“Have you seen Blaine at all since this morning?”

Rachel pauses mid-step, yanking Kurt to a halt in the middle of the pathway, scrunching up her forehead as she thinks. “No, actually, I haven’t.”

“Wait, what?” Kurt turns to face her properly. “It’s been eight hours, Rachel, are you sure he hasn’t-”

“-well, he wasn’t in Modern History, which is the only class we have together, so yeah.” She interrupts, releasing Kurt’s arm. “I’m pretty sure.”

Kurt sighs, glancing back to the school – it’s almost empty, now; even the few study groups and extracurriculars that remain after-hours would be finished. “And you didn’t see him leave at all?”

“No, Kurt.” Rachel says, patting his shoulder softly. “Maybe he got sick and had to leave early?”

“No, he would’ve texted me.” Kurt says, worry seeping into his voice. “He would always text me, unless he doesn’t have his phone or-” Kurt pauses, eyes frantic-wide. “-or he can’t get to it, and I know he has his phone because we were texting this morning and I asked him to bring me coffee-”

“I’m sure he’s fine, okay?” Rachel squeezes his shoulder, attempts to sound reassuring. “It’s probably on silent, or out of charge, or-”

“-Rachel, I appreciate the comfort, I really do, but I haven’t seen him either and I really need to make sure he’s okay.”  Kurt nods to himself. “You can go, it won’t take long anyway.”

 “You expect me to let you go in back in there alone?” Rachel sighs, looking pointedly at Kurt. “There could be janitors,” she hiss-whispers, and Kurt snorts.

“Are you sure? I’ll only be ten minutes-“

“-Kurt.” She interrupts, somewhat-softly. “Let me help.”

*

Hey – call me back when you get this, okay? I haven’t seen you since this morning.

Blaine? I’m getting a little worried. Get back to me ASAP, okay?

If you don’t contact me by 5, I’m waiting at the school until I find you.

Blaine sighs, plugs his cell back into its charger.

Really? The one day my phone decides to die?

He taps in Kurt’s number quickly, holds the receiver up to his ear-

Verizon wishes to advise that you have insufficient credit to make a call-

Blaine groans, guttural-deep from his chest, and hangs up.

C’mon, you can go pick him up, buy him coffee, drive him home. It’ll be cute.

Blaine sighs again, pulls on his coat, grabs his keys and half-charged phone and heads to McKinley.

*

“Blaine?”

They both started out timid, at first, calling out as lowly as they could manage while still being audible; since Rachel had all but perfected her ability to speak through extended periods of doing so, she automatically took the lead. 

Now, though, it was almost five-thirty, and the skies outside were steadily fading from blue to black.

“Kurt, I don’t think he’s here.” Rachel says, slumping against a locker and pressing her feet flat to the ground. “Wouldn’t he have answered by now?”

“He would’ve answered if he could, Rachel-”

“-exactly,” she deadpans. “So he’s probably not here.”

Kurt huffs in a breath, scrunches up his eyes in frustration. Breathes out. “Maybe he can’t answer back, that’s why we have to keep-”

“-Kurt, don’t you think you might be…overreacting, a little?” Rachel tries, pushing herself off the locker. “I mean, what could be stopping him from-”

“-I don’t know, Rachel, maybe he’s been locked in one of the bathrooms, or in a locker, or-“

“-please calm down, okay? Just your voice is making me nervous.”

“It should be!” It’s sudden and too-loud, echoing down the empty hallway, and Kurt flinches into himself. “Sorry, I just…”

“I know,” Rachel says, and Kurt can tell that it’s supposed to be comforting, but it just makes everything that tiny bit more real. “And I’m sure he’s fine, okay?”

Kurt sighs at his toes. “I lingered around this hall for too long after classes once, Rachel.” He pauses, glances up to see Rachel almost looking as concerned as he feels, swallows. “A couple of jocks thought it would be fun to put the gay kid back in the closet, see how long he lasts.”

Rachel’s gasp seems to suck all the air from the hallway, but it’s all back a second later when she grabs his shoulder and he can hear himself breathing heavy.

“…what happened?”

Kurt hesitates, tries not to let his eyes water too much, but he knows Rachel can tell how much it’s affecting him.

“Well,” he sniffles, and Rachel squeezes his shoulder encouragingly, “I would’ve been stuck in there the entire night, but I managed to call my Dad and he had to come to bust me out before the school was officially locked up.”

“Oh, Kurt,” Rachel whispers, and then her hand is curling around to his back and pulling him into a tight, one-armed hug. Kurt lets his eyes shut, just for a moment, and a few tears slide down his cheek, leaving little silver-wet trails in their wake.

“I’d always been a little claustrophobic, but that just took the cake,” he says, head feeling as croaky as his voice.

“I’m so sorry-” Rachel starts, too-quiet, but Kurt hold up a hand to stop her and just shakes his head.

“I’m not looking for sympathy, Rachel.”

“Why did you tell me, then?” She asks, a little louder, breaking the hug.

“So that you know how badly I need to make sure Blaine’s okay.”

Kurt turns to continue walking down the hallway, lets his voice echo as much as it likes as he continues to call, pulls out his phone and hands it to Rachel.

“Can you try to call him again?”

She nods quickly, taps in Blaine’s number and sets it to speaker. It rings twice, and then-

“Kurt?”

*

“Kurt?” Blaine breathes out into the receiver, jogging through the school parking lot until he’s a few feet from the front doors.

“Blaine?” Kurt’s voice sounds a little echo-y, worry-tired. “Where are you?”

“At the front of the school.” Blaine half-laughs, glancing up at the two-storey pile of bricks before him as he pushes at the door – locked. He sighs.

“Oh.” Kurt pauses. “It’s locked, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

He hears Kurt sigh, mutter something to someone in the background.

“Can you meet us out near the football field?”

“Sure,” Blaine says, eyes scanning for the quickest route to get behind the school, backtracks. “Wait, us?”

“Yep.”

“So you and…”

“Rachel.”

“Ah.” Blaine says, a small smile upturning his lips. A moment passes.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” Kurt says, a little breathlessly.

“Okay, I love y-” Blaine starts, but a sudden yelp breaks through the middle of his sentence, and the sound of clanging metal screeches through everything else.

“Oh my god, are you-”

“-shut up, you little bitch.” And the second voice is different, lower, too low to be Kurt or Rachel and Blaine’s spine starts to tingle-

“You wouldn’t actually use that-”

The sharp, solid sound of a gunshot echoes through Blaine’s receiver, and he can hear it muffled by the building before him.

“Try me.”

The dial tone sounds.

*