The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my throat, Blaine says, "We really won't die. We'll be legend. We won't grow old." I can feel the silencer holes we drilled into the barrel of the gun with my tongue. See, most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases and the tiny sonic boom of the bullet. So to make a silencer you drill holes in the barrel of the gun, a lot of holes. This allows for some of the gas to escape and the bullet to be slowed just below the speed of sound. But, you drill the holes wrong and the gun will blow your hand off.

I tongue the barrel into my cheek, "Blaine, you're thinking of vampires." He lets out a cold chuckle. The stage we're standing on won't be here in ten minutes. You take 98 percent concentration of fuming nitric acid and add that to three times that amount of sulfuric acid. You do this in an ice bath. Then add glycerin drop-by-drop with an eye dropper. You now have nitroglycerin. I know this because Blaine knows this. You mix the nitro with saw dust or cotton and Epsom salt and you have a nice little plastic explosive. Some people use paraffin, but paraffin has never worked for me.

So Blaine and I are center stage at McKinley High School, a place we both—or at least, I thought we both— used to call home. Looking out at the audience we see all of the New Directions members bound to the seats and gagged, the terror is evident in their eyes. I see my friends' faces and my heart begins to hurt. "This is all my fault."

Down every aisle members of The Mischief Committee of Project Mayhem run rampant in their navy and red Dalton blazers; seat backs being knocked off with sledgehammers, stage lights being shot out with pistols, bits of the beautiful red carpet being set to flame.

That old saying, how you always kill the one you love, well, look, it works both ways.

With the barrel of a gun shoved between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.

We're down to our last ten minutes.

One of the stage lights comes crashing down next to Blaine and I and I let out a whimper as the boys in the audience who shot it down begin to whoop and holler. A Mischief Committee member enters through the large double doors at the back of the house with what appears to be a flame thrower and starts torching the balcony.

McKinley High School won't be here in nine minutes. You take enough blasting gelatin and wrap it around the foundation columns and you can topple any building in the world. Blaine smirks as he watches his plan unfold. The New Directions were The Warblers' rivals, always had been. McKinley High was there home. They beat The Warbler's last year at Regionals and now they were exacting their revenge by taking them completely out of the equation for Regionals this year. I had been a Warbler once but I eventually went back home to McKinley, bringing Blaine along with me. I just never knew that this was what that decision had in store.

Nine minutes.

Blaine and I are right at the center of the blast—the stage— the gun in my mouth, and I'm wondering how clean that gun is.

We totally forget about Blaine's whole murder-suicide thing as we watch a group of committee members tossing flaming pieces of sheet music over the balcony. They slowly flutter to the ground over the heads of the New Directions members.

Eight minutes.

The smoke from all of the fires begins to thicken in the auditorium and the air around us becomes almost unbreathable. The demolition team will hit the primary charge in about eight minutes. The primary charge will hit the base charge and this whole place will go up in smoke.

If I knew how all of this would turn out, I'd be more than happy to be dead and in Heaven right now.

Seven minutes.

On the center of the stage, Blaine's gun in mouth and the flaming little pieces of paper surrounding us, I see smoke billowing in from the open door at the back of the house, and then I see him. I know all of this: the gun, the revenge, the explosives has something to do with a boy named Sebastian Smythe.

Six minutes.

We have a sort of triangle thing going on here. I want Blaine. Blaine wants Sebastian. Sebastian wants me.

I don't want Sebastian and Blaine doesn't want me around, not anymore. Not since I've sided with them. This isn't about love as in caring. This is about property as in ownership.

Without Sebastian, Blaine would have nothing.

Five minutes.

I see Blaine's eyes fall on Sebastian. I see Sebastian's eyes fall on me, then to Blaine and the gun.

"Maybe Blaine is right." I think, "Maybe we will become legend."

No.

I look out into the crowd and see my friends' faces one last time and I know what I have to do.

Four minutes.

I tongue the barrel of the gun into my cheek, "You want to be a legend Blaine? I can make you a legend. I've been here from the beginning. I remember everything."

Three minutes.