𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻.

six.

006 ⎯⎯⎯ phantom killer.

I open my eyes.

"What-"

Ashlyn slaps a hand over my mouth, "quiet, get down."

Without question we all follow her orders, dropping to the floor behind the seats. I sit on the floor between Tyler and Ben, hugging my knees to my chest.

"Still here?" Tyler mouths.

Ash nods.

"What do we do?"

"We'll have to try and kill it."

"How are we going to do that?"

"We could have Logan shoot it through the window?"

"No, the gun is for emergencies only."

"This is an emergency!"

I set a hand on Tyler's shoulder, he is really bad at whispering.

"An emergency is a swarm or one of us is about to die. We don't have many bullets so we need to try and kill it with our weapons first and have Logan as our backup." Ashlyn explains.

At the sound of footsteps we all go quiet.

"Hide under the seats," Ashlyn mouths.

As quietly as we can we shuffle under the seats, laying flat as we wait for the phantom to appear. I look across the bus at Ashlyn, the girl thinking about something.

She looks determined.

She wants to protect us.

"Ash?" my voice is soft around her, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Ashlyn shakes her head, tapping her fingers on her desk.

I know she's lying.

"You can tell me."

She stops for a moment before releasing a sigh and spinning in her chair. Her braids fall on her shoulders and she leans backwards, stretching.

"I just- I'm trying to figure out how to keep us away from the phantoms. How to ward them off until we can figure out how to stop this?"

I nod, "we should text the group chat, they might have some ideas."

She shakes her head, "no it's fine I'll handle it, I don't want them to worry about it."

My brows furrow and my lips draw into a tight line. "Ashlyn? You know you don't have to do this all on your own right?"

She bites her nail, "these things started happening to me first, maybe if I can figure out how to get you all out-"

"Ash what?"

I feel the urge to raise my voice.

"You're not in this alone."

Her eyes connect with mine, "that's the problem. Your lives are on me."

I watch as Ashlyn attempts to crawl forward, her knees scraping the ground. She turns to look back and in a split second the phantom is under the seat in front of her.

"Ashlyn!"

It reaches for her, grabbing onto her braid.

"Not good!"

"Ashlyn!"

She yells, "get the weapons!"

Ben helps me from beneath the seat and we run towards the front of the bus. I push past Taylor and Tyler, grabbing the ax. I haul it over my shoulder, spinning on my heel.