest of chills, like a midnight winter wind, sweeps down her spine.
No. No, no, no.
“You’re of no use to me,” he says again, “but your power certainly is. I think, if you could do me a few favors before I remove that little burden from your shoulders, that would be…fair. Don’t you?”
Her left leg takes the first menacing step forward. Realization dawns on the faces of her friends, one by horrified one. Puck raises his sword.
“I don’t want to do this,” Quinn growls. “You can’t make me.”
“Pretty sure you’re not going to have a choice,” Rayne sing-songs behind her. “It’s really a pity, I know, that things have to come to such barbarity, but look. It’s either do things this way, quick and neat, or expend a whole lot of energy doing for myself what you could so easily take care of for me. And in the second scenario, there’s all the effort of learning how to use your power, and gee-I just don’t have the hours to put into that right now. I need this thorn out of my side. You can vaporize it in an instant. I can’t see an issue here.”
“Fabray,” Puck hisses. “Do something.”
“She can’t,” Finn says dumbly. “She-oh, shit. Oh, shit, you guys.”
“Freakishly Tall and Goofy knows what’s up,” Rayne announces amiably. “I think maybe he should be first?”
Finn’s forehead creases, his lanky body automatically falling into a defensive stance as Quinn rounds on him. She closes her eyes, praying with every ounce of energy she’s got left that something will stop this before it begins.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Rayne’s voice drops, solemn for the first time. “Get them.”
Suddenly, she’s moving, a whirlwind of force she doesn’t have the first clue how to contain. She can hear the screams and curses, can even put a name to a few of the voices, but it doesn’t matter: she’s gone. Her body has pushed into the fray, and her brain no longer counts for anything.
Her eyes still register what is happening: Finn, blinking in and out of sight, unwilling to lay a hand on her; Puck, sword lit up, head drenched with sweat as he struggles not to land a blow; Tina, fingers crackling with energy she keeps firing at the ground around Quinn’s dancing feet. Mike, staying on the other side of Santana at all times, alert, but largely defenseless. It isn’t as though hand-to-hand combat will do any of them a lick of good by this point-not with the beast at the helm.
It sickens her, how pleased it is, how triumphant its roars have grown. These are her friends, and she knows it, but the power couldn’t care less. It is free, whirling and stretching, and that is all it is interested in knowing. It has hungered for this moment for so long, caged within her unwilling body, and now-
“Move!” Puck snarls, shoving Finn nearly hard enough to send him sprawling. “Don’t let her touch you. Don’t let her-fuck.”
The beast has landed a blow, fist crashing into the side of Puck’s skull. He staggers, blinking dazedly, fingers loosening around the sword hilt. Trapped inside herself, Quinn grits her teeth.
Stop, she commands weakly, don’t hurt them.
The beast only cackles in response, lashing out with a sharp kick to Tina’s ribcage. A spark of electricity catches Quinn around the ankle, torching the cuff of her pants before fizzling out. Her brain registers the pain, but her body pushes through it. She wonders if she’ll be alive long enough to deal with the consequences of the burn.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Puck demands, feinting left and swinging hard. Quinn catches his arm and twists, bitterly noticing the strength she should not have against a man twice her size. Behind her, she dimly registers Rachel’s panicked voice.
“Don’t hurt her!”
“Easier said than done, babe,” Puck grunts. “Sort of lookin’ to not die today, if you know what I-fuck!”
She connects twice in a row, smashing in his nose with a force she can only imagine rightfully belonging to a professional boxer. He staggers, sword clattering against the floor as he instinctively covers his face, groaning.
Rachel cries her name again, and deep inside, Quinn trembles with the fierce urge to run to her. The beast snuffles appreciatively, filing the notion away for the end of this despicable bloodbath.
Mine, it reminds her excitedly. She wonders how thrilled it will be when Rayne is yanking her strings in Rachel’s direction.
Not that it matters right now, because Rachel isn’t the target. Tina, Mike, Santana, Puck-they are the ones in her way. Santana, with her sharp yowls and flashing claws, darting around from behind like she thinks she is in any way more cunning than the rage in Quinn’s veins. Mike, with his pathetic pop-n-lock attempts at violence, in no way the ninja she once suspected him to be. Tina, still refusing to aim for anything higher than her shins, ever the bleeding heart. They are worthless, the voice in her head insists-just a bunch of scared kids who let their feelings make them weak.
They’re my friends, she tries to insist, but it’s no use. The beast doesn’t care about friends-it never has, and she can’t see why it should start now. All it has ever dwelled upon is hunger, and whatever it takes to feed that appetite.
And right now, killing seems in its best interest.
She can hear Rayne behind her, laughing his fool head off like this is some fucking stand-up comedian routine, and she hates him. She hates him more than she has ever hated anything else. How much would it take, really, to turn around and snap his neck? How hard could it possibly be?
Turn, she wills her body, turn and take him down.
Her feet continue to charge in the direction of her friends. Her eyes continue to zero in on faces she cannot bear to see bloody. Without any command from her brain, one booted foot lashes out and catches Santana in the side. The muscled cat goes down with a yip, crashing against Finn as he pops for a second into the exact wrong place.
This is a mess, Quinn registers, a giant fucking circus with no ringleader. So far, no one has let her close enough to take them down, but they’re wearing out fast. A trickle of blood snakes along Puck’s lip; Santana is wheezing for breath. They won’t be able to hold her off for much longer.
And then there’s Rachel. Beautiful, powerful Rachel, who is standing with her eyes burning into Quinn. Beautiful, naïve Rachel, so desperately searching for a way in. Quinn can feel her battering against the edges of her sanity, doing everything in her power to force her way past impossible barriers. If only Rachel were that much stronger, able to override the beast long enough to let Quinn back into the driver’s seat, maybe-maybe this could end.
Come on, she prays, Rachel, come on. I’m letting you in. This is me letting you in. Do something.
“It’s so cute that you’re trying,” Rayne notes with disgusting mirth. “They don’t usually fight this hard. I’m all kinds of impressed.”
Fuck you. Fuck you and your fucking god complex. I’ll fucking kill you-
Except her body still isn’t obeying that murderous command. Try as she might, it’s like headbutting a steel wall: she hasn’t made even a dent, has only managed to give herself a massive headache for her troubles.
And Puck is getting weaker.
They all are, she sees, but Puck is the one the power keeps honing in on. Puck is big, and strong, and generally speaking, a force to be reckoned with. Puck is the enemy right now, and the beast wants nothing more than to tear him limb from limb.
She lashes out-a blow to the face, to the ribs, to the groin. Her fingers extend, searching for that stupid mohawk. All she has to do is reach a little farther, dig her fingers into his scalp, hold him still, and then-then…
Dark skin. Serious eyes. The collar of his shirt is in her hand, and she’s not sure how it got there. Where did he even come from?
He doesn’t say a word, only stares her straight in the eye, calm as you please. He always seems calm. She’s envious; he would have had a plan. In her shoes, he would have figured something out before all of this started, before Santana lay broken on the floor, before the destruction of Puck’s precious bone structure.
Her fingers slide up his throat, curl around, squeeze lightly. Preparing. The beast is starving.
“Wait,” Rayne orders behind her. Her hand stills, every muscle taut. Displeased, the beast nudges forward impatiently.
The weight of it all is suffocating: Rachel, putting pressure on boundaries Quinn wishes she could let down; Rayne, holding her in freeze-frame as he steps in close; Matt, serene, with her hand around his neck. She wants to disappear, to sink into the floor and become nothing. Nothing wouldn’t be hurting anyone.
“Not yet,” Rayne says softly, though her fingers strain against his grasp, eager to clench tight and drain Matt of everything he’s got. “I need him alive, you see. Can’t do the deed if the dude is dead, you know how it goes.”
I don’t, she thinks desperately. Explain it to me.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he steps lightly around to Matt’s other side, pressing his hands against the younger man’s shoulders and sighing with-she thinks disgustedly-anticipation.
“Not sure who you are,” he tells Matt cheerfully, tightening his grip until the shirt bunches unattractively. “Can’t say I really care. One of those sacrificial lamb types, yeah? How sweet. I gotta say, I’d prefer starting with one of your less…forgettable friends. The kitty-cat, maybe. But you’ll do. Gotta start somewhere. And hey, a little surprise! I’d love to see what sort of filling you’ve got.”
To his credit, Matt barely blinks in acknowledgment. His gaze remains locked with Quinn’s, his lips forming a perfectly straight line. And-
Is he leaning into me?
“You ready for this, darlin’?” Rayne asks, squeezing Matt’s shoulders. “Gonna be fun. Up close and personal, not many people know what that feels like. You’ll have to let me know how the show is when it’s all over.”
The son of a bitch actually winks at her, but Quinn is too busy staring at Matt’s unnervingly placid face to care. It’s as though he knows something she should be aware of too, but is trying to pass the information along through his eyeballs-which, if she were Rachel, might be legitimately helpful. Under the circumstances, Quinn’s pretty sure he’s trying to mind-meld with the wrong girl.
She wants to scream in his face, to demand what it is he wants from her, but her mouth refuses to work. Her fingers twitch around his throat as the beast, tempted beyond reason with a fresh kill, slams viciously against Rayne’s leash.
Matt’s eyebrows lift and drop.
Rayne’s eyes close.
Before she’s ready for it, the whole world drops away.
For that heady second, everything goes still: the voice in her head quiets, the raging terror subsides, and even Rachel’s frantic pounding against her senses fades. For just one second, she can feel the three of them, a circuit of sheer power, and in that second, Quinn gets it.
The simmering urge to scream rises to an instant boil.
Stop, she tries to shout, except her mouth still won’t work and her hand doesn’t seem interested in falling away from Matt’s surprisingly smooth skin. Helplessly, she watches as his head jerks backwards, his lips parting in shock.
Don’t do this, she begs the beast, but it’s far too late; already, she can feel the stirrings of that funnel again, the force she felt with Santana in the basement. Already, she can feel herself seeping into Matt, a fist punched straight through him, clenching around the essence of this man she never bothered to get to know and drawing it right back out again. His dark face lightens rapidly, his whole body spasming reflexively as his hands come up, clawing desperately at her wrist.
Over his shoulder, she sees Rayne’s brow tighten and relax, his eyes slowly fluttering open. Not much time, the voice in her head warns. Finish.
It doesn’t have to tell her again; Matt is fading fast, much faster than she is prepared for. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registers that this is her first real kill.
Yet another thing she never expected to be faced with.
Rayne is starting to draw away, she senses, starting to focus his energy back upon her. Matt’s body is going limp, the light in his eyes turning dull. This is wrong, all fucking wrong-yet, somehow, it feels essential. Maybe it’s the fact that it was Matt’s idea, or maybe it’s just the absolutely glorious high she’s riding; either way, Quinn feels right. When his body slumps and she finds herself able to lift her own head, it only cements that sick certainty.
Rayne is staring at his own hands, clenching and unclenching them repeatedly. “Huh.”
He doesn’t feel any different, Quinn thinks, wracked with revulsion, because he didn’t get anything out of that.
I did.
The voice in her head has gone disturbingly silent, the energy pumping through her body still. She feels exactly like she did in that basement: collared, contained-and secure. For the first time since stepping foot into this building, Quinn Fabray feels like she has control of the situation.
If only Matt didn’t have to die for this to happen.
She can’t explain how she knows what he was thinking-truth be told, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe it’s all guesswork here. All she knows is, Matt walked into her clutching hands for a reason. He is-was-much smarter than she suspected from his stoic silence; she never would have thought of wiring his power that way, of using Rayne in such a fucked-up circuit board. Hell, she never knew that was possible. But here she stands: wheel firmly in hand, power suitably quieted. And there he is.
Baffled. Angry. Still failing to understand.
She supposes she can’t blame him for that. It’s a far cry from logical, what Matt has done. Giving himself away like that, forcing her hand-it was insane. Undeniably so. How could he even be sure it would work?
Doesn’t matter, she thinks, shoulders straightening. He didn’t want anyone else to die. Easy as that. Give a little to get a little, that’s all it was. He got it.
Rayne, it appears, still doesn’t.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he mumbles. “Thought he had something. Why didn’t he have something?”
He hasn’t realized she’s out of his hands, Quinn understands. Too focused on his own self. How surprising.
She needs to do this before he notices. She needs to focus. The only problem is, she doesn’t have the first clue how to use Matt’s power-or, really, if she even can. Does it even work that way? She suspects this isn’t a typical thing, sacrificing oneself so the all-terrifying Silencer can strip away the one power that can control her each and every time and harness it for herself. She’s pretty sure that’s new.
Can she use it to keep herself from blindly murdering her friends? Apparently.
Can she use it to keep Rayne from ever doing so again?
Matt, friend, you really should have given me an instruction manual first.
She feels a small hand slide into hers, warm and comforting. Rachel’s eyes are hard when Quinn meets them, but there is something safe behind the tension. She squeezes back urgently, resisting the need to close her eyes and block all of this out.
Instead, she focuses on finishing this whole awful thing. She has to admit, she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing; Rayne looks decidedly unhappy-frustrated, mostly, and a little psychopathic-but not as though his power is being forcibly restrained. And there isn’t exactly a button marked ‘This One’ settled within her system, so-
Fuck. What now?
Rachel’s hand squeezes again, insistently this time. Quinn’s gaze flashes to her, unsteady, just in time to feel a gentle prod against her consciousness.
As little as she likes that sensation, she can’t help but smile a bit this time.
“When I count to three,” Rachel says, so softly Quinn nearly misses the words, “go. Fast.”
It’s hard to let up just enough-a not-so-small part of her is petrified the beast will see the opening and punch through it, undoing everything that has just happened. Certainly, when she raises that internal gate a fraction of an inch, she can sense its rage, its anxiety at being caged. Whatever camaraderie they once had, it seems a thing of the past now; she is the new enemy.
Fear won’t help, she reminds herself. It thrives on fear, on sensing weakness and exploiting it. The old Quinn was scared shitless by this whole deal, but the new Quinn? New Quinn doesn’t have that luxury.
Her hands are around his neck before he can move. She suspects Rachel might have a hand in this, but there’s no way of knowing for sure. All that counts is the split second of terror that crosses his face.
Good.
“What now?” she demands, because there’s no point in fucking around at this point. “Rach. Help me.”
She could kill him, she knows, and she could do it in an instant. How easy it would be, to open up just enough to suck him dry-or, just as good, strangle him for good. How easy it would be, to end this now.
Her fingers flex, knuckles going white with the strain. End him, the voice whispers. Finally.
Except…
She turns imploringly to Rachel. It’s pathetic, undoubtedly, to feel what she is feeling. This man is evil-if such a thing exists within the human condition, he certainly is it. He has killed unabashedly, done so much damage-more times than she knows for sure, and he would so happily do it again. To her. To her friends. To Rachel. She should tear him apart.
But she has already killed today-a necessary death, perhaps, but that doesn’t feel like it makes a difference. Matt was a good man, and anyway, it shouldn’t matter. Death is death, and Quinn has had enough of it.
When Rachel’s fingers brush against her own, surprisingly tender, she grits her teeth. She won’t kill this man, no matter how much he deserves it. It is amazing how much that decision hurts.
Doing the right thing, she understands on an entirely novel level, really sucks.
“I want this over with,” she decides aloud. “Tell me how to do it.”
She isn’t sure if Rachel is reading her mind in the literal sense or not; she is just thankful when the smaller girl leans against her shoulder, placing one hand on Rayne’s temple. He bucks instinctively, cowed only when Quinn tightens her grip on his windpipe.
“Relax,” Rachel advises, a dash of irony coating her tone. “It’ll smart less.”
Her eyes close. Following her lead, Quinn does the same, putting all of her attention on the sensation of skin beneath her fingertips. She can smell his fear, the sudden failure of inborn arrogance, can hear his pulse thundering within her grasp. There is something perfectly delicious about the whole experience, as much as she hates to admit it.
She can feel Rachel, nudging her way inside. Without the power in control, the wall around her mind is gone, replaced by little more than a rope Rachel can duck under. With anyone else, this level of vulnerability would be horrifying. With Rachel…
She shrugs off the thought. Now isn’t the time.
Rachel roots around within her mind for a moment, searching for something Quinn can’t locate herself. It’s uncomfortable, but when Rachel grasps hold of the thing-the remnants of Matt’s power, which so obviously does not belong, and yet already feels so essential to her being-Quinn hears herself gasp. It’s as though Rachel has located the edge of a thick blanket and tugged before she was ready to be uncovered.
That concern returns for a moment, the fear that the beast might choose this moment to break loose and begin its rampage once more, but nothing comes. Rachel is not taking the blanket away, she understands. She is simply stretching it to cover a larger area.
Specifically, Rayne.
He hates it, Quinn can tell; as they both watch Rachel work, spreading the blanket over him inch by careful inch, he squirms, kicking his feet against the tile, flailing both hands madly. For the briefest moment, she almost forgets who he is and what he has done, a pang of concern sparking for his panic.
Rachel’s hand tightens around hers again, grounding her. It’s all she needs to focus.
She can’t tally up how much time it takes for Rachel to finish the job and break the circuit. When the foreign presence finally disappears from her head, she sags sideways, releasing Rayne on instinct. The room comes rushing solidly back: her friends, staring at them with open uncertainty and pain; Matt’s body, cradled between Finn and Mike; Kurt, supported by a swaying Brittany.
And Rayne. On his knees, head pressed against the ground. Shaking.
It is the only part of this that feels right.
“Is that it?” she asks, breathing too heavily. Rachel tiredly nods.
“He’s done.”
“For good?” Quinn demands. “That’s it?”
Another nod. Rachel has never looked so exhausted. Quinn crushes her against her side, sucking in a deep breath.
That’s it.