Fifty metres or less in front of him the floor was shimmering, powdered with broken glass. He skidded to a halt, squinting away at the dark hole left in closed door.

What the hell…?

He took one slow pace forwards, swallowing. Kurt? He wanted to call out again, but the deep silence seemed to compel his tongue; nothing would come.

And then panic; like an ice cold finger, ran the length of Blaine’s spine.

He’d seen something.

In the furthest corner of his eye. Something dark. Behind him.

He froze, and so did the hazy shape. The fear in his stomach felt like it was solidifying, dragging him slowly to the ground.

“One…”

He counted in his head.

“Two…Thr…”

Blaine span and ducked, looking to take whatever was behind him by the legs. But his eyes didn’t even have time to register the man’s figure. All he saw was the two swinging hands and the shadowed weapon.

Then darkness.

With a sickening thuddddcraaccckk the base of the gun hammered into Blaine’s temple. The man watched with no emotion as the boy collapsed in front of him, his head falling with a thud onto the man’s boots, glossy waves of hair spilling to one side. Deftly, and with both hands, the stranger turned the gun around.
-
All they could hear was the sound of each other’s breathing. Finn’s back was beginning to hurt; he’d been crouched too long in the same position, with shoulders pressed to Sam and Mike. Artie lay behind them, held against Brittany, his chair forgotten amongst the empty plastic seats. Someone swallowed a cough. Tina was sobbing softly, her head against Mike’s shoulders. Lauren silently grasped Puck’s hand as she sat between Rachel and Mercedes, tears welling behind her clear glasses; this was no time for acting the badass. Holding each other Quinn and Santana gently rocked backwards and forwards in the tiny space they had. No one said a word. No one had spoken since Rachel’s shattering scream. Not since Sam had grabbed all three cheerleaders together and thrown them under the screen of the piano. Not since Finn had lunged for Mercedes, slamming the door and hitting the lights in the process, or since Mike had lifted Artie, seized Tina, and bundled all three of them into that tiny dark space. Not since Puck had ordered the guys to form a shield around the girls. And there they all crouched, or lay, or sat, pressed against each other under the piano, not daring to whisper, no one daring to voice what they had just heard.

But then Mercedes gave a quavering choke, and said the exact thing in all of their minds.

“Oh…oh my G-g-g-od…Kurt and Blaine.”

“Shhhhss.”

Finn tried to sound soothing and confident, but his voice cracked just as much. He was glad to be facing outwards into the room. The two parallel streams of tears shone silver on his cheeks in the light from the high windows. His brother.

Minutes passed. Puck and Mike, at either ends, stared desperately at all they could see of the two doors. No lights passed in the hallway outside, nothing moved. Every second Puck convinced himself he could hear footsteps, or bangs, or…god…more shots. As one the group flinched at a thud, echoing down the hall, from about where the stairs emerged for the cafeteria. But then silence again.
Suddenly, a bright green glow lit the glossed underside of the piano.

“No, Santana…” came the harsh whisper from Artie, “Someone’ll see.”

Finn glanced over his shoulder; Santana had pulled her phone from her top, opening a blank text.

“I don’t care. We have to get some help, somehow. Can you message 911?”

“No,” offered Puck.

Santana nodded; he would know.

“Well, what then? Text someone else? They’ll never believe me.”

“She’s right.”

Rachel spoke up, her eyes never leaving the one side of Finn’s face she could see, which had begun to tremble slightly.

“Well, we just have to phone then,” said Santana, though her eyes darted wildly to betray any coolness in her voice, and she started to dial. But then she paused, and glanced up. Everyone was watching with her now, watching the door closest to Mike, and the slightly lighter rectangle of darkness in the black. There was no sound, no change.

“There’d be a light if someone was out there,” Quinn tried, matter-of-factly.

Santana nodded and pressed dial.

“You don’t really need a light to feel safe when you’ve got a gun,” said Sam.
-
“…the damn door just explodes in my face. And I dunno…ah Christ that hurts; stop shaking it, fag…”

The insult bounced painfully off Kurt’s ears.

“I guess…I guess I passed out or…I dunno how I got back here…”

Dave’s gruff growl hardly rose above the background hummm of the ventilation, and the words slipped over one another in Kurt’s mind as he made himself stare at the tattered scraps of bloodied sleeve. He couldn’t take anything else in.

“Listen,” Karofsky’s tone changed slightly, and Kurt heard with mild disgust the effort it was taking him to sound civil, “are…are you ok? What the fuck happened out there? Why are you even in school?”

The last question cut underneath Kurt’s stupor. His friends. Blaine.

“We had choir practice…there was this guy. He had a gun…I…I was…” he mumbled, changing the subject. “I need to get your jacket off and try and bind your arm up or it’s just gonna keep bleeding…”

Karofsky’s pale face managed a weak sneer of repulsion.

“Take my clothes off, fairydust? No freakin’ way.”

Kurt decided not to give him the satisfaction of a reply, but his mind streamed insults; his homophobic ‘friends’ weren’t even here now, he was insulting no-one more than himself by concreting the stereotypes. They both knew the truth. But Kurt forced them aside. Acclimatising to the darkness he peered around, bleary eyed, for what he knew must be nearby, somewhere. There. He crawled a few feet to his right and dragged a half-clean towel from under a bench. Wrenching it with his teeth, as quietly as he could, he tore it into inch-wide strips, jerking pain into his jaw to keep away the pictures of that gun anywhere near anyone he loved. And with each satisfying tear the anger inside him rose slightly. What the hell was he doing, stopping to help this…this…he didn’t have a word strong enough…when his friends, his love, was out there at risk? Like Karofsky would have given him a second thought had their roles been reversed. But then, out of the blue, his father’s voice spoke up in his head, some words that he’d said a while back. “You’re the better man, Kurt”. Huh. Then why did he feel like running? Or crawling into a little ball like a tiny kid and just waiting until this nightmare was over?

“Hey, Kurt?”

Dave’s voice had softened of its own accord this time. He’d realised what Kurt was doing with the towel. The tears began to flow down Kurt’s cheeks again. One sob wracked his entire body, head to toe. But he turned his face to look at the bully.

“Where were you going? You were heading out the back, right?”

Kurt couldn’t answer. He tore the last strip from the towel and shuffled forwards to the other boy’s side again. Karofsky didn’t move for a second. He was sizing this kid up, for real, for the first time. He wasn’t as dumb as he had the others believe; not just an idiot like Azimio. But he’d learnt it was easier to get away with…stuff…if the others thought he was really slow. Stuff like getting caught staring during practice, keeping so many copies of Men’s Health but only looking at the pictures, or never noticing girls. He shifted painfully on the floor. His arm and shoulder hurt like hell, and he had no idea how he was gonna get his jacket off without fainting again. Not that he’d let himself do that in front of Hummel. But that wasn’t important right now. He’d figured it out.

“The others are still in here, aren’t there?”

Kurt couldn’t do anything but nod.

“Hudson, Evans, Puckerman, those cheerleaders, and the douches? All of them? And you were going to get help?”

Again, a nod. Dave closed his eyes and gave a silent groan of pain.

“Ok, look. My cell is in my bag…somewhere over by the door, I guess; I must’ve dropped it…before. Anyway, go get it and we can call in the cops. Quick.”

Kurt blinked. Once. Twice. The boy’s face was totally sincere. His dad’s voice piped up again. “Stop wasting your bloody time!” Right…Kurt turned and crawled away again, trailing a thread of white behind him. Glass cut through the knees of his trousers, but at the moment he felt no pain. Help was coming. Hold on Blaine.

He hit the bag before he properly saw it, but it was easy to recognise. It stank like nothing he’d ever smelt before; worse even than Brett, that kid from English, who smelt homeless. Luckily it didn’t take much searching, and only one wretch, to find the phone, tucked inside a trainer. He pulled it out and slowly stood up, looking at it, then flipped it open. This was all he had to do. All he had to do and then everything would be ok. But then a sharp hiss from behind him brought him round.

“What the hell are you doing? Get out of the way!”

And Kurt’s head snapped up. Karofsky was right. All the light coming through the broken pane was falling straight on his face. He could see almost the full length of the corridor. He took one step backwards; but then stopped again. And squinted. For what felt like the billionth time that night, his heart turned to ice within him. There were shadows at the end of the corridor; dark shadows untouched by the twilight of the corridor. And...and...

“Homo; fucking wake up!”

Kurt almost collapsed backwards, skittering until he fell down onto the bench, the changing light sending orbs bursting across his vision, the cell phone clattering out of his hand, useless. There was something on the floor down there. Something…Jesus…something in a navy blazer and grey trousers. His heart ripped in two and Kurt felt every single pain of it. Blaine.