Chapter Text
The microwave light turns on and the turntable begins to spin. Quinn holds the phone to her ear as she heads to the living room, where she’s setting up the perfect night for her perfect plan.
Two plates with cutlery and the lasagna her mother taught her to make when she was younger are laid out on the table, with a pair of candles in the center. The scent of lavender fills the room, and yes, the beer cans clash a little with the floral vibe of the house, but she picked a horror movie for after dinner, so it’s not that bad. It’s not her favorite plan, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Or beer. Maybe just beer.
Everything is in place, and she smiles as she smooths her yellow floral dress. When her hands brush over her stomach, she feels strange. Not that she misses having a huge belly and crying in pain all the time. She definitely does not miss morning sickness. She really doesn’t miss it at all. But she does miss having Beth.
It’s strange how her mind works these days. She’s not even sure she loves her. Well, if she does, of course she does; all mothers are programmed that way. But if you ask her therapist or her high school counselor, they’d say she’s so lonely and lost that she’s just clinging to something. A purpose in life. And if that purpose is the baby from a teenage pregnancy with her then-boyfriend’s best friend, well, she’ll hold on. It’s not her best moment, but she’s only seventeen.
So here she is, waiting for the microwave in the next room to stop spinning and for the arrival of her… she doesn’t even know what to call him. She assumes they are friends. He played football when she was a cheerleader; they’re both in the Glee Club and have a daughter. Yes, she doesn’t feel comfortable calling him a friend, but she figures it will be fine for now.
She sighs impatiently as the phone goes to voicemail for the third time. Puck is thirty minutes late. He shouldn’t be; she was very convincing with the invitation. Maybe he got carried away with her hints to seal the deal after putting up resistance. But the line between prudent and desperate was crossed long ago.
All she can think about as she paces with the phone pressed to her ear is getting Beth back at any cost. And if she and Puck are together, the child’s biological parents, no one can deny her custody of her daughter. Hers. No one else’s. Sounds like the most logical plan, the smartest thing she could devise. Her teenage mind is thoroughly convinced it will work.
She’s about to dial again when the phone rings loudly, making her jump. The cellphone falls on the living room carpet, and she just stares at it for three long seconds before quickly picking it up. She doesn’t check the number; it’s not necessary. Impatiently, she answers.
“Where the hell are you? I told you seven o’clock, I bought be…”
“Hello, Quinn,” a voice greets through static, sending chills down her spine.
She opens her mouth, says nothing, organizes her thoughts, and with a puzzled expression responds, “Who is this?”
“Guess,” the sly voice says through the receiver.
“Puck, I swear to God…”
“Is that your boyfriend?”
“I… he’s not. Who are you?” she asks, bewildered.
A breeze slips in through the kitchen window, making her shiver. Or maybe it’s the tone of the person on the line. It doesn’t sound like a girl, but not exactly like a boy either. Not even during the worst months of puberty.
“Someone who wants to talk to you.”
She swallows hard. The atmosphere is tense; she knows she should hang up, like with those annoying telemarketers. But she stays on the line and keeps answering.
“How do you know my name?”
“Everyone knows your name. Aren’t you Quinn Fabray, cheer captain, homecoming queen, and the most beautiful girl in Ohio?”
The corners of her lips curl effortlessly. The overwhelming feeling makes her feel so good, so validated, to hear again that she’s more than a teenage mother…
“And the slut who got pregnant by her boyfriend’s best friend?” The voice abruptly interrupts her thoughts.
Her hand itches where she grips the phone. Anger replaces any other emotion she felt a second ago. But frustration takes over immediately, because she can’t deny it, but she doesn’t want to hear it either. She shrinks, helpless, wishing to forget and return to her night. So she does. Her brain barely processes it as she spits, “screw you” and hangs up.
She throws the phone on the couch and presses her hands to her forehead, starting to hyperventilate. Who is this? What does he want? Obviously he knows her, or he wouldn’t have said all those things.
A list of names starts running through her mind as the phone rings again.
She prays it’s Puck and quickly grabs the device. “Puck?!”
“Try again,” replies the same distorted voice.
“Who the hell are you?” she exhales, clenching her teeth.
Too much on her plate to deal with idiots. Surely some jerk from the team she snubbed.
“I propose a deal: let’s play a game, and if you win, I’ll tell you.”
Quinn sighs, exasperated. “A game, what are you? a year?” she spits, rolling her eyes. Definitely some idiot from the team.
“No… but probably your daughter does, am I right?” the voice mocks.
“Fucking idiot, who the hell are you?!” Quinn yells into the phone, exasperated.
“That’s the deal. Answer correctly and I’ll tell you.”
Quinn sighs again, annoyed. “Go to hell.” She hangs up once more, throws the phone across the room, and stands still, processing the uncomfortable and rude moment. The sensation leaves her frozen, unable to move. She stands rooted on the carpet, neither blinking nor breathing.
Then the phone rings again, and she just stares, eyes wide. Her mind screams at her to run, but her body doesn’t respond. She stares at the vibrating phone as if someone could appear at any second. It rings thirteen more times before stopping.
She starts to relax when the sound of her cellphone in the kitchen makes her jump in place. She presses a hand to her chest and breathes to calm herself. She hurries to the room and grabs it off the table. The screen shows Noah Puckerman’s name, and she exhales in relief. She presses answer and feels a weight lift.
“Puck.”
“Try again.” Her blood runs cold and words stick in her throat.
The voice that has been teasing her is back, only now she knows where it comes from. Millions of possibilities cross her mind:
1. Someone took Puck’s phone as a prank.
2. Puck is playing with her.
3. Someone kidnapped Puck and demands a ransom.
She shakes her head, feeling foolish. This is Lima, not a cliché slasher movie. It’s not even Halloween; these things only happen in ghost towns off the map.
“Stop being an idiot. I’ve been waiting for an hour,” she spits, but a slight tremor in her voice betrays her fear.
“So he is your boyfriend.”
She frowns, unsure how to respond. And it’s as if whoever is on the other end can see her or read her mind when they continue:
“You said he wasn’t your boyfriend,” there’s a brief pause. “I guess having a child from the affair removed the shame of hook up.” The voice mocks, a small laugh making her blood boil.
“You’re a fucking jerk, go to-“
“Don’t you dare hang up on me again, you little bitch!” The voice yells at her, making her step back, as if the person is in front of her, ready to attack.
The fear invading her is unlike anything she’s felt. She’s been scared before. when she found out she was pregnant by someone else, when she had to tell her parents, when Coach Sylvester yelled at her for getting pregnant, or when she missed a step in rehearsal. But this is different, almost like she can feel someone about to hurt her, even if they’re miles away.
The line goes silent for a full minute until the voice speaks again, returning to its unsettling calm tone.
“Now that you’ll stop being a spoiled brat, let’s play a game. Unless you don’t want to know who I am…”
Of course she wants to know, not just out of curiosity, but for her desire for revenge. She swears that when she finds out, she’ll end that failure.
“Fine,” she mutters, grinding her teeth.
“Do you like scary movies?”
She frowns, her face twisting in disgust. What the hell? No, she doesn’t. She only rented that stupid movie on her living room table to get somewhere with that idiot Puckerman. And look where it led her.
“No?” she says, elongating the word as a question.
The other side sighs, almost disappointed. “Such a shame, it would have been fun”.
Quinn holds her breath for a second.
“I got it!” They say suddenly, giving her the fourth scare of the night. “Between López or Berry, who would you have an affair with?”
Quinn opens her mouth, frozen like a fish out of water, processing what she hears. At one point, her mind tells her she imagined it, until the question repeats, louder this time.
“I’m not answering that! I’m not…” she bites her tongue, and the voice snaps in disapproval.
“Being homophobic, Quinn Fabray?”
“No!” she rushes to answer. Memories she thought buried forever flash across her mind. “Of course not, but I don’t… I won’t answer.”
“You have to.”
“No, I don’t have to. I can hang up and forget about you.”
The voice exhales a laugh. “I’m not forgettable, Quinn Fabray. Not like you will be after this.” A chill meets the boiling anger in her veins. “But fine, maybe you need an incentive.” She frowns. By the end of the night, she’ll have wrinkles, and her mind eventually thinks about a nighttime routine.
“Go to the kitchen window.” A chill runs through her as her heart races. “Come on, don’t make me lose patience, princess.”
“Puck, please, stop,” her voice is small and fragile.
A tired exhale is heard on the other end. “If you want to see him, do as I say.”
Quinn’s heart stops, she forgets to breathe, and it feels like hours until her feet, on their own, guide her to the next room. She stops in front of the large window and takes the curtain in her hands. She waits a few seconds and slowly raises the blind.
What she sees freezes her blood. She cannot find the courage to jump this time. She brings her hand to her mouth as panic sets in. Her chest rises and falls rapidly with her furious heartbeat. Her hands tremble, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
Puck is in the middle of the yard, the pool behind him. He sits in a garden chair, tied up with ropes, a tape over his mouth. The ridiculous mohawk Quinn hates is incomplete, like someone ran a clipper over only part of his head. He’s bruised, one eye shut, lip split, blood dripping down his jacket.
“Hello? Is the homecoming queen still there? Knock knock?”
Quinn nearly chokes, blinks, tries to shake the image from her mind, but no matter how tightly she closes her eyes, the blood remains.
“All you have to do is answer my questions, as simple as that.” The voice makes her whimper and cry again.
More seconds of panic pass, turning her pleas into incoherent babbles. Then the voice on the other end yells, and that’s all she needs to steady herself.
“Just answer,” the voice insists.
Quinn presses her lips together, closes her eyes, and grips the phone tightly against her ear. She feels physical pain trying to respond. She can taste the metallic tang of blood when she finally loosens her jaw to say:
“Rachel.” She spits it out and immediately feels disgusted.
“Dirty, dirty Quinn,” a laugh echoes through the receiver. “I guess that makes sense. You went and messed around with her boyfriend, after all.”
She hates this person. She hates them with everything she has. A hiccup escapes her, only earning another cruel mockery. She wants to scream, to hit this damn bastard. She’s struggling with everything to put a face to the voice on the other end, but there are so many possibilities it only makes her cry more helplessly. Maybe she should have been kinder to people. Maybe she shouldn’t have ruined others’ lives. Maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to…
“Next question,” the voice interrupts, making her tremble from head to toe. “Between Puckerman or Hudson, who was better in bed?”
She wants to vomit, bile rising in her throat, threatening to get stuck. When she opens her mouth, she thinks she’s reached her breaking point, but the words surprise her. “Finn and I never…” She leaves the answer hanging, and her assailant immediately understands.
She hears surprise in the voice when it asks, “Then how the hell did he believe you when you said it was his baby? You know what, never mind. I guess you’re persuasive.” The line goes silent for three more seconds.
“Puckerman or Evans,” the unhinged voice tries, knowing it has struck a nerve as Quinn Fabray unravels over the call.
She lets out a frustrated growl. She wants her dad there to defend her, to protect her, and then she cries more because even she wasn’t enough for her dad either. Never enough for anyone. She feels helpless and needy. She becomes the little brown-haired girl she once was, her curls bouncing as she ran to her father’s arms for comfort. When she opens her tear-filled eyes, she’s alone.
“I’m listening.”
“Please,” she begs between sobs and hiccups.
She hears a sigh, and then the yard lights go out, and Puck disappears from view. Panic surges, bile rising as she screams,
“Sam!”
The loudest, most mocking laugh rattles her eardrums. The person on the other end bangs something in rhythm with their cruel laughter.
“Damn, Fabray, didn’t know you had it in you,” boasts a different, mocking male voice that this time she recognizes it.
Quinn’s brain barely processes it, but it’s an accident, because the distorted voice returns immediately.
“You heard that, Puckerman? Not enough for her, not even after getting her pregnant. That must hurt right in… you know.” The voice drips with mockery, venom, and triumph.
He has them in their damn claws, playing a twisted cat-and-mouse game.
“I guess a deal’s a deal, but it would be a little embarrassing for your… not-boyfriend and father of your child, to live with such a disappointment, don’t you think?”
Sweat runs down her temple, soaking the fabric of her dress against her back. The white noise devours everything. She can only hear the frantic beating of her heart.
And then, it stops.
The backyard light flicks on, illuminating everything. What she sees makes her collapse to her knees, emptying her stomach. Her body arches again and again; her nails break as she scratches the floor for air, for something to hold onto. She screams. She cries until she can’t breathe, sobbing and vomiting. But the line is dead. The phone’s beep echoes in her ears, yet she doesn’t hear it.
On her knees, she begs in tears and despair, clutching her head in her hands, rocking, losing the last shred of sanity. A joke, a dream, this isn’t happening.
A crash snaps her back to chaotic reality. A chair flies through the glass door, shattering into pieces that scatter everywhere, embedding in the sofa, her dress, her hair. One piece lodges in her left cheek. It doesn’t hurt. Not yet.
A figure dressed in black, so tall and familiar that her mind forms a name for a moment, rushes toward her.
The grotesque mask holding a bloody knife, the same one that tore Puck open, is only a step away.
The blade rises. Quinn raises her hands to shield herself, but the knife passes through her skin effortlessly.
The knife is now coated with the blood of two people. Almost poetic, considering it’s not the first time this has happened.
Her body collapses onto the carpet, forming a dark pool spreading beneath her. A male voice, free of static, leans close to her ear and smiles as he brushes the golden hair from her face.
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers. Didn’t your dad teach you that?” The young voice mocks. And she almost recognizes it. If only she could think about something other than the stabs across her torso and the red staining everything around her. “Right, yours rejected you for being a slut”.
The vaguely familiar, cruel voice, fades with its last sigh.
Quinn Fabray’s lifeless green eyes reflect the moment the mask falls onto the sofa. They are the only witnesses to who was her end… and the beginning of everything.