Chapter Text
The world was a screaming, wind-torn blur. Uncle Fester’s motorcycle, a contraption that seemed held together by rust and sheer audacity, ate up the road beneath them, its engine a constant, guttural roar. Wednesday sat rigidly behind him, one hand clamped on the sidecar’s edge, the other pressing Goody Addams’s journal against her ribs like a shield.
The task was monumental, the stakes apocalyptic. But as the cold air whipped at her face, stinging the cuts and bruises that mapped the horrors of the last few days, Wednesday’s mind was not on the cryptic pages of her ancestor’s writings. It was on Enid.
With a resolve that felt like self-flagellation, she forced herself to replay the moment. The suffocating pressure of dirt and roots entangling her limbs. Her breaths became shorter, until she had accepted her fate and closed her eyes, believing they would never open again. A bright light warmed her eyelids, there was no longer the crushing weight on her chest. Her eyes bolted open as she sat up. Wednesday locked eyes with the werewolf with the full moon glowing her wolf.
“It was the only way to save you.” Agnes explained.
Enid’s eyes were soft, inspecting Wednesday up to down to ensure the girl was okay. In a blur of pink and fur, the wolf took off deep into the woods. She had sacrificed everything. Her future with a pack that she had worked so desperately to create, her humanity, her safety, —all of it, incinerated in the ferocious act of saving Wednesday’s life. For the second time.
A cold, sharp shard of guilt lodged itself deeper into Wednesday’s sternum. She wolfed out to save you. Again. And what did Wednesday give in return? Multiple near-fatal encounters. Her attempts at protection had been clumsy, arrogant, and had nearly gotten Enid killed. She was a calamity. A poison.
“I have no problem hunting you down.”
The promise she had whispered through the bars of the Lupin cages echoed in her mind, a vow made in the stark fluorescent light of the infirmary. It was not a threat. It was a covenant. Wednesday Addams always followed through on her promises.
Her body protested the thought. A deep, bone-weary ache had settled into her limbs, a symphony of pain conducted by every blow she’d sustained. A soreness lingered in her lungs, a phantom memory of dirt and confinement. The dark bruised hand prints across her neck was a reminder of her mother’s near early demise. She had hardly slept, running on a fuel of black coffee and sheer, obstinate will.
The rhythmic thrum of the motorcycle, the relentless rush of wind, became a lullaby she was too exhausted to fight. Her head, heavy with guilt and fear, lolled against the sidecar’s cold leather. The world faded, not into peace, but into a restless, feverish dreamscape.
She was running through a dark forest, the scent of rain and pine thick in the air. She could hear Enid’s howl, but it was laced with pain, with fear. She pushed harder, branches tearing at her clothes. The howl turned into a whimper. Then a snarl. Wednesday broke into a clearing and there she was—Enid, but not Enid. Her eyes were feral, glowing with a yellow light that held no recognition. Blood dripped from her claws. She lunged—
Wednesday jerked awake, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. The dream clung to her, cold and suffocating. The worst-case scenarios, the fears she kept locked in the deepest recesses of her mind, had been given free reign in her sleep.
Was Enid safe? Was she even Enid anymore? Had the wolf, once unleashed fully, consumed the girl who loved glitter and pop stars and terrible texting grammar? The thought was a void, a nothingness more terrifying than any monster or killer she had ever faced.
And the resentment… Did Enid hate her? The logic was inescapable. If Wednesday had been smarter, faster, less arrogantly self-reliant, Enid would never have been forced to make that choice. She would be safe in her dorm, complaining about a history assignment, not alone and buried under the skull tree. The fault was Wednesday’s. It was a stain she could not erase.
A novel, terrifying emotion seized her: a fear of being hated. But Wednesday, in the stark honesty she only ever applied to herself, dissected it. She could live with Enid’s hatred. It would be a deserved and constant penance. What she could not live with was the not-knowing. The void. The silence.
The very least she could do—the only thing left she could do—was find her. She would find her, and ensure she was alive and safe. Even if Enid never wanted to see her again.
She tightened her grip on the journal. The hunt was on.
~~~
The world was a smear of green and grey. Enid Sinclair was running, her powerful new limbs carrying her faster than she had ever thought possible. It was less a conscious decision and more a primal imperative: run.
The moment the adrenaline of the fight had bled away, the moment she saw Wednesday was truly okay, a different, more familiar terror had taken hold. The fear of the outlier. The lone wolf. She was an alpha now, a threat, a prize to be challenged or captured. The pack she had always longed for would now see her only as prey.
So she ran. She ran until her muscles screamed and her lungs burned. She ran until the grounds of Nevermore were far behind her and the world became an anonymous tapestry of forests and hills.
Exhaustion, deeper than any she had ever known, finally forced her to slow. A cold, drizzling rain began to fall, slicking her fur and matting it down. The discomfort was almost a relief—a feeling that was purely physical, not this churning, panicked emptiness in her chest.
She padded slowly through the downpour, her senses hyper-aware. The scent of damp earth, of decaying leaves, of… marble. She lifted her head. A small, neglected cemetery lay nestled between the trees, its markers weathered and crooked.
A place Wednesday would love.
The thought was a fresh ache. She moved among the graves, the cool, rough texture of the stone beneath her paws a strange comfort. It was solid. Unchanging. It reminded her of Wednesday’s hand, cool and steady in hers during the Poe Cup. Of the unflinching, certain ways Wednesday existed in the world.
She finally curled up beside a large, mossy headstone, drawing what small comfort she could from its steadfast presence. It was the closest thing to a hug she could get. She rested her head on her paws, but sleep was a shallow, fearful thing. Every rustle of a leaf, every snap of a twig, jolted her back to alertness.
When a pale dawn light finally filtered through the trees, she awoke with a gnawing hunger that was all-consuming. It was a raw, animal need that pushed the more complex human emotions aside.
She rose and began to prowl, her new instincts guiding her. Movement in the distance. A young deer, grazing innocently.
Something in her mind snapped. The world narrowed to movement and scent. There was a flash of speed, a surge of power, a struggle—and then a silence.
Enid blinked, the feral haze receding. The coppery tang of blood filled her nostrils. She was standing over the deer’s body, her claws stained red, her maw wet. A sickening wave of remorse washed over her. She had done this. She had taken a life. This wasn’t fighting a monster to save a friend; this was primal, base survival.
She backed away, a low whine building in her throat. What was she becoming? What if the next time the blackness took over, it wasn’t a deer? What if it was a person? What if it was… Wednesday?
The thought was ice in her veins. Wednesday had promised to find her. A part of Enid, the lonely, scared girl, yearned for it with every fiber of her being. She wanted to be found. She wanted to hear a deadpan voice call her name.
But the wolf, the new, terrifying part of herself, recoiled. She was a danger. A bomb waiting to go off. To let Wednesday close was to risk everything. She had already sacrificed her place at Nevermore for her; she would not sacrifice her life.
Torn in two, with no safe path forward, Enid Sinclair did the only thing she could think to do. She turned from the grave that had offered a moment’s peace, and she started to run again.