𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐝 | Tyler Hernandez x Reader

| Ep 60 |

WHOOSH!

His first shot flies right past the phantom, missing completely. His grip on my hand tightens further, nearly cutting off the circulation from my fingers. I hear him take a deep breath before pulling the trigger once more.

His eyes widen once he turns his head back forward, "Its left eye is out!"

"Nice, Logan!" I shout over the loud rumbles, even though he was right next to me. I then say toward the rest of the group, "Now we can create some distance between us and the-"

Taylor rushes right past us, snatching the rifle that was lazily slung over Logan's shoulder. With how quick she pulls it off him, he nearly gets dragged down.

"Taylor??" He exclaims, struggling out of the strap. I sling an arm around his middle to steady him before he could fall to the ground.

She ignores his calls and runs straight past us, not once looking back.

"Taylor, what are you doing?!" Ashlyn asks, worry etched over her face.

I watch Tay raise the rifle up, staring into its scope, "Keep shooting. We need to injure it as much as we can."

Logan huffs out, raising his pistol once more. I feel his free hand dig into the quiver resting against my back. He takes an arrow out and shoves it into my palm.

His eyes darken with concentration as he aims the pistol straight at the phantom's face, keeping his posture as still as stone.

"...If the brain is located behind the eyes, then we might be able to at least paralyze it if we aim there."

A series of shots are suddenly fired simultaneously. I freeze, staring down at the arrow in my hand. Was it really smart to expend so much ammo all at once? Sure, they might have access to more, but my arrows-

"Shoot already!" Logan shouts from beside me, never letting his gaze waver from the phantom as he continues to fire one bullet after the other.

I stiffen at his command, finding it odd how much more outspoken he's gotten. Though, it was an incredibly good thing. A grin breaks through my face as I take my stance beside him, firing a few arrows.

Maybe it's those voices in his head that are breaking him out of his shell...

We continue to fire for a few more seconds, but I am the first to stop once I realize I'm running dangerously low on arrows. Logan holds his fire after two more shots, noticing how the phantom's movements had begun to still. The only one still shooting now is Taylor. She seemed to be hyper focused, burning through all of her bullets.

"...Yeah, uh- Tay. It stopped moving." Aiden says from behind us.

She immediately stops shooting and the rifle trembles in her grasp. I sigh, relieved to see she had snapped out of whatever state she was in. She slowly lowers the gun, pointing it at the floor.

"...Taylor?" I ask, carefully taking a step toward her as I reach my hand out for her.

I see the way her entire body shakes and I attempt to ground her with a hand on her shoulder. Logan is quickly at her side, lowering his voice into a soft tone for her,

"We need to hurry in case it recovers." He speaks slowly, resting a hand over hers.

Her chest heaves for a few seconds before she nods in response to his words. Noticing that she's calmed down now, I cautiously take the rifle from her tight grip. It wouldn't be smart to leave the weapon with her, especially when she was barely holding herself together right now.

I hand it over to Logan and he slings it over his shoulder.

---

"Where are they?!" Taylor raises her voice in annoyance, opening and slamming drawers, "Coach must've moved them again!"

I was sat on the edge of a bed in the back corner of the office, helping Ben re-bandage Tyler's bloody torso. Logan and Ashlyn were scavenging through every cabinet and drawer in sight, having zero luck in finding the keys.

Ashlyn asks from her crouched position in front of an open drawer, "Does he move them often?"

Taylor scoffs, "Yeah, because idiots like Jay and Connor keep messing with them!"

"I feel a minor sense of deja-vu."

Aiden speaks up randomly from the office door, where he was told by Ashlyn to keep watch. He was referring to when we were searching for the keys to Mr. Banner's jeep back in our earlier days. The fact that his mind took the time to think of that parallel amused me. Aiden sure was something...

I stretch the bandage over Tyler's side, trying my hardest to ignore the grunts escaping his lips, "Logan, time?"

He glances down at his phone and mumbles, "...We have three minutes left."

I curse under my breath and Ben and I begin to move quickly, hoping to finish this before we shift back.

Ashlyn's head perks up and whips over toward the door, "Aiden, there's a straggler."

"Yeah, I can hear it running." He smirks, spinning his pocket knife in his hand. He flips it once more before gripping onto its handle and retracts his elbow back out into the hallway.

The tip of the blade meets the oncoming phantom's face, right in between its eyes. Aiden lets out a satisfied laugh. Despite it already being dead, Aiden twists the knife in the phantom's face just for the fun of it.

He doesn't even need to hear voices to convince him to do the dirty work.

Once it drops dead outside the door, Aiden smiles over at Ashlyn, "Got it!"

Ashlyn meets his gaze and asks, "Are there any more?"

Aiden pokes his head out into the hallway, "I can't see any?"

A violent rumbling immediately erupts right after, shaking the ground and the walls. I fall backward on the bed, feeling my head make harsh contact with the wall behind me. I groan as my vision blurs and a sharp pain runs up the back of my skull.

Ben falls off the bed and the others are quick to lose their balance. I squint my eyes up at the bright ceiling lights. A headache is quick to emerge the longer I stare up at them. I then notice small cracks begin to form above us.

The ceiling was going to collapse...

"Everyone, get under something!!" Ashlyn orders suddenly.

I try to ignore the pain seeping through where I had hit the wall and wrap my arms around Tyler. I grunt as I attempt to pull him off the bed. I fail miserably, barely moving him at all.

I then hear a loud crumbling and whip my head around to watch a large chunk of the ceiling break off. It drops right down near the door where Aiden was unfortunately standing.

Ashlyn calls out to him, struggling to her feet to reach him in time. She is too late and the ceiling breaks into smaller fragments right over his head. He is knocked out cold, completely surrounded by rubble.

"Aiden!!" I cry out, unable to rush to him with Tyler in my arms.

Taylor is the first to reach him, hooking her hands under his arms and lifting his limp body out of the pile of rubble, "Come on! Get him under the table!"