Archive of Our Own ^beta

Why had Enid insisted on getting involved in another one of Wednesday’s criminal schemes, she didn’t know. 

Or rather, she did know—but to admit it outright would mean sacrificing what little shred of dignity she still had. What was left of it was already fraying at the seams, considering Wednesday had shoved her on ‘lookout duty’ which turned out in her⁠ babysitting Agnes behind⁠ a prickly bush while Wednesday was off doing God knows what inside a psychiatric hospital, of all places.

Enid knew that in some twisted way, Wednesday was kind of among her people in that place, but ⁠still, she didn’t want her there. Something about it felt off. Maybe it was her werewolf senses bristling, but she could feel it in her bones that something was about to go terribly wrong. And almost as if she’d called it, something did happen. ⁠Every single light in and around the hospital suddenly went out, plunging everything into the darkness of the night.

“What the hell happened?” Agnes asked.

“Wednesday happened,” Enid muttered under her breath. Without wasting another second, she pulled out her phone, fingers moving automatically as she dialed the sheriff’s number with a 67 prefix to mask her own.

When the sheriff picked up, to avoid being recognized, Enid forced her voice into a low rasp. And while straining her vocal cords into what sounded like a poor Batman impression, she reported something going down at Willow Hill, as well as requesting someone to be sent there to check it out. The woman on the phone pressed her for details, and that’s when Enid froze, slamming the call off. As the screen of her phone went dark in her hand, she began worrying about the whole thing coming off as nothing more than a bored kid’s prank call, dismissed before anyone bothered to act.

And Agnes, as it was to be expected, wasn’t helping.

“If you were trying to sound like a guy who’s been chain-smoking ten packs a day for the last decade,” she said, “then congratulations—you nailed it.”

Enid shot her a glare, her lips twisting. “As if you could’ve done any better.”

“I could have. And all it would've taken was a voice distortion app,” Agnes replied smugly. “I use it for all my anonymous phone calls. I'm not a rookie.”

Enid let out a snort, smacking her palm to her forehead in mock revelation. “Oh, you're right—how could I forget? I’m dealing with a professional stalker over here.”

The sniping might have spiraled into something more, but it didn’t get the chance. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder until red-and-blue lights cut across the night. Patrol cars rolled past the gates, the guards swinging them open without hesitation—and without closing them again.

Enid expected Wednesday to use that distraction and slip out of there any minute now. She could already picture Wednesday scolding her for panicking and calling the cops over nothing—insisting she’d had everything under control. But Enid wouldn’t even bother rolling her eyes at her; she’d just be glad to see her and ⁠know she was alright. 

But Wednesday didn’t show.

And while Enid was trying to come up with a reason for that something shattered from the second floor of the facility, a window. The sound came without warning, sharp enough to make both Enid and Agnes flinch, their heads snapping toward it. Enid had never imagined glass could break so loudly—it was as if, for a few seconds, every other noise in the night had fallen silent, just to let this one take front stage. And in the silence that followed it, everyone’s eyes were drawn to the same spot, and from that window something was hurled out of the building.

It happened fast, and Enid was too far away to rationally make out what the shadow slicing through the air was. But irrationally, the same sense that earlier had warned her of trouble closing in was now screaming at her that, deep down, ⁠she knew what it was. Who it was.

Her brain barely had time to reach that conclusion that, out of that same window, something else jumped out not long after. It landed heavily somewhere on the ground, mostly hidden from her vantage point, but Enid didn’t need a clear view. The hunched posture and the too-long limbs were far too recognizable for Enid to have any doubts.

In a rare display of genuine surprise, Agnes’s jaw went slack. As she propped herself up, rising out of their hideout to peer over the bushes, her eyes went wide. ⁠⁠“Is that the Hyde Wednesday took down last year?” 

Enid was about to tell her that she’d been the one who took that thing down last year, but between the suspicion that Agnes already knew but decided to ignore it and the monster currently charging⁠ toward Willow Hill’s entrance, toward them, Enid’s priorities on what to do shifted. ⁠And though she was sorely tempted to leave Agnes right where she was—maybe even use her as a sacrificial lamb and toss her at the Hyde herself—Enid’s hand shot out instead.

“Get down, you idiot!” ⁠she hissed, clutching Agnes’s sleeve and yanking her back behind the bush, the only flimsy barrier separating them from certain death if the Hyde spotted them. "Or you'll get both of us killed!"

To Enid’s surprise, Agnes didn’t resist her attempt to preserve her insufferable existence and they both found themself flat on their stomach, heads bowed. Only when the ground began trembling under the Hyde’s rickety strides did Enid dare risk a glance through the leaves. He was close when he stopped just outside the open gates—⁠mere feet away from her and Agnes. Enid could hear his grunting, but it was when she caught sight of his face that her stomach lurched. Those same bulgy eyes ⁠she’d tried scratching out of his sockets last year were now sweeping over her hiding place. And for one awful moment, it looked like he was staring right at her.

Enid wished she could say that just because she’d handled him once and survived that meant she wasn’t scared of him anymore, but that’d be a lie. ⁠The truth was, even after months had passed, nightmares⁠ about it hadn’t stopped making her toss and turn in bed most nights.

What would’ve happened if that night sheriff Galpin hadn’t been there to shoot his son and cut the fight short? ⁠Was that the only reason she hadn’t lost, or would she have won regardless of that? And if she hadn’t won, what would have happened to Wednesday? To the school? To her? 

She didn’t have the answers to all those questions, and the ‘not knowing’ haunted her more than anything else.

The more she stared, the harder her heart slammed against her ribs, so hard it felt like it might tear through her chest and run off since she couldn’t. Afraid he could somehow hear it, Enid held her breath to slow it down and forced her head to the side to tear her gaze away from him. ⁠There, through the foliage, she found Agnes watching him too—though unlike Enid, she wasn’t weighed down by any fear and just brimmed with morbid curiosity.

Interrupting Agnes’ Hyde-watching was the crack of gunshots ripping through the night, sending the monster bolting down the road leading away from Willow Hill, claws gouging deep dents into the asphalt with every uneven leap. Within seconds, police cars roared after him,⁠ sirens blaring and guns pointed out of windows, firing. They never quite hit the target but at least they drove the monster away from them.

Enid let out a sigh of relief at that—relief that didn’t last long because she knew ⁠what she really had to worry about wasn’t the creature that had just left, rather something else—someone else⁠. Agnes seemed to have the same thought.

“You don’t think that first thing to fly out of that window was—” 

“Of course it was,” Enid cut her off, annoyed she had to keep stating the obvious. First, when the power cut out, now this. Maybe the redhead wasn’t nearly as clever as she liked to pretend⁠ and powered her brain exclusively to impress Wednesday or annoy her.

With a frustrated sigh, Enid pushed herself out of the bushes and sprinted through the gates right in front of her. The guardhouse stood deserted, ⁠no one there to stop her from following the sounds of shouts and crunching gravel under the hurried steps of too many shoes. Everything was muffled by the rain’s murmur, but it was easy to locate where it was coming from: the clearing in front of the medical facility.

With the power still out, left to fight back the night were the strobing ⁠red and blue flashing from the roof of the police cars that hadn’t left to chase the Hyde. Those that had stayed behind were all parked there; one in the front⁠ was so badly crushed it looked more like a flattened tin than a vehicle, but that one, too, along with the other, sealed off Enid’s view of the building’s main entrance.

And it wasn’t the only thing trying to keep her from seeing what was hidden there.

As Enid tried to get closer, a⁠ police officer walked toward her, arms extended to ward her off. ⁠“Miss, you need to stop right there. This is a medical scene now.”

Enid’s pace faltered, but only for a breath. Her eyes strained past him, her neck craning to scan behind his shoulder. The officer shifted with her, a living wall that blocked her line of sight no matter how she angled her head.

But then the white beams stretching from a car’s headlights guided her eyes toward the foot of the entrance’s stairs. There she ⁠caught⁠ a glimpse of ⁠a pair of boots lying on the ground as if someone had just forgotten them there—the platformed kind only someone who wanted to add a few inches to their height would use. 

Enid knew exactly someone like that, and with that realization, she ducked low and slipped under the officer’s outstretched arm before he could grab her. Ignoring⁠ his call for her to turn back, and without looking back, ⁠her steps began to quicken, ⁠splashing through puddles. She was almost half running by the time that⁠ ⁠the black and white stripes of a pant and a shiny black puffer vest entered her vision and completed the picture she’d already started painting in her head—⁠a horrible picture.

“Wednesday?!”

The last time Enid had seen her, she’d been climbing out of a car trunk, crouching low at his side to weasel her way past the hospital’s gates and security. ⁠Enid had watched the whole scene from her hideout. Wednesday’s every move had been full of the kind of confidence that made people believe she could walk through anything and come out untouched—to be fair, she always had that air about herself, whatever it was that she was doing. 

Enid knew there was no way Wednesday didn’t fake it sometimes, but tonight it had looked real enough. And still, now she was lying unconscious on the ground, rain pooling around, ⁠looking more fragile than she’d ever been, at least in front of Enid. Seeing her like this felt almost wrong, like she had to look away because that’s what Wednesday would have wanted her to do. But, of course, Enid couldn’t do that. 

“Oh my god—Thing, what the hell happened?!” Enid asked. 

Thing hovered over Wednesday’s shoulder, nudging at her like a child poking a broken toy, desperate to wake her. When he saw Enid he started tapping, frantic in a way she’d never seen before, and although she was good at reading his fingers, Enid didn’t get a single word. 

She could only assume it was Tyler's fault, so nothing knew. He was the one who’d pushed her, and that only made Enid wish no one had interrupted their fight back in the forest last year—that way, she would have finished what she’d started, putting him down once and for all, along with the chances he’d ever get close to Wednesday again.

But this was the right time to give space to the rage burning inside of her. Wednesday needed her. 

So Enid rounded her body and kneeled beside her, water soaking straight through her jeans as if they weren’t drenched enough. But Enid could hardly care about the wet clothes, the hair sticking to her skin, or the pieces of glass littering the cobblestone poking at her knees and legs. All her mind could focus on was Wednesday.

Blood streaked the left side of her face, trickling down from a cut across her skull, seeping through wet hair, trailing over her lids, weighing down on her lashes, and over her cheeks. ⁠Shards of glass were scattered on her too⁠—tangled in her hair, lodged against the hollow of her throat. ⁠Enid tried to pick them up, brush them away, as if they were ⁠more threatening to Wednesday’s life than⁠ the gash on her head. But Enid couldn’t bring herself to examine that too closely. The more it bled, the harder it was to look.

“Wednesday?” Her voice wavered. She smoothed the wet hair clinging to her friend’s temple, desperate for any sign. “Come on, just… open your eyes.”

The words cracked on her tongue, but she pushed them out anyway, clinging to the ridiculous hope that Wednesday would hear her. ⁠Something went back on tightening around her throat when Wednesday’s lashes did not move, not even the smallest of flutter. They just rested over her cheeks, keeping those two black holes that Wednesday had for eyes hidden from her.

What didn’t stay hidden was something else. ⁠The sound of footsteps⁠ splashed up in front of her. ⁠They were quick, light, and belonged to seemingly no one until they stopped before her, and Agnes materialized. 

“I’ll check her pulse,” the girl said, her hand already out toward Wednesday.

Enid’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing while her claws automatically slid free with a metallic whisper. She let her hand hover over Wednesday with the promise of springing into action and slashing anything or anyone that got too close. 

“You stay back!” Enid said. “The fan-girl facade might work on Wednesday but I still don’t trust you.”

Agnes halted mid-step. The rain slicked short bangs to her pale face as the red-and-blue strobe of the police lit half of her face, mouth now shut into a tight line. ⁠For a heartbeat, Agnes’s gaze flicked between Enid’s claws and Wednesday’s face, but ultimately, in the middle of her stepping back, she vanished once again.  

Although Enid hated the idea of taking anything Agnes said into consideration, her claws shrank back to just a set of colorful nails⁠, and she reached for the side of Wednesday’s neck, checking for a pulse. She pressed two fingers below her bloodied jawline and blamed it on her trembling fingers when she couldn’t pick up anything at first. Only after she forced them steady she began to feel faint beats pushing against her fingertips.

“It’s weak but it’s there,” Enid said to Thing, hesitantly withdrawing her hand from the only thing that reassured her that Wednesday was still alive⁠. “Thing, please tell me what to do?” 

“An ambulance must be here anytime now.” Thing tapped at her side. "Just stay with her."

Too scared to move her and risk making everything worse, Enid swallowed against the lump in her throat and simply took Wednesday’s limp, wet hand in hers. ⁠⁠Enid knew that the cold that seeped through her skin at the touch wasn’t a good sign; she could already feel her panic use that as an opening to take over her. So, she clung to the thought⁠ that being cold of constitution was just another one of Wednesday’s bizarre quirks⁠.

Nothing to worry about. 

Those four words kept repeating in Enid’s head, over and over again like a chant. But, as if knowing that, deep down, they were all just lies that she kept telling herself, the hold she had around Wednesday’s hand tightened. As though that could help her own warmth somehow bleed through and be enough to keep Wednesday from freezing. 

Then she lowered her voice so her words were just for the girl lying unconscious on the ground. ⁠“I’m here Wednesday, I promise. It’ll be fine.”

She was half-expecting Wednesday’s hatred for sappiness to be so strong it would be what dragged her back to consciousness just to tell ⁠her to quit with⁠ the sentimentality and stop being dramatic. But Wednesday didn’t stir. Even when the ambulance finally arrived, she stayed still.

The same officer whose orders to stay away Enid had ignored—who had hovered close to keep an eye on her the whole time⁠—stepped forward, waving over the paramedics, a man and a woman. “She’s over here!”

Enid knew this time she really had to stand aside and let Wednesday go but it was Thing that reminded her. His small tug at her pant leg guided her to her feet and out of the way just as the paramedics rushed in to take her place beside Wednesday.

Besides asking Enid about Wednesday’s name t⁠hey talked to each other about active bleeding, getting vitals, and stabilizing head and neck. Enid tried to follow what they were saying but it all turned into a rush of words she couldn’t hold down—everything slipped through. ⁠The only thought her brain was able to form at the sight of strangers crowding over Wednesday’s body ⁠was how much Wednesday would have hated this. She’d have probably shoved them away if she could have and Enid almost wanted to do it on her⁠ behalf, but she knew they were just trying to help. 

So she stayed put while they prayed Wednesday’s eyes open to check her pupils, when a cervical collar was secured around her neck, or when the wound on her head was packed and gauzed to control the bleeding. 

Witnessing Wednesday look so vulnerable was jarring, so close to an out-of-body experience that for a moment Enid forgot where she was and that what was happening wasn’t just a nightmare. 

Enid had never thought Wednesday could ever look this helpless. Even the night the Hyde had her trapped under his grip, even though she'd known she couldn’t have won, Wednesday still had⁠ tried to kick and fight back. At least, that night Enid had been able to help her, now she was forced to watch Wednesday lie on the ground⁠, eyes closed, not moving, and she couldn’t do anything about it. ⁠A sob broke from her lips, and only then did she realize she’d been crying for some time. Between her tears and the rain she could no longer tell where one ended and the other began—but she could feel that just like the rain, her tears showed no sign of stopping anytime soon, falling without end while hiding and mingling with each other.

“We need to move her for ECG monitoring,” the woman said, prompting the other paramedic to grab a backboard from the ambulance.

With that placed beside Wednesday, they carefully lifted her up on it to then move her onto a gurney. They wheeled her away toward the open ambulance bay and for the first time in what seemed like forever, Enid forced her legs to move and stumbled forward, trailing after Wednesday. Thing too skittered along the wet gravel, scrambling up one of the gurney’s legs to stay with Wednesday.

“Can I go with her?” Enid asked while the paramedics had their backs to her. 

They were busy hauling and securing the gurney inside the ambulance but one of them, the woman, glanced back at her long enough to acknowledge Enid. “Are you family?” 

“Yes…” Enid said. “I mean no, but she’s my best friend and—”

“Sorry, you can follow behind us with an officer. We have to go,” the woman said, stretching out from the inside of the ambulance to grab the doors that were shut on Enid’s face a second later. 

Through the glass panel, Enid could still get a glimpse of Wednesday, the paramedics working on her, and…a floating hand waving at her. Agnes’s hand.⁠ That brat had used her little party trick to sneak her way into the ambulance with Wednesday. Besides that hand mockingly saluting her, no other part of Agnes was visible but Enid didn’t need to see the rest of her to know she was aiming her ⁠trademarked creepy smirk right at her.

Then she flinched at the sudden scream of sirens and the⁠ ambulance peeled away. Enid was left behind to be swallowed into the night’s chaos. ⁠The world spun around her frozen figure in a blur of flashing lights and police officers sprinting in and out of the building, radios crackling with urgent calls for backup and more ambulances. No one spared her a second glance. No one—except…

“If you need a lift to the hospital I’ll escort you, young lady.” The voice came from Enid’s side. “Follow me.” 

The man it belonged to brushed past her with a quick pace, tipping his cap low so she couldn’t quite catch his face. But she noticed the police uniform he was wearing, the way it ⁠hung oddly on him, as if it was two sizes too small, and a weird gut feeling twisted something inside of her. Still, right now, she didn’t have the luxury of doubt. Wednesday came first. And someone was offering her a way to get to her so Enid followed.

He led her straight to a police cruiser. And once she slid into the passenger seat without any objection from the mysterious ‘police officer’, her suspicions started rising past the ignorable point.⁠ Suspicions that were confirmed to be justified the moment the man now sat behind the wheel, removed his hat, revealing a bald head belonging to none other than Wednesday’s uncle.

“Fester?” 

He let out a horror movie-worthy snicker before replying enthusiastically, ⁠“In the rotten flesh!”

She shouldn’t be too surprised to see him. Tonight’s plan was about breaking him out, after all, but she’d just assumed that since Wednesday had gotten flung out of a window that that meant her uncle’s evasion had failed—throwing the whole scheme out of a more metaphorical window too. 

“What?—Where did you get that uniform?”

He smirked, thumbing through a jangling ring of keys. “Suits me, doesn’t it?”

Enid didn’t fail to notice how he’d avoided her question, but once she whipped around, the answer was right under her nose, ⁠⁠sprawled across the backseats in the form of an unconscious cop, wearing nothing but underwear and an undershirt, wrists and ankles zip-tied together. Her jaw dropped open, then snapped shut again in disbelief. A whispered ‘what the hell’ was all she could manage at the sight before turning back.

“Ah, here it is!” ⁠Fester said, holding up the car key hanging from an eight-ball keychain before jamming it in the ignition. 

Enid took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s just—tail the ambulance. I don’t have time to freak out about the half-naked guy we’re kidnapping.”

Fester chuckled, his snicker dissolving into the screech of tires as he took hold of the shift lever and slammed on the gas pedal. The car jolted. Just…not in the right direction. ⁠

“Why is this thing built backward?” Fester pondered, without as much as a wince, when the car collided with a crunch into the bumper of another one before braking.

Enid’s hand was still gripping the seatbelt she’d been trying to put on when the maneuver made her jump in her seat. Even someone who’d missed their first driving lesson like her could tell what was wrong. Her dad had let her practice in a parking lot once, and although she’d almost driven off into oncoming traffic, at least she’d learned the basics. So she reached out and pushed⁠ the shift lever into drive.

“You put it into reverse.”

“Oh, thanks, kid. I’m a little rusty,” he said, as he stepped on the gas pedal. ⁠“⁠⁠Wednesday’s been my getaway driver since she was six. Never needed to figure out how to work these things.”

While he reminisced the car leapt again—⁠thankfully, forward this time.

The whiplash made the guy in the back roll off the seats and tumble onto the floor and Enid’s hands had to shoot forward to not become one with the dashboard. And while she could hear police officers barking at them to stop, luckily, Fester ⁠was already weaving through the gates, the chaos shrinking behind them as they tore down the road toward Jericho’s only hospital. Toward Wednesday.

For the entire ride Enid’s fingers stayed clenched around the door handle. ⁠Not just because Fester’s driving skills were borderline suicidal and she clung to whatever she could⁠ but because she couldn’t wait to be able to get out and get to Wednesday. ⁠Every second stretched like torture, and by the time the glowing red H sign came into view, her grip was so tight it hurt.

The car hadn’t even fully stopped—half on the road, half scraping against the sidewalk—before Enid shoved her door open and bolted.

She only turned back once, seeing Fester still in the car behind his rolled-down window. “You’re not coming?”

“I have to get Mortica and Gomez and take care of the situation back there…” Fester said, raising his non-existent eyebrows toward the man still half crumpled on the backseat floor. “…if you know what I mean.” 

Enid, in fact, did not know what he meant—and decided she was perfectly fine with that. So she just nodded, watching him speed away before she turned toward the hospital’s sliding doors. They parted with a faint hiss, and she slipped inside. Her damp hair dripped water onto the tiles as she hurried down the familiar hall.

She’d already been here a couple of times before: once during her freshman year at Nevermore, her first time away from home, for an appendicitis⁠ that she’d sworn had almost taken her out and a couple of times last year. When Eugene had fallen into a coma, she had come here to tie bee-shaped balloons to the foot of his bed, thinking they’d cheer him up once awake.

She’d never thought she’d be back here so soon, wet shoes squeaking as she walked to the reception desk to ask, out of all people, for Wednesday Addams.

A triage nurse sat behind the reception’s curved counter, glasses slipping slightly down her nose and flyaway hairs spilling from a low bun as her head lowered over a pile of forms stacked in front of her.

When Enid reached her, the woman seemed to flip a switch, shifting her focus from papers to ⁠Enid. Drenched clothes, makeup running and wild-eyed—Enid knew she must have looked like a mess because she felt like one, but the woman seemed to be used to seeing worse and didn’t flinch at the sight.

“Hi. Can I help you?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I’m looking for someone, my friend, she must have come through maybe like ten minutes ago? Her name’s Wednesday Addams. Is she all right?”

The nurse turned to the computer monitor on her right. Enid’s eyes darted to and fro between the nurse and the back of the computer, and the more she listened to the soft clack of keys and rolling of a mouse wheel, the more her⁠ hands gripped the desk’s edge. Her knuckles had become as white as the desk when the nurse finally spoke again.

“Yes, we have a Wednesday Addams. She’s been admitted to the emergency department. But⁠ at this stage we can’t disclose patients’ diagnosis or treatments unless it’s with immediate family.” 

“Oh, come on,” Enid said, losing her temper for a moment at being reminded for the second time that she couldn’t be considered Wednesday’s family. “How else am I supposed to know if she’s okay?”

The nurse’s gaze dropped pointedly toward the desk between them.⁠ “Miss…” 

Enid followed the look and realized—too late—that her claws were out. And not just out, but embedded in the wood of the desk.  

“Sorry…” she muttered, tugging her hands back to free herself. Only after a couple of pulls her nails finally gave in. But not without dragging through the surface and leaving behind deep scuffs⁠ revealing the dark wood underneath the desk’s coat of paint. 

“…about that.” Enid looked at the damage and swiftly joining her hands behind her back. 

The nurse looked back up at her, lips pressed thin, and pushed her glasses back up her nose. She didn’t look thrilled, but there was a flicker of sympathy there too. Clearing her throat, she said, “There’s a waiting area just down that hall, to the left. You can take a seat there.”

Enid’s shoulders sagged at the mention of a waiting area. She was used to those, but that didn’t mean she liked them—b⁠ack when she still couldn’t wolf out, she’d spent countless⁠ hours sitting in hospitals’ waiting areas while her mom dragged her across the country for more tests, more blood work, more specialists to figure out what was wrong with her. 

Of course, in the end, all of that had proved to be nothing but wasted time. Nothing had ever helped, and on top of that, she’d developed an aversion to being patient and sitting still.⁠ T⁠hat was why following the nurse’s instruction and just…wait made her want to scream. 

Still, she’d already vandalized that reception desk. No need to check off every stereotype about werewolves in a single night. With that in mind, she drew a steady breath and forced herself to relax.

Wherever Wednesday was, however she was, Thing was with her, and that gave her a bit of peace of mind—and knowing that eventually Thing would have come found her ⁠to tell her Wednesday was going to be fine was enough to calm her down. 

Not enough to sit still, tough.

She found a hallway with no ‘only staff members allowed’ sign and began pacing back and forth. Her footsteps echoed off sterile walls, along with the rattling of ⁠carts holding medical equipment pushed past her down the hall or the ringing of a phone floating in the air from the reception. That was until her own phone started ringing too.

Enid fished it out of her pocket to see Bruno’s name on the screen. She couldn’t bring herself to accept the call—she’d have to talk, and she really wasn’t in the mood for that. So she waited for him to hang up and decided to text him instead. In their chat, there were already two messages from him, from just minutes ago, asking⁠ where she was and if she was okay. Of course, Enid couldn’t do much if not reply with a shameless lie: a short and vague ‘all good’ followed by a string of thumbs up emojis, just to make it more convincing.

Before she could hit send,⁠ she noticed ⁠the tiniest smudge of red on her thumb’s pink nail hovering above the phone’s keyboard. She⁠ pocketed her phone to have a closer look and as she turned her hand around, she saw faint streaks of blood staining her palm.

That was the hand she’d used to hold Wednesday’s; ⁠she’d never been good with blood—still didn’t know how she’d kept it together earlier, but even now she couldn’t peel her eyes away from it. 

Enid was about to lose herself in the sight of Wednesday’s blood on her hand, her mind replaying the last few hours over and over in search of what she could’ve done differently and prevented all this from happening when Agnes appeared in front of her. One moment, she was invisible, which was the state Enid preferred her in; the next, ⁠she was there, hunting the hallway with her presence. ⁠At the suddenness of it all a whimper escaped Enid before she could choke it back, and Agnes’s grin widened at the sound, as if she had been waiting for it.

“Would you stop doing that?!” Enid snapped, catching herself as she took a step back.

“Relax, Rainbow Dash,” Agnes said. She then held out a white napkin, dangling it between them. “Just thought you might want one of these. ⁠You don’t strike me as someone who can truly appreciate the lost art of basking in blood.”

Enid’s eyes narrowed. Not just at the unexpected and suspiciously well-timed act of kindness, but at the comment that came along with it—that Wednesday-like cadence. ⁠It was freakish how that redhead sounded almost like her roommate. Just almost, though, no one could ever truly sound like Wednesday or have the same effect she had on Enid⁠. 

In fact, if Wednesday were the one saying something along those lines, Enid would’ve probably laughed or smiled at it. She found that even the most heinous of facts about torture or the ⁠black, borderline disturbing kind of humor ⁠sounded weirdly adorable when coming out of Wednesday’s mouth. 

Agnes, however, as much as she pretended it to be, wasn’t Wednesday. The only reaction her ominous remarks got out of Enid was the nauseated frown twisting her face.

“Thanks…?” Enid muttered as she pinched the white piece of cloth between her thumb and index and accepted it. And, although still not 100% sure it wasn’t doused in poison, she dabbed at the blood with it before looking up. ⁠⁠“Why did you even come here anyway?”

“For the same reason you are. I care about Wednesday,” Agnes said. “Maybe even more than you do.”

Enid scoffed before even registering Agnes’ words. It was her go-to reaction to everything that girl had to say, and it fit now more than ever. “There are few people who care about Wednesday more than I do, so—no. Try again.”

“Even so…” Agnes tilted her head, fixing her wide green eyes on Enid, the same way she did whenever she was about to say something constructed especially to provoke a reaction from her—the kind Agnes would want to observe carefully, probably savor it or store away for later amusement like any respectable psychopath would do, Enid supposed. 

“⁠Perhaps it’s time you considered that feeling one-sided. After all, when it came to this investigation, Wednesday chose to come to me—not you.”

The jab about her 'feeling' being one-sided stung more than Enid wanted to admit.⁠ Because she’d never cared about someone the way she did with Wednesday, and ⁠the fact that there was a high chance that feeling might never be returned gnawed at her—a vulnerability she hated to acknowledge.

Enid knew she’d set herself up for disappointment, really—she’d picked what was probably the most physically and emotionally avoidant girl to ever exist as ⁠the first person who meant more to her than almost anyone else.

That might have been her fault, but it was Agnes who had made her insecurity get worse—since the first moment she’d shown up and somehow slotted herself into Wednesday’s life. And even if Wednesday insisted it was more of a ‘servant-adjacent’ arrangement when Enid cornered her for answers, it still bugged her. ⁠Her roommate, of course, was oblivious—too consumed by whatever new murder investigation demanded her attention to recognize how painful it was not to know where you stood in someone else’s life. Agnes, though… Agnes must have seen it clearly or sensed it, somehow, which is why she was twisting the knife in that particular subject.

“I gave you something to think about, didn't I?” Agnes said, satisfied with the silence dragging on between them. 

Enid figured if there really was someone up there, they were sending her superhuman amounts of patience to deal with this situation⁠. Her fists clenched at her sides—tight enough to ache—but she resisted the urge to wrap them around Agnes’s neck and strangle the smugness out of her right there.

Instead, she smothered her instincts and forced herself to see Agnes for what she was: a child who liked to toy with people’s feelings, playing the part of a master manipulator while still naive enough to believe that indulging Wednesday’s every whim counted as friendship. ⁠Being a stranger to how human relationships functioned in a civilized society was probably the only aspect about her personality she didn’t have to force having in common with Wednesday. 

And Agnes wore that social ineptitude like a badge. That’s how Enid had needed less than a minute into their ‘conversation’ to recognize that the only reason the girl had started talking to her was to get a rise out of her. Unfortunately for Agnes, Enid’s priority right now was Wednesday, not petty fights, so she decided to brush off Agnes and her antics.

“Look, why don’t you leave me alone and head to the nursery to scare some newborn babies?” Enid said. “You strike me as someone who’d enjoy their tears.”

Agnes’s grin stretched, sharklike, her braids swaying as she shook her head. “Scaring infants isn’t my style. But pushing chirpy hairballs into nervous breakdowns…” She smirked. “That’s more my area of expertise.”

Enid rolled her eyes and walked past the girl, toward a trash bin wedged beside two vending machines. Partly to put distance between herself and Wednesday’s cheap knockoff, partly to toss the crumpled napkin she’d been crushing in her fist more and more as Agnes talked to her.

“I’m not picking a fight with a twelve-year-old,” Enid muttered, bumping her shoulder with Agnes’ as she brushed by.

“I’m thirteen, actually.” 

“Ah, well, that certainly changes everything,” Enid replied dryly, not bothering to look back.

She thought that would be the end of it. But of course, Agnes’ singsong voice chased her down the hallway. “I’m ready to bet you won’t care about my age when I tell you I snuck into the emergency unit and overheard what’s going on with Wednesday.” 

Enid’s shoes squeaked against the floor as she stopped mid-step in her tracks.

“I was going to share what I know with you,” Agnes continued, voice even more charged with that fake syrupy sweet tone now that she managed to get Enid’s attention, “but you don’t seem nearly as…collaborative as I am.”

Enid didn’t even consider walking away. She needed to know about Wednesday, even if that information came from someone who had ‘crazy stalker’ and ‘attempted murderer’ in her resume. 

Drawing a steadying breath, Enid turned back around. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest when she faced Agnes, who just stood there, head tilted slightly. She idly twirled one of her braids between her fingers, and with a fixed smile, she let the silence stretch, probably enjoying the control she had on the situation. She ⁠continued to act as the poster child for every psychopath that had ever walked the earth and Enid could see why she was obsessed with Wednesday.

“Well?” Enid prodded.

Agnes tilted her head farther, feigning innocence. “What’s the magic word?”

Unlike the little incident at the reception, this time Enid’s claws came out on purpose—with a very specific purpose. Extended over the fabric of her shirt’s sleeve, she felt the pointy tips of her nails curling around her crossed arm, enough for Agnes to catch a glimpse of glossy, painted nails and get a sense of what Enid intended to do with them. 

Agnes’ gaze flickered down and back up. Her grin softened into something darker. “So susceptible…” she murmured, stepping forward. Then, with an almost theatrical sigh: “Fine. Last time I saw Wednesday, she was busy being under the knife.”

“The doctors mentioned something about a depressed skull fracture,” Agnes went on, starting to walk slowly around Enid, who, as the mention of Wednesday being under surgery, wasn’t able to move a single muscle. 

It wasn’t something that should have surprised her—Enid had watched Wednesday go down, seen the blood matting her hair, the way she hadn’t woken up. She’d known it…that wound on her head had looked bad. Yet hearing it confirmed made ⁠all her fears turn real. 

She imagined Wednesday lying in an operating room, sterile white lights, masked faces, and scalpels all looming above her. ⁠⁠At the thought of something going wrong, the ground under Enid’s feet felt on the brink of giving in.

Her heart clenched thinking that only two days ago she’d admitted to not being able to⁠ imagine her life without Wednesday in it. A confession voiced with the kind of sadness that⁠ stemmed from the same wound Agnes had tried to rip open earlier—from the fear of that feeling not being reciprocated⁠—but⁠ still Enid had meant every word. 

And now? The universe was forcing her to stand in front of that very possibility: a life without Wednesday. Enid couldn’t bear to think about it without her stomach turning and having to throw up in the nearest bin. ⁠It was safe to say she felt physically sick, but the⁠ last thing she wanted was for that Agnes, who was circling her like a vulture, to see her break, so she tilted her chin up, just enough to look like she wasn’t crumbling.

“That,” Agnes continued, “means a piece of her skull is pushing inward against her brain. On the left temporal region, they said.”

She then tapped her own head with a finger, just above her ear, the movement visible from Enid’s peripheral vision as she passed behind her shoulder. “…about right here, in case you didn’t know where that is.”

Only someone like Agnes could think this was a good time to come out as a know-it-all and add herself one more annoying trait to an already kilometer-long list of them. Enid didn’t need the translation to know how dangerous that sounded, and hearing it explained in that smug, dripping tone only made her pulse spike.

“By the look of it, she’ll have to sport more than a couple of stitches on her head. Sounded pretty serious.” Agnes’s voice slid back into view as she came around in front of her again, ⁠her mouth curving in satisfaction, like she’d been savoring the effect that every word had on Enid.

“Wow, Sherlock,” Enid said flatly, masking the gnawing dread curling through her. “I’d have never figured that out without your invaluable input.”

“Are all werewolves this rude, or is it just you?” Agnes’ brows lifted, mock-offended, humming when she didn’t get an answer. “No wonder Wednesday keeps secrets from you.”

This time, Enid was actually about to walk away, but once again, Agnes’ words stopped her from doing so. 

“Secrets?” Enid’s voice sharpened. “What secrets?”

“Whoops. A slip of the tongue.” ⁠Agnes’ eyes widened a fraction, but the way her mouth curved into a smile told Enid that slip wasn’t just an accident but, on the contrary, another one of Agnes’ clearly intentional attempts at nudging at Enid’s weak spots. And the possibility that Wednesday preferred to confide in her crazed stalker instead of her—her best friend? That was definitely the weakest one.

Enid locked her eyes with Agnes’ smug ones. “The next things that are going to slip are my claws if you don’t start talking.” 

Agnes shrugged, giving Enid her back as she started to walk away. “I’m afraid my lips are sealed.” 

For once, and Enid didn’t believe it possible, she wasn’t glad about that. 

The thing about Wednesday was—she had always kept secrets. Maybe whatever Wednesday was keeping from her now was just the latest addition to the endless pile of unspoken things between them. Or maybe it⁠ was what would have explained why Wednesday had started to put so much distance between them, the answer that would put an end to Enid racking her brain to pinpoint when and why the whole avoiding act had started.

Enid had already considered the crazy redhead standing in front of her to be the source of that, with her copycat mannerisms and those big eyes staring into Enid’s soul in search of every viable way to get under her skin—from the day she’d shown up and glued herself on Wednesday’s side, things had gone astray. So naturally, Agnes had been Enid’s first suspect when contemplating the possibility of someone working behind the scenes to wedge herself into Wednesday’s life and shove Enid out. 

But Enid, despite her jealousy telling her otherwise, had ruled it out pretty early on. She hated to think that Satan’s spawn could have that much power over her and Wednesday’s friendship, to the point of separating them. Enid knew there must have been something else, and maybe that something else was the secrets Agnes taunted her with. 

Too many maybes. But Enid knew one thing: whatever game Agnes was playing, she needed the truth, so she followed her, quickening her steps to match Agnes’.

“Also, your threats work as well as wet matches do, so if I were you, I’d stick to the passive-aggressive approach,⁠” Agnes said, barely looking behind her shoulder. ⁠“Or even better, take a vow of silence.”

“You little…” 

Abandoning her resolution not to stoop to the level of fighting a literal child, Enid lengthened her stride, reaching out to take hold of the girl—only for Agnes to gracefully spin around, mouth a silent ‘see you’ and flash one last smile before vanishing the same way she’d appeared. 

They had reached the waiting area when Enid’s hand closed around nothing but air. She must have looked crazy because a few people turned their heads. She shot their way a tight smile before stalking to a chair, two seats away from a woman holding a sleeping child⁠. Adrenaline was starting to wear off, and all that pacing and dealing with that demon child was catching up to her, so Enid plopped down one of the hard plastic chairs, elbows on her knees, and face in her hands. 

The darkness behind her palms was oddly comforting. 

Pitch black was probably what Wednesday was seeing right now too—Enid tried to tell herself that Wednesday was probably loving it. The thought drew a brief half smile out of her but it was gone almost as soon as it was there. All she really wanted to do was to keep her eyes closed and open them only when she was sure Wednesday could do the same. Surely, that was a sane way to cope with all this, right?

But, of course, she couldn’t even pretend for too long that the answer was yes. In fact, she was forced back to reality sooner than she would’ve liked.

Footsteps approached. A throat cleared. For a heartbeat, she thought that brat had come back to see how far she could push her buttons before Enid snapped. But the steps were too heavy and the voice too deep⁠ to belong to a certain annoying teenage girl. So instead of ignoring it, like she wanted to do with everything at the moment, her hands slid away from her face.

She blinked against the hospital’s lights, which were even more blinding now that her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and saw two figures standing in front of her: a woman, whom Enid recognized as ⁠sheriff Santiago, and a man next to her.

“Miss Sinclair?” the woman said.

Slightly intimidated by the sudden appearance of two members of the police force looking down on her, Enid cleared her throat before managing to say, “Um, yes? That’s me.” 

She’d never been in a situation that required her to deal with police, but Enid knew if Wednesday were here, she wouldn’t flinch at badges, uniforms, and authoritative tones. ⁠She’d manage to make those two feel like she was the one in charge with her stare alone—the one she probably must’ve been perfecting from the first moment she opened her eyes and made people’s skin crawl.

Enid knew she couldn’t inspire that level of fear, but she straightened her back anyway, trying to look less like a deer caught in headlights as the sheriff held out the golden badge pinned to her uniform.

“I’m sheriff Santiago,” the woman said, and then pointed at the colleague next to her. “This is my deputy, Ryken.”

“We have a few questions regarding the events that took place at Willow Hill tonight⁠, particularly on the reason you and Miss Addams were present on the scene,” the sheriff said. “Would you mind coming down with us to the station?”

“Now?” Enid asked, blinking at them in confusion. The two people in front of her looked at her, puzzled, as if they didn’t understand the question and why she’d ask that. As if it wasn’t obvious that Enid wasn’t going anywhere while Wednesday was still there alone. It was so obvious to Enid that she didn’t even try to explain it and just said, “I can’t leave now.”

The man next to the sheriff looked her up and down like she’d just confessed to hiding something, or she was about to flee and he was ready to tackle her. He took a step closer, suspicion etched into every movement, every crease of his face.

“You can’t?” he said slowly, narrowing her eyes at her. “Or you don’t want to leave?”

“What? I mean—“ Enid stammered. “No, that’s not what—” 

“Don’t say another word, dear.” A woman’s voice chimed in from behind the sheriff, and when both she and Ryken turned around, Morticia and Gomez appeared.

Gomez spread his arms towards the sheriff, as if greeting an old friend, but the woman didn’t seem to be as chummy. Quite the contrary, her expression soured the second she saw him, and her shoulders visibly deflated. 

“Mr. Addams,” the woman said, approaching Wednesday’s parents with a faint sigh. “Let me guess—you’re this girl’s lawyer as well?”

“Extraordinary deduction skills, my friend,” Gomez said easily. “And just like I said for my daughter, you’ll need a court order if you wish to speak to my client.”

Santiago shook her head, muttering under her breath, then nodded at Ryken. And although he didn’t seem too keen on doing so, he followed her order, and together, they turned and left, leaving Enid with someone else to talk to who wasn’t Wednesday’s wannabe or police officers sizing her up like a criminal.

“Mr. and Mrs. Addams!” Enid sprang from her seat, urgency propelling her forward. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened. Wednesday is under surgery right now…something about a fracture on her skull…I’m not sure—”

“I think she was trying to follow a lead for whatever case she’s trying to solve these days, and I didn’t stop her⁠—then something went wrong,” Enid’s words tumbled out. “It’s all my fault. I should’ve—”

“Enid, dear, breathe,” Morticia said, placing her hands on Enid’s shoulders.

Enid met her gaze, a gentle but steady encouragement to just inhale and exhale. “You saved my daughter’s life once but that doesn’t make it your responsibility to keep her safe from her decisions.”

“Wednesday’s innate stubbornness prevents her from listening to anyone, even me,” Morticia said. With a sad smile she looked pensively somewhere behind Enid as if that remainder was also for herself. “I assure you there’s nothing you could have done to prevent this.”

“Now, why don’t you sit down?” she continued, easing Enid back into her chair. “Leave it to us to see what Wednesday’s gotten herself into this time.”

Enid nodded, giving her a small smile, before sinking back into her seat, watching as Wednesday’s parents moved toward a doctor calling out their last name.⁠ Her voice was hushed, but Enid’s ears had no problem picking up one word in particular, one that would make all others fade in the back of her mind. 

Coma. 

And at that word, at what it meant, the nausea she’d fought earlier in front of Agnes made its way back to her.

The smile she’d put on for Morticia was already gone. She couldn’t help but think about what the woman had told her, that no one could reason with Wednesday. ⁠Being the exception to that rule seemed impossible, but Enid still wanted to be just that and not because she wanted to feel special, but because that’s what she thought Wednesday needed.

She needed someone as stubborn as she was in their attempt to⁠ stop her before she spiraled too deep, and she pushed herself past the point of no return⁠. Enid had tried to be that person—until tonight. Until she’d slipped, joining in with Wednesday’s reckless plan out of sheer desperation to feel needed again. So eager to show Wednesday she could still tag along and help with whatever mess she was trying to be caught up in that Enid had forgotten her roommate wasn’t invincible—forgotten that, even though it wasn’t her job like Morticia had told her, she still wanted to look out for Wednesday, especially when she got so wrapped up in her obsessions she acted like an early grave was just another inconvenience.

But this was the last time Enid was going to let Wednesday gamble with her life—no matter what case, no matter what mystery she was trying to solve. ⁠She was done standing aside. The only place she was going to stand from now on was beside Wednesday, ⁠whatever danger was coming her way. Because, of course, there would be, Wednesday was a pigtail-shaped magnet for it. ⁠And when the moment came to pull her away from it, Enid would be ready for that too.

Their friendship might’ve been complicated, but of this she was certain, and ⁠Enid was going to make sure they were on the same page about that once Wednesday was awake—because Wednesday was going to wake up.

Enid refused to believe otherwise.