Dan's POV

"Phil?" I whispered.

He looked like he had been through hell. Blood covered his arms and seeped through his shirt. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with fear.

His eyes widened as he saw something behind me and he cowered in fear a bit. I whipped my head around to find the figure I had punched earlier standing in the doorway. I quickly pulled Jason and Nate away from the door and pushed them toward Phil.

"What the fuck do you want?!" I screamed, fed up with whoever was under the robe.

"You cheated," it replied.

"We didn't cheat!" Nate yelled from behind me.

"No Nate, you didn't. Dan did. He broke down the door with a flashlight instead of waiting and using a key."

I realized I was still holding the flashlight in my hand and smirked.

"Damn right I cheated. You think I care about morals at this point? You torture people I love and go off on me for cheating? Yeah, I don't think so."

I swung the flashlight at the figure as hard as I could, letting all the rage I'd felt the last few days out. I hit it square on the jaw.

Its head whipped to the side but turned back to me almost immediately. "You really think a flashlight's gonna stop me?"

"Nope!" Nate yelled as he ran up to the figure and kicked it in its stomach. "But this might!"

The figure tumbled down the stairs, but, just like before, there was no yell or scream out of pain. The only sound was it hitting the steps.

"Since when do either of you have muscles?" Jason asked from behind us.

After turning around to face Jason, I noticed that he was staring at us in disbelief. I smiled at him before turning to Nate. "For the month I foster you, I'm signing you up for soccer."

He giggled, "I don't do sports. Not when I have to."

"You could make a YouTube channel?" Jason offered.

"Hate to burst your bubble, but I'm pretty sure kicking someone down a staircase and kicking a soccer ball are two very different things," Nate replied.

"Maybe you could make a YouTube channel of you kicking people down staircases," Phil responded.

"PHIL!" I yelled. I had completely forgotten he was in the same room as us.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention," Jason started, "I took the duct tape off his mouth because I figured it'd help his breathing."

"Phil!" I repeated as I ran over to him. I unstrapped him from the metal table and pulled him into a hug.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

I pulled away from him so I could look him in the eye. "You're sorry? I'm the one who took forever to find you!"

"Yeah, but I couldn't tell you that I wasn't the one saying that stuff. And I could hear you crying and it just made everything ten times worse hearing you cry because you never cry and–"

"Calm down! It's okay!" I tried to soothe him, but he shook his head.

"It's not okay! I made you sad!"

I chuckled lightly, "You're overreacting."

He smiled a bit at me. "Isn't that what we get paid for?"

"You're turning into the comments section," I replied, chuckling.

"Hey, so earlier–"

"Glad to see you can still change the subject at the drop of a bloody hat," I interrupted.

He let out an adorable giggle, "It's one of my many talents! Anyway, earlier you told the figure that it was torturing people you love. I don't imagine you were talking about Jack or Percy, so were you talking about Nate and me?"

I froze. I hadn't even realized I had said that. "Uh, w-well, I think the point of fostering someone is to find out if you love them enough to keep them, s-so I guess I love Nate."

Phil smiled at me. "What about the person who's fostering the kid with you?"

I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. However, for some reason, my thoughts weren't about what I was going to say. Rather, they were focused on what the figure had told me after Jack tried to help Phil.

I wouldn't survive by being scared.

So, with that thought on my mind, I decided that actions speak louder than words.

I grabbed the collar of Phil's shirt and smashed my lip against his, praying that he wouldn't awkwardly pull away.

But he didn't. He kissed back and wrapped his hands around my waist. As I began to wrap my arms around his neck, I heard Nate scream. Phil and I pulled away from each other and looked at Nate.

"What happened?" Phil asked.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?! YOU FUCKING KISSED, THAT'S WHAT!" Nate screeched.

"Did you teach him how to curse?!" Phil directed at me, smiling faintly.

"Technically Jack's videos did," Jason answered for me.

"ARE WE NOT GOING TO ADDRESS THAT MY OTP JUST HAPPENED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?!" Nate yelled, clutching Jason's arm. "HOW LONG HAVE YOU TWO HAD FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER?!"

"Uh–"

"If I'm being honest, since we started living together," Phil cut me off.

"You've liked me for almost eight years?" I asked in disbelief.

Phil laughed nervously, "Yeah. I don't know. You were my first real friend, and–"

The door slammed shut.

"The heck?" Jason mumbled as he approached the door.

"What's that kid's name?" Phil whispered in my ear.

"Jason? Did you not meet him?" I whispered back.

"I met him, but I haven't seen him in what? Three days?"

"Fair enough."

"Guys! The doorknob's back and it's locked!" Nate declared.

"There's another door over there," Phil stated, pointing to the opposite side of the room.

"It probably leads to a hallway," Jason put in.

"We should start moving," I decided, "The figure could come back any second and we need to find everyone else as soon as possible."

"Can you walk?" I whispered to Phil.

"The figure went more for my chest and arms than my legs, so I should be okay," he answered.

"Don't you dare fall over," I mumbled as I helped him off the metal table.

He giggled, "I either walk or fall on you. It seems like a win-win to me."

Yeah, me too.

"I'd prefer you'd walk, seeing as we tend to get chased and attacked pretty often," I replied.

"Okay," he responded as he put an arm over my shoulder to steady himself.

"Keep your arm there!" Nate started. "It's helpful, and adorable!"

Phil kept his arm around my shoulder and I helped him walk to the door. Nate and Jason ran ahead of us and opened it.

Beyond the door was a hallway that looked extremely different compared to the ones downstairs. This hallway had black walls, dark red carpets, and paintings you'd expect to see in a haunted house.

I heard Phil's breathing hitch as he saw it. I chuckled lightly, "I forget you weren't with us when all the creepy stuff happened."

"I wasn't there for the creepy stuff, I was forced to take everything head on," he whispered just loud enough for me to hear.

I hugged him a bit. "I wish things would go back to how they were. When we were just chilling at home, making videos, not freaking out because something could jump out at any moment," I whispered back.

"Then we wouldn't have kissed."

"And you wouldn't have met us!" Nate chimed in from ahead of us.

And none of you guys would've been tortured.

"Plus, all things happen for a reason, you know!" Jason stated.

"Like I said, we wouldn't have kissed," Phil mumbled, smiling.

Felix's POV

I ran up to Mark and hit the figure in the back of the head with a flashlight.

"Where'd you get that?" Mark quickly asked after pulling away from the figure.

"Nate threw it in his backpack!" I yelled before pushing Mark out of the way of the figure's punch.

The figure looked at me before swinging a punch at me. I dropped to the ground, barely dodging the punch. Cry gasped and I turned around to look at him, smirking. "Like this weirdo was gonna–"

Before I could continue my sentence, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head and fell to the ground. The last thing a remember before everything faded to black was Cry screaming something at the person in the black robe.

•••

I woke up tied to a metal table. Cry was nowhere in sight. I was completely alone.

I looked to my right to find a smaller table covered in knives, tweezers, needles, and an assortment of other things.

As well as a note.

Dear Felix,
Mark chose wrong.

You're part of our plan to convince him of that.

It's nothing personal~

Not toward you, anyway.

Sincerely,
RBM

A/N

PHAN

Also, I actually have something important to talk about!

GUYS THIS BOOK GOT 1K READS ON WEDNESDAY (November 9) AND I'M SO HAPPY!

I kid you not, I haven't stopped smiling since I saw it

You guys make me so happy and I hope I can continue to write chapters that *hopefully* entertain you!

Thank you so much, and BUH-BYE BROTATOES!