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Chapter Text

Wednesday stood with her back to the wall in the old chapel, her hand clutching the syringe concealed in her pocket. The moonlight filtered through the broken roof as she listened to the next room.

“Where’s Wednesday?”

Of course he had shown up. He wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to see her again.

The muffled conversation continued as Wednesday stalked out from behind the wall.

Her steps were taken with precision and silence. The Nightshades were making Tyler agitated.

Good. She needed him in monster form. Her arm raised, syringe ready to plunge through the Hyde’s leathery skin.

Pain shot across her shoulder. Winded, Wednesdays back hit the hard stone with sickening force. He’d thrown her. She’d expected something like this to happen, it would have been too easy otherwise.

Tyler’s monstrous form was bearing down over Enid, claws prepared to tear her innards out. Wednesday snapped into action. She may have used Enid to lure Tyler in, but she certainly wasn’t about to let any harm come her way.

“Tyler.”

Wednesday pulled herself to her feet, drawing his attention off her best friend.

Predictably, his head snapped around, immediately focusing on her. The low growl he let out was felt through the bones of all present, but it didn’t even make Wednesday blink.

She stood in the middle of the moonlit ruin.

“Enough,”

She locked eyes with the monster. He began close the distance between them with a few short steps. Wednesday could see every razor-sharp fang bared in front of her.

“We both know I’m who you really want.”

With his interest secured, she slowly, steadily stalked towards the monster. She knew exactly how to force him into submission. She knew the words to say, as though she had been waiting for months to say them.

“What if I lied about my feelings? You were right. I was attracted to you,”

The space between them was so close she could feel the heat radiating off him. Her intense stare never wavered from Tyler’s ghoulish eyes, as she stood, nearly directly beneath his bent head.

Now for the part it could all go wrong. Wednesdays calculations were almost always correct. Almost. Most of them were not shadowed by the haze of her complex emotions.

“But you do know there is only one way we can truly be together.”

Something flickered behind his eyes. She raised the syringe.

“Say hello to your new master.”

Her voice rang out with authority as she pushed the needle into Tyler’s muscled shoulder. She heard a noise emerge from deep within his throat, a cross between a whimper and a growl.

Wednesdays heartbeat pounded through her ears. She realised with inward shock that he could probably hear it too.

His back legs bent first. He lowered himself slowly, coming to rest with his monstrous arms stretching across the floor either side of Wednesdays figure.

Success.

Wednesday watched the Hyde kneel before her, triumph glimmering in her eyes. She let the empty syringe drop to the floor with a quiet clatter. Tyler was hers.

Unfortunately the moment was short lived.

The window shattered with a deafening sprinkle of glass. Wednesday caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Enid and the Nightshades were making a stealthy exit, all while keeping a close eye on the proceedings.

In a flash, Tyler stood and was by Wednesdays side. A second Hyde, solidly three feet taller than Tyler, albeit a lot skinnier, was framed against the night outside.

Long, thin locks of hair framed the Hyde’s face. She screamed a harsh, guttural growl as she leapt directly in front of Wednesday, knocking her backwards onto the floor.

Tyler roared, taking up a threatening stance to keep the monster away from Wednesday.

The second Hyde didn’t seem afraid, but didn’t move to hurt Tyler either. Instead, her eyes flickered to Wednesday, filled with a burning hatred.

“Françoise!”

Wednesday looked sharply over her shoulder at the sound of her mother’s voice. Morticia stood in the doorway, still decorated with her Dia de Los Muertos garb.

“We had a deal.” She implored, eyes shining.

Realisation dawned upon Wednesday. She looked back at the pair of Hydes in front of her, locked in a tense stalemate.

“That’s Tyler’s mother.” She whispered, climbing to her feet.

Morticia was on her in a second, ignoring the beasts circling each other and shaking the ruins with their low snarls.

“We need to go. Françoise will take Tyler away, and leave Jericho. We needn’t worry about them any longer,” the older woman tried to pull Wednesday away from the creatures.

Wednesday, however, was going absolutely nowhere. Giving her mother a death stare, she called upon the boy newly bound to her.

“Tyler. Stand down.”

He backed away from his mother, the energy between them still dangerously taut.

Morticia looked between her daughter and the monster, her heart torn. Wednesday’s ill advised plan had already come to fruition, she was certain.

Wednesday heard the cracking and shifting of Tyler’s bones as his monstrous form contorted back into human. For the first time, it occurred to her that unleashing one’s Hyde was likely very painful.

He stood, shivering, still quite physically weak. His eyes gleamed as he stared at his mother from under his shag of curly hair. Wednesday watched Françoise’s eyes soften as she took in the sight of her vulnerable teenage son.

The Hyde assessed Tyler, curled in on himself, beside Wednesday, who stood ramrod straight. The empty syringe lay discarded on the floor nearby.

Seeming to come to a conclusion, she began the same process of detransformation.

Françoise’s eyes flickered between Tyler and Wednesday for a brief moment, before rushing forward to embrace her long-lost child.

Tyler’s eyes still glinted with mistrust as he cautiously hugged her back, slowly relaxing into it. The chemical solution pumped through his system, clouding his judgement in favour of Wednesday.

The girl turned to her mother, giving the Hydes some privacy.

“Wednesday. How could you?” Morticia whispered.

How could she, indeed? Wednesday knew she had saved Tyler’s life from degenerating into madness and decay, but not out of altruism. She had formed an unbreakable bond with a homicidal creature who had previously hurt her loved ones and showed no remorse.

Yet, a dark part of her relished that connection. Her usual methods of ignoring and moving on were of no help to her complex feelings when it came to Tyler. At least now she had him under her control.

Now, they had to stay close together. Otherwise, a clawing panic would arise in both of them, desperate to remain united. The master and her monster.

“I did what I had to do,” Wednesday replied coolly.

“I had this sorted. They were going to LEAVE.” Her mother’s voice started to rise in anger.

“Oh, yes, because you can always believe the words of a Hyde.” Wednesdays stinging sarcasm betrayed the passion she felt about her choice.

“I believe the word of a mother.”

She blinked.

“He can’t go without you now. Foolish child.” Morticia muttered, lashing out at her daughter.

Wednesday chose to ignore this outburst. She returned her attention to the other parent-child duo in the room.

“Françoise. Is this true? Would you have taken Tyler, and left Jericho for good?” Her sharp intonation echoed in the empty space. Oh, Wednesday did love an interrogation. Even if it was brief.

The two Hydes looked at Wednesday. She was unprepared for the resentment flashing in the woman’s expression. Françoise was clearly unhappy about her son gaining a new master.

“Yes,” she seethed. “And I still am. We’re leaving. Tonight. I appreciate everything you’ve done, freeing me from Willow Hill, but Tyler doesn’t need a new master in his life.”

At this, Wednesday made eye contact with the boy. They both knew this was impossible.

It was Tyler who spoke up first.

“I… I can’t.” He admitted, guiltily. His mother held his arm in an iron grip.

“You will.” She didn’t leave it up for debate.

“I can’t go anywhere without Wednesday.” He said more firmly. “She’s my master now. We have to stay in relatively close proximity. I’m sorry.”

Françoise opened her mouth to object when Morticia cut across her.

“I think the best thing to do is at least stay the night in Jericho. We can figure out how to escape this mess in the morning. I trust you have a place to stay.”

Her cool exterior exuded authority. Her argument was logical, a good compromise. Wednesday hoped the others would agree.

For a moment, Tyler’s mother appeared ready to fight further. Finally, she conceded with a heavy sigh.

“Fine. On the condition that Tyler stays with me overnight.”

Wednesday disliked this idea. On the night after the first injection, the pair felt a particular need to be near each other. However, she could see this was the best they’d get, remaining in the same town. She silently commanded Tyler to feel the same.

He nodded, looking back and forth between Wednesday and his mother.

“Okay. But I want to see her first thing tomorrow.”

Françoise smiled with the coldness of making empty promises. Tyler still seemed unsure, like he wanted to return to Wednesdays side.

She guided him towards the long collapsed doorframe, one hand on the small of his back, making sure he followed.

He turned one last time to catch a glimpse of Wednesday. She stood rock solid as she spied bitterness and desperation in his gaze.

The older Hyde pushed him forwards more firmly. The last view Wednesday got of them was Françoise’s turned head, eyes burning Wednesday with a look of pure fury in them.

They disappeared from sight.

Wednesday felt chills creep down her spine at the intensity of the woman’s hatred. Normally, she enjoyed being disliked. Now though, she knew it came with the danger of an unstable beast attached.

“Wednesday, what were you thinking?” Morticia demanded.

Wednesday looked at her with irritated disbelief.
“I had it under control.” She insisted.

“No, you’ve inextricably tied yourself to a beast. You had no idea what could have happened, Françoise proved that.” She looked for a moment as though she was about to boil over.
“Get back to Nevermore.”

Wednesday could tell arguing was pointless. Her mother stood with her arm raised, pointing towards the exit. Reluctantly, she followed her instructions, Nightshades silently falling into step behind her.

Despite everything, the walk back was simple and quiet. She allowed herself the tiniest of smirks. She had done it, became Tyler’s master. Most importantly, Wednesday had saved Enid from his threats.

She’d proven Weems and her mother wrong. Her emotions had not clouded her plan. It had unfolded with clinical precision, securing the bond between monster and master.

Now the difficult part was proceeding with a second Hyde in the picture. Tyler would be easy to force back into a cage, or even better, used as a tool to serve her own ends.

Navigating these waters, however, with his mother present with her own agenda. That would prove trickier.

Luckily, Wednesday never backed down from a challenge.

Chapter Text

The silence in the dorm between Wednesday and Enid was stiff. Enid had come far closer to death than she had signed up for.

However, Wednesday had achieved her goal. To her, this was the critical thing. Enid survived, and would live to get past this.

Besides, now there was no monster hunting her.

As long as Françoise didn’t try anything foolish.

Wednesday mulled over how to deal with her. She did not want to separate her from Tyler, they had already spent too long apart. As someone who had always had a large, loving family, she pitied the boy who barely had one parental figure.

As long as she kept out of Wednesdays business, everything should go smoothly.
This, however, was unlikely, given how volatile her reaction had been to Wednesday mastering Tyler.

The moon glowed through their dorm window as Wednesday carefully arranged her supply of syringes on her desk. Though she was now Tyler’s master for life, according to Laurel’s notes she could only remain in control if he was injected twice a week.

The formula would soon be well imprinted on her brain.

~~~~

Tyler had forgotten how it felt to be frightened. His mother’s Hyde was leashed barely beneath the surface.

He was used to being the strongest person in the room, and now he wasn’t.

They had returned to his old house, taking shelter in a secret bunker beneath Elvis’ kennel.

Françoise’s presence could be felt in every flower on the wallpaper, in every claw mark dug into the wooden dining table.

Tyler remembered enough of her from childhood to know she was furious. He recalled the nights when she would silently stride around the house, cloaking the darkness with tension and fear.

What he hadn’t realised then, was that her silence was to conceal the rumbling growls that could be heard when she spoke.

She hadn’t said a word to him since they’d come home. He waited, seated on the edge of his single bed.

He had almost begun to fall asleep when Françoise’s voice startled him out of his daze.

“Ready for bed, honey?” Her face had a gentleness showing through the barely controlled anger. Tyler could tell she genuinely cared about him, though. Or at least she thought she did.

“I… yeah.” He contemplated asking her the most pressing thought on his mind.
“What time will I see Wednesday tomorrow?”

At this, her face darkened. Tyler saw a blur out of the corner of his eye a split second before her hand made contact with his cheek.

Biting his lip to keep from cringing in pain, he raised his eyes to meet hers.

“Early. You only want to see her because she became your master. Selfish girl,” a growl crept into the vibrations of her voice.

Tyler was fully aware of the effect the chemical solution would have on him. Devotion, a craving for proximity, willingness to follow her orders.

Unlike when Laurel had unlocked him, he knew these would be the effects now. He needed a new master to survive. The only person it felt right to chain himself to was Wednesday. Whatever she used him for, he reasoned, it would be better than another stranger controlling him.

“These feelings, they’ll go away. I know what kind of solution she used on you. The effects will be gone in a week. You’ll feel no attachment after that.”

Tyler knew deep in his bones the last sentence wasn’t true. Even before she’d injected him, he craved the sight of her, needed to find her again. The magnetic pull he’d felt months previously was as strong as ever, only now he burned with hatred, not attraction.

Except it was more complicated than that. By allowing Wednesday to claim him as her own, he’d placed the strongest kind of faith one can give a fellow human being in her. He had trusted, in one fleeting moment, that binding himself to her was the best escape from death and exploitation he could get.

His mother continued on.

“You will see her once. Then I’ll take care of her, and we’ll leave Jericho. Forever.” She slammed a hand into the iron rungs at the foot of his bed. They dented under the force of her blow.

Tyler was careful with his next words, not wanting to feel the sting of another slap.

“What do you mean, ‘take care of her’? Wednesday didn’t master me for no reason. She’s not going to give me up without a fight.”

He had a horrible feeling he already knew what Françoise intended.

She grinned coldly, teeth sharper than an ordinary person’s should be.

“Then I’ll fight her. You’re mine, no one else’s.”

She turned away. “Go to sleep now, you’ll be tired in the morning.”

Unease was rippling through Tyler’s nerves. He didn’t want to go anywhere with his possessive mother. He wanted to stay right here in Jericho. But Françoise’s plans had a hole in them.

“What about me? You know I’ll start degenerating, I’ll go into psychosis within two weeks without a master. I’ll be dead in three.” He argued.

“I’ll be your master, honey. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe with your mommy.”

At this, dread spiked in Tyler’s bones. The last thing he wanted was to be prisoner to someone else’s demands, least of all his unhinged mother.

He thought of Wednesday. If anyone was going to kill her, it had to be him. He’d spent long hours wrapped in chains in Willow Hill, fantasising about painful ways to end her. Or maybe he would have mercy on her, in her last moments, and grace her with a quick death. Either way, Tyler felt Wednesdays demise belonged to him.

Ideally she would live a long life, thus preventing Tyler’s descent into madness and death. She needed to stay alive, in fact, to keep him within the bonds of someone he had shared history with. Françoise didn’t know him, not really, she’d been gone for more than a decade.

Tyler came to an inner conclusion. He would not let his mother kill Wednesday.

She was his last shot at a semblance of freedom, certainly at any life he felt was worth living.

“We’ll meet Wednesday in the forest, at 8am tomorrow, so you can say your goodbyes. Tell her not to make a fuss.”

Françoise’s teeth glinted menacingly in the low lamplight. A shiver ran down Tyler’s spine.

He tried to persuade his mother.

“I- I mean surely there’s another way to…” he trailed off at the dark loathing building in her eyes.

He felt a crushing sense of defeat. If an opportunity presented itself, he would save Wednesday. He was sure of it.

The only issue was, how could he keep her alive without losing his mother? As reluctant as he was to commit his life to staying with her, Françoise was still his only family left. He didn’t want to waste this chance. It felt like a blessing, his mother rising from the dead.

Tyler wished fervently she would change her mind, and decide to stay in this town. That way he could avoid once again feeling the numb ache of loss.

Chapter Text

The night was cold, and Wednesdays breath was visible as she entered the Nevermore conservatory.

If she was to keep Tyler under her command, she would need many more vials of Laurel’s chemical solution than she currently had.

He was too erratic and unpredictable to be left without a dosage. Wednesday needed to ensure Enid’s safety, as well as her own.

She worked in peaceful solitude, her deliberate, methodical work yielding slow but steady results. Hours passed, and the moon moved across the starry night sky above her head.

Experiencing the bond between Hyde and master was unexpectedly interesting. Since they returned from the church ruins, Wednesday could feel a slight pull.

It hovered on the border of psychological and tangible, this ever present tug she knew would lead to Tyler. She was certain he felt it too.

It fascinated her. Ultimately, she could use it as a monstrous compass, and use it to locate Tyler whenever she needed. Contrary to Dr. Fairburn’s beliefs, this magnetic feeling seemed to grow stronger with distance, not weaker.

Wednesday filled several glass jars with the steamy, crimson liquid. It smelled sharp, almost sickly, with a note of a scent she couldn’t put her finger on. The bond was a leash she could keep Tyler on, and this substance was the key to never allowing it to weaken.

The unmistakeable click of a door handle broke the silence. She was finishing packing away her equipment, storing the last of her concoction in her bag.

At first, she assumed Enid had come down from their dorm to check up on her, as she said she would. It was very late, and the werewolf was likely looking forward to a good nights sleep.

A creeping sensation washed over Wednesday. Enid wouldn’t stay silent for so long. She turned around sharply and stood face to face with Françoise Galpin.

The woman stood tall, unafraid. Wednesday could see her silence was an attempt to unnerve or intimidate her. However, this was incredibly unsuccessful, as this was Wednesdays personal preference for all social interactions.

“To what do I owe this midnight excursion?” Wednesday asked, eyebrow twitching. The tic was the only thing betraying her otherwise deadpan face.

“Tyler and I will meet you by the skull tree at eight. You will say your goodbyes, and you will never see him again.” The Hyde spoke with certainty.

Wednesday subtly moved in front of her pack of jars.

“You know that isn’t possible. He has to stay here. You know the damage that can come from separating a Hyde and his master. Unpredictability, violence, anger, to name a few. Why would you want to put your child through that?”

Wednesday took a measured step closer to Françoise.

“He’s mine. He’s my son, I have the right to take him where I please. You were never meant to be his master, I WAS.”

The woman’s monster side strained beneath the surface. A flicker of doubt crossed Wednesdays mind. If Françoise attacked her, she would be virtually defenseless against a Hyde. She hoped Enid was on her way.

“You’ve tried to claim something that isn’t yours. Let me take him, use your formula, and your bond will be severed for good. You need never see each other again. Do not disobey me, Wednesday.”

“Why should I let you do this? Tyler is not something, he is someone. Having yet another master is probably the last thing he wants. If you’ truly have his best interests in mind, you wouldn’t need my serum.” Wednesday shot back, striking a nerve.

Françoise released a rumbling growl from deep within her chest. She seemed to grow a little taller, a little more hunched. Her eyes became larger, rounder.

Wednesdays heart rate quickened, The Hyde in front of her nearing transformation.

“Give him to me, or I will take him by force.” Françoise’s bare feet took a more clawed shape, scraping the stone floors.

“I deserve to be his master, I am his mother. Tyler should be under MY control, not yours.”

Wednesday shuffled backwards until her back hit the laboratory table. Her eyes followed the growing presence of Françoise’s Hyde with an intense glare.

She found herself facing head to head with a Hyde for the second him in twenty four hours. Except this time, she had no placating words to slow the monster.

Françoise raised a claw towards Wednesday.

Suddenly, the door opened and Enid’s upbeat voice echoed through the room.

“Hey Wednesday, are you almost- OH!” Enid took in the scene of her roommate at the end of a razor sharp claw’s reach. She made eye contact with Wednesday, and saw her gaze full of trust, with a tinge of barely concealed fear.

“Stop! Get away from her!” Enid extended her rainbow claws.

Françoise’s head snapped around. Enid looked at her with fury, sharp talons raised in a threat. While the monster was distracted, Wednesday took the opportunity to fill a syringe with dark fluid. She wasn’t going to use it, but she needed a way to get Françoise to back down.

The Hyde looked back and forth between the two girls, one with sharp claws and the other poised with a syringe that could temporarily stifle her autonomy.

Conceding with an unhappy growl, Françoise shifted back into human form, bones and muscle cracking back into place.

She was livid. Seething with anger, she spat her parting words at Wednesday.

“Meet at eight. Say goodbye or don’t, I don’t care. We’re leaving with or without your blessing.”

She stormed out of the conservatory, her last words hanging heavy in the air. The look in her eyes haunted Wednesday. She was simply glad she wouldn’t have two Hydes on her hands, especially one who wanted to murder her.

Wednesday turned and put away the syringe with grim finality, just as Enid closed the gap between them.

“Hello? What the hell was that? When did she get here?” Enid questioned.

Wednesday responded with a calm detachment.
“Françoise came here to threaten me. It appears keeping Tyler around will prove more difficult than necessary, she wants to take him and run. I’m going to meet both of them at 8am tomorrow morning, by the skull tree.”

“How on earth are you going to stop them from going? Even together, we don’t stand a chance against two Hydes.” Enid was incredulous.

Wednesday noticed that Enid had forgotten one key detail.

“We won’t. The influence of Tyler’s injection will last for around five days, so tomorrow morning he will still be well under my control.”
Wednesday paused.

“I’ll only use him if I really need to. Ideally, Françoise will agree to stay in Jericho, or at least let Tyler stay.”

The two girls both knew how unlikely this was.

Wednesday mulled over her options on the walk back to the dorm. Tyler needed to remain under her control, that much was certain. Without the chemicals, though she was technically his master he would have complete use of his free will. This placed Enid in immediate danger.

Unless she could come to a resolution with his short-tempered mother, she would be a threat to Wednesdays life. Much like herself, Françoise felt the need to gain control of any given situation.

Unlike Wednesday, however, Françoise could be unpredictable and hot-headed. If Tyler came under her control, there was no line Wednesday was sure they wouldn’t cross.

She had seen this herself, the contrast between Françoise’s behaviour at Willow Hill compared to now. She had called her an angel. Next time they met, Wednesday had nearly had her throat sliced.

The ultimate goal was the same: keep Tyler in Jericho, where Wednesday could keep him on a tight leash.

The next morning, they would soon find out how this would come to be.

Chapter Text

The crescent moon sliver was setting. Wednesday was already awake, packing her bag for the confrontation ahead. Her supplies were limited, but lethal. Syringe and knife, guarded by Thing.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Enid was practically crackling with nervous energy.
“I do have sharp teeth and claws, remember?”

Wednesday responded without looking up from her preparations.
“You’re safer here. And this time, you have to listen to me. I’ve already got one Hyde under my control. Taming another should be child’s play.”

Her confident words masked a small, nagging anxiety. Realistically, she knew she was at an advantage. She mentally reached out for the comfort of her master bond.

The tug she felt towards Tyler’s presence remained as strong as it had the previous night. Wednesday prized rationality and preparation above all else, but the reassurance of control soothed her agitated spirit.

Her eyes fixed upon the red glow of her neon clock. The numbers reflected faintly on the surface of her polished desk.

07:45.

Time to go.

“Wish me luck.” Wednesday muttered darkly, pushing the coloured glass window of her room open.

The dead autumn leaves crunched beneath the girl’s heavy shoes. A pastel glow illuminated the forest from the east. She hiked in silence, Thing an ever watchful presence in her shoulder.

The Hyde’s were on the move. The clarity of Wednesday’s leash was declining. It grew fuzzier and changed directions multiple times.

Upon arriving at the gnarled, skull-shaped tree, she saw she was alone. Her cold hand pulled a pocket watch from her jacket.

07:57.

Her ears and eyes were alert for any sign of the pair. She moved closer to the tree, eyes darting around the clearing, watching the treeline.

Three minutes passed, then three more. Wednesday stood with her back against the old tree bark, waiting, posture rigid.

Ten minutes passed. Françoise hadn’t seemed the type to show up late to a meeting. Especially one as vital as this.

Just as Wednesday searched down her monstrous connection for Tyler’s whereabouts, she found it dissipated.

It was everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

He was here.

The weak morning sunlight filtered through the canopy. Wednesdays eye was caught by the gleam of buttery light on a long, ropey scar.

Tyler stood on the opposite side of the clearing, staring intently at Wednesday. His posture was not quite relaxed, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his dark grey sweatpants.

Though the cold never bothered Wednesday, she felt a little perturbed that Tyler wore a short sleeved t-shirt with no jacket. An early November morning was hardly warm weather.

She saw he wore a poker face, albeit a bad one. The girl was a gambling expert, so she easily recognised the pained anguish betrayed in his eyes.

Without warning, a bony, pale hand shot out from behind a tree and held the boy’s arm in an iron grip. Françoise revealed herself. Stepping into the light of the clearing, she dragged Tyler alongside her.

A falsely sweet smile was plastered across her face. She whispered, “Now honey, just a quick word with her. We need to go soon.”

Her free hand stroked gently across Tyler’s cheekbone. He swallowed hard, visibly uncomfortable.

She pushed him towards Wednesday with a little more force than was necessary. He walked up close enough to her that she could smell the detergent on his freshly laundered clothes.

Wednesday didn’t budge one inch, her arm lightly brushing Tyler’s where they stood. Her large, dark eyes bored into his.

He was the first to speak.

“You can’t let me leave.” His voice was low, shaking.

Wednesday opened her mouth to respond, but Tyler cut across her before she could speak.

“My mom can hear everything we say. Hydes have heightened hearing. We have to keep this fast.”
He spoke rapidly, with a fevered tempo.

Wednesday nodded almost imperceptibly at his warning.

“You’re not going anywhere.” She crooned, letting her words land with weight on the other side of their bond.

Tyler turned to face his mother. Wednesday observed the wordless, unhealthy tension between them, like a rope ready to snap.

Interesting, she thought. All was not joyful, family togetherness in the Galpin household.

“Tyler, baby, fetch mommy a jar from Wednesdays bag.” Françoise stalked closer to the pair, crossing the middle of the clearing.

He looked at Wednesday. She made no move, no indication of what to do.

He reached a hand out for the flap of her bag. A corpselike hand grasped his wrist, immobilising it in mid-air. Tyler seemed to shrink back under Wednesdays bloodcurdling glare.

“I’m afraid you won’t be taking what’s mine, Françoise.” Wednesday stated coldly. She let her eye fall over the increased rise and fall of Tyler’s chest before snapping her gaze to his mother.

She tried a halfhearted attempt at a peaceful resolution. Softening her gaze ever so slightly, she made a proposition.

“You both could stay in Jericho. Tyler lives with you, but I remain his master. We can share this space in peace.” The words tasted bitter rolling off her tongue.

The second they were spoken Wednesday knew they were a meaningless formality. Françoise was more likely to die than to change her plans.

Tyler’s mother’s voice almost had a tone of regret in her next words.

“I wish it hadn’t come to this. I used to be good friends with Tish.” Her mournful statement was barely out of her mouth before she began to unleash her Hyde.

“But I cannot be Tyler’s master while you are still alive.” Her words morphed into a deafening roar.

Wednesday previously noticed how tall she was, in comparison to Tyler. Her height was stark against the clouds. While her monster’s frame lacked the bulk evident in his, her strength was more than made up for in her size. Wednesday estimated Tyler stood around two-thirds of her height, if even.

The Hyde bounded across the leafy forest floor in one quick stride. Wednesday didn’t have time to react before Tyler placed himself in the path between his mother and his master.

His eyes were wide and begging,
“Please, mom, don’t-“

Françoise tossed him to the side like a rag doll. Wednesday sent a silent wish his way, hoping he would receive the telepathic message to transform.

Before she could see if she was successful, however, Françoise was bearing down on her. She snarled and snapped her jaws in front of Wednesdays face.

The teenage girl closed her eyes. There was nothing more to be done. Either her plan was successful, or she had failed, and would pay with her life.

The massive Hyde wrapped its claws around Wednesdays torso. She felt the air crushed out of her lungs, escaping through her mouth with a soft wheeze.

The wind whistled in her ears as Françoise threw Wednesday several metres. Pain exploded across her back when she hit the rough bark of a nearby tree. Her limp body screamed in agony, forcing a choked gasp out of her windpipe.

Lying on the roots of the tree, Wednesday turned her face upwards to catch a glimpse of her final moments. Through her hazy vision, the creature raised a taloned hand, ready to slash Wednesdays throat to ribbons.

Her survival instinct grasped at the only salvation she had. She sent desperate pleas for help down the psychological bond connecting her to the second Hyde present.

A blur of muscle and teeth tackled Françoise to the side. Wednesday blinked and breathed sharply, rapidly, like every intake of breath could be stolen at any moment.

When she tried to stand up, she was blinded by the sting arcing across her ribcage. Red dripped from her nose, the bleed caused by the impact of hitting the tree.

The monsters were entangled in a bloody, brutal brawl. The growls and noises of flesh tearing were at odds with the otherwise serene forest.

Wiping the thick flow of blood away from her lips, Wednesday sat immobile, watching the fight unfold.

It was brief, but intense. Tyler’s involvement had shocked Françoise, made her slow to respond. He beat and slashed her across the crispy autumn leaves, sometimes suffering a slice to the torso or head.

The ground shook with the force of it all. Dead leaves cascaded in a flurry of orange and brown when Tyler finally pinned his mother against a tall oak trunk.

Though she had commanded him to save her, it still came as a slight shock to Wednesday when his claws pierced Françoise’s stomach, embedding themselves in the wood behind her.

The light died in her eyes the same moment Tyler’s body shifted back human. Even from across the clearing, Wednesday could see the heaving motion of his bare back that he was racked with sobs.

His hand pulled out of his mother’s dead stomach with a wet squish. Her lifeless body collapsed onto the forest floor, Tyler falling to his knees the moment after.

Even in death, Françoise’s body contorted back to human form on its own.

For an immeasurable beat, the three humans lay broken, bloody and grieving amidst the terrible silence of the woodland.

Chapter Text

Wednesdays head spun. The cold, sharp twigs on the ground dug into her palms, as she tried to push herself to a seated position.

With immense pain, she now sat against the tree, every intake of breath sending fire across her chest.

She tasted metal. Her nosebleed was heavy, sending red pulsating down her lips and chin, dripping onto the dead leaves beneath her. Wednesday took in her surroundings with hazy vision.

Splatters of blood were trailed across the forest floor. Starting near where she lay, they arced across the clearing, ending where Tyler sat hunched over Françoise’s corpse.

Even from a distance, his dirty, bleeding back was visibly shaking. Wednesday felt a stab of pity for the boy. The only family he had left was lying dead by his own hand, at his feet.

Tears poured down Tyler’s face. His right hand was coated in a thick, hot layer of his mother’s lifeblood halfway up the forearm.

His knees brushed her still-warm arm. Françoise’s eyes were open and staring, death having already robbed them of their scheming glimmer.

Droplets of blood, both her own and her son’s, were splattered across her body. The gaping hole in her stomach was surrounded by a dark layer of congealing blood, already pooling on the carpet of leaves.

The edge of this puddle of gore touched Tyler’s knee. He knelt at her side, equally covered in red, aside from the finishing wound torn open in Françoise.

He barely felt the sting of his numerous slashes and bruises. He felt suffocated, barely able to breathe. The only part of him he was conscious of was the slick wetness encasing his right hand.

A bird tweeted nearby.

The mostly-risen sun shone its yellow light upon the agonising scene. Wednesday lay supported by the wood for an indeterminate amount of time, taking stock of her injuries.

Blunt force trauma to the back of her head, causing a nosebleed. She was almost certainly concussed. At least two broken ribs from the impact of hitting the tree.

Other than these, there were no more injuries. She began to drag herself slowly across the uneven ground, fingers catching on thick roots.

Soon enough, Wednesday had covered the few metres between her and Tyler. Lying on the ground, she stretched a hand to grasp his elbow.

He jumped, startled from his depressive train of thought. Wednesday looked into his shining eyes, feeling an inner conflict raging within her.

Tyler was undeniably damaged. He had always had a less-than-stable mental state, but Wednesday feared her command to defend herself had hurt him too much. She felt a surge of sympathy for him.

Almost subconsciously, she stroked a comforting thumb across his warm arm.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The words were filled with meaning, ranging from the recent violence to the entirety of taking control of his autonomy.

In this moment, Tyler simply seemed like a vulnerable, grieving boy, wracked with guilt. And Wednesday knew fully well she was responsible, at least in part.

The boys gaze flickered over her with a new edge of concern.
“You… you’re hurt.” He spoke as though this was the first time he’d noticed. Only realising now that anything other than his own actions was amiss.

He moved to try to help Wednesday into a more comfortable position. His hands trembled too badly to be of much use to her, but he still tried to help.

She hadn’t told him a thing down the bond since her life was endangered. Her heart was quite touched by the efforts he was making to help her.

Her hands reached out to enclose his, becoming sticky with the shared blood on their fingers. The crushing pain of lying on her injured ribs made her shut her eyes for a moment before speaking.

Every breath hurt, but she managed to squeeze the words out.
“I’m okay, Tyler. Take a few, slow, breaths. We’ll need to start moving soon.”

She hated to say it, but they couldn’t stay in the woods forever. This area was crawling with hikers around lunchtime, and the pair needed to be long gone by then.

The boy still seemed in a state of emotional distress. His expression was distant, his cheeks were still tearstained and his body was shaking violently.

Wednesday wanted to offer him more solace and comfort in a rare moment of compassion. But she found herself at a loss for words.

How could she provide any relief, since she felt at fault for his torment?

As he took in her words, a flare of panic arose in his distraught expression.

“I- we… No, we can’t just… leave her here like this.” His voice cracked, threatening another wave of tears.

Wednesdays heart felt split down the middle. But she knew in her bones that they couldn’t bring Françoise’s body with them.

She sat for a long moment with Tyler next to his mother’s cooling body. His hands were still clasped in the cool embrace of Wednesdays palms, steadying them.

He knew the truth too, but through the blur of anguish he couldn’t bear to say it. She lay in the shade of the giant oak for as long as he needed. In her view, it was the least she could do.

Meanwhile, the agony in her chest was becoming unbearable. After several long minutes, Wednesday finally gasped her needs to him.

“Tyler… my ribs. I need medical help.”

Her words came out as little more than a strained wheeze. His gaze now eventually gained a spark of attention. In a moment of indecision, his eyes darted back and forth between Wednesday and his mother.

He slipped his hands out of her grasp. A wave of numbness fell over Tyler as he crawled to Françoise’s head.

His thumb traced the edge of her face, saying a silent goodbye before he’d truly gotten to know her again. Closing her eyes with his fingertips, he turned his face to the sky.

He let out a scream of such grief and anguish that Wednesday flinched as she heard it. The monster’s roar was almost imperceptible under the sound of vividly human suffering.

When Tyler had exhausted his breath, he slowly reopened his eyes. He stood, walked a few paces until his master lay in his shadow.

Wednesday took in the silhouette above her. Without a word, he knelt and gently lifted her slight frame in his arms.

Curled in her Hyde’s close embrace, the pair started their return through the misty forest.

Chapter Text

The morning sun shone bright above their heads. Tyler stepped with care, trying his best to make the walk as gentle as possible.

Crisp air cooled the damp patches of blood across his torso. A small shiver went through his body. He barely felt the cold, too absorbed in his own thoughts to pay much attention to the present.

The master bond wrapped him and Wednesday close together. He could feel its tug, dictating his every movement. It felt very different to Laurels bond, though.

Where the redhead had dragged him away from happiness and reality, Wednesday had saved him from the despair of a futile life, trapped in psychosis.

He knew he should feel angry at her, especially for tearing him apart from his mother. But he couldn’t bring himself to. Shame crawled over his skin at the relief he felt at being spared from his mother’s coercive hold.

Without a doubt, Tyler missed her like all hell. The impact of Françoise’s death, however, had been lessened by the years they’d spent apart. He’d already grieved his mother once, it felt horrible to do it again. He barely knew this version of her.

Still, he was overcome with guilt at having ended her life. Her fate was not his place to decide. He had almost forgotten the same applied to him.

Almost, but not quite. The girl in his arms reminded him of this every minute.

Wednesdays eyes were shut, her long lashes fanned across her lower lids. Her injuries made her breath come in quick, trembling bursts. Though Tyler tried his best, jolts of pain shot through her chest at each rocking step.

The chilly air usually provided a cool clarity to her heart. But on this morning, the cold clawed its way in, embedding itself in her aching wounds.

She could feel the thrum of Tyler’s heart next to her. Subconsciously, she leaned into the soft heat of his grasp.

Cold precision was the stable foundation of Wednesdays personality. Efficiency and detachment were the ways she had achieved her goals thus far.

Unfortunately, her own body had become collateral damage in her most recent scheme. As a result, steps needed to be taken to protect her corporal form in this unsheltered woodland.

His warmth was just to ease the chattering of her teeth, she reasoned. Besides, her own pet monster was the perfect mode of transport through treacherous woods.

Her eyes flickered open. A steady hand placed upon his shoulder halted the two of them. Tyler’s ears strained to hear Wednesdays commanding whisper.

“Don’t take me to the hospital,” she managed. Struggling for breath, she continued on, reading the confusion written on his face.

“Take me back to Nevermore. No one can know what happened.”

Wednesday convulsed, a harsh cough that was cut short by a wince of pain. Their eyes locked for a moment, one that lingered just a beat too long. Tyler was unconvinced of Wednesdays physical stability.

“Are you sure? You’re badly hurt.” His voice had a gentle quality she hadn’t heard in a long time.

Wednesday called on their psychological connection.
“You will obey me.” she told him, deadpan.

It took a a few seconds longer than Wednesday felt comfortable with before he started walking again. Their chests rose and fell in tandem as they stalked through the shadowed forest.

He took her commands easily, almost unnervingly so. According to Laurel, there had been flashes of resistance at the beginning of mastering a Hyde.

Wednesday wasn’t one to leave much to chance. His former master had also found that he eventually gave in, every time.

Perhaps the resistance was due to him being freshly unlocked. She certainly had expected at least an ounce of dismay from Tyler, possibly more.

Especially since she killed his mother.

She was the one he had chosen to direct his fury at, she was the one who had been comatose for two weeks at his hand.

But now, all she found was yielding emotionality.

Curious.

She settled herself listening to the rise and fall of his chest. The duration of their journey was short, and soon they approached Nevermore’s stark, ivy covered walls.

Chapter Text

Tyler pushed open the intricate dorm window. His legs burned from carrying Wednesday up all those flights of stairs, but he knew it was nothing compared to the searing pain she must feel in her ribcage.

Enid was roused from her anxious pacing in an instant. A quick stream of concerned chatter poured from her upon seeing Wednesdays condition.

The darker girl’s head turned almost imperceptibly, eyes fixing on her bed. Tyler brought her there without delay and lay her gently down on the black bedspread.

Their dorm room was much larger than he had expected. The ceiling soared, criss-crossed by old fashioned wooden rafters.

There was a clear divide between the leisure spaces of the two girls, but he noticed subtle encroachments on each other’s territory. A sprinkle of glitter on Wednesday’s side of the floor, a creepy doll nestled amid Enid’s plush toys.

The signs of their special friendship were mostly missed by the usual eye, but the small concessions they made to each other were noticed by Tyler.

Enid was frantically taking stock of Wednesdays state. She ignored Tyler completely, focused on her roommate.

“… and your head, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Wednesday answered correctly, patiently allowing Enid to express her worry before finally clasping her wrist with a pale hand.

“Enid,” she breathed, struggling to keep her eyes fully open. “Get me medical supplies from the infirmary. If you run into trouble taking them, get Bianca to help things run smoothly.”

Enid stood, nodding. Wednesday trusted her to return quickly, understanding the severity of her situation. The door closed behind her with a sharp click, leaving the monster and his master alone in the loft.

They passed a moment in uncomfortable silence, Tyler focused on the regularity of Wednesdays laboured breathing.

She opened her mouth to speak. “Your mother,” she spoke slowly, selecting her words with caution. She was unused to apologising, but felt it necessary in this situation. “I shouldn’t have made you do it. I should have brought Enid instead. Spared you that experience.”

Her face contorted for a half a second, cracking her calm exterior and betraying the agony it took to talk.

Tyler sat by her bedside, his gaze meeting hers. Unsure of himself, he reached a hand to Wednesdays slowly, offering comfort before speaking.

She pulled hers away.

He blinked, trying to hide his disappointment. Taking a deep breath, he rebutted her apology.

“She was trying to kill you. It was her or my master. Of course I chose you.”

Wednesday knew this was the chemical inducement talking. She may have been uncertain which the real Tyler would choose, but he definitely wouldn’t be automatically picking his master.

Without the plants, she recalled all too well the fate she had heard befell Laurel Gates.

Speared through the stomach with claws large enough to dig a grave.

The girl kept the awareness that he could just as easily turn on her close at hand. It reminded her to be methodical and objective when dealing with her captured creature.

Suddenly, Wednesday realised her entire collection of Laurel’s notes and syringes lay mere metres away, inside her desk. A brief wave of panic gripped her, knowing Tyler was so close to the instructions she used to bind herself to him.

She could stop him taking them, she reminded herself. He would do anything she wanted, as long as she gave him the correct dosage at the correct times.

Still, she didn’t fully trust him. Not yet.

Enid returned, shutting the door behind her with a loud bang. Her arms were filled with first aid supplies as she breathlessly brought them over to Wednesday.

Her eyes darted over her roommate and Tyler before shifting her attention back to unpacking the medical kit.

“Do you need help?” Enid asked, arranging the bandages and packets of sterile cloth at the foot of Wednesdays bed.

“I… I haven’t got much experience with first aid, but I-“
Wednesday’s sharp voice cut across her.

“Enid. Leave us.” Her gaze was fixed on Tyler with an intensity the other girl was hesitant to interrupt.

Enid stood slowly, taking in the pair in front of her. Deciding it was best to take her leave, she approached the door, shooting one last glance over her shoulder.

“If you need anything, I’ll be right down the hall,” she offered gently, before turning and exiting the room quietly.

Wednesday began to sit up. Struggling against the pain, she pushed herself into a seated position, back straight. The equipment Enid had gathered shone lightly in the low light from the window.

Steeling her nerve, she began to command Tyler. Her own knowledge of the healing process was unmatched, of course, and she could translate this into his body via their binding connection. Or she could try, at least. He could follow her instructions, which seemed like a solid start.

“Tyler.”

His wandering gaze snapped to attention. She gestured to the fabric scissors at her feet with a slight nod.

“There’s blood, sticking my top to my body. I need you to cut it away so we can dress my wounds.”

Tyler knelt by the side of her bed, close by Wednesday. He picked up the cold scissors in his right hand. With his left, he touched the low edge of the seam of Wednesdays battered black turtleneck.

He half expected her to snap at him that he was doing it wrong, even though he felt her mentally guiding him. Though she was Wednesday Addams, cold blooded through and through, the skin at her hip was surprisingly warm and soft.

A soft exhale escaped her lips as he carefully pulled the fabric away from her, fingers lightly brushing her waist in the process.

He worked carefully, slower and more deliberate than he had done anything in months, cutting his masters blood-stiffened clothing away from her skin.

He peeled back the worst of the bloody part on her stomach. The dark fabric had soaked up huge volumes from Françoise’s pool of blood.

His eyes latched onto the smooth curve of her waist, so pale she nearly glowed. Her belly rose and fell in perfect rhythm, her diaphragm doing most of her breathing for now. Under the edge of her top, a scattering of fresh purple bruises were visible along her lower ribs.

His breath caught slightly as he worked his way further up her torso. Wednesdays eyes were shut, her breathing calm and measured.

Yet, when his palm touched her back, just beneath her shoulder, Tyler’s heightened hearing detected a small pickup in her heart rate.

She swallowed, trying to keep her focus. Wednesday thought about her injuries, how to wrap them well for the quickest healing, anything except the heat coming from Tyler’s deft hands, revealing her wounds with such precision.

A precision that she, Wednesday, had planted in his mind. Her deliberate methods had ultimately yielded the desired results, albeit with a little wear and tear on the side.

He was hers. No one else’s. Forever.

She allowed herself the smallest of smirks as he finished slicing her clothing in two. Raising her arms above her head, the plain, figure-hugging turtleneck fell to the bed without a sound.

Wednesdays eyes landed on Tyler. A muscle in his jaw ticked as she observed him taking in the red and purple contusions, underneath the swell of her bra.

“Don’t get distracted,” her voice was soft, but retained that flat, unfeeling tone it always did.

Reaching for a sterile cloth, Tyler leaned in even closer to ensure maximum precision when cleaning her wounds.

When the damp cloth crossed the space above a fracture, Wednesdays hands gripped the bedsheet beneath her. She pulled a sharp intake of breath into her lungs.

Tyler paused for a moment, waiting for her order to continue. His eyes flickered to Wednesdays barely perceptible nod before returning to the task at hand.

They endured and enjoyed the next few minutes, both refusing to make eye contact through the tense silence.

The only sound was their quiet, but shaky, breathing, each hoping the other did not notice when their regularity was interrupted.

Wednesday noticed every time. She kept her attention in his behaviour, watching him like a hawk. His every hesitation, the short distance he kept and the care with which he disinfected her wounds was noted down in her memory.

Tyler was too focused on her injuries to notice her breath, but he heard every stutter of her heartbeat whenever they made skin on skin contact.

When her ribs were clean, he sat back without a word and picked up a roll of sterile bandages. Wednesday stopped him. Her arm reached out and took the small roll of white from his grasp.

Unrolling it herself, she tried to bind the bandages snug around her broken ribs, supporting them. It was difficult, wrapping the long line of fabric around her body.

She had barely started when she winced in pain at her arm’s awkward movements. Since she hadn’t told him not to, Tyler was sitting a few feet away, his gaze avidly following her every move.

An exhale of confession escaped her, as she handed the bandages back to Tyler. She’d have much preferred to dress the wounds herself, but it appeared they were too severe for even Wednesday to care for alone.

He leaned in close, arms wrapping underneath Wednesdays to wind the white cloth around and around her torso. His head hovered above her shoulder, so close she could smell his scent mingling with the faint sweat on the nape of his neck.

To Wednesday, proximity was a weakness. You cannot be stabbed in the back by someone you never let up close behind you.

In this case, she told herself it was okay. She controlled the situation entirely, down to the quick, precise movements Tyler was making with his fingers.

“Done,” he announced quietly, breaking the heavy silence. He pulled back slightly, and looked up into Wednesdays face.

She suddenly noticed how close they were, their faces barely six inches apart. The girl blinked, realising the intimacy of their situation. He wore a solemn, intense expression, at a contrast to his bright, shining gaze. A loose brown curl fell in front of his eyes.

A few deep breaths penetrated the quietude, Wednesdays lingering thoughts dragging out the moment longer than required.

At last, she returned to her good, logical senses. She cleared her throat.

“Thank you, for … your assistance. Return here in two days’ time. Until then, your time is your own.”

Wednesday spoke with a matter-of-fact tone. Tyler stood where he was, knees brushing the edge of her mattress.

He looked at her, mouth open as though he wanted to say something else. She returned his gaze with an icy edge, signalling to get lost. He seemed to think better of what he was going to say, shutting his mouth and turning towards the circular window.

A cold atmosphere enveloped the dorm room as Tyler’s footsteps echoed across the wooden floor. With a creak of rusty hinges, he opened the window and was gone.

Chapter Text

Sheriff Santiago stood in the pouring rain. Thunder crackled above her head as officers combed every inch of the clearing for evidence.

Clouds had caused dusk to fall prematurely. The torchlight of the police’s lamps illuminated the stark outlines of the trees around them.

Exasperation filled her spirit. In Jericho, being head of the law enforcement proved tougher than anywhere else. Every fact seemed to contradict itself, sending the sheriff’s department running in circles around Nevermore.

She stared down at the body of a woman who had been believed dead for fifteen years.

She shifted her boots in the soggy leaves. The puddles around her feet ran red. Françoise Galpin’s stomach lay torn wide open, eyes staring glassily at the sky above her.

“Run a DNA test on every separate area where we’ve found blood,” the sheriff barked instructions to her deputy, Abe Ryken.

Any chance that someone else’s blood could be found was too critical to be ignored.

“And get a report on the scene to my desk the second we get back to the bullpen. No detail is too small.”

The deputy nodded and returned to his work, overseeing the documentation of the gory scene.

The sheriff was puzzled. A grisly murder case such as this one involved most of the force, even if the victim allegedly died over a decade ago. The coroner’s initial observation estimated she had been killed only around twelve hours ago.

Santiago remembered the 911 call from two hikers in the late morning. Woman dead, stomach ripped out, blood everywhere. It was just the case she needed with all the other bullshit going on in this hellhole.

The rain didn’t let up the entire time they were there. It washed the smears of brownish-red off Françoise’s cold, stiff skin. The lacerations across her face and shoulder remained dark and foreboding.

“Samples collected!” Called a junior officer through the patter of thick droplets, signalling the end of the current stage of investigation.

It looked like the sheriff would once again be working through the night on a supernatural case.

~~~~

Wednesday was going out of her mind with cabin fever. Weeks had passed since the incident, bringing with them a slow routine that made her want to shed her skin.

Confined to her room, she had successfully talked her mother out of moving her into Jericho town hospital. Though Morticia was furious with her, her anger cooled off over Wednesdays recuperation period.

Her white bandages were changed every morning and evening. Enid brought her schoolwork from the classes she’d missed, and the long days passed in a comfortable silence.

At least, comfortable to everybody except Wednesday. She spent her afternoons poring over Laurels notebooks, gleaning any extra knowledge she could about her bond with Tyler.

Little unknown was left to be discovered. The only useful tip she got was to forceful commands down the connection at all times, as weaker ones may be delayed or cast aside by the Hyde.

Wednesday had pretty much figured this out for herself, from firsthand experience. The more rigid her instructions, the quicker Tyler was at following them.

Desperation also made for a formidable force of will, but fortunately she hadn’t had cause to use it since her life was threatened.

Her main takeaway was that Tyler needed to be kept on a tight leash. A looser one gave him more metaphorical space to roam in, more ability to dodge or delay her commands.

Disobedience was unacceptable. Wednesday wrote her own notes in a journal, and kept it alongside his late master’s. She annotated Laurels notes also, writing reminders of what worked effectively and what was less reliable.

The stacks of shining dark jars were kept hidden away in a drawer behind Wednesdays desk. No one but Enid knew about them, and she intended to keep it that way. Especially her mother.

Morticia was under the impression that Wednesday had tried and failed to prevent the Hydes from leaving town. She had been rebuffed with aggression and was left behind with nothing but injuries to show for it.

Since this would keep her mother out of her hair, the girl was hardly about to correct her, let alone give her the full details of how she had been injured.

On this starry night, she sat on her stone balcony, watching the half-moon rise above the distant treeline. She was alone, Enid having left their dorm an hour previously.

Yoko was hosting some trivial social occasion for their hall, which Wednesday was more than glad to sit out. Unlike her, Enid seemed to adore these rites of passage through her undoubtedly tumultuous adolescent years.

The silence was calm and empty, soothing Wednesdays hardened soul. The soft touch of the winter breeze sent comforting chills across her limbs. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, deeply.

The slight weight of a glass syringe was noticeable in her pocket. The loose tumble of fabric around it left it concealed, quiet. Her fingertips strayed to the hard bulge it left at her hip, finding solace in its sure presence.

She reached in her mind for the solid pull of the master’s bond. Finding Tyler to be his usual distance away, she gave it a sharp tug, summoning him to her side.

A few peaceful minutes slipped by, with no movement except the wind tossing a few loose strands of her hair that had escaped her tight braids.

A dark shape darted below the balcony’s edge. Less than thirty seconds later, the side entrance to the girls’ stone ledge opened to reveal Tyler, slightly short of breath from his journey.

This was one of the final installations of their regular ritual. Since Wednesday’s injury, they would meet every three days in this exact spot, repeating the precise same task each time.

He knew exactly what to do. Wordlessly, he walked up to Wednesday, taking a seat beside her. Her hand slipped into her pocket. The cool, smooth glass was grasped by her methodical hand.

The first time, he had tried to talk to her. An unblinking glare had withered this attempt within a few short moments. Now, her gaze was as calculated and hostile as ever as she studied him.

No noticeable changes had occurred in the past while, save the healing of his superficial wounds. Though they saw each other every three days, Wednesday knew he wanted it more frequent. Such was the way the chemicals affected his brain, making him crave proximity to his master.

To her, this was an irritating side effect, albeit a gratifying one. He came to her as loyally as a puppy, silently begging for her attention. Keeping him away was not only the most practical course of action, preventing his discovery, but also a cold reminder.

She held the power. He listened to her. Denying him daily contact was her way of letting him know his place.

And if a hidden part of her also wanted to see him, practicing restraint was one of her most powerful qualities.

She slid the syringe from her pocket. The dark fluid reflected the night sky from within its curve of glass.

Upon seeing the instrument, Tyler rolled up his short sleeve, leaving his bare shoulder exposed to the night air.

He didn’t meet Wednesdays gaze. She herself had no objection to this, though she found it quite interesting. Small things like this were how Tyler showed his emotions and opinions these days.

Raising a steady hand to his shoulder, she pinched the warm skin, compressing a layer of hard muscle into a bump ready for injection.

The long end of the needle plunged smoothly into his flesh. She leaned forward slightly as she pressed down the opposite side, pushing the chemical formula into Tyler’s muscle tissue and blood vessels.

The tips of her braids lightly brushed his knees. Both of them sat in a cross-legged position, breathing in tandem without realising.

Though the needle was sharp, he barely betrayed any sign of pain. The only tell Wednesday could see was the marked, singular bobbing of his Adam’s apple out of the corner of her eye.

As Wednesday withdrew the syringe, a small bead of blood appeared where it had pierced his skin. She pulled a white handkerchief from her other pocket and dabbed gently at the fluid, making sure to remove all traces.

Throughout the whole process, her eyes never once looked to his face. They remained focused on her task of injection, renewing the bond that held the pair together.

Concluding this nights work, Wednesday sat back. She knew this may be the last time they sat here under these circumstances, since her ribs were almost functionally healed. Soon she would be able to move around as she pleased, and rendezvouses in much more hidden sanctuaries would be preferable.

Tyler stood, ready to take his leave. He helped Wednesday to her feet, though she released an exhale of pain from the bad bruising that was almost gone from her chest and back.

Still, the steady pressure of his hand under her arm was useful in her movements. They were quiet for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts.

Wednesday knew she ought to communicate the change of schedule to him.

She spoke with a ring of authority resounding through her voice.
“Soon, this arrangement will shift. We will meet in the forest instead for our next injection. I have yet to work out the specifics of where exactly, so just follow the compass of our bond and you should be fine.”

He nodded quickly, concealing his surprise. Asking questions was likely to irritate her, and she would not reveal any information she didn’t want to.

Taking this as his cue to go, Tyler let his eyes flick over Wednesday one final time.

Her eyes shone with that intense glare of hers, the way they bored into your soul. A few strands of black drifted softly in the breeze, framing her freckled face.

His master, the one who claimed his loyalties. He thought back to the church, his desperation to flee from psychosis and death. It had driven him straight into Wednesdays waiting arms.

Or perhaps, her syringe was more accurate.

Tyler had never liked taking orders until now. Even with Laurel, he fought her for control every step of the way. This time felt different. He knew she controlled him, but didn’t object. His reasoning was that Wednesday was not, in fact, making him kill innocent people and playing mind tricks.

She was frank and honest about her influence over him, which was refreshing after the waves of manipulation Laurel put him through. He knew he owed part of his willingness to the bond, but it had been his own self control that had let her place that first injection in him.

The one issue he had was his mother. The only thing he felt forced to stay silent on was his unhappiness surrounding her death. It had been self-defense, he knew it. Wednesdays life had been at high risk and she had called on him as her last resort.

Still, even to this day, he could feel the wetness of her organs under the palm of his hand. Could still see the light die in her eyes as he was wrenched back into human form by the horror of what he had done.

The terrifying part was that he would do it again. And again. Every time, he would choose to save Wednesday from his sociopathic mother.

That was the part Tyler had trouble coming to terms with.

Standing here on this cold balcony tonight, he took in her living form. Her heart was audible to him, the rhythmic pumping constant and steady. The slight rise and fall of her chest signified that she was alive, alive, alive.

In moments like these, he was even thankful it was her standing here in front of him, and not Françoise.

They held their stances for another immeasurable beat, before Tyler turned and walked away, leaving Wednesday alone on the stone balcony.

She blinked once, watching him go.

Chapter Text

The sheriff pored over case files on her desk. Every day, the person of interest from her most recent homicide case were unavailable for an interview.

Every day, until now.

Deputy Abe Ryken rushed into her office, panting with exertion. His disheveled state caused Santiago to look up with some alarm.

“Everything okay, Ryken?” She asked, curious as to the cause of his hurry.

He could barely manage to get the words out between huffs of breath. “I spoke with … Gomez Addams.”

At this, the sheriffs ears pricked up. Any time an Addams was involved in a case, there was bound to be messy nuances and secrets.

“Wednesday… she.. she’s better.” The sheriff stood immediately. The girl had been unreachable for the past few weeks, even by the police department. Her lawyer, who also happened to be her father, claimed she was suffering from a mystery illness and had to be quarantined.

Unwell. Santiago could barely picture Wednesday in a relaxed position, let alone laid low with illness. Something about it didn’t sit quite right with her, but she had no choice but to abide by her father’s wishes or risk a lawsuit.

The sheriff didn’t believe in coincidences. You investigate crime for this long, you realise things don’t just happen side by side.

They happen for a reason. Every damn time.

So when Wednesday Addams suddenly fell ill the day after her blood was discovered at a grisly crime scene, Santiago knew something was amiss. She just had to prove there was a connection between Wednesday and Tyler Galpin, which wouldn’t likely be difficult.

The boys blood had been spilled all over the forest. The sun and wind had dried it into a dark crust encasing leaves all over the woodland floor.

The minute she read the report stating the different bloods that had been found across the crime scene, and that all of it belonged to people already on the police database, Santiago had asked for Wednesday to be brought into custody effective immediately.

She had been incredulous when her officers returned empty-handed, claiming the suspect was severely ill and nobody could see her.

Just her luck. The only two living beings with connections to the murder were a fugitive and a mysterious disappearing girl with a penchant for death.

She followed her deputy out of the room, the lights left shining dimly on the vacated space.

“Have you sent for her to be brought here? We need an interview as soon as possible.” The sheriff questioned, the two striding along the busy corridor.

The man nodded quickly, “She should be arriving within the hour.”

They split off at an intersection of hallways, each walking off with purpose, set on their tasks ahead.

Santiago called for the case files to be brought to the interrogation room. She took her seat on one side of the table, reading and rereading the case notes.

The clock ticked by quietly as she waited for Wednesday Addams to be ushered in. The air hung heavy, charged with a certain intensity. Interviewing this girl always proved to be a nightmare, but the sheriff was determined to hear her explanation for her traces at the crime scene.

~~~~

Wednesday stalked down the department corridor, her thick-soled boots hitting the floor with a rhythmic thumping noise.

Her father strolled by her side, his usual unbothered aura at a contrast to his daughter’s dark glower.

Her breathing was measured, even. She had known the police would inevitably find Françoise’s body, but her father had kept them at bay during her recovery.

Wednesday planned for everything. They almost certainly had Tyler’s blood on file, though the boy was as elusive as ever in the officers’ eyes.

A stiff hand pushed open the door to the interrogation room, revealing two seats facing Sheriff Santiago at a table. The hard, metal chairs provided a cool contrast to the stifling heat of the office space.

To Wednesday, it was a miracle the police didn’t fall asleep at their desks from the drowsy warmth of their busy workspace. Or perhaps they did, and that’s why they never seemed to provide any useful help in solving Jericho’s many crimes.

She sat down silently and smoothly. Her eye contact with the sheriff was unwavering and cold. Her father took the seat beside her with a lighthearted chuckle, stretching his hands on the table and letting his gaze wander around the sparse room.

Wednesday sat in uncanny stillness. The sheriff leaned forward ever so slightly, the chair beneath her creaking slightly.

“Miss Addams, do you know why you’re here?” Her eyes narrowed menacingly.

The silence lingered in a moment of tension. She let the discomfort palpable in the air draw out, relishing the minute tick on the sheriff’s jaw.

The only sound that could be heard was the faint, persistent buzzing of the thermostat, muting the soft ticking of the clock behind her.

When the silence became just a beat too long, Santiago repeated herself.

“Miss Addams?” Her tone was laced with impatience.

Wednesday turned her head, shifting her scathing gaze from the police officer to her father.

Gomez shrugged with a nonchalant air. “Clearly, my client has no idea what you’re referring to. If you could ask some more concrete questions, we can get this unpleasant business finished up sooner rather than later.”

His mellow voice had the opposite effect on the sheriff. She inhaled sharply, returning her focus to Wednesday. Her hands opened the case file with a rustle of paper, and she placed it carefully on the table in front of her.

Wednesdays stare flickered down to the page. She spied photographs of bloody leaves piled between large blocks of text. A few of the blood patterns she recognised, recalling them from Tyler’s brawl with Françoise.

“What is your blood doing at a crime scene involving two Hydes, Wednesday?” The sheriff said, annoyance creeping into her voice. Wednesday caught the glint of accusation in the woman’s eye.

She had thought through her possible answers in meticulous detail.

“Tyler Galpin sent me a message to meet him at the skull tree. He turned up with his allegedly deceased mother. She threw me against a tree, causing my nose to bleed. The two began to fight, so I left as quickly as possible.”

Her voice never wavered, didn’t betray any sign this wasn’t the honest truth. Santiago felt her skin crawl at the way her unblinking stare never broke once.

Wednesday braced herself for the onslaught of peppered questions. She knew they were necessary for fleshing out the details of her altered story.

“How did Tyler contact you? And do you have any idea why?” The sheriff pressed her.

“He sent me a note. I found it in my dorm when I returned from the remembrance procession. I don’t know how it got there.” She lied smoothly.

Santiago did not seem fully convinced of Wednesdays tale. She wore a skeptical expression, keeping the girl under close observation.

“Why would you agree to meet him? Last I heard, he was sending death threats to you and Enid Sinclair.” She leaned back in her seat, assessing Wednesday. Resisting the urge to let her eyes wander, she returned the teenager’s stare with a suspicious glare.

Wednesday’s voice stuck in her throat for a split second. This minute hesitation was almost imperceptible, but seemed to draw the sheriff’s attention. She supposed the woman was used to difficult interrogations.

Still, it reminded her to keep her guard up as high as she could.

“I suppose I was intrigued. I was expecting him to make his move during the procession, which clearly didn’t happen as neither Enid nor I saw him that night.”

The sheriff was silent, considering Wednesdays answer. The charged atmosphere of the room pressed heavily upon the three present, with only Wednesday seeming entirely unaffected.

After a moment’s pause, she continued on.

“I knew he wasn’t leading me in for a basic attack. If he truly wanted me dead, he would have killed me when I was in the hospital. He already proved he could find his way in there. And Enid is well able to take care of herself.”

She finished her sentence with a satisfied sigh. Santiago nodded, seeming to accept this version of events with a poker face.

“What happened exactly when you got to the forest? You said Françoise attacked you. Can you tell me more about that?”

Wednesdays jaw clenched slightly. She told the sheriff in a bored monotone, “The Galpins turned up together. When Françoise saw me, she seemed to have some sort of psychotic episode. She transformed and threw me against a tree. My nose bled on impact, leaving my DNA in the forest.”

Sheriff Santiago clung onto every word. Wednesday had her attention gripped. The case file lay ignored on the dark wood of the table.

“And what happened next?” She continued to push Wednesday for more answers.

“Tyler tackled his mother away from me. They started a brutal fight, which I fled from within seconds. I’m smart enough to know when I’m outmatched. Only a fool would have stayed at that point.”

She was painfully aware of the soft noise her breathing made in the room. Self-consciousness was an unusual emotion for Wednesday to feel, though every nerve flowed with it in this moment.

“That’s all I know.” She concluded, her tone indicating finality.

Santiago let the silence drag out as she considered the girl’s answers. She noticed the slight bob of her throat as she swallowed hard, indicating internal tension.

A fly buzzed through the room. Its insistent hum droned over the quiet, stuffy atmosphere. It landed on the hard wood of the table, close before Wednesday.

The sheriff barely had time to register what happened before a a loud smack hit her ears, the noise deafening in the enclosed space.

She jumped, slightly spooked. The fly lay crushed under the palm of Wednesdays hand. Her face was as deadpan as ever, save for the glimmer of challenge lighting up her eyes.

Gomez’s thumb twitched under the table. Sometimes his daughter unnerved even him. Giving in to the urge to break the awkward silence, he opened his mouth to talk. His words were far gentler than either of the two women’s were.

“If that’s all the answers you need, sheriff, we’ll be on our way.” He hoped against all odds she would let them leave and end this miserable interrogation.

Santiago gave the tiniest of nods, still watching the pair while a hawk. Wednesday pushed back her chair with a harsh scraping sound and stood immediately. Her heart pounded through her ears as she took a measured step away from the smooth table in the centre of the room.

Gomez followed suit, though in a more relaxed fashion. She stalked to the door, the noise of her footsteps filling the suffocating space.

The decibel level rose and fell with the swinging of the heavy door. Within a moment, the Addams pair were gone.

The sheriff let out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. The tension holding her body stiff left with her exhale, leaving the woman exhausted.

She ticked with annoyance over the case file, the silence no longer oppressive but comforting. Solitude and time to think were a welcome respite following an interrogation.

The explanation offered by Wednesday was perfectly plausible, albeit unlikely. But chance was never to be relied on in the dark backwaters of Jericho town.

The sheriff would have liked to close the case there, adding yet another kill to the list attached to an elusive serial killer. Case closed.

But there was something in the way the girl spoke.

An off feeling. Call it intuition if you will, but Santiago had been working long enough to trust this sense in an interrogation.

Something told her this wasn’t the last of this case. The details didn’t add up. A fugitive and his mysteriously resurrected mother appearing for one morning, only to turn on each other and leave the girl they met with relatively unscathed?

The mind of a Hyde was unpredictable, and the sheriff knew that. But saving the girl you sent death threats to not twenty four hours beforehand seemed a stretch too far.

Wednesday was still harbouring secrets. Santiago just needed to discover what they were.

~~~~

Wednesday strode out of the police station, frustration clawing at her nerves. Her father could barely keep pace with her determined strides.

Her murderous glare was cast upon the quiet town street.

The interview had gone quite well, but not as successfully as she would have liked. She had failed to throw the sheriff entirely off her scent. It was even more imperative now that the next injection point was well hidden.

Wind whipped at her hair, tossing it in all directions. Lurch got out of their family car to open the door for Wednesday and Gomez.

The door was barely open before she pushed inside. The soft blood red velvet of the seat sank under her weight.

Her father clambered in more graciously, thanking Lurch and settling himself with a calm panache.

Wednesday’s mouth twitched as the car began to roll away, taking them back to Nevermore. White stars bloomed across her knuckles, clenched tightly in her lap. Her head was turned to observe the outside world, rolling past in a blur of green and grey.

Gomez opened his mouth to say something. His daughter’s eyes slid to his, her head unmoved from its view out the window. Though her venom was leashed, it was by no means gone. It sparkled in her eyes as surely as her usual apathetic disposition occupied her face.

He closed it silently, thinking better of talking to Wednesday. Sometimes, it was preferable to just let the storm inside her pass in its own time.

Chapter Text

The walls of the underground bunker seemed to close in every minute. The floor had worn a faded patch where Tyler had been pacing all day, and all night. Like always.

Each day blended into the next. He had tidied away his mother’s things, cleaned and tidied and cleaned again. He was at his wits end with boredom.

His only gasp of fresh air came from his twice-weekly injections.

It was such a relief, every time, to see the stars shine down upon him, fresh air flowing into the bunker to replace the stale.

Tonight, there was a change — Wednesday no longer pulled him towards the grim castle spiking across the horizon, but deep into the forest.

Experiencing the tug, Tyler leapt to his feet, ready at once. The rails beneath the old dog house slid back with a muted rattle, making way for him to enter the outside world.

The open night sky welcomed him with its bitter chill. Dozens of stars twinkled overhead, the bright moon casting long, spiky shadows across his old lawn.

His breath fogged in the air while the ground underfoot crunched with a thin layer of frost. Leaving the gloomy shadow of his vandalised former residence, he set off into the dark forest.

Gnarled roots and sharp branches attempted to trip him as he made his way through the trees. They made no dent on his tough Hyde skin, the monstrous form snapping the low-hanging pieces of wood clean off their trees.

Wednesday acted as a psychological compass, pulling him towards her. The way felt natural, easy, like her side was the best place he could possibly be.

Deeper and deeper he roamed, twisting his way through the thick trunks. A whimsical breeze pushed gently at his back, guiding him forward through the night.

Within ten minutes, he arrived in a small circle of trees, so bent and gnarled with age their leaves seemed to form a solid roof above their heads. No moonlight entered this space, so Tyler waited in the pitch dark for his master.

~~~~

The hard edge of the glass syringe bumped against Wednesdays ribcage, shielded by her layers of clothing.

A glowing half-moon shone overhead as she ambled between the trees surrounding Jericho. The faint light became dimmer and dimmer until she disappeared from the moon’s view under a canopy of witchy trees.

The space was tight, claustrophobic to anyone who cared about such things. Taking a seat upon the humped roots at the base of a dark oak, she summoned Tyler, beckoning him to her side.

A blissfully quiet few minutes passed. There was nothing to bother her. No sign of any living creature, save the occasional snap of a twig broken by a nearby fox.

She hugged her knees close to her chest, arms curling around her shins. This secluded area of the woods wasn’t far from the lake, Nevermore’s Poe Cup and Crackstone’s crypt.

The memory of a warm evening spent sitting like this in that stony, forsaken building was a touchy one. Tyler’s idea of a horror movie had amused her, put her in an open frame of mind for the latter part of the evening.

Maybe if they had shared their fateful kiss there, Dr Kinbott would still be alive.

What if, what if — Wednesday put it out of her mind. Dwelling on the past did no good, unless one was examining it to reduce future personal errors.

This logic could be applied to her current train of thought, but it didn’t feel quite right. Learning from one’s mistakes didn’t leave a warm buzz in one’s stomach.

Wednesday shook herself free of these thoughts. Pushing them away was the most efficient course of action, the one that required the least emotional engagement. Both of these qualities seemed very enticing.

A heavy crunch from behind her alerted her to Tyler’s presence. She confirmed it with the bond; indeed, it seemed to have dissipated into existence everywhere at once.

She stood, brushing twigs from her clothing, and with them, the last of her momentary sentimental disposition.

The heavy, deep rumble that was periodically emitted by the Hyde never ceased to bring a wisp of mirth into Wednesday’s heart. Her competitive, possessive side — which so often came forth as the most dominant one — relished the power wielded in controlling such a beast.

Allowing the faintest of smirks to shine through, she smoothly stepped around the massive tree trunk. Tyler stood between a few gnarled trees, freshly detransformed.

The hot, slightly animal aroma that encompassed him directly after unleashing his Hyde could be picked up, even from afar, by her highly trained olfactory senses.

He glowed with exertion, the run here from his bunker pumping blood through his vessels. Wednesday let her gaze linger for a moment too long before speaking.

“Tyler,” she whispered, voice soft yet full of sureness.

His head snapped up, a subtle change appearing in his face upon hearing her voice. His eyes flashed, nostrils dilating to pick up her scent. In this unfamiliar territory, his primal instincts for location won over civility and restraint.

When their eyes met, they stood stock still for a lingering beat. Wednesday began to walk towards him with slow, careful footsteps before he turned his body to face her.

She stepped in close. Very close. Closer than she ever had on an injection night before.

The crisp night air turned both their breaths to fog, hanging suspended in a merging cloud between them.

Wednesday’s hand crept to her leather jacket pocket. Her eyes flickered to his sleeve, indicating it was time for the dose.

Another twig cracked underfoot nearby, seeming to be another small mammal.

The glass was cold against Wednesday’s clammy palm. Withdrawing the syringe with care, she placed her thumb on the plunger.

Tyler’s eyes shut, bracing himself for the inevitable sting of pain.

It never came.

Harsh lights flooded the space. “Freeze! Drop the syringe, step apart!”

A dozen police officers emerged from behind the trees, guns cocked and pointed at the pair of teenagers.

Shock reverberated through Wednesday’s bones. Half in disbelief, she let her precious serum fall to the ground. The world seemed like a blur of lights and noise as the cops surrounded her.

Enveloped by a feeling of numbness, she barely registered Santiago’s voice barking orders.

“Place your hands on your head! You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you.”

The girl’s face wore an expression of utter shock and confusion. She seemed visibly dazed, allowing the officers to hold her at gunpoint and snap handcuffs around her wrists.

Dimly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a number of officers gathering around Tyler, guns shoved in his face.

Tyler.

Wednesday snapped out of her trance, locking eyes with the boy. The fear and desperation was evident on his face. She could almost read his thoughts: not again, no more chains, please!

She became aware of a frantic pulling on the master bond, begging for her to do something. He was locked in his human form unless she permitted otherwise.

Well, she did in fact permit otherwise. Giving a quick, almost imperceptible nod, she unleashed him, allowing him to do whatever he thought was best to remedy their current situation.

The police holding Wednesday’s handcuffs threw her to the ground. Her face hit the rough earth hard, knocking the breath out of her lungs. A few stings exploded across her cheek and lip, though they were dulled by the adrenaline rush.

A cracking, shifting noise of flesh reordering itself came from Wednesday’s right. Through blurred, upside down vision, she saw Tyler draw himself up to his full monstrous height.

Leaving Wednesday all but abandoned, the entire team of officers swarmed into a tight, armed circle around the roaring beast.

A clawed arm swung around, knocking three or four officers off their feet. They fell hard onto the ground, fragile bodies crashing down around her.

Struggling to prop herself up on her elbows, Wednesday’s breath came in choked gasps. The reflection of her Hyde illuminated by torch beams shone against the dark background of her enlarged pupils, as she watched Tyler with fervour.

The first gunshot came from Sheriff Santiago. The rest of the team followed suit, opening fire on the monster’s thick, armoured skin.

Terror clawed at Wednesday’s throat at the thought of Tyler falling dead from gun violence. For a brief moment, she was seized with the certainty that he was going to die before her eyes.

He let out a pained moan, closing his eyes and shutting his mouth. She realised this was for protection. Of course, his leathery skin was bulletproof. He had already escaped multiple shot wounds unscathed.

His claws lashed out once again, this time slicing open two officers with a terrible spray of blood. Red wetness landed on the dead leaves of the forest floor. An arc hit Wednesday’s face, scattering hot droplets over her nose.

Tyler let out a deafening scream. The terrible noise wrenched through the turmoil of the night air, flooding it with the sound of rage.

She seized this moment to pick the lock on her chains. While most of the law enforcement officers were busy keeping their distance and focus on the bellowing monster, Wednesday slid free of her handcuffs unnoticed.

The shiny silver dropped to the ground. She tossed it far into the trees without a second glance. Turning back to the scene before her, the chaos transfixed Wednesday. Death — particularly bloody murder — had always been a favourite topic of hers. A hobby, one might say.

The sheriff backed away from the fray. Nobody paid any heed to her, all enraptured by their own impending doom, or the doom of others in one case.

She withdrew a charged weapon from her belt. No other officers knew she had this with her, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove they might need it.

Yet, this excellent shock weapon, more powerful than a taser, may have ended up being the only one they needed. Santiago revelled in the irony of it all.

Two of the remaining officers turned tail and fled. They shot through the woods, panic-stricken expressions etched on their faces. Wednesday watched them go with a hint of glee, amid the fury rising within her at her current predicament.

She channelled this rage down the bond, fuelling Tyler’s energy and aggression. In that moment, she didn’t care which of the officers’ lives were lost. They had ambushed her, and were trying to take what was hers. Her freedom, and her Hyde.

Tyler’s sharp claws glinted in the torchlight as he raised them above his head. He slammed them down into the ground with a force that shook the earth, hurling a deafening roar at the few remaining police around him.

Wednesday had clambered to her feet, and was staring avidly at the unfolding violence. Nothing quite sent a thrill through her system like unleashed blood and chaos, her sharp, toned presence watching from the edge.

One officer was speared through the gut, red blossoming from where Tyler’s claw protruded out his back. In the dim, unsteady light, the blood almost looked black.

Another was lifted off her feet, left struggling for a moment in midair, encased in the monster’s grip.

He threw her against a tree so hard Wednesday heard her neck snap, as well as several other bones. Her limp form collapsed in a heap on the roots.

His massive form heaved with laboured breaths. With wild eyes, he took in the empty space around him. Not one officer was left, all having fled or been turned into corpses.

All except one. The sheriff.

She stood several metres away, one hand grasping her gun. In the other was clutched a strange contraption, the likes of which Wednesday had never seen before.

Whatever it was, Tyler seemed to shrink back upon seeing it, the flame of fury extinguished in his eyes.

He let out a quiet shriek of fear, shuffling backwards on his massive claws. He sent Wednesday wave after wave of pleas for help along their connection.

Springing to action, she started forward towards the sheriff. One woman couldn’t take one a combat specialist and an apex predator.

Except she could. Without taking her eyes off Tyler, she changed the gun’s trajectory to Wednesday’s forehead instead.

Just like that — the odds were switched up again. Or perhaps they’d never changed.

The girl stopped dead in her tracks. She had no doubt that Santiago would pull the trigger if she so much as stepped a toe out of line.

“Tyler,” the sheriff spoke in a menacingly calm tone.

“I think you remember this. When you misbehaved at Willow Hill, correct?” A humourless chuckle escaped her lips.

Wednesday was wrenched with agony at the desperation with which Tyler mentally pleaded for her help. She stood, powerless, watching the events in front of her with no way to stop them.

A cold shiver suddenly snaked up her spine, and she realised her jacket had been lost in the tumult that had just passed.

A sizzling hot arc of electricity jumped from Santiago’s weapon onto Tyler’s flesh. An agonised shriek was forced out of him as he shrank back into human form, overcome with the intensity of the shock.

The air tasted like a storm. Tyler lay shivering in a foetal position on the wooded earth.

It all seemed too sudden. Wednesday’s senses went into overdrive as she noticed the sheriff’s trigger finger readying to deploy the weapon again.

The frosted leaves crackled beneath her boots when she took another step. Her voice had an uncharacteristic tremble in it as she tried to intervene and stop the police head from further hurting Tyler.

“Wait! Stop-“

Her protests were cut short. A heavy impact hit her head from behind, rattling her teeth in her skull. Darkness clouded in, and as Wednesday tasted blood she realised she’d bitten her lip.

She staggered for an eternal moment before collapsing onto the hard-packed earth. The last thing she saw before blacking out were the tears streaming down Tyler’s face and onto the icy ground.

Chapter Text

Wednesday awoke with a pounding headache. Dimly, the details of the previous night came flooding back to her. Bright lights, gunshots, lying incapacitated on the rough ground.

It was strange — for most of it she had felt rooted to the spot, watching a whirlwind of chaos surrounding Tyler. Until everything went black.

A shiver escaped through her breath, and she realised the room she was in was icy cold. Bare metal walls and floor, illuminated by the repeating reflection of one weak lightbulb.

She sat in the centre of the space. She tried to take deep breaths to calm herself. Her breath was cut off before her lungs could fully expand.

Dizzily, Wednesday looked down at her own body. Her ankle was fastened to the floor with a sturdy shackle, clinking slightly when she tried to move it.

The rest of her body was embalmed in a tight, white straitjacket. Chains wrapped around her torso and arms, further imprisoning her. A whisper of satisfaction went through her at this. Someone had been warned — a straitjacket alone could not hold Wednesday Addams.

She sat on a hard, backless chair, the sharp corners digging into the back of her thighs. The cold seemed to seep into her bones in a way she enjoyed. Chilled air refreshed her, helped her wake up.

From the blurry stiffness of her eyelids opening, she guessed she had been out a while. A day, maybe even two. The crown of her head throbbed painfully where it had been hit.

Alone, in a strange metallic room, Wednesday suddenly felt very small. No one outsmarted her. No one. Even Laurel Gates had found herself at her mercy by the end.

The heavy door creaked open with a noise that made Wednesday’s head feel like splitting. Craning her neck to get a glimpse of the outside world, she nearly lost her balance ascertaining the unremarkable corridor beyond the inches of steel.

With a small wobble, she righted herself. Her jaw twitched when she saw who filled the glowing doorway.

The sheriff.

The woman let the door swing shut, trapping the pair inside with an echoing bang.

A triumphant smirk played across her lips. Wednesday sat bound in front of her, braids unkempt, half-healed scratches covering the right side of her face.

The girl’s seething was betrayed by her accelerating breath, staring daggers up at the person who had arrested her.

The sheriff chuckled lightly. “Do you know why you’re here?” Mirth dripped from her voice, making Wednesday’s blood boil. The teasing made something in her snap.

She lunged forwards at Santiago, who didn’t even flinch. The chains didn’t let her get very far, pulling her to an abrupt halt after moving one foot. She staggered, attempting to regain her balance and save herself the humiliation of falling over.

Wednesday refused to meet the woman’s eye, fury burning through her veins. Tension rippled through her face and neck, casting dark shadows behind her raised tendons.

She sheriff rolled her eyes. “Sit down, Addams.” She spoke, exasperation seeping into her words.

Wednesday didn’t move. She leaned as far towards the officer as she could, chains clanking as they bore her weight in their taut links.

Her braids hung suspended in front of her straitjacket. They swung slowly, the incline of her body just enough to stop them settling down her front.

Rage glowed within her eyes, her spite etched into every divot of her face.

“Where am I?” She asked softly, her voice trembling with barely contained loathing.

Santiago dodged the question. “You’re safe. Let me rephrase my question. Do you understand why you are here?” Her eyes narrowed at Wednesday, locking her stare with an equally vindictive gaze.

When the girl declined to respond, the sheriff reminded her, “You have nowhere to go. This is not a chat, or an interview. You are under arrest and we have evidence supporting your unstable mental state.”

This brought Wednesday up short. She relaxed slightly, her tight bonds releasing their bruising grip that kept her in place. Metal clinked on metal, chains against the silvery floor.

“My mental state?” Her curiosity was piqued. Never before had her sanity truly been questioned, only offered ‘assistance’ by Dr Kinbott upon her arrival in Jericho.

Santiago had brought no case file. She didn’t need to. All the details of Wednesday’s investigation were imprinted thoroughly on her brain.

“On record so far, not a single person of sound mentality has ever mastered a Hyde. Further investigation of you has shown sociopathic tendencies, paranoia and regular endangerment of your peers.”

Wednesday blinked.

For once, she was at a loss for words. The suspicion of insanity rang in her ears, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. That was why she was so heavily restrained.

Uncle Fester would be proud.

Whatever they were going to do to her, it was guaranteed Fester had enjoyed and escaped it before. She let an amused smile play across her face.

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “I’m glad you find this funny,” she said slowly.

Wednesday sat back down onto her prisoner’s chair with poise. She let glee light up her eyes, seeing its adverse reaction on Santiago.

She may as well make this enjoyable.

The woman nodded slowly, seemingly to herself. She shot furtive glances up and down Wednesday, taking in this less-than-sane response.

Most people would deny it, or plead for more humane treatment. Not an Addams. The sheriff kicked herself for being so foolish. The criminally insane probably had a special guest room in their mansion, she thought.

Wednesday let the police officer squirm for a moment under her gaze. The stiff silence stretched, before she tilted her chin and asked,

“What’s the problem, sheriff? You seem a little… uncomfortable.” Her drawl was flush with a lightheartedness only the prospect of torment could pull from her. The last word was whispered, her dark heart grinning at the unease visibly cocooning the sheriff.

The head of the police department swallowed hard, trying to keep her breathing steady. Fighting to keep her thoughts in order, she began to rattle off the list of Wednesday’s wrongdoings. A soft cough pierced the air as Santiago cleared her throat.

“You are being charged with the murder of Françoise Sylvanne Galpin. Additionally, you aided and abetted a known criminal and drugged him for personal gain. While these charges could give you a lifetime in prison, Jericho County Sheriff’s Department advises that you are kept in a high security psychiatric facility instead. In light of your young age and mental instability, we believe this option gives you the best chance at rehabilitation.”

The sheriff pressed her mouth into a line, ending her statement firmly.

Wednesday took all this information in silently, seemingly lost in thought. Her gaze wavered, dropping to a bare corner of the room while she contemplated.

They had evidently found Laurel’s notebooks. A sweep had been done of her personal belongings, sending a stab of anger through her. She was a very private person, and the image of some random cop rummaging through her room made her skin crawl.

Her stare suddenly snapped back to the other woman’s, black with brewing intensity. She seized another opportunity to put the sheriff on edge.

“I suppose this is your way of admitting you think an ordinary jail cannot hold me. The only issue is, I doubt whatever this place is will be any different.”

The light from the bulb caught on both her eyes and her shackles, sending a simultaneous glinting spark across each one.

Santiago did not know how to respond. A cold shiver went down her spine, and she realised she was freezing. Suddenly desperate to escape, she turned to open the door.

Wednesday’s gaze bored into her back. She could feel it, watching and assessing her every micro movement.

She had the strangest feeling that if she remained here much longer, the tables would turn and the girl would start questioning the sheriff’s own sanity.

Without a word, she breezed through the door and shut it with a click. She breathed a sigh of relief. Leaving that room felt like escaping a pit full of snakes poised to strike. As she left, the room seemed to have shifted slightly. Like it belonged to Wednesday, was an extension of her, not the people who chained her there.

Though ten of her best officers were now dead, following Wednesday that night had probably been the best decision of her career, as far as civilian safety was concerned. She’d gotten a criminally insane suspect behind bars.

Her hunch not to let go of the girl’s case was correct. At least now, Santiago could take solace in the fact that she was locked up behind several layers of security. And she would not be able to utilise her monstrous weapon again.

According to Laurel’s scientific notes, within the next few days her bond to Tyler would be as good as nothing. Once the chemicals were flushed out of his system and he was no longer dying, there was no way she would ever be able to get her control back. Ever.

Still, as the sheriff walked down the dark hallway, the image of Addams’ parting glare still haunted her mind.

~~~~

The sound of the door shutting played in Wednesday’s ears long after the room went quiet.

With no one to watch, disappointment crashed through her like a tidal wave. Her entire body seemed to lose tension, relaxing into a depressive hunch.

While most of their information had seemed correct, they had gotten one crucial part wrong. According to law, Françoise’s death was considered self-defense, not murder.

Not that it made much of a difference. The decision to ship her off to a loony bin wouldn’t change.

Wednesday speculated about where they might send her. She had been attentively following Willow Hill’s refurbishing in the local newspapers during her convalescent stage.

She already knew the layout and security features of that place. If she ended up there, it would surely be a disappointment. Where was the fun in escape if there was no semblance of a challenge?

She tugged on her chains absentmindedly. Her limbs were stiff, indicating she had been here for quite a long time. She wished she knew how long she’d been unconscious. The passage of daylight was a mystery within the cell. It was impossible to tell whether it was even day or night. The only light came from the dull glow of the singular lightbulb, swinging idly above her head.

And if these were her conditions, what fate had befallen Tyler? They may have figured out she controlled him, but he was still a dangerous entity. She reached out into the void, groping around for their master bond.

It wasn’t there.

Panic seized her. Wednesday’s rapid breathing now felt suppressed by her restraints, air unable to enter her lungs fast enough to keep pace with her heart.

Her arms twitched within the confines of her straitjacket, disobeying her minds command to remain still. She forced herself to take a few steady breaths. In for four, hold for four, out for four.

Upon repeating this numerous times, she was able to order her thoughts with precision and clarity once again. Her heartbeat still seemed a little too loud to be normal, but it had at least calmed back to a steady pace.

Wednesday wasn’t used to dealing with the sudden onset of any emotion. The notion that her loss of self-control could occur, even temporarily, disturbed her deeply.

She used the corners of the room to help her focus. Keeping her eyes fixed on the shiny intersections of wall and floor, she forced her brain to think logically.

For a moment, she entertained the fantasy that Tyler may have escaped. But that’s all it was: a brief, pleasurable fantasy. Reality came crashing back to her with the memory of his weakened body curled and shivering on the forest floor.

With a pang of guilt, she knew there was no way he could have escaped. Especially with the electric shocker so close at hand. She recalled the desperation written on his face when facing the prospect of arrest. Unlike her, the boy seemed awfully averse to torture. Wednesday silently wished they hadn’t used it on him again, that he had gone quietly. She wished to spare him the pain — psychological and physical — of reliving his memories of captivity.

Finally, when all the noise and chaos in her mind had settled, she searched calmly, once again, for their bond. Her mind closed its intangible fingers around it, weak and thin, but there. Relief washed over Wednesday, freeing her from her current state of worry.

The threadbare bond gave her little to no information, other than that Tyler was alive. She squeezed her dark eyes shut with focus, blocking out the reflective walls of her cell and desperately trying to follow her connection to locate him.

Nothing.

Opening her eyes with a sullen annoyance, the suit encasing her body felt crushing, imprisoning. Which, she supposed, was its intention. They never intended to let her I walk freely in the outside world for a long time.

The weakness of the master bond cast a nauseating shadow of doubt through Wednesday. How long, exactly, had she been unconscious for? It had felt long, from the stiffness of her bones and the heaviness of her eyelids. Her initial guess had been two days, but now she suspected it had been even longer.

Given the lack of surety and command present in her connection to Tyler, she estimated it could have been up to five or six days.

Seven days. That was how long her control over him lasted, without further injection. She had a day left, maybe two at best.

Breathing a sigh, Wednesday waited. All she could do was hope she got out of this hellishly cold room before their connection was severed for good. An unpleasant shiver shook her body, causing her teeth to chatter slightly. The noise reverberated around Wednesday’s skull as she was resigning herself to a long, patient expanse of time.

Chapter Text

The passage of time warped itself within Wednesday’s mind. Her eyes flickered open and shut, again and again, betraying any inner sense of time passing she may have had before her imprisonment.

The glare of the weak lightbulb seemed blinding, reflected on the walls and floor into her tired eyes from all angles. Pain sunk its claws into the back of her mind, as she rocked back and forth slowly in her seated position.

There was nowhere to lie down, nowhere to relax. All that accompanied her were the harsh, frigid confines of her cell and her own insatiable thoughts. Her body ached, tired from the effort of sitting under the weight of her constraints.

A terrible itching bothered her eyebrow. Unable to relieve the sensation with her nails, Wednesday sat embalmed in silence, wishing it to go away. More than anything, she wished to hold onto her bond to Tyler.

Every few minutes or so — at least that’s how frequent it seemed to her — she reached out to reassure herself with a firm grip on their connection.

Except every time she did so, it seemed to slip further and further from her clutches. The slow descent into powerlessness filled her with frustration. It was smaller, it was weaker, every damn minute. It was the only thing anchoring Wednesday to this unforgiving existence.

When exhaustion was blurring the lines between sleep and reality, and her throat was drier than it had ever been before, her mind began to work. It churned out thought, half dream, half imagination, nothing coherent.

She imagined the sensation of a sudden bond snap a thousand times. Each time her mind brought her to this event, a wave of alertness would come over her and ground her into the cell. The real bond was always there, flashing its weak links upon her inner eye in comfort. Each time, it was harder to locate. Finding a way to wriggle out of her grasp, pushing its way out of the Hyde’s system.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Wednesday could no longer locate it. She groped around in the back of her mind, hoping in futility that it was still there. With every passing second, the absence of the comforting connection became sharper and more glaring.

The reality sank in. Her bond had finally snapped. The likelihood she would ever control Tyler again was slim to none.

A disappointed exhale escaped her lips. Her breath was slightly shaky, but not panicked. She exerted a calm, careful control over her own physiological response, knowing that to descend into despair would be pointless and serve no ends.

Still, a few rapid blinks against the dim light betrayed her inner torment. In contrast to her previous thoughts, now she wished vehemently that Tyler too had been captured. The fate that awaited Enid if he was not — well, it would surely be unpleasant to say the least. And Wednesday was determined her efforts to save her would not be in vain. They couldn’t be.

She sat alone, feeling terribly untethered in the cold, harsh room. Fatigue had its claws deep inside her bones, giving rise to a dull, constant ache in her joints. The lack of movement stiffened her limbs and frustrated her brain. Now, without even the solace of her bond to Tyler, a numb depression haunted the edge of her consciousness.

The hard, metal edges dug into her thighs. Barely noticing this, she waited, and waited.

And waited.

This time in true solitude.

~~~~

A loud, creaking click broke the monotonous silence of Wednesday’s cell. Hours had passed since her bond had broken, spent in dreary dissociation.

The noise rang within her ears, the first stimulation they’d had in a long while. Her eyes flickered up to the door, watching as light slowly spilled through the widening crack as it swung.

An unfamiliar face stood on the threshold. A man; tall, muscular, and wearing a navy blue guard’s uniform. Keys jangled softly at his hip, hanging from a loop on his belt. His gaze wandered around the boxlike room, seemingly unfazed by the hard steel walls and oppressive atmosphere.

Wednesday stared at him, her snakelike stare never once breaking for a blink. The change of direction in her eyes was the only movement inside the cell. Her unnaturally still posture remained as measured as ever.

Stiffness shed from her body like an old layer of skin. Seeing another human being reminded her of all the pleasures of life. What was the point of living if one could not torture those unfortunate enough to cross one’s path?

His heavy boot clanged against the metal floor as he stepped inside. The door remained propped open by some unseen mechanism. Wouldn’t want some poor staff member to be locked up with a psychopath, would they?

“Miss Addams, is it?” The guard was well used to dealing with the criminally insane. Best to get identity confirmation out of the way first thing, before they had a chance to try to manipulate him.

She watched, silent and poised, as he knelt down at her feet. A key glinted in the shadows between his fingers. Her head did not move an inch, still only the eyes showing any sign of life.

The guard was a little unnerved by this. Usually, patients were nervous, twitchy. Otherwise they were calm and resigned. None exuded this disturbing air of precision and control. Chaos was the very nature of insanity, at its core.

The chains dropped to the floor with a resounding clink. The end of this long rope of interlinking shackles was wrapped around Wednesday’s waist, locked to her straitjacket. In an instant, with the ease of someone practiced at their job, the guard snatched up the other unshackled end, effectively holding her on a leash.

She rose from her seat, steady. Not rushing, nor slow, but controlled. Her legs wanted to give out under the strain of holding her body. They had been left unused for far too long, so that the girl had to strain for precision when taking her next steps.

He led them out of the confined, freezing space and into the unremarkable corridor Wednesday had spotted the previous day. A harsh, yellow glow shone down on them from the fluorescent lights above their heads. Plain linoleum flooring carpeted the ground beneath their feet, stretching in each direction.

Not a soul was present, besides Wednesday and her guard. The sudden temperature increase outside the room was stifling, hitting her with a clammy crawling over her skin, under her restraints. Suddenly, she longed for the fresh escape of cool air. Not the stagnant freeze of her old cell, but the invigorating breeze of cold night air.

White, tiled walls stretched for a dozen metres beyond her. One side was completely bare, undecorated and plain. The other was interrupted every few metres by heavy doors, each secured with a number of complex locks and mechanisms.

Looking behind her, Wednesday saw she had been led out of a similar door. Her gaze scanned the white lettering painted across hers at eye level, marking it distinctly from the others:

High security — extra risk.

The warning teased a satisfied smirk to her mouth. She lingered for a moment outside the cell that had trapped her for the past week. A firm tug at her waist yanked her into movement, the guard impatiently wanting to leave. The restraints clanked darkly as she started walking, taking small, eerily quiet steps.

The guard began talking to her once they had started moving.

“You’re going to be held here, in Willow Hill Psychiatric Facility for the foreseeable future. I understand you’ve been here before, but not as a patient. Your mental state will be assessed by our psychology team and a rehabilitation plan constructed.”

This caught Wednesday off guard. Although her surroundings displayed notably similar qualities to her memories of the asylum, the layout so ingrained in her brain did not match up with the one she walked through now. She had studied the blueprints intensely, and knew there was no section that looked like this.

The walls and floors twisted, a labyrinth of white stone and metal bars. Her initial assumption had been that this was an alternative facility, serving the same function as Willow Hill while it underwent necessary renovations.

She froze suddenly, pulling the man holding her shackles to a halt with her. He seemed to almost lose his balance from the sharpness of it, but regained it quickly, seeming to hope the girl hadn’t noticed.

A small divot appeared between her brows. Thoughts raced fast behind her eyes, illuminating them with a startled animation.

“I thought Willow Hill was still closed.” Her words came slowly, a hint of confusion seeping into them.

“It suffered many damages and a fried electrical system. These hallways don’t match its layout. Where really am I?”

Frustration laced her assertive speech. A fleeting look of contemplation passed over the guards gaze, before evidently deciding to answer her queries. He pulled on her chain, forcing her to start walking once again.

“Half of the building was affected by the escape. The other half, where we are now, is entirely sealed off from its counterpart. This design helps the facility stay open even if an unforseeable catastrophe takes place in one side. Equal resources and holding spaces were allocated to each side. You’ll be even safer here than if you were held in the space you… visited.”

Her mind ticked. Safe, safe, safe. No pathetic, deluded lie would fool her into thinking her best interests were intended. The sheriff wanted her kept under closer watch than a jail could provide. Having her credibility and sanity discounted was just a bonus.

The corridors wound across the vast expanse of concrete and metal. The walls were now lined with rows and rows of identical cells, each shut in with a heavy, metal door. Barred windows tantalised Wednesday with glimpses of an indigo twilight sky.

The guard picked up his pace, putting pressure on the steel wrapping around her waist. Determined not to trip, her stoic pace increased incrementally. Her constraints bit into her flesh with every tug of the chains, sending sparks of pain and anger through her nerves.

The rest of the distance was covered in silence. Wednesday’s expression remained as coldhearted as ever when the echoing scuff of the guards shoes stopped. The stood before a uniform cell, alike to the dozens stretching to its left and right. This part of the building was laced with the faint scent of disinfectant, and beneath it, blood.

Her ears were met with the quiet creaking of the rusty door. Any noise seemed to take on an eerie quality in this dark, morbid hall of psychosis.

He ushered her inside, still not impervious to the clinical chill exuding from their environment. Any semblance of control he tried to exert over her was shattered by her confident assertiveness, entering the cell with an air of authority, as though she already owned the place.

She stepped inside quicker than he could follow, yanking the chain leash from his grip. It fell to the stone floor with a clanking thud, drawing a nervous flinch from the man behind her.

Following closely, his hand reached for the set of keys and equipment dangling from his hip. Wednesday stood, calm and poised, in the exact centre of the room. Her back faced the guard, who was approaching cautiously.

Without a word, he started to unlock her restraints. As he moved, rushing ever so slightly, the faint weight of the gun held on his belt soothed the discomfort in his mind.

The girl did not move as the heavy fabric of the straitjacket sloughed off her shoulders with a soft rustle. The guard gathered it up and turned to leave, unnerved by her unblinking, surreal stillness. Chains and straitjacket gathered in his arms, he paused at the door. Light from outside in the hallway fell onto only half his face as he turned, giving Wednesday one final glance.

She remained exactly the same — standing in the centre of the room, posture rigid, breathing measured and even. He shook his head slightly to himself as he exited, shoving the door shut with a final clang. Sometimes, there were strange ones even among the insane.

~~~~

For a moment, Wednesday was enveloped in darkness, the door having slammed shut behind her back. The only sound was the steady sigh of her inhales and exhales.

A faint light slowly buzzed to life, the cell’s inner electrical system triggered. The room illuminated with a dim, green glow, barely enough to see by. Fluorescent panels above her head emitted a low, constant buzzing noise.

Taking stock of the cramped space, her gaze swept over the sparse furnishings with a calculating eye. A neat bed was made up in one corner of the room, white sheets folded with precision. Steel loops were studded into the wall above head height at regular intersections. Her lips curved slightly at this, breaking through her deadpan mask. There were no rusty chains hanging from them — for now. A small, metallic toilet and sink occupied the opposite corner.

These bare features were all that marked the hard stone cell. Wednesday’s eye caught the glimmer of damp rolling down the corner of a wall, a green sheen reflecting in the eerie light.

A cold draught seeped into the room from under the armoured door. It sent a pleasing prickle up her spine, goosebumps spreading across her pale skin. Without the straitjacket, the only clothes she wore were simple, loose cotton sweatpants and a sports bra made from a similar material. Cool air swirled around her socked feet, pressing firmly into the hard ground.

Her braid slid over her shoulder as she turned to inspect the thick door. She stalked towards it without a sound, a deathly hand raising steadily, calmly. Not a single tremor was visible on her pale fingers as they brushed the cool metal of the interior side of the door.

Unlike the outside, where it was riddled with locks, bolts, and various mechanisms, the inside was entirely smooth. Unmarked metal glowed dully in the faint light. Its cool, smooth surface met Wednesday’s fingertips. Her eyes drifted over the hard, unyielding surface with a detached interest. They lingered on the spot where the door met the wall: where the door handle protruded on the other side. She noticed the faint scuffing, matte lines scarring the otherwise unblemished surface.

The old marks of desperate fingernails, past residents trying in vain to claw their way out. She wondered how many people had been held in this cell, and how many would see its inside after she left.

The map of the building flickered through her mind. The staff had underestimated her ability to ascertain the layout from walking through its principal corridors. Her brain had already begun planning an escape, ordering her options in meticulous detail.

Leaving the door alone, Wednesday headed to her bed. It was more of a cot, really, the mattress barely giving in under her wait. She sat perched at the end, hands clasped perfectly in her lap. Her shoulders ached with the relief of having arm mobility again.

She closed her eyes and released some inner tension. The iron bedframe creaked as she lay back, thin sheets creasing around her relaxed form.

It was disappointing really — she would much rather have been sent someplace else. That way her ego could be stroked with the achievement of circumventing two psychiatric hospital security systems, not just one.

The lack of a challenge almost felt like an insult. She reasoned, at least this way there would be little standing in the way of escaping and locating Tyler.

He was her Hyde. Nothing more. Any possessive feelings she may have had were because of her need for control.

With these thoughts flashing through her mind, darkness clouded the edge of her consciousness. Conceding to her exhausted body, Wednesday drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

Three days earlier

~~~

A terrible pounding sent pain throbbing through Tyler’s skull. He lay on a cold, hard floor, dizziness disorienting him from much else.

Something covered his eyes, soaking up the quiet tears that leaked out of their corners. His heightened sense of smell picked up metallic traces.

Blood.

He hoped it wasn’t his own, but it was difficult to tell. Every nerve in his body felt fried, simultaneously in agony and numb. With a drop in his stomach, he realised he recognised this sensation. It had become all too familiar when Laurel had been his master.

Sedatives made a hazy fog cloud his thoughts. Disordered and confused, the darkness felt suffocating, trapping. His head spun until the firm press of the ground was the only thing confirming which way was up.

His breath came in ragged gasps, sensation dulled in his lungs.

Sensation dulled everywhere, actually.

The cold bite of shackles bit into his wrists. Their faint clanking, caused by Tyler’s violent shivers, barely reached his ears through the blanket of ringing.

He could feel the allure of sleep pulling at him again. A sharp sting pierced at his neck, though he was too out of it to have a reaction. With every passing moment, the haze of oblivion seemed to wrap its tendrils closer and closer around him. The echoing thud of footsteps grew fainter, as the person with the needle walked away.

Tyler remembered the last person who had injected him. She never did it painfully.

Wednesday’s image floated in his mind as his thoughts began to slow. The nights on her balcony, soft strands of hair blowing in front of her full lips in the cool breeze. Her methodical hand and focused eyes as she imbued his system with the serum.

The care she took minimised the pain. He didn’t know if this was intentional, but he liked to think it was. He was fully aware that the concoction made him biased — his implicit trust in her would wane without the chemicals.

But he also knew she was different from anyone else who may have tried to control him. Their bond was a comfort to him, not a burden.

In the last throes of consciousness, he reached out to her. Unable to send any message of his own, he tried to take solace in her steady presence — to reassure himself their parting was temporary.

The bond was thin, weak. He hoped she would be able to return soon, save it before it broke.

Surely she had escaped in the forest? While his body was wracked with pain from the horrible electrical stimulus, he knew she could make quick work of any pair of handcuffs. He clung to this desperate hope as darkness enveloped him once again.

~~~~

Present day

~~~~

The physical toll of her week in confinement left Wednesday’s body weak and exhausted. A single sharp bang on her door startled her into consciousness.

Her eyes flew open, staring at the low grey ceiling of her cell. She picked up the echoing, rhythmic bangs of her neighbours being woken in a similar manner.

She sat up slowly, groggy from being awoken from a deep sleep. Her bare arms were covered in goosebumps, and her skin was colder than usual to the touch. Turning her head to view the bed, she recalled dimly that her exhaustion had overwhelmed her before she had chance to get under the covers.

Taking a deep, slightly shaky inhale, Wednesday folded her arms around herself. The contact of her skin on skin softened the bumps and sent a gentle warmth through her.

Her deadpan, glassy eyes shifted to the door. Rising from the fog of sleepiness, she walked towards it and raised her fist. Slowly, allowing herself one tiny moment of hesitation, she brought her knuckles down hard onto the smooth steel.

The muffled sound of boots approached. Like the toll of a heavy bell, locks began to open and unslide on the other side of her door.

Daylight spilled into the small cell. The early morning sun shone through skylights in the corridor, which had gone unnoticed the previous night. She bit her lip in disappointment. Nothing usually ever escaped her meticulous gaze, no matter how achy and tired she had been.

A different guard from last night stood in the doorframe, swinging a pair of thick, heavy handcuffs in his large hands.

He blocked the exit, clearly waiting for Wednesday to make the next move. She took her time, assessing his build and strength. He was tall, relatively strong, though he carried himself with less confidence than he seemed to realise. The dipped chin and averted eyes betrayed his masked self doubt.

Her eyes spied the taser and gun equipped at his hip. At least the staff were notably more armed now than her last visit, she noted with a flicker of satisfaction.

She held out her wrists close together. She fixed her glare onto his eyes, waiting for the moment he made eye contact. Her intimidating gaze bored into his face for a solid thirty seconds before his eyes snapped up.

He had spent a little longer than necessary securing her restraints. Wednesday speculated he either was new to the job, or was told to take extra care with her.

Either way, he jumped visibly when their eyes met. She hid a small smile, enjoying the terrified flinch when he finally dared to look at her face. It wasn’t outright fear, but something more uneasy.

He almost didn’t notice when chain started to slip from his sweaty grasp. Catching it just in time, he seemed to come back into himself. The girl to whom the cuffs were now attached stood stock still, moving nothing but her eyes, which watched his crumbling confidence with avid glee.

Nearby pairs of guards and patients began to walk past, making their way to breakfast. Wednesday stepped forwards, letting the leash attaching her to the guard fall slack. His head was turned, taking note of the beginnings of movement around him. He didn’t notice the girl was now only a few inches from him.

“Go,” she whispered, making him leap backwards in terror.

New, then. An experienced staff member wouldn’t be so jumpy, even around a patient highlighted for extra caution.

She used the space to walk out of the doorway, steps as silent as a panther’s. Casting a judgemental side eye over her handler, she started to follow the swarm of people leaving the cells.

The shuffling of steps and clinking of metal chains echoed through the narrow — but tall — hallway. The sign above the open door of bars read “Hall D: 3rd Floor” in large dark lettering, stark against the white stone backdrop.

Wednesday walked at a brisk pace, the guard struggling to keep up with her. To all outsiders, it seemed as though she were the one leading him, not the other way around. Her head turned every few steps, taking in the details of the rooms and halls they passed through. Fire stairs, vents, a few unbarred windows set close to the ground.

The canteen was a large, echoey chamber, rapidly filling with outcast dressed in white who looked like their spirits were past being crushed. Low chatter graced her ears as she stepped through the double door entry. The ceiling soared above rows of white-and-steel picnic tables.

The stench of undercooked eggs overtook the scent of alcoholic disinfectant, but the undertone of blood remained constant. It seemed to be everywhere, permeating the walls and floor of the place.

The bustling crowd parted around Wednesday’s rigid figure. Her guard tried a few times to unlock her shackles, his trembling fingers requiring a few tries to get the key in correctly. As soon as he could, he grabbed the chains and strode quickly off, glad to get away from her.

Chapter Text

As breakfast concluded, the chime of plates and scrape of plastic cutlery filled the chamber. Wednesday sat at an empty bench at the back of the hall, observing everyone from afar. Her glassy stare was enough to drive anyone who thought of sitting near her away.

The fire exit loomed conspicuously on the left of the countertops. A guard was posted by it, fully armed at the hip. Her expression was unreadable, avoiding eye contact with any patients by staring at the wall in front of her with military discipline.

Wednesday glanced down at her empty plate, bare remnants of eggs and baked beans smearing the edges. No matter what food the patients were served, it all had that same persistent flavour — metallic, subtle yet distinctly noticeable.

The steel edge of the table had a ring engraved along it, ready to confine someone’s chains if need be. The crowd currently milling through the desolate space shuffled with a slow, defeated air.

She didn’t bother watching for Tyler in this crowd, but did wonder where he ate. Assuming he was, in fact, being held in the same facility as her. The authorities certainly hadn’t earned any credits of wisdom thus far, so seemed quite susceptible to this foolish mistake.

Her knuckles tensed around the handle of the useless plastic knife in her hand. Its serrated edges were less efficient than her own fingernails; potential weapons were forbidden from anywhere near the patients’ hands.

The prospect of a dreary life here loomed ahead of Wednesday, clear as day. All her miserable meals taken in this tall chamber, free time spent staring at the rough walls in her cell. Maybe some electroshock therapy to spice it up every couple of days.

The smooth, round edges of the plate softly reflected the morning light. A glimmer shone beneath the path her fingers traced, reflecting the morning light pouring in through the high windows. Standing sharply, she gripped the edges of the plate so hard her fingertips turned white.

A makeshift plan swirled around her head. When an opportunity presented itself, Wednesday was rarely one to let it pass by. She felt the eyes of the security guards on her back. It was a carefully calculated choice not to meet their gaze — a façade of submission would give her the optimal chance.

She began a careful, measured stalk up between the bustling tables. Several patients had their backs turned, didn’t know they needed to rush out of her way. This secretly thrilled her; but she kept her usual gloomy disposition facing outwards at full force.

Those who did see her leapt out of the way, their shadows chasing up the high walls. Her quiet, controlled presence commanded authority, much to the anxiety of the security staff. They tried not to let it show, as equally as Wednesday hid her vindictive satisfaction.

The cool, polished tiles beneath her feet felt smooth, slippery beneath her socks. Her eyes locked on a person in her path, hunched in on herself like the world was too crushing to bear. The bumps of the woman’s vertebrae showed through her thin white clothing.

Wednesday crept closer with a determined glint in her eye. Nobody thought to warn the patient as she slammed into her curved back.

The woman staggered forwards, grasping the table with one bony hand to keep her balance. A shocked gasp escaped her, turning her head to see who had knocked into her. Several other heads followed hers, all eyes fixed on Wednesday.

The girl pretended to stumble, giving the false impression it had been a clumsy accident. Letting the fabric encasing her feet slide against the shiny floors, her centre of gravity shifted forwards, pulling her towards the cold, hard ground.

Aware of her audience, Wednesday stuck her hands out in front of her, much like most people would do if tripped. The ceramic plate slid intentionally from her grasp, shattering into dozens of glittering shards when it hit the floor tiles. A deafening smash resounded through the canteen, drawing the attention of all not already following the brief action.

A beat later, her own body followed suit. The skin of her palms ripped open as they descended on the shards of her plate, blood spilling across the reflective ground. A whisper of air escaped her lips as the breath was knocked out of her lungs. The impact itself was not too hard, if it weren’t for the deadly pieces of ceramic littering the floor beneath her.

Tiny cuts sliced across all exposed skin, shooting tiny stings through her nervous system. A few sharp intakes of breath graced her ears, lying on the slick, now stained ground. Her fellow patients were entertained while two guards were already shoving through the hall to get to her.

Her fingers lay splayed beneath her shoulders and chest, dampening rapidly with rivulets of red. The plate had shattered directly underneath where Wednesday now lay, feeding the crowd the illusion that she lingered due to shock. Her right hand felt around beneath her, making minute movements. After what felt like an infinite second, her fist closed around the object this entire display was for.

A pointed, deadly, ceramic shard.

It was no longer than the distance from her wrist to her knuckle. Small, but with enough length to be effective. Perfect.

Arms still pinned neatly beneath her, she tucked it into her bra, ensuring it was well hidden beneath the thick layers of bloodstained material.

Not a moment later, the guards were upon her. Seizing Wednesday by the arms, they yanked her to her feet with unforgiving briskness. Her legs found their place beneath her, while her eyes brewed with intensity. A swarm of guards seemed to flow in from nowhere, descending upon the seemingly accidental scene with the ferocity of wolves.

A few cries and murmurs stirred the other residents at this sight of force, while a few lost interest and resumed their morning meal. The guards were met with a few half-hearted exclamations of protest as most of their number shoved the patients back, securing a perimeter around the scattered shards of plate.

Of course, any sharp object was to be considered with the utmost severity by the staff. The two clasped onto Wednesday dragged her unceremoniously out of this impromptu circle, tiny pieces of plate pinging on the floor as they dropped from her body to the floor.

Her dazed eyes masked the true dark glee flowing through her veins. The hidden shiv dug painfully into the sides of her breasts from the jostling of the guards, each jab a reminder of her success.

They all but threw her onto the seat of an awaiting nearby table.

“Everybody out!” Barked the man ordering the perimeter around the bloody accident site.

For a beat, all was still. Then came the shuffling of people beginning to make their way into the corridor, to be met with their own escort back their cells. Those who still had their half-eaten plates of food set them down on the nearest surface with a chorus of rattling thunks.

Security still surrounded Wednesday, eliminating all view except the starkly bare ceiling. Flecks of blood covered her limbs and stomach, even one of two on her face. Examining herself, she saw glittering pieces of ceramic twinkling along her arms — too small for the eye to see, save for their bright reflections.

A stern looking woman in uniform caused her head to snap up. She approached with a precision and speed sharp enough to rival Wednesday’s. Almost. In her hands lay a damp cloth, the ends dripping refractive droplets onto the tiles beneath her feet.

The same two guards grabbed her shoulders again, fingers digging in with a little more force than strictly necessary. The girl’s stare lingered briefly on the gleaming gun holstered at the woman’s hip, before securing her weighted gaze on the guard’s face.

Unlike the others, who seemed like cowards in comparison, this woman did not flinch under Wednesday’s intimidating glare. The lines etched into her face, interrupted by scars too subtle to see from a distance, spoke volumes to her level of experience.

She moved with clinical speed, smoothing the wet cloth along the girl’s arms. Cold air brushed the warm damp left in its wake. Drying drops of dark red wiped away easily, taking the fine dusting of debris with them.

It repulsed Wednesday — the feel of so many hands, clawed around her shoulders, swiping across her arms and collarbone. The closeness of the security staff sickened her, bringing a faint nausea to her belly.

Fortunately, the sports bra she had been provided with was not skimpy, and provided full coverage. Her makeshift weapon was nestled deep inside its layers, invisible to the outside world. Specks and smears of her own blood dotted the faded white of her clothing, top and trousers alike. Tiny gashes at her knees tore through the heavy material, tainting the edges with crimson.

For an agonising few minutes, she sat alone with the guards, the slices on her skin becoming wiped away with rough efficiency. All other patients in the facility had departed, leaving an echoing chamber abandoned except for the small cluster of people.

As suddenly as she had started, the guard stepped back, folding the soiled cloth in her own weathered hands. Faint white marks blossomed on Wednesday’s shoulders and upper arms, where the two men released her from their grip.

She flexed her shoulders, rolling out any stiffness in her trapezoids and neck. The guards still stood directly beside her, bearing down upon her slight frame. The answer to this unpleasant proximity came rather satisfyingly through her glare.

Shooting a brief, paralysing glance at the pair of them, they backed away out of instinct. No one wanted to be that dangerously close to a predator.

Chapter Text

Wednesday took a minute to glance around. Her unwavering eyes swept over the group of tense guards, who were clearing up the mess she’d left in an abnormally silent ritual. She supposed they were trained not to make noise, to avoid alerting any manic subjects in the facility.

Hovering near the edge of the group, she noticed the man who had led her to this canteen this morning. He had a heavy pair of shackles secured to his belt, ready to constrain a patient if need be. In this case, her.

The experienced guard turned her head, looking over her shoulder directly at him. Wednesday observed with curiosity as she beckoned him, using only a brief ‘come hither’ signal with her first two fingers. Her light brown hand remained tucked close by her hips.

A sudden rigidity straightened his spine, as though still desperate to prove himself. An eager glitter filled his eyes, which peeked out from under his mop of blond hair. He started towards them with purpose, coming to an abrupt halt next to his senior officer due to his ambitious speed.

The woman shifted her authoritative stare to Wednesday, who met her gaze with an equally frightening deadpan stare. The man gathered the chains from his waist, unfolding them with a continuous clinking that echoed into the high ceiling. A barely perceptible cringe was visible on his face at this noticeable noise.

It was amusing — watching the guy struggle to win his superiors’ approval. A relaxed, but poised posture graced Wednesday’s spine as she waited, enjoying the sight of her guard fumbling with her restraints.

The other guards around her moved off, clearly done with their duty. The hulking shapes either side of her disappeared with the bang of a door swinging shut. It was a relief to have the space behind her to herself again, she didn’t bother pretending otherwise.

Her timid guard at last straightened out the shackles. He held them out in front of him, filling the space between him and Wednesday.

What was expected of her was to hold out her arms, placate them and be obedient. She knew resisting would be pointless, but watching the guard sweat brought her a miniscule drop of enjoyment. Her arms remained firmly by her side.

The man’s eyes widened in surprise, unused to being disobeyed. Out of the corner of her eye, Wednesday saw the senior ranking guard roll her eyes and walk away, instead choosing to observe the clean-up group.

The faint glimmer of entertainment shone in her unwavering gaze. Her dark eyes bored into those of the man attempting to chain her. With a shaky hand, he seemed to come to his senses and reached out for her wrist.

The cold, dead feel of Wednesday’s skin shocked him — as it did with most people. A small flinch flickered across his face upon contact, initiating a spark of mirth that curved her lips ever so slightly.

He fastened her chains tightly, locking them with an air of finality. She spied his hand as he slipped the key into his left pocket. He pulled gently on the metal links, indicating it was time to move.

Wednesday stood up, rising with a methodical stillness. The pair walked around the slanted tables, their uniformity warped by the passage of people bumping into them. The near-empty food hall did not seem sad to see them go, shafts of sunlight never landing within ten feet of the ground, bathing everybody in shadow.

His boots clicked on the tiled floor, while her socks allowed her to creep silently alongside him. With a quick shove, the heavy door swung open, revealing once again rows upon rows of uniform cells.

It shut fairly quietly: swinging on its oiled hinges in reducing arcs until it settled closed.

He led her through the winding halls, assertive but still with an air of self-consciousness. Wednesday’s eyes raked over the building, taking in every possible detail she could.

The bars around each segment door, flaking chips of white paint in corners too small to be included in refurbishments, and the fire door located next to the stairwell.

A bulletproof glass pane revealed green grass, still damp with the morning dew. They were in the frontmost wing, closest to the high wall topped with barbed wire. The imposing front doors were visible in the other direction, their darkness stark against the miserable grey of the wall.

Wednesday was completely alone with the guard. She stopped, grounding him to a halt after a step. Wide, linoleum floors stretched in either direction, not a soul to be found close by. The silence seemed so loud, ringing at her ears with a determined press.

The man turned to look at her, yanking the chains as though she was a dog on a leash. She dug in her heels, unmoving. Her unblinking stare met his in full force, though this time he seemed less preoccupied with her face and more with her shackled hands.

He was weak; Wednesday could tell. Yes, the muscles in his arms flexed visibly with his required training, but no more than that. Nothing more than routine strength training, which essentially only ensured the lack of incompetence. It certainly didn’t guarantee ability to overpower physically adept patients. Perhaps they had skipped that part in his training.

She yanked her arms into her stomach with a surprising suddenness. The force pulled the guard in close, his feeble hands still clutching her chains. His body tumbled towards her, knocking into her. Wednesday slid her arms over his head, entrapping him within her grasp with her heavy cuffs, pressed against his throat.

His sweaty hand groped frantically at his waist, seeking out the solid grip of the taser. The sharp edges of her metal handcuffs — designed with such little regard for human comfort — left white lines of pressure on the man’s throat. Wednesday’s hand covered his mouth, his rapid breaths exhaling from above onto her skin. A muffled, strained shout of panic clawed its way up his throat, barely making any noise against the firm grip of her palm.

All of this occurred within less than four seconds. The taser was still sought after by the guard’s searching fingers, moments from closing in on the handle. Wednesday drew him closer — her metal handcuffs threatening to choke him with the pressure she exerted. His eyes darted desperately, shining with tears as their rims grew red. Panicked breathing forced the rapid rise and fall of his chest, like the leaping of a showhorse in the final hurdle race.

Her hands were tucked in close to her torso now, the unbearably clammy body of her captive crushed by her chains. She stretched her grip into her clothing, unveiling the sharp piece of ceramic from the ill-fated plate at breakfast. It gleamed in her fingers like a dagger revealed under moonlight.

Upon seeing the weapon, the guard’s search for his own became frenzied, losing control of his fingers as they desperately found the taser. In such an agitated state, his twitching appendages hadn’t the precision required to unsheath the weapon in a timely manner.

Wednesday’s fingers were closed surely over the blunt end of her shattered fractal of plate. Without wasting a second, she plunged the point into the guard’s larynx. Hot blood coursed over her hand, dripping down the steel handcuffs, flowing in rivulets to her elbow. The soft patter of it drip, drip, dripping to the floor was audible even through the pair’s near silent struggle.

He thrashed for a moment, an adrenaline surge flooding his muscles. For a horribly lingering beat, Wednesday thought he may actually break free of her grasp. Though he was dying quickly, so there wouldn’t be too much damage caused.

It could be sensed in the room — the almost palpable loss of life, the moment the guard let out his last breath. His limp corpse relaxed into her hold, previously scurrying fingers flopping stationary to the side. She lingered for an extra second, assessing if he was really dead.

Deeming her murder attempt as successful, she raised her arms over the man’s head, releasing his neck. His body dropped to the grey linoleum floor with a sickening thud. Small crimson rivers immediately began to pool around his head, spreading artfully in all directions.

The corridors were empty now, but they wouldn’t be for long. Another security guard would come wandering soon, making their habitual rounds through the rows of cells. Wednesday cast a brief glance up and down the hallway, landing on nothing but the harsh glare of fluorescent overhead light fixtures. The white stone walls seemed vast in their emptiness, leaving the observer to feel peacefully alone in this world.

She crouched next to the deceased member of staff. Her deft fingers found the key in his pocket, leaving small smears of blood on the beige uniform trousers. Unlocking the cuffs with ease, Wednesday took a moment to flex her wrists properly. Tiny pricks and bruises were already visible on the skin of her forearm from her brief stay in handcuffs.

The taser slid easily out of its hold. Calm precision was all it took to release it. She looked down on the man’s head, half pressed into the grey floors. Her own head tilted slightly as she observed him — weak and pathetic to the end.

Rising from her crouch, the weapon was gripped firmly in her hand. The stained ceramic shard was abondoned with haste, left embedded in the guard’s neck.

The fire door seemed to gleam enticingly. Its view of the outside world had grown slightly darker; a few measly raindrops splashed lightly onto the green grass. Wednesday stood illuminated in the glow of natural light, rare in this building of gloom. Her quiet steps drew her closer to the door, the one thing barring her from the freedom of the outdoors.

A faint reflection stared back at her in the glass. Hair mussed, small cuts dotting her face and shoulder, a drying stream of another’s blood crusting on her left collarbone. She looked deranged; anyone could see it. Her eyes glimmered with a light too intense to be normal.

A small smirk was drawn to her lips, knowing exactly how she looked. With an air of finality, she pushed the fire door open and stepped into the crisp morning air.

Chapter Text

Beads of dew clung to the blades of grass outside Willow Hill. Each droplet captured a speck of light from the morning sun, sending glitters twinkling across the green lawn.

Wednesday’s feet stamped the grass flat with their rapid footfalls. Her breath came in short bursts, oxygenating her blood as she sprinted across the lawn towards the stone wall. The smooth grey was topped with coils of wickedly sharp barbed wires, points ready to tear into the skin of any escapee.

A distant alarm echoed from the door — still swinging on its arc shut. She had disappeared from the threshold as fast as a predatory cat.

Her muscles began to ache, stiff and cold from her week in captivity. The lone figure cut across the motionless lawn, sprinting with uncanny speed.

Wednesday’s heart pounded through her ears, adrenaline rushing through her veins. Muffled shouting tugged at the edge of her awareness — the security measures were responding with unfortunate efficiency.

The wall loomed under her intense stare, frustration rising within her at every second she spent running. The facility was enormous; even from a door halfway down the side wing it was several hundred metres to the perimeter.

Figures clad in black swarmed out the front door like ants, dark uniforms stark against the light coloured bricks of the façade. A fresh breeze cut serenely through the grounds, carrying with it the sweet scent of the surrounding forest.

A few strands of Wednesday’s hair tossed in the wind, tickling her cheeks. A flood of anxiety overcame the usual death grip she had on her emotions. Her sprinter’s speed carried her towards a particularly rough section of wall — the jutting ledges and divots would make for easy climbing.

Cold wind bit at her exposed limbs, though she barely felt it. The exertion flowing through her body warmed her from the inside, even coaxing a few beads of sweat on the nape of her neck.

The psychiatric facility’s guards rushed forwards, fresh as daisies. They steadily decreased the distance between themselves and their target, closing in like a swarm of killer insects. Their quarry maintained a bounding pace, eluding their grasp for far longer than the average runaway would.

A stitch tore through Wednesday’s ribs as she finally came upon the wall. It cast a dark shadow over her, removing all shine of sunlight from her face. It seemed fitting — the grim girl returned to her preferred spot of dwelling, the shadows. Her head tilted back as her gaze swept up the tall stone edifice. It was over four metres high; possibly even six or seven.

Her pace slowed slightly as she neared the hard stone. Cool air tore through her throat, filling her chest with a racing rise and fall. The noise of her breath filled her ears, each ragged inhale soothing the burning inside her lungs.

Her soaked socks reached the end of the grass, mounting instead upon the tiny daggers of gravel. A whirlwind of senses encompassed Wednesday: the pain shooting up through her feet, the clamoured yells of the guards fast approaching, and the pleasurable strain of exercise coursing through her body.

Like a skilled parkour artist, her short form leapt onto the grim stone in one smooth motion. In the disbelieving eyes of the security staff, she scaled the wall with the speed and surety of a spider. The world was her web, and every person merely a fly waiting to be cocooned in her silk.

No sooner had she latched onto the rough stone than the scraping bit at her skin. Wednesday’s arms flew, seeking out every small crack and ridge to find purchase in the otherwise flat wall. The yawning blue sky stretched above her head as she ascended, keeping her eyes focused on the task at hand.

A minute twitch on her lips was the only indication of the pain she felt. Miniscule pebbles scraped from the rough wall embedded themselves in her forearms, removing the top layer of skin. Her toes smashed agonisingly against the hard surface more times than she could count, scrabbling to find a spot to support them.

Her progress was slower than she’d have liked. Ruthless precision and control ruled Wednesday’s mind, so unprecedented muscle fatigue had no place in her plan, and she certainly didn’t wish to carve it one.

Colder, stronger gusts whipped at her body as she rose closer to the top. The team of guards had reached the wall, fanning out with a military order. Their necks craned, watching Wednesday climb beyond their reach. A few of the more violent types had taken their guns from their holsters, awaiting the order from their superior.

The girl allowed herself a brief glance down to admire her handiwork. The bewildered, frustrated frowns the guards wore brought pleasure into her mind. Her attention quickly returned to her climb: mere feeling about was insufficient, her eyes were needed to avoid making a fatal mistake and grabbing a fragile piece of stonework.

What she didn’t see, however, was the subtle squad departing from the back of her group of pursuers. They crept away, heading for the tall, wrought iron gates to the compound.

Moments passed where everyone seemed to be holding their breath. The tension was palpable in the air, so thick one could cut it with an axe.

Then a fragment of stone broke off in Wednesday’s hand.

Her body lurched, muscles engaging to keep her pressed to the wall. The sharp edge of stone made a shallow slice in her palm. She inwardly cursed herself for allowing such a foolish, detrimental mistake. Her pained fingers strained to find another hold before her other limbs gave up. The broken skin stretched with her search, sending a dribble of blood down her wrist.

Wednesday’s main concern was the impact on her grip. Liquids, particularly ones with a consistency like blood, proved effective at greatly reducing friction. Unfortunately for her, this was among the last things the wanted. Yet another obstacle to surpass before she reached the top of this forsaken wall.

Red stained the grim, hard surface beneath her palm. A drop clung to her elbow — lingering for a split second — before parting with its creator, falling down, down towards the scene below.

It splashed, unnoticed, onto an already-damp gravel rock. The tiny rock now had a mingling coverage of dew and droplet of blood. Before three seconds had passed, it was crushed beneath the heel of an officer turning to address her crowd. Broken snatched of heated conversation drifted up to Wednesday, falling upon deaf ears. The guards were arguing: some wanted to shoot her down, others claimed her escape had succeeded and there was no way to reach her.

A few reminded their peers of the gate, though their duties did not technically extend beyond the limits of the facility grounds. Chase would be picked up by the Jericho police department, or so protocol went.

At last, Wednesday’s fingers closed over the top ledge of the wall. She pulled herself up, coming face to face with rusty coils of barbed wire.

She had been fully aware of its existence; indeed, had trained her eye on it more than once during her sprint from the buildings confines. Still, it was hard to resist the pitiful drop in her stomach when the torturous spikes loomed right in front of her.

Steeling herself for the rips of agony, she balanced her feet on the flat crest of the wall. Up here, the view was extraordinary: sunlight spilled across the tops of the trees, illuminating the vast expanse of green leaves with a warm glow. It seemed to churn and shift before her very eyes, the movement of each individual leaf forming a swirling, mesmerising pattern in the canopy.

Beyond, the woodland gave rise to a series of low hills. On the side of one such mound, stood an overbearing dark castle, rich with the abilities of outcasts.

Nevermore was a petite lump blurred the haze of the sun’s rays. The town it watched over was hidden by the height of the snaking branches, their clawed wood reaching up to conceal all at ground level. Wednesday knew, of course, its buildings must be nestled between the school and the vast, mirrorlike surface of the nearby lake.

She let out a small sigh by accident. It wasn’t unwelcome. The exhale cleared a shred of tension from her shoulders; the calmness returned to her still body. Sighting Nevermore seemed to flick an intangible switch in her. Her purpose and clarity of mind came swiftly back into her head, two old friends she didn’t realise she’d been missing during the excitement of her escape.

Her fist closed firmly around a relatively smooth piece of wire. Without missing a beat, her second fist followed suit. The clumped coils shook and shifted as she pushed down on the barbed wire, a hollow, metallic sound escaping where the rings bumped against one another.

The sun shone hot on Wednesday’s back. She was out from the familiar shelter of the stone wall, with cloying heat pressing into her every nerve. Up here, it seemed to shine tenfold — no mundane objects to break the light with their patches of shadow.

A hiss of pain escaped her lips. A sneaky barb had pressed itself into her shin, cutting the already tattered trouser leg and drawing fresh blood. She had no choice but to keep going, grit through suffering like she always did.

Suddenly, a particularly strong gust of wind blew over the wall, rattling the coils of wire and sending an unsteady tremor through Wednesday. Her feet flexed, trying in vain to keep her balance, until her options were to fall forwards or back.

She dropped to her knees, eyes squinting with pain. Her weight fell hard onto the joints, which lay upon a winding piece of wire. Rusted barbs dug into her flesh, forcing a frown of anguish onto her usually stoic face.

Wednesday wasn’t usually one to acknowledge difficulty, but going over the wall was undoubtedly tough. It seemed so much easier to walk through the gate, unscathed, like she had done during her visits. Instead, her bruised and aching body knelt upon coils of barbed wire, oozing blood, a lethal fall in front and behind her.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she decided to keep her time perched atop the wall to a minimum. Her form moved gingerly, shifting weight and lifting herself over the worst of the wire. The peak of the stone structure was narrow, forcing her to calculate every move with extra precision.

Bending almost double, she managed to creep over the coils, earning a few bloody scrapes along the way. The treeline grew very close to the wall. It seemed like a doable task, using the skeletal limbs of wood to safely make her way to the ground.

She leaned over the edge slightly, peering at the dizzying drop to the leafy, grassy ground. Again, she lamented the awkwardness of this escape route. Her thoughts drifted involuntarily to Tyler’s first escape, several weeks back. With bulletproof skin and deadly claws, he’d had it easy, kicking the gate open without the fear of guards stopping him.

Tyler.

He was likely still in there.

Wednesday froze, images of her monster flooding her mind. By escaping, she was essentially committing to his abandonment. A flash of guilt tore through her, stronger than she’d anticipated. She swallowed hard, pushing down on the sudden surge of emotion. Obsessing needlessly would not help the task at hand.

Still, her mind never strayed far from the boy trapped behind her. Her eyes scanned the towering deciduous in front of her for a decent-looking branch, straining to see past the thick leaves, which were alive with motion.

Reaching out, her palm connected with the cool, rough bark. Beginning a methodical path down, she swung and lowered herself from branch to branch, caught up in the world of swaying greenery. The swathes of leaves concealed the forest floor from Wednesday’s hawklike gaze, ensconcing her within the twists of the tree’s branches.

When her arms were trembling and her breathing rough, at last her feet dropped to the leafy ground. Every poke of the twigs could be felt, her heels crushing the dead, dry carpet of leaves with a crackling crunch.

Little tugs of pain nagged at her consciousness, creeping in the edges of her adrenaline rush. Steadying herself with deep breaths, Wednesday’s head snapped around, assessing the dappled shadows of the forest floor.

The gate was out of sight. Only a long, overbearing stone wall stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. She wasted no time, moving quickly, darting between the thickest trunks that offered concealment in their shadows.

Cold wind bit through the forest, tearing up leaves and surrounding the girl with an autumnal blur. Amid the aching of her lungs, she sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her over the rough roots and foliage. Her eyes never teared up from the rush of air; no, they had that uncanny ability to remain ordinary without blinking, even against a forthcoming breeze.

The few guards who had snuck through the gate monitored her progress. She hadn’t ran very far when their own position surrounded her, hidden by the very trunks that offered her the same privacy.

Too late, Wednesday registered the dark-clad figure step out from behind a gnarled oak. His compatriots remained silent, unwilling to reveal their presence immediately.

Her velocity was too fast to slow down in time. Hurtling towards the guard, her speed caught him by surprise. A wicked baton gleamed in his hand, raised over his shoulder, ready to beat her to the floor.

He overshot it. The blow intended for the runaway’s gut landed instead on her calf, striking with less than half the intended force. The slap rang throughout the forest, filling the peaceful silence with its sound.

Instead of crippling Wednesday and forcing her to the ground, it merely caused her to stumble, temporarily slowing her steps. Her feet caught on the hard wooden roots as she staggered painfully, shocked by the blow.

The oppressive inevitability of her capture filled the scene. She was not ready to go back. These officers would have to die before that happened.

With a slight limp, Wednesday turned her head up, casting a withering glance at the man still gripping the baton with pale knuckles. Every inch of her bent form exuded exhaustion, but there was a steely flash in her eye that warned against underestimation.

They could chase; she knew they would. But eventually, they would realise she wasn’t worth it, they would slow, stop, return in shame to their prison of an employment.

A shred of sunlight peeked through the canopy, making the beads of sweat on her back glisten. Her deadpan face turned away from her pursuers as she started forward once again, daring them to follow.

What she did not expect was for her beater to open his mouth and talk.

“You’re really going to run away from your precious Hyde?” He taunted, words laced with venom.

Wednesday wasn’t about to let some blustering buffoon delay her escape. She ignored him, her disinterest riddled through the air.

His voice rose, “If you leave, we’ll kill him! Dead, in our basement!” The tactical phrases were screamed with a shrill, manic intent. Anybody within earshot could hear the desperation sown in the man’s words.

But Wednesday could only hear the words themselves. One second of hesitation was all it took to seal her fate. Another of the group seized on her falter, swiftly stepping out from the shadows and pressing the muzzle of a gun to her temple.

Its cold end pushed into her skin hard enough to leave a bloodless circle behind. Reluctantly, Wednesday raised her arms, baring her palms. They rose with the languid pace of a tortoise, the act laced with control.

A scatter of birds flitted out of the tense scene, fleeing the heavy air of violence that hung suspended between the girl and the guards.

Bitter self-loathing swamped Wednesday’s senses. She cursed herself for pausing in that second, letting the urgent lies take root in her head. She felt like a fool, playing right into their malicious hands.

The footfalls behind her drew closer, louder. Energy seemed to crackle in the air between them, before her vision was reduced to a blur of green.

The impact knocked her teeth together, sending agonising reverberations through her skull before everything began to fade to black.

What vexed Wednesday the most was that her final thoughts were not of Enid, her family, or anyone she would find after her escape.

They were filled with a certain monstrous teenage boy, and the relieving realisation that he was — probably — very much not dead.

How could he, once again, become the weakness others exploited?

Chapter Text

Wednesday woke in a daze. Her limp form was curled in a foetal position, hunched around a pool of dark, silvery chains.

Her cheek was pressed against a hard floor, made up of small white tiles. It was noticeably grimier than all the other floors in the facility, covered in a thin layer of dust and condensation.

The cold burned into her limbs, goosebumps arising everywhere her flesh met the ground. Small tremors ran through her at regular intervals, convulsing her body and shaking her quiet breath.

Her eyes flew open.

They adjusted slowly to the dim light. The ceiling — low, arched, with heavy supports — indicated an underground holding space. An unpleasant, crawling sensation overtook her. She knew this ceiling. She’d been here before.

Except she hadn’t. The spacing of the metal roof supports was different. Without daring to look around the rest of the space yet, Wednesday measured her breathing and flexed her tired limbs.

Her ears were met with the sound of clinking metal. Thick constraints gleamed around her wrists and ankles. They were looser than before, she noticed, but looked much, much stronger.

Her eyes traced their path, rising up off the ground and into an opening in the stone wall. They fell upon the dark crevices the chains disappeared into. She knew the shape, the spacing between them.

She knew it all.

Finally, she flipped her head around, sizing up the rest of her cell. Everything was as she had expected, but also different.

The same dim light fixtures, illuminating the dismal space with its white, neon glow. The same dull, off-white flooring. The same person, sleeping peacefully on the other side of the room.

The only difference was the arrangement. In Willow Hill’s destroyed half, the place was fit for one captive only.

Here it was built for two.

Bars stretched above her head, a glass door visible halfway down the space. Had she been standing, they would run along her left, tantalising her with the safely cordoned off visitor space.

Deep down, Wednesday had known the moment her captors had mentioned him that they would be put together. She had shown her capabilities — played her hand too early.

Only the conditions fit for a monster would hold her.

Tyler’s sleeping form was curled on his low cot, his torso muscles rising and falling ominously with each breath. A matching bed was positioned on her side of the cell, their quarters mirror images of each other.

Wednesday rose to a cross-legged seat. Her chains rustled with the movement, falling over themselves with a cascading flow.

She reached for her long gone master bond in vain. A pit formed in her stomach, dropping lower and lower with every failed attempt to reach Tyler.

Nothing — save the feeble physical restraints — could stop the Hyde from exacting whatever revenge he pleased. Any control Wednesday had exerted over him was gone, dead and buried.

A pounding headache made itself known in her consciousness. Unconsciously, she lifted a hand to her forehead, trying to comfort the pain with the simple gesture.

Amid the echoing clinking of her own shackles, a similar noise reached her ears from the other side of the room.

Wednesday froze — she listened, watching, waiting. The silence grew, stretching unbearably for longer and longer until it became oppressive.

Her heartbeat seemed deafening inside her ears as she held her breath, rigidly anticipating the next noise.

No more sound.

An exhale of relief crept through her clenched teeth. At least she had time to orient herself before he woke up.

At least she hoped she would.

Why would they put her here? It made no sense — perhaps it was a punishment for trying to run away.

She remembered when Dr Fairburn put her uncle with the zombie. Yes, this seemed to be the preferred method of discipline here.

Wednesday’s eyelids grew heavy. They seemed to have drugged her, making her movements sluggish, her muscles uncooperative.

As her eyes were closing, vision tilting, the last thing she saw was a slight twitch on the tension of chains holding the other captive.

A slight swinging pulled at them, stretched from the wall to the bed where their prisoner slept.

Wednesday shut her eyes.

~~~~

Tyler was never quite sure what he dreamed. Too often it was confused with the languishing pain of his reality.

The image of the empty other side of the cell floated in his subconscious, worming its way into his reverie. It had lain vacant for his short stay in this room thus far, its lack of an occupant staring him in the face as silent promise. Or threat.

He felt haunted by the implication he wouldn’t be alone for long.

The initial shock — accompanied by a crushing devastation — of finding himself back here, in this place, had worn off.

Over the past few days, a cold numbness overtook him. Escaping had achieved nothing; save for leaving the stains of his mother’s blood on his hands.

When he’d woken up back in Willow Hill, once again shackled to a cold, hard wall, he’d reached out for Wednesday. The instinct built over the last few weeks yielded no comfort when he needed it most.

She was gone, and with her, his only hope of having any worthwhile purpose in this life.

Now, Tyler’s dreams were stirred by the sound of shifting chains. The ones that held him in place remained taut and thick, anchoring his dangerous form inside the dim cellar. These noises came from the other side of the room.

The metallic clinks reverberated throughout the low-ceilinged space. He heard them falling to the ground, knocking off one another, pooling like water on the cold tiles.

He held his breath for a moment, listening intently. His face pressed tensely into the thin, stiff pillow of his meagre resting space. An arm curved around his head, shielding his face from the harsh fluorescent lights above him.

The silence stretched, lingering with the weight of a storm about to break. No more pings of metal broke the quiet.

Slowly, Tyler raised his head. Sitting up on his bed, he shivered as the inadequate blanket fell from his body, cold air rushing into his bones. He brought his gaze up to confirm what he had already suspected.

Wednesday’s limp body lay bound across the cell, her dark plaits strewn amid heavy lengths of chains. The pale skin of her stomach contrasted the dark gleam of the pile of chains she was curled in the centre of.

He knew he had the right to be angry. But in this moment, spying the bruises scattered across her unconscious flesh, something different, deeper, moved within him.

The same something that rose to life every time he noticed the way her eyelashes fell on her cheeks, the chilling sheen of sweat shining on the curve of her waist.

He pitied her weary form, and tried his best to ignore the other feelings that arose around Wednesday.

His fury could wait, Tyler reasoned with himself. Once she was awake, alive and kicking, it would be easier to pour hatred onto her. The girl who had taken his self- control, his autonomy, when he had finally gotten it back.

In this moment, watching the rise and fall of her corpselike shoulder, he decided to leave her alone. Awake, in the morning, they would be free to tear at each other’s throats.

But right now, Tyler tucked his head back into the crook of his elbow. A sleep more natural than Wednesday’s crept up on him, coming easier than it had in a long while.

He fell into a dreamy darkness. Without realising, it was the first time he’d slept untroubled since they’d been apprehended in the woods.

Chapter Text

It was far into the morning by the time Wednesday awoke from her deep sleep. Not that she could tell from her place in the cellar.

The last of the sedative had worn off in her system. The unnatural fog and drowsiness receded out of her consciousness. When she opened her eyes, her mind was groggy, but painfully clear.

She knew who shared the cell with her.

Her arms twinged as she pushed herself off the cold, damp floor. Her eyes flickered briefly towards her bed — it seemed like such a luxury now. The aches of sleeping in a pile of metal chains and tiles were already setting into her weary bones.

Slowly, Wednesday glanced around, ridding herself of the last haze of sleep that fogged her mind.

Everything wore a dull sheen. The floors were slick beneath her folded legs, and even the grey folds of her unused bedsheets seemed to hide greasy shadows from the fluorescent lights.

A comforting cold was enveloping her. The terrible, unnatural freeze of the past week was replaced with the kind of cold she had always craved.

She paid little attention to the fact that the temperature only became bearable once in the presence of a certain monster.

Her legs trembled slightly as she rose to her feet. Wednesday silently cursed the absence of her usual grace, precision so sharp it could cut you and make you bleed.

The weight of her chains tugged at her bound wrists, a constant reminder of her imprisonment. The girl’s stare fixed pointedly to the floor after she rose, one hand resting lightly against the stone wall behind her.

She was almost sure Tyler could hear her unruly heart, beating with such speed and volume as it pounded inside her ears. Wednesday wished it would calm, wished it would return to its place assisting her outwardly collected manner.

It did not. And she disliked when her body, her weapon, disobeyed her.

Slowly, she raised her intense gaze to the far side of the cell. Bitterly, she knew exactly what she would find.

Her eyes fell upon his chained form, his manacles gluing bruised wrists to a hard stone wall.

It was shockingly similar to his old individual cell — so much that Wednesday’s breath caught in a sudden whirl of déjà vu.

The persistent damp of this underground prison clung to his torso in beads of moisture. He stood stock still, arms spread wide by the heavy manacles, against the far wall of the cell.

Harsh white lights illuminated the stark shadows on his face. Tyler was awake, and his body was taut with displeasure.

For a single beat, all was calm. Wednesday’s eyes lingered on the rise and fall of his ribs, carefully avoiding the dark glare that bore into her from under a curtain of damp curls.

Her throat bobbed almost imperceptibly at the sight. His eyes seemed to pin her to the mirror image of his wall — where her hands, too, were bound.

Then Wednesday tore her eyes off of the undulations of his protruding ribcage. Her gaze met his.

The moment their eyes locked, something changed. Intangible, yet undeniable. The atmosphere in the room became charged, as though a male Addams was brewing up an electrical storm.

Neither spoke. A tiny smirk danced briefly over Tyler’s lips, spiking a rise in Wednesday’s heart rate.

She was an atheist; always had been. But in this second, she prayed his Hyde’s ears couldn’t pick up her inner system’s workings.

As quickly as it came, it was gone. An unreadable expression settled itself into his features, blanketing everything but his eyes.

They glowed with a burning hatred, appearing in contrast to the lethally controlled planes of his other features. They were targeted directly at Wednesday.

The complete silence was interrupted by a deep, metallic groaning. Tyler began to move, yanking his chains out of the wall and dragging their stiff links beside him.

Tension slowed his movements; the shackles encumbered his arms, not allowing for speedy unspooling out of the dark crevices they disappeared into.

His bare feet hit the ground with a soft pad. Wednesday realised her own, too, pressed firmly and directly into the cold, unclean tiles beneath them.

Her eyes slid over his working arms: muscles flexing against the pull of steel chains binding his wrists. Every step forward seemed to put further pressure on those manacles, though his face remained impassive.

She realised she had all but forgotten how effectively he used that face to deceive and manipulate, how easily it twisted into whatever he pleased.

The metal groaned as Tyler advanced, drawing closer and closer to Wednesday’s half of the room. Upon reaching the halfway point, his restraints pulled him to a halt with a sharp jolt.

His feet stumbled ever so slightly at the interruption to his gait, finding their places on the stone tiles with speed. Not enough speed to avoid Wednesday’s notice.

He blinked as a flash of perturbance crossed his face. He was still unused to the boundaries of these chains — and it showed.

She pressed her hand into the wall with newfound force. The only difference apparent was the slight whitening of her knuckles, stretching up the thicker tendons. Her steadying hand became an outlet for her apprehension, allowing her meticulous nature to preside in the rest of her body.

Tyler was leaning forward — only slightly, but enough to reveal that he still pushed his body mass towards Wednesday, despite the constraints keeping him away.

Her breathing steadied, her face the picture of controlled disinterest. Their eyes were still trapped in an intense glare neither could bring themselves to break away from.

A tiny gleam in Wednesday’s eye betrayed her cool exterior. That look usually scared others away, made them wary of whatever dark spirit haunted her soul.

Only, Tyler seemed unfazed. He waited in complete stillness, his unflinching stare scanning her face with intensity.

Wednesday lingered at her own end of the cell under the weight of his expectant gaze. She let his tension draw out, carefully leaving a beat too long before she made her own move.

Her own chains clinked as she stepped over the links sprawled at her feet. An excess was already out of the wall, leaving the line slack as she stalked towards the boy who had once been her monster.

The only sound was metal sliding, grinding, along the smooth tiles beside her slow steps. The chains only lifted when Wednesday was within two metres of Tyler, the entire line now stretched to capacity.

His body was slightly over the exact halfway point; each side’s chains reached the same spot, giving Wednesday some leeway as she stopped right in front of the Hyde.

Her head was tilted back, eyes fixed on his. They were so close she could feel the heat emanating off his skin, hear the air entering and exiting his lungs.

A controlled agitation crept into Tyler’s features. His eyelids flickered, throat moving as he swallowed hard. Wednesday watched him, her dark mind relishing his discomfort.

It was all still until the bare ghost of a smirk teased her lips.

In a flash, his mask dropped, revealing a scowl festering with emotion. Bones clicked as Tyler’s human body disappeared, replaced with the hulking form of his monstrous side.

A threatening snarl escaped his mouth, echoing in their solitary chamber. Wednesday tried to move away, take a step back, but a newly extended claw found her neck faster than she could escape.

It closed its iron grip tightly, cutting off air flow in her larynx. Her eyes widened in shock, weighted hands rising to scratch at Tyler’s sinewy claw.

She didn’t have to fight for long. Her neck screamed in pain as her feet were lifted off the ground, leaving Wednesday choking in his grasp for a few desperate seconds.

The world turned to a blur as he hurled her back away from him, her body hitting the far wall with an impact that knocked the air from her lungs.

She blinked away the sheen beginning to cover her eyes, crouched on all fours back at the base of vertical stone. Her breath came in gasps, vision swimming from the lack of oxygen. Wednesday turned her head, wanting to face the boy through her disarrayed bangs covering her eyes.

He had returned to human form, the monster retreating back to its slumber inside of him. Any façade of tense control was gone; his chest heaved with exertion, coming in short bursts through gritted teeth. Anger was etched onto every corner of his face, his furious stare partially hidden by the messy curls falling in his eyes.

Wednesday had never seen him so worked up. At least in human form. His arms strained against the shackles; muscles rippling under the shine of moisture that lay upon his skin.

She worked up the breath and vocal strength to speak.

“Why?” She whispered, knowing his sensitive ears would pick up any noise she made.

Rising to her feet once again, Wednesday blew a stray lock of hair out of her face. Her feet planted into the ground — she had no intention of getting close enough for another attack.

For a moment, Tyler seemed too incredulous to answer. His seething lingered until Wednesday began to wonder if he had heard her at all.

Then he started to talk.

“Why?” He repeated, lacing his words with strangled rage. The word felt bitter in his mouth.

“You took my freedom!” Tyler enunciated each word carefully, throwing as much accusation as he could into them. His voice rose to a shout as tears stung behind his eyes.

He frantically tried to regain control before they spilled over. The last thing he wanted was to show weakness in front of Wednesday, who held herself with that vexing composure like she always did.

Nevertheless, the chains binding his arms rattled against the pull of his body, leaning forward with the force of his words.

A singular blink was all Wednesday let herself show. The accusation held true, and hit her harder than she would like to admit. She absorbed the weight of Tyler’s emotions with the glooming steadfastness of a tombstone.

When she opened her mouth, a scant moment of hesitation filled the air before she spoke.

“I did no more than you let me do.” Wednesday words came quietly, but not soft. They rang with the dark implications of suppressed strength.

Her cool gaze locked onto Tyler’s deeply feeling one.

“You were the one who remained still. You watched as my needle pierced your skin.” She knew the self-righteousness was creeping into her voice. She didn’t care.

“You wanted me to become your master.”

Her voice was level, yet lacking her usual monotone. The words trembled - barely - with a fiercely possessive undertone. She watched as his brows furrowed at her defense, hurt showing through the anger carved into his features.

He spat his next words with venom, finally snapping and losing any semblance of self-control.

“You made me kill my MOTHER!” Tyler roared.

His scream echoed in the tiny chamber, the metal bars of their cage singing with the resonating sound.

Wednesday flinched. Her gaze destabilised, taking on a slightly more vulnerable edge. It wavered over him — chest heaving, eyes glistening, every breath a forceful intake that proved impossible to calm him down.

She knew he was correct. Françoise had been the only family Tyler had had left, and her death had undoubtedly been Wednesday’s fault.

It had been self-defense — she would have died had she not called Tyler to her aid. Still, looking at the damaged, broken boy, she vehemently wished there had been another way to resolve the situation.

The silence stretched, her guilty feelings palpable. She opened her mouth: to speak, to say anything, even apologise.

As her lips parted, the air seemed to die in her throat. Nothing came out. A choked feeling seemed to wrap its claws around her windpipe.

Tyler stood, expectant, for a lingering few seconds. Eventually, he snapped his mouth shut firmly, seeming to deflate. The anger on his face disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

Wednesday felt a desperate urge to say something. She disliked this feeling; responsibility for someone else’s emotions never usually even made her priority list.

All that was left in his eyes was a dull, deepset exhaustion. Her stare tracked him as his shoulders relaxed and he turned, exposing an expanse of back muscles as he walked away from her.

His chains lay limp, dragging on the ground behind him. They made a harsh scraping noise that dug into Wednesday’s skull.

She stepped forward. Just one step.

“Wait.”

He paused, but didn’t turn around.

She had no idea what to say next. It disturbed her, this lack of preparation. Even on the spot, her sharp tongue tended to conjure up the perfect words to express her thoughts.

This time, she had too many thoughts to say. What troubled her the most was that some, she knew, would be impossible to put into words.

Wednesday swallowed hard against the unfamiliar lump in her throat. She lingered just until it seemed Tyler was about to move again. His muscles tensed, just before a choked noise escaped her larynx.

Even she surprised herself when the apology spilled out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, barely audible. He did not say anything back, didn’t acknowledge what she said in any way.

She sank back against the grim wall as Tyler resumed the walk back to his own. Her back pressed unpleasantly into the cold stone as she slid to the floor, resting her forearms on her knees.

He stopped before the opposite wall, ears ringing with Wednesday’s words. Receiving an apology was rare for Tyler. Receiving one from the girl who never gave them meant quite a lot.

His eyes shut against the invasive fluorescent lighting. As much as he hated her, he still had to push back the familiar instinct to take her side, to offer support.

Tyler didn’t know if this was a residual effect from her being his master. And that uncertainty — that was what scared him the most.

Chapter Text

The night passed with a slow uneventfulness. The low buzz of the electrical lighting invaded Tyler’s brain incessantly, keeping him from a fitful sleep.

He and Wednesday hadn’t spoken since her whispered apology. In truth, Tyler had no idea what to do with it.

She lay fast asleep on her bed, a dark shadow lifting the blankets into curves and bumps from beneath. The hum of the lights didn’t seem to bother her; nor did the way they never shut off.

The daylight cycle was utterly unable to penetrate into their cell. As someone who had always slept in the silent darkness of smalltown nights, this posed fretful issues for his sleep.

Even during his long months in captivity at the other side of Willow Hill, he never fully adjusted to the harsh sting of white light, illuminating the inside of his eyelids as he tried in vain to fall asleep.

Rest came in bursts and starts, the unpleasant haze of semi-consciousness pervading his night. Wednesday slept soundly, adapting immediately to her new surroundings.

Of course. Her lack of disturbance from the noise, the light fixtures, and their reflections on the constantly dewy surfaces was apt. Nothing — save for perhaps a forest fire — would unsettle her body’s ability to gain respite where it could.

Ever efficient. Tyler tried to feel bothered by this, her seeming inability to be rattled. But as always, only a begrudging admiration emerged.

Only this time, he didn’t have the master bond to hide behind any more.

From his spot on the lumpy mattress, Tyler’s insomnia lingered frustratingly. His eyes caught on Wednesday, or rather, her sleeping figure.

They noticed the barely perceptible rise and fall of breathing — measured, even. The way the thin, grey blanket pooled around the sides of the narrow bed, leaving her as an odd deformity in its folds. His gaze traced over the dip of her waist, the rise of her shoulder and the curve of her hip. One of her two braids snaked across the pillow under her peaceful face.

He realised with a flood of warmth to his face that he was staring. Tearing his eyes off the shape of Wednesday’s foetal position, curved against the cold, he shut them firmly and tried to sleep.

The fluorescent lights still made the inside of Tyler’s eyelids glow a pale red, but oblivion teased at his consciousness before long and sleep engulfed him.

~~~~

Morning arrived with the slide of a heavy lock. Its clunk awoke both Wednesday and Tyler, shocking them out of their respective reveries.

Wednesday sat up sharply, arms relaxing out of their folded, corpselike sleeping position. Her attention was caught by a uniformed guard standing in the open vault doorway.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tyler rose too, albeit slower. He seemed less steady, blearier yet just as strong as ever.

Wednesday noticed every detail.

He didn’t seem surprised by the sudden presence of another person. She watched — a hawklike intensity glittering in her eyes — as the guard stepped inside, halting on the other side of the dark metal bars.

Another two guards followed, each carrying a tray of food. No canteen now, Wednesday thought. The highest security prisoners wouldn’t be leaving their cell.

There was a bulletproof glass door in the exact centre of the row of bars. A narrow flap, barely ten centimetres high, glinted in the light as the trays were pushed beneath it.

She felt her blood boil. How dare they, these people, lock her up in a cage and expect her to be docile without consequences?

Wednesday swung her legs off the bed. The cold ground sent spikes through her bare feet as she lunged towards the shut door. The third guard’s hand was visible under the tray gap.

The chains rattled as she approached, taking only a few seconds to cross the room. Her pale hand reached out to grasp the other woman’s fingers, to do something, anything at all.

What she really wanted was to break them. Snap the bones of the sadists who put her here.

This fantasy was interrupted by a hard tug on her chains. Stability lost, Wednesday’s knees hit the ground with a painful impact. She held back a wince as the barely healing bruises were renewed.

Her shackles restrained her arms, holding her back one metre from the door. The guard’s blue eyes betrayed no sign of worry or shock. They glanced up at Wednesday, reviewing her constrained fury with a brief disinterest.

Her wrists chafed against the steel as the guard rose to her feet and left, followed by the other two close on her heels. The girl’s braids still swung silently as the external door shut with a resounding snap.

It wafted a wave of fresh air into Wednesday’s face. As she took deep breaths to remain in control of her anger, she realised the stagnant air inside her cage smelled strange.

If her last cell had been scented with a drop of blood, this one stank like a crime scene. The air had saturated her lungs so it was almost impossible to discern the salty tang present.

A quick thought flitted across her mind: would her blood join the others spilled here soon?

She heard rattling to her right. Tyler slowly, leisurely stalked towards her and breakfast. Wednesday didn’t grace his presence with an acknowledgment. Her eyes remained fixed on the trays in front of her as he approached, kneeling calmly in her peripheral vision.

“The guards are normal,” his voice broke the stoic silence. A large hand grabbed the nearest tray and pulled it close, scraping it against the floor.

Wednesday remained quiet, but cast a calculating eye over Tyler.

He held up a plain white bread roll. “It’s how we get fed.”

His tone was had a sarcastic edge to it. He never had bothered to hide his snarky nature, even through his lies.

She sat back on her heels. Her restraints restricted her arm movement, requiring her to sit facing Tyler. Without a word, Wednesday began to feed her starving stomach.

Though she hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s morning meal, her composure never dropped. Every bite was eaten deliberately, her movements poised.

They ate in stiff silence. Neither brought up the previous night, not wishing to revisit their emotions so early in the day.

However, the tension between them still lingered. The way her quiet whisper had sounded when she apologised was still etched into Tyler’s brain, like reeds rustling in a river breeze.

He didn’t know what to do. Clearly, neither did she.

She sneaked glances at him during the meal, his face the picture of measured indifference. Her heartbeat pulsed in her throat as the food slowly disappeared off her tray, leaving that same unpleasant bloody flavour in her mouth.

A muscle in Tyler’s jaw ticked. It was barely perceptible — this minute slip of his mask. Wednesday’s eye lingered, carefully taking note.

“You know, if you want to stare, you might as well be up front about it.” He spoke without taking his eyes off his food.

She let her gaze drop. Her measured composure was weaker in here; it betrayed telltale signs here and there. The slight bob of her throat, a tiny twitch of her nostrils.

A slow, deliberate blink.

Her sharp retort slid easily off her tongue, like ice down a wet slope.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Wednesday replied coolly.

She let her stare rake slowly across his figure, taking her time. The muscles in his shoulders tightened slightly under her watch.

He stilled, leaving the remainder of his meagre breakfast untouched. Her eyes flicked leisurely back to his face, meeting his stare in a silent dare.

For a moment too long, the room was charged with silence.

Then something changed. His eyes lost the last hint of vulnerability, glittering with promise. A tiny movement clawed its way onto his lips, something that was not quite a smile.

Challenge accepted.

“Of course. You’ve seen it all. Except for the parts covered by my mother’s blood,” Tyler’s eyebrows twitched with performative amusement. “I don’t think you looked too hard at those.”

Wednesday did not drop her level gaze. Her breakfast lay cold and ignored in front of her knees.

Her words were barbed with a smug arrogance. Just enough to wind him up.

“The only person who put us in that situation was you, Tyler. You knew what you were signing on for, letting me become your master.” Wednesday’s voice was devoid of the shaky apology, hours previously. One could scarcely believe it was the same person, talking about the same events.

“It was inevitable something like that could happen.” Her eyes traced the tendons standing out on his forearms, the shadows a smidge too stark for human proportions.

Tyler felt the Hyde pulsing beneath the surface, begging to be unleashed. He scanned her face for any trace of buried guilt, anything to echo her last sentiment.

There was nothing. Only a razor sharp gaze that threatened to cut you if you stepped too close.

The flash of a heartbeat passed, the only sound his shaky breathing resounding in his ears. The monster within him calmed — just enough so he could speak without a growl.

His voice dropped low. “I trusted you. And you betrayed me.” At the end of his sentence, a trace of the monster’s snarl crept in.

Wednesday couldn’t help shooting back a quick response. “Sound familiar?”

Her eyebrows twitched upwards at the implication. There was a tiny tremor in her voice, the tip of an iceberg of bitterness. The words dripped with poison.

Tyler’s jaw ticked again, blatantly obvious to Wednesday. He let a few seconds pass, unsure precisely what to say.

He’d placed his faith in her, that night. Against reason, against common sense, he had let Wednesday take control.

Yes, he’d trusted her. He’d trusted her not to exploit his Hyde. His strength, which was ultimately his greatest weakness.

And she hadn’t. They both knew it. Wednesday hadn’t gone near the threshold of exploitation or abuse.

Yet they still both ended up back here. Chained, caged, alone.

He bit his lip gently, trying to avoid intimidation under her steely stare. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the metallic air.

His head gave the slightest shake. He tried — and failed — to infuse his voice with anger. “You don’t control me any more. I could kill you, before any guard’s device releases a shock through me.” The second Tyler spoke, he knew the empty threat would be seen through, the white lies feeble.

Her lips curved upwards in a malicious smile. “No. You could, but you won’t.”

The finality of truth strengthened her words.

Tyler’s stomach did a somersault. He watched fervently as a dark glint took hold in her eye. It sent a shiver down his spine — though what kind, he was unsure.

Her voice cut the silence, the slight rasp like serration on a deadly knife.

“You and I both know that even without the bond, you’ll obey every word I say.”

The words spilled from her mouth like black ink. It was the truth — his reaction was evidence enough. His almost imperceptible flinch caught her attention, his eyes blinking one too many times to be relaxed.

Wednesday’s heartbeat pounded inside her throat, constricting the air flow and making her feel light-headed. Capillaries pooled in Tyler’s unnaturally large eyes, growing by the second. Her gaze tracked the shifting, contorting musculature and ligaments beneath his hardening skin. Her ears were met with a horrible, wet cracking noise as the transformation sped.

“Stop.”

The word hung in the thick air, heavy with intention.

For a moment, all was still. The only sound she could hear was her own breath, controlled air exiting her nose. Wednesday’s eyes were alight, her posture rigid.

Tyler had paused. Larger than human, smaller than beast, he stayed. Distant pain echoed through his nerves; the half-transformed state was hardly a pleasant way to linger.

It all drained away, lost in his head. Because Wednesday was there, challenging him to obey her, staring his monster in the face.

Slowly, measured, Tyler let his bones shrink back to normal. His shoulders dropped, eyes sinking back into their sockets. A tiny smirk played across Wednesday’s face, too calculating to be a true smile. It seemed to tug vexation out of him like a fisherman’s hook.

“Good,” a whisper of air barely left her mouth. To anyone else, the sound would have been lost. But Tyler could nearly hear the rush of blood inside his own veins. He wasn’t about to let anything she said slide by unnoticed.

Wednesday’s stiff back relaxed, just a little. The boy’s eyes gleamed murder, his mouth pressed into a thin, oppressive line. It didn’t bother her in the slightest.

For a beat, it seemed like he was going to say something else, burst into uncontrollable — but human — rage.

He didn’t.

All the breath seemed to leave his lungs at once, eyelids sinking closed. The sharp sound of the tray clattering broke the stiff air, metallic scent still clinging to every surface.

Tyler broke eye contact with Wednesday as he shoved his half eaten breakfast out of the cell. Her unwavering stare followed every detail, like a wild cat stalking its prey.

As he turned his back to her, he noticed a hunger that hadn’t been in her eyes before. He tried not to let it disturb him. The slick, cold floor seemed to welcome his feet back to their side of the cell.

Wednesday sat still, waiting patiently until he was done moving before beginning her own graceful movements. Her tray glided out with barely a hushed scrape along the floor.

Her eyes bored into his back, muscles damply glowing in the cool-tinged lighting. A tiny, satisfied twitch of her lips was the only betrayal of her leashed emotions.

For today, she had won. He’d folded to her will, however reluctantly.

The only question now, was how long could her will bend, before it broke?

Chapter Text

Days passed in tense silence.

Neither Tyler nor Wednesday uttered more than a few scant words to one another, deliberately keeping their interactions to a minimum.

A slow routine was established: meals given at regular intervals by guards, allowing them to keep track of time. The rest of the day passed in uneventful silence.

Wednesday found this lack of action maddening. Surely they were meant to be treated at a facility such as this? The cold weight of her cuffs left red abrasions on her wrists. The slow deepening and spreading of these marks were her only indication that each day wasn’t just the exact same as the previous one, that a few days were indeed passing.

~~~~

He’d let her win.

Tyler knew, with infuriating certainty, that Wednesday had been correct. He would obey everything she said.

What troubled him was that he couldn’t admit to himself why.

The terse, hostile silence he let fester between them was merely a byproduct of his internal frustration.

She seemed perfectly content to let the hours slip by in this uncomfortable atmosphere. Of course, Wednesday thrived in all things cold and uncomfortable.

To any observer, it would appear as though Tyler’s self-control limited his livid feelings. He let Wednesday assume the fury was directed at her. In fact, he hoped this was what she thought.

But now, confronted with the limits of what he would and would not do, Tyler wasn’t angry with Wednesday.

He was furious with himself. Before, he had thought the bond between Hyde and master influenced his thoughts and feelings. That was exactly what it was meant to do. Every tug of his consciousness, every little compulsion could be written off to the chemicals inside him.

Currently, they were gone. And nothing about his attitude towards Wednesday had changed.

Since they had last spoken, she had certainly discovered this. The vision of her triumphant smirk danced across his memory, all cool mirth in the face of Tyler’s concession.

He’d tried to play it off, vent his anger at her days ago when she had arrived in their cell. He was aware he should resent her.

But he’d chosen her, at a moment when no serum clouded his veins. When she bound them together, Tyler hadn’t hesitated to let her inject him. His consistent willingness threw into doubt onto every action he’d made while the bond was operative.

Did Wednesday really force him to do anything? Or would he have done everything the same without chemical inducement?

He didn’t know the answers to these questions. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, even though they took root in his mind, consuming every waking thought.

One in particular danced freely in his head. In that split second, who would he have chosen to save? Wednesday or Françoise?

Deep down, Tyler could already sense the truth. He pushed it away, not wanting to relive the painful memories or the feelings they forced into question.

As the door slammed when the guards took away the trays of their third silent dinner, Wednesday turned her back and wordlessly returned to her own half of the cell.

No different than the other nights.

The evening passed in fits and starts. Nothing seemed to have changed, only Tyler felt… different. Just a touch.

The thick silence was interspersed with the clank of metal chains. Wednesday appeared unbothered, carefully avoiding his gaze with her meticulous façade.

Every night, she was tempted to let her eyes float towards him, give in to the urge to look at him.

Tyler, too, had feigned disinterest — until now. Something had changed, a slight spark added to the charge in the air. Subtle, but easily noticed by the highly alert pair shackled in Willow Hill’s highest security cell.

He let himself look. Truly look. As the two of them climbed into their respective beds, Tyler’s eyes wandered over Wednesday.

Her sharp, strong shoulders glistened with a faint sheen of sweat from the unfathomably disturbing temperature balance — simultaneously cold enough to bring out goosebumps and shivers, but also thick and muggy, much like the heat of a rainforest.

Dark swathes of hair tied neatly into braids slid across Wednesday’s back, collarbones, chest. Those intense black eyes were mainly fixed on whatever mundane task her hands were doing, but occasionally flickered up towards Tyler.

Interesting.

The first time she caught him staring, a flash of surprise glinted in her eyes. Her dark, full lips parted ever so slightly — a minute show of internal shock.

From then — every minute or so — she would check if Tyler was still watching. She never glanced up for long enough to comprehend the strange mix of emotion in his eyes.

Knowing his fascination was not derailed filled her with a smooth, satisfying pleasure. Never externally manifesting itself, of course. It would be an uncharacteristic fault in her calculations to let this show.

Tyler settled onto the stiff mattress. At night, with no other sense stimulated, the scent of blood awashing the halls and cages of the psychiatric hospital came pouring in — clogging his lungs and throat with its metallic air.

A restless oblivion overtook him, dragging his subconscious into the realm of hidden thoughts and feelings.

~~~~

Tyler knew he was dreaming; he was back in his old cell from his first stay at Willow Hill.

The chains binding his wrists forced him to look at a glass door set amongst the iron bars of his prison. Not a setup that mirrored his own, that would have held a pigtailed young woman who was too dangerous and unpredictable for the ordinary cells of the upper floors.

In this dream, Tyler was held alone. Everything seemed too perfect, too bright. The faint lines of grime that crept into the corners of Willow Hill’s real cells were nowhere to be found. His manacles were shining, not dull, and didn’t chafe his wrists like they normally would.

But the main difference — the first thing he noticed — was the smell. No blood, no clinical products pasted over it to mask the scent of suffering. The air smelled warm; like old, curling parchment paper, and fresh rain on a carpeted pine forest floor.

It smelled like Wednesday.

As though the realisation conjured her presence, she appeared at the entryway. Silent, staring.

Smirking.

She was dressed in her signature black; an elegant, plain turtleneck that hugged her curves, and loose, flowing trousers hemmed in pure white.

Nothing like the greyish white garments they had her in at the real Willow Hill.

A tiny thump resounded every time she took a step closer. So quiet — if it were for his Hyde hearing, it would have gone unnoticed. Her feet formed a steady path down the centre of the pristine room. Right towards Tyler.

He realised he could move his arms. The chains hung loosely from his wrists, a metallic weight that swung with every movement.

Wednesday didn’t stop walking — her eyes locked on his, she stalked closer and closer until she had to tilt her chin upwards to hold his gaze.

His thoughts were scattered. It’s just a dream, it’s not real, Tyler tried to remind himself, his heart audibly thumping inside his chest.

Her gaze was unreadable. Her lips were parted slightly, their faces so close that their soft exhales mingled. A faint spark glittered in her eyes as they dropped, instead taking in the shape of his face, his nose, his mouth.

Tyler shut his own eyes a split second before her lips touched his. They felt soft, warm, desirable. Just like they had before.

He kissed her back, gently, his hand moving to her waist. Wednesday shuffled closer, brushing her torso off his. She deepened the kiss, sending a flood of warmth to his stomach.

Every inch of contact was electricity to his nerves. There were no coherent thoughts in Tyler’s mind; only the ecstasy that came with the soft pressures of her lips and tongue, and the growing hunger for more.

His other hand went to her jaw, their movements becoming more sure, more forceful. An animal desire had awakened within him, and nothing in him wanted it to go back to sleep.

Wednesday pushed herself closer, trapping him between her and the wall. Her hips ground his against the tile, each minute movement stoking the flames. He could feel her ribs rising and falling with quickened breaths, and the soft swell of her breasts pressing against his skin.

He wanted to rip that irksome fabric off her, feel the warmth of their bare bodies touching. His hand slid up the back of her top, tracing the bump of each vertebra under her soft skin.

All the while her mouth still drove his crazy. If she’d never kissed anyone before him, then how was she so damn good at it? Their lips brushes lightly as he pulled away, moving his to the warmth of her neck.

Her pulse fluttered under his lips. They worked gently, softly, before giving way to the more desperate side of his attraction. Each flick of his tongue, nip of his teeth, pulled a satisfying “oh” from her throat.

His eyes were shut; all senses consuming Wednesday, her smell, her taste, her quiet moans. She pushed her pelvis forward hard, again and again, the pressure building on his already rigid member.

Once again, he wished they could do away with frivolities like clothes and enjoy each other to the fullest. Each second that passed made him want her more, closer, as close as she could be. It felt like the easiest thing in the world.

Without warning, Tyler felt her presence disappear. His head lurched forwards slightly, trying to follow where she’d gone. He opened his eyes into the cold space Wednesday had just occupied.

She was standing only two steps back, spine straight, perfectly composed. Not a hair was out of place — unnaturally so, given the intimacy they had just shared she should look a little less put together. Tyler tried to close the gap, and found his chains had tightened, binding his hands close to the wall.

Standing stock-still, her eyes followed his movement with amusement. There was a knowing edge to her look, as though she could feel the two beasts that rose in him when she was around.

The Hyde, of course. And this other one, new yet familiar, like it had been waiting in a dark corner for Tyler to cast a light upon it for a very long time.

Wednesday spoke unexpectedly, startling him.

“Is this what you want?” Her voice was mellow and low, spoken with an uncharacteristic hush. Her words carried a weight, flung directly at Tyler’s heart.

Before he could even think to reply, she vanished. One blink and he was alone again, bound up in this old cell.

~~~~

Tyler woke suddenly, snapped out of his reverie. The scent of blood overwhelmed him, filling his lungs with its thick air.

His heart pounded fiercely in his chest, blankets tangled around his legs. He risked a glance past the foot of his bed.

Wednesday was asleep under the dim fluorescence. In their mirrored cell. Here, in reality. Warmth flooded Tyler’s face as he took in her sleeping form, curled up only a few metres away.

He steadied himself, taking a few deep breaths to ease his train of thought. It was only a dream, after all. It meant nothing.

Never before had he failed so thoroughly to convince himself of something as he drifted back into his hazy subconscious.