How to Kill Time (Reader x Five Hargreeves)

Chapter 16

We sneak through the halls, trying not to make a sound. I hear distant voices and block an arm over Five for him to stop moving. He glares at me and removes it in a way that I have to stifle a wince.

"Gloria, the Handler knows Five and Y/n is up to something. Get these to Hazel and Chacha immediately." Dot. Should have suspected.

"Uh..."

"Immediately!"

After we are sure that she left, we enter the room to see Gloria bent over, trying to put in the bronze cylinder into the tube. Five blinks to her and swiftly knocks her out, grabbing the bronze cylinder before it gets sucked in. I drag Gloria's uncounsious body to the table while Five gets to work with the typewriter, tucking the note that he found inside his pocket and writing a new one. When he places the note inside the cylinder and shove it into the tube, a voice interrupts us.

"You know that's not how we do things here." I swear under my breath as I turn to see the face of the Handler. "Where's Gloria?" she asks.

"Don't know. Couldn't find her anywhere." Five answers quickly. But the lie is revealed as Gloria groans and I swear again.

"Should have knocked her out properly." I mutter.

"You're a great disappointment to me." the Handler says, her voice dripping with malice. "You can't change what's to come, Five. I truly find it so odd that you can't shed this fantasy. You're a first-rate pragmatist. You belong here with us." The last sentence doesn't fit with the sound of her half-shouting in anger.

"I don't belong anywhere, thanks to you. You made me a killer." Five replies with his own malice.

"You were always a killer. I just pointed you in a direction." The Handler whips out her gun and with a whoosh, I am blinked to an unfamiliar room. Five stares into my eyes.

"Stay here. I mean it this time." Within a few moments, the alarm starts to ring and a women's voice appears in the PA.

"Security! It's Dot! Security to tube room. Security breach in tube room."

"He said to wait. I can wait." I tell myself. "I can wait." I tap my foot on the ground. "No I can't." I run out of the room just to have Five crash into me in a hurry.

"What is it?" I ask.

"No time!" He shouts as he drags me through the hallways and into the briefcase room. He grabs one out of the racks and fumbles with the clasp. I impatiently grab it from him and do it myself. He shoves his hand into the pocket to pull out the grenade and thrust the pull ring out. "Run!" he shrieks and an explosion erupts behind us.

#

We tumble in with a large flash of blue light, my back hitting the counter with a slam

"Je-- Jesus!" Alison shouts as she stumbles back. We groan in response, attempting to stand up. Five stumbles and I hold his arms.

"Careful."

"You guys, am I still high, or do you see Five and Y/n, too?" Klaus asks. Five grabs the nearby coffee cup in response and inhales the liquid in record time

"Where have you guys been?

"Are you all right?"

"Who did this?"

"Irrelevant." Five interrupts. He takes another gulp of the brown liquid. "So, the apocalypse is in three days. The only chance we have to save our world is, well, us."

"The Umbrella Academy." Luther says in a triumphant way.

"Yeah, but with me, obviously." Five says. I roll my eyes at his narcissistic response "So if y'all don't get your sideshow acts together and get over yourselves, we're screwed. Who cares if Dad messed us up? Are we gonna let that define us? No. And to give us a fighting chance to see next week, I've come back with a lead. I know who's responsible for the apocalypse." He pulls out the piece of paper he stored in his pocket. "This is who we have to stop."

We squint our eyes to see the name.

Protect Harold Jenkins

"Harold Jenkins? Who the hell is Harold Jenkins?" Allison asks.

Five shrugs and slurp his coffee in response.