Chapter Text
Paige Avery pushed up her sleeves, putting her hands on her hips to lean back slightly and peer into the back of the trunk. Her uncle…did not have much. Which, she knew, and had known for quite some time. Even with the huge boost in business over the past three years since the ACME case, it wasn’t until now that he’d made enough to finally get out of the motel. Even if he claimed to have chosen to live there, the financial aspect of the whole situation had been obvious. She’d offered to help multiple times before, though Kevin had vehemently refused, and pointed out that she herself was barely scraping by.
Things were just a little better now.
Kevin’s new apartment was small, and she, him, and Sal had moved most everything in a couple of trips. Dottie hadn’t been available to help. They could have called Wile E., but it was typically better to let him come to them. Interrupting him in the middle of a chase or scheme could be detrimental, as well as dangerous. Paige grabbed the last box out of the back of Kevin’s car. It was light, possibly the towels Kevin had snatched from the bathroom of the motel. She walked the box upstairs, kicking open the already cracked door with her foot. Kevin and Sal were having a hushed argument over pizza toppings, the phone pinned between Kevin’s ear and shoulder. Boxes were half-open and half-empty, scattered and abandoned. Paige added her singular box to the pile, taking a brief look around. Small, cheap, but a definite upgrade from a motel. The roommate he’d found online had yet to show up, and wouldn’t be there for about two weeks.
She easily slid into the pizza topping argument, deeply offended when Kevin overrode her and Sal’s input when they picked up the phone, shouting and trying to wrestle him for it as he made his blatantly incorrect order.
Things were just a little better now.
Things were rough. The past three years were empty, exceedingly dull, a little depressing, and painfully familiar.
Dot Warner was annoyed. The hot water in the tower was out, so her shower had been cold and there was no telling when it could be fixed, Yakko had developed a loud snore about two months after they’d been locked back up, and it was entirely possible that she’d be stuck inside again for another twenty two years, before an amazing three years of freedom, before another twenty two years of imprisonment. Another loud snore from her oldest brother had her huffing in frustration, punching her pillow and rolling over. Yakko snored again, and Dot grumbled, pushing herself up and shuffling down the ladder. She stopped briefly by Yakko’s bunk, considered covering his face with a pillow, and then thought better of it, instead walking to their kitchen.
Dot pulled a step stool up to the counter, grabbing a broom and hooking it into the handle of the cupboard to pull it open. She poked the coffee tin with the end of the broom handle, pushing it off the shelf and catching it before it could clatter loudly to the ground. Dot didn’t even like coffee, drowning it in milk and sugar to even tolerate it, but it had bothered Dr. Scratchnsniff when they drank it in the 90s and bothered Yakko when she and Wakko drank it now. Despite not having aged a day since the thirties, Yakko had gotten so old in the past couple of years.
Dot put on the coffee pot, being a little more precious with how much she used than she would have three years ago. There was really no telling when or even if they’d get anything new, with grocery dropoffs from Ralph becoming fewer and farther between. Sure, they could survive on very little, but the longer they could avoid surviving solely off hammerspace pies, the better. She clicked the TV on, keeping the volume low to avoid waking her brothers. She half-filled a mug with coffee, adding about the same amount of milk and a heaping pile of sugar, stirring it around. A man in a suit with a mustache was on the screen, leaning against a desk.
“Have you had one too many anvils dropped on your head?” Dot snorted a little into her coffee. Her head? No. The heads of others? All the time.
“Are you tired of seeing spinning birds all the time?” The man asked, and Dot rolled her eyes. A cartoon lawyer. How quaint. Maybe he could convince Senator Fudd to expand the voting rights of cartoons to child toons whose ages were chronologically over eighteen. She allowed herself another eye roll at herself from three years ago who’d campaigned for the cartoon right to vote, only to have it denied to her and her brothers specifically. Even if she had it, it wasn’t like she could go out and use it now.
A woman entered the frame, younger and smartly dressed. She gave a small smile to the camera “Are you a cartoon individual who's tired of feeling overlooked, overworked, and underappreciated? Does it seem like the world’s against you, or has forgotten about you entirely? You’re not alone,”
It cut to the two alongside two other lawyers, standing outside a small law office “Call Avery, Jones, Maltese, and Avery today!”
Dot took a sip of her half-coffee, half-milk, half-pound of sugar, and hummed. A small part of her flared to life at the idea, the indignant nine-going-on-ninety year old little girl who sang songs and smashed people over the head with hammers begging her to do something before too much time passed and she was just a husk, a thing that wasted away in a water tower behind a locked door. She tried to silence that, focusing on the warm mug in her hands over the fire in her belly. She had no way to reach them, no money to pay them, and possibly no case in the eyes of the law. It was a silly little idea from a silly little cartoon girl. She flipped to another channel, staring somewhat blankly at the wall above the TV and wishing there was a window there instead.
Paige came into work exhausted. She still arrived bright and early, even now that she wasn't an intern and had nothing to prove, and even after all three of her roommates had kept her up all night, with two of them arguing over something or other and one of them banging on her drum set until well into the night. Somehow, despite practicing for multiple hours every night after eleven PM, Margot had not improved at the drums at all.
She sat at her desk, reading through and drafting replies to emails. They were in the midst of Daffy’s case against ACME, and the details of what he’d experienced there were harrowing, to say the least. The evidence gathered by Bugs, return of Dr. Lorre, and arrests of Crane and Leghorn had made things much easier, and brought a lot more of the public to their side, but ACME was still the biggest conglomerate in the world, and the work they did was never going to be easy by any means. And that was just ACME; There were plenty of other corporations committing Toon exploitation that Paige felt could be taken down a peg. Some of those entertainment companies…
It wasn’t until nine AM that Kevin strolled his way through the door, taking a coffee from Gossamer and immediately spitting it out in the sink after taking a sip. It was better than the three PM that used to be the norm, and it had been steadily improving over the last three years, with him even making it in at eight more often than not.
“That’s cold,” He grumbled, dipping a donut into it anyway.
“Then don’t drink it,” Dottie offered, not looking up from her computer. Kevin shrugged, taking a bite anyway.
“Anything new for the Duck case?” He asked, and Paige hums, handing him a file.
“Nothing we don’t already know.” She said, and Kevin nodded.
“Shouldn’t be the hardest win. We’ve got video of what he went through and everything.” Kevin opened the door to his office, taking Paige’s now empty coffee mug and putting it in the sink with his mostly full one “I’ll review the board. Thanks, Paige.”
Paige smiled a little at the mention of the board. Despite being a full partner, with her name on the sign and some cases under her belt, she still felt amazed at proof that she mattered here. The board had been her idea three years ago during Wile E.’s case, and they still used it for nearly every other case they took. Not everything they did tied back into some larger conspiracy, with most of them actually just building on the case from three years before, but there were still surprises, and there was always red string on the supply list.
Paige got into the flow of working, completely zoned in on her laptop and her papers before the loud, sharp ring of a bell pulled her out of it. She frowned, confused as she saw the same kind of bell that would be at the front desk of a motel sitting at the corner of her own desk, before a large brown paw came down and rang it again. She looked up, and smiled, pushing back from her desk and running around it to hug him.
“Wile E.!” She exclaimed, releasing him. It had been a month since his last visit, the extreme summer heat making travel from the desert to Albuquerque more difficult than it used to be. He held up a sign with “Lunch?” written out on it, and Paige glanced at her laptop clock. It was pushing one o’clock in the afternoon already.
“Sure thing. Let me get my bag.” She said, and Wile E. smiled, before marching off and barging into Kevin’s office without knocking.
They went to Yosemite Sam’s, though Wile E. didn’t order anything. Allegedly he was on an all roadrunner diet, and refused to have anything else until he caught him. Paige wasn’t sure that was quite true, given how Wile E. was one, alive, though it was possible cartoon logic could keep him sustained infinitely, and two, constantly sneaking food off of her and Kevin’s plates when he thought they weren’t looking. Plus, his relationship with the Roadrunner was now at a point where on the off chance Wile E. did catch him, he might not even still eat him. Maybe he would. Maybe the Roadrunner couldn’t even be digested. Maybe…
Wile E. stole and ate an entire spoonful of pico de gallo off of her plate and while Paige didn’t say anything, pretending not to see, she took a bite of one of her tacos if only to dissuade him from eating her entire lunch. He looked away from her and whistled casually, animated music notes coming out of his mouth.
Kevin, who was sitting across, slid his own half-finished plate to Wile E., who waved his arms wildly in denial, before pointing behind Kevin in a “Look over there!” motion. Kevin raised his eyebrows slightly, and almost exaggeratedly contorted his body to look into the booth behind him. As he did, Wile E. grabbed the basket, tipping it into his mouth and swallowing it in one bite. He was still licking sour cream off his fingers when Kevin turned back around.
“Must have missed it.” He said, and Wile E. gave him two big thumbs up. Over the past three years, he’d lost a lot of his unimpressed attitude towards Kevin in particular, now only staring blankly at them like they were stupid on occasion instead of it being his constant expression.
Paige took the opportunity to tune out a little, instead focusing on the TV behind Kevin’s head. It was the usual news anchor, with shiny hair and a perfectly straight tie, blabbering on some celebrity drama. The image next to him faded, instead shifting to one of a cartoon child, a rubber hose-inspired girl in a pink skirt. Almost immediately the volume was turned up, and Paige glanced to the side to see Yosemite Sam watching intently, holding the remote.
“In other news, former cartoon child star Dot Warner has been reported missing by the Warner movie lot in Burbank, California. Warner, a ward of the studio, has not been seen since nine PM last night, and has not been off the lot in three years. Studio officials warn she may be a danger to herself and possibly others, and that all sightings should be reported to the number below. Warner Bros. states that she is not to be pursued by anyone outside the proper authorities.”
Dot Warner’s picture faded away, leading to a story about a dog being reunited with his owner after six months. Yosemite Sam muted the TV, grumbling. It did leave a bad taste in Paige’s mouth. She hadn’t been off the lot for three years?
“Studios can have wards?” She asked, her brow furrowed, and Yosemite Sam let out a low growl behind the counter.
“They can have cartoon wards.” He grumbled “Toon kids don’t age, so if there’s no one around to watch ‘em, it ain’t too hard for anyone who they worked for to get guardianship. Courts let it happen just to get ‘em outta the way. It’s easy for ‘em to just disappear.
“That’s…” Paige stopped. They’d hardly even scratched the surface “That’s awful.”
“Last I remember, them three have been under Warner Brothers since nineteen thirty-somethin’.” Yosemite Sam added “They were out and about a couple of years when they were working in the nineties, and I think again just a little while back. Didn’t last too long this last time, though.”
Paige looked around the table, with Kevin’s brow furrowed, as if he was thinking hard, and Wile E. just seeming…sad. The coyote made eye contact with her, letting out a heavy, world-weary sigh.
“So they’re, what, hunting down a nine year old?” Kevin finally said, peering behind him at the TV that had long since moved on.
“Guess so. It ain’t right. It also ain’t right she’s on her own…them three don’t do much apart.” Yosemite Sam shook his head, going back to refilling his pistols with hot sauce.
The rest of lunch was a more subdued affair, with Paige giving Wile E. the rest of her food and him eating it semi-normally, without even a hint of a shenanigan.
The news didn’t mention Dot Warner again.
A bus ride from Burbank to Albuquerque took approximately nineteen hours and thirty minutes, and cost something between one hundred and fifty and two hundred dollars. She didn’t have nearly that amount of time, and definitely not that amount of money, but she’d make do.
The past week between seeing that commercial and her present situation, crammed into the bottom luggage compartment on the bus and clinging to her suitcase perch as tightly as she could, had been fraught with an intense internal battle.
It started up again when Ralph delivered their groceries on Tuesday. It had been…a while, and supplies were running way low, especially with Wakko’s eating habits. He had cracked open the door, the bags balancing on the end of a long grabber stick, as if they were radioactive or vicious or something…which, Dot could admit to standing idly by when Wakko bit Ralph’s arm during his first drop-off after their renewed imprisonment.
Yakko had taken both bags, frowning.
“Is that all?” He asked, and the door opened a little more. Ralph almost looked…sorry?
“Norita’s cutting you off soon. Said ya could go without any of it again.” He wouldn’t meet Yakko’s eyes, and quickly pulled the door shut as if he’d jump at him. Yakko had just stared blankly at the door for a few seconds more, before spinning on his heel and marching off to the kitchen.
It always went like this. When they were out, and working, they could mostly go where they pleased, so long as they came back to the tower at night. It was something of an advertisement for whichever show they were doing at the time for them to be seen on the streets of Burbank. The studio released some amount of their paychecks to them, though most of it was stored in some inaccessible account for “safekeeping.” When they were locked in, the first couple of years the supplies they had grown used to having access to were delivered to the water tower, usually by Ralph. Yakko would ask Dot and Wakko what they needed, slowly trimming down a list to fit into whatever the budget the studio had given them, even though Dot was pretty sure the money for it came from their Animaniacs earnings. Over time, the supply visits would dwindle, being spread further apart with smaller and smaller budgets, before they disappeared entirely.
That was when they were on their own.
Cartoons could go longer than humans without eating, though it wasn’t comfortable at all. A starving toon who couldn’t die from it still felt like they were starving. They were lucky to have Wakko’s bag, which could produce animated forms of what they needed, but it generally wasn’t good for food. Everything that came out of it was completely tasteless prop food, and it had very little nutritional value. Dot often felt weak and lightheaded whenever they had to live off it, and Wakko’s blood sugar would always react poorly, with him having significantly more drops than he did on real food.
Three years ago, Norita had promised it wouldn’t happen to them again. Dot should have known better.
She followed her brother into the kitchen, where he was almost solemnly unpacking the bags. It was barely enough to last them another month. She pulled her little step stool to the kitchen counter so she could meet his eyes over it. It felt like Yakko had been hit even harder by the recent cancellation than he had before. In the twenty-two years between the nineties show and the reboot, he’d constantly talked about how they’d be back out soon, how they were sure to come back to them eventually after how successful they’d been. Even when it hit a decade of waiting, then two decades, he never stopped writing sketches and songs, never stopped making predictions about what the outside world would be like when, not if, but when they made it out again. When they were released in 2020 he’d just laughed, with a confident “Told ya so, sis!” and a tight squeeze around her shoulders.
This time, he lost hope six months in.
Wakko entered behind Dot, only just tall enough for his eyes to peer over the counter. He’d started refusing to use the stool like Dot after his redesign, claiming to be tall enough now. When he couldn’t really see what they’d gotten, he’d let out a slight huff, before climbing Yakko like a ladder and perching to look over his shoulder.
“That’s all?” He asked, a little tactlessly, looking at their meager supplies. Yakko let out a low sigh.
“Yes, Wakko, that’s all.” He said. Yakko opened up a small package of jerky, breaking a piece in half and handing it Wakko over his shoulder. “Try to eat it as slow as you can.”
Wakko looked aghast, but put the end of the jerky in his mouth, more sucking on it than really eating it. In different circumstances he’d hardly be able to control himself, but even Wakko had learned how to ration in the tower.
“We’re not even gonna try to do anything about it?” Dot asked, a little frustrated, planting her hands on the counter. Yakko’s eyes trailed up slowly to meet her. Since when had he developed such heavy bags?
Dot wanted him to smile, crack some joke, and whirl out the tower door to harass Norita into giving them more food, or even letting them out entirely. She wanted him to say something comforting, inspiring, about how they’d faced tougher times and would get through this too. Instead, he just looked at her for a long, silent moment, reached for her hand where she’d slammed it on the counter top, and squeezed it once, tightly, before releasing it and going back to putting everything away. Dot looked at Wakko, startled, and he stared back at her with wide eyes, just as baffled and concerned as she was.
Dot hopped off her stool, leaving her brothers in the kitchen. She had to do something about it.
Yakko kept a toolbox in the same area of the water tower occupied by their bed. She opened it as quietly as possible, pulling out a small screwdriver and shutting it again, tucking it into her hammerspace. She wouldn’t be able to do anything during the daytime, not with how small the space inside the water tower actually was, and not with how unoccupied both her brothers were nowadays.
It was an impulse, really. Something to curb her frustration at Yakko, and to feel like she could do something, anything, when the time came. She clambered up to her bunk, wrapping herself in her blanket with her back facing the rest of the living space. She thought about that commercial again. A cartoon lawyer. She had brought it up to Yakko the next morning, and he’d shown her an article on his tablet about that same law office making its way to congress, suing ACME of all companies. They lost, sure, but wasn’t making it as far as they did something? Especially when ACME started taking major hits within the next month. Maybe it wasn’t all as hopeless as she thought.
It wouldn’t leave her mind that week. She thought about it when Yakko served a dinner with mac and cheese from their most recent grocery drop-off, but a side of mixed vegetables entirely from Wakko’s bag. He was trying to mix the fake food and the real food so it’d last as long as possible. She thought about it again when Wakko wailed in despair at the shiny game console he’d gotten during the reboot’s refusal to connect to the wifi, and the reveal that it had been entirely cut off. She thought about it every morning when she took her cold shower, despite the fact that she’d told Ralph about the hot water loss over a month ago. Dot cringed away from the icy stream, what had become her favorite respite away from living in such close proximity to her brothers almost entirely ruined. They’d had several periods in their lives with cold water, having spent almost the entirety of their first imprisonment with it, and the second half of their second, but she couldn’t, no, she wouldn’t do it again.
Throughout the entire week, she couldn’t shake the idea that they deserved better. Yakko didn’t write, and hardly joked, and he was cagey, like he was hiding something from them. It was like he knew something horrible they didn’t. Wakko was still Wakko, but he moped constantly, staring at the wall in boredom for hours on end before running around the length of the tower in restless circles. She’d caught him gnawing at his gloves multiple times, already hungry and agitated. Dot felt different too, anxious and upset, and she missed the sun almost as much as she missed who the three of them used to be.
She had to do something about it.
She’d waited until night, late night, when Yakko’s snores kept her up again, to move as quietly as she could down the ladder. Before their wifi had been cut, she’d researched the law office religiously, and knew exactly where to go. She’d packed a small bag into her hammerspace, something that had been much harder than it should be to do in secret.
Dot crept to the door of the tower, sealed and bolted shut. It would take her a while to get it open, but she wasn’t quite sure what else to try. They’d broken out before, hundreds upon thousands of times, and maybe, just maybe, she could get far enough away when it was just her, secretly, quietly, no zany antics or long winded bits.
Dot set to work on the first screw bolting the door shut, turning it experimentally. To her surprise, it actually budged. It felt like they hadn’t tried nearly as hard sealing them in this time, as if relying on the fact they’d been told to stay put. The first time they were locked in, the longest time, the tower had been inescapable, with guards outside the door and an intense security system that threatened to laser all their fur off. The second time, the system had still been there, but they’d learned how to get around it. Instead, Plotz had told them if they were good the studio may give them another show, and they had been so, so good for twenty two years. Norita had made that promise again this time, even disabling that system as a show of good faith, that she was trusting them, but… Dot knew she couldn’t be believed. Dot had formed this plan under the idea that Norita underestimated them, and didn’t put as much effort into containing them. Plotz, though he was an idiot, had feared them, but Norita…Norita seemed to think they would just roll over and die.
It took her nearly two hours of twisting and turning, but Dot eventually unscrewed enough bolts that she may be able to pull the door open. She pried her fingers under it, and pulled and pulled with all her might, but it just wouldn’t budge. She struggled with it quietly, huffing and puffing, before the clearing of a throat behind her made her freeze, eyes wide. Yakko had definitely caught her, and with how he’d been acting lately, she wasn't sure if he’d enthusiastically join in her plan.
Dot turned slowly, expecting to see her oldest brother, but was instead met with the sight of a bright red hat. Wakko’s tongue lolled out, and he said nothing as he took in the screws, took in Dot, and took in the door. He continued to say nothing as he pulled out his bag, opening it wide, and grabbed a large mallet. Dot opened her mouth to say something, to stop him before he made enough noise to wake up the whole studio, but he held a finger to his lips, and Dot reluctantly chose to trust him.
Wakko blew on his thumb to comically inflate his chest, and swung back the mallet as far as it could go. Dot cringed, waiting on the loud clang as it beat against the door, but the sound never came. Instead, there was a low thud just outside the door, and it creaked open slowly, letting the two Warners see the night sky again for the first time in three years. A metal bar laid on the ground, having been welded to the door. Wakko smiled at her, tongue still out, and showed the label on the handle of the mallet: the ACME soundproof hammer.
“Why didn’t you use that before?” She asked, hushed, and Wakko shrugged.
“Didn’t think it would work.” He kicked at one of the screws “Never thought that would work either. Just seemed so…simple.”
Dot snorted a little, covering her mouth to laugh. Wakko laughed too, gathering the screws and the mallet and putting them inside the bag. It felt like they could have busted out three years ago already. It just seemed like no one expected them to.
Dot stepped outside, feeling the cool night breeze. Wakko threw his bag over his shoulder.
“Where are you going?” He asked, and Dot put her hands on her hips.
“Alburquerque.” She said, and Wakko made a baffled facial expression
“O-kayyy…” He said, eyebrows raised.
Dot felt herself deflate a little “You should come with me. I should have told you- both of you.” She started, but Wakko shook his head.
“You’re much better at hide and seek than we are. They’ll never catch you on your own.” He stepped forward, and pulled her into a tight hug. “Be careful.”
“I’m coming back as soon as I can.” She said, slightly choked. Dot didn’t think she’d be so emotional.
“I know.” Wakko said. He smiled at her, tongue lolling out again, far too goofy for the situation, but so undeniably Wakko. He wasn’t interrogating her, or demanding he come too, or worse, demanding she stay behind. He was just…trusting her.
He pulled away, before shoving the gag bag into her hands.
“Oh…Wakko, I can’t, what if you need-” He held up a hand, cutting her off.
“I’ve been hiding food around the tower for forever…real and fake. We’ll be okay. You need it more.”
Before Dot could argue any more with him, he’d stepped back inside, pulling the tower door closed.
Dot had stood there for a moment, tears threatening to fall, before steeling herself. If they caught her and put her back, escaping wouldn’t be nearly as easy as it was this time. This was her only chance.
She crept across the lot, sneaking past a sleeping Ralph and under the gate. The farther away she got, the quicker she ran, full of disbelief that it was just so easy. How little did this studio think of them nowadays?
Dot had run all the way to a bus station a while down the road to the studio that they’d used in the past, staying away from street lamps and having one particularly harrowing instance of a night patrol police car sailing past her, forcing her to dive behind a dumpster in a nearby alleyway. She’d spent the last couple hours of night at the bus station once she got there, memorizing a route that would take her to Albuquerque with just three buses. Dot didn’t have any money to buy tickets, but she was a Warner. She was nothing if not crafty.
At six AM, her first bus arrived, and while humans and toons alike boarded, she snuck into the luggage compartment underneath, making her own semi-comfortable chair out of the bags. Sure, she slid around a lot, and she felt every bump and turn of the road, but she was here, and she’d gotten a major headstart. It’d take hours before anyone would notice she was gone.
And that was where she was now, eagerly awaiting her first stop before she hopped aboard her next connecting bus. Dot was excited, feeling more alive in the moment than she had in the past three years combined, but there was a small pit of guilt in her chest. She didn’t tell Yakko, and this morning he’d wake up with her gone, and Wakko would either have to make up an excuse, pretend to be none the wiser, or tell him the truth. It wasn’t that she wanted to hurt Yakko, or more accurately, scare the living shit out of him, but he wasn’t the same. This was as much for him and Wakko as it was for her, and he’d understand one day. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Hopefully.
Wile E. had spent the night on Kevin’s couch, as the fabled roommate still had not shown up, and thus was unable to protest. Because of that, he and Kevin arrived at around the same time Paige did, bright and early and somewhat ready to work.
Paige hadn’t slept.
She’d stayed up all night listening to Margot teach herself the drums, and researching the Warners and laws regarding cartoon children. Sure enough, everything Yosemite Sam said had been true. The three Warners were never seen when they had nothing on the air, and had a generally bad reputation for wild public behavior and crazy stunts. Though a cartoon they had in the nineties had been well-loved, the general public seemed to agree with the guardianship of the studio.
One thing that concerned Paige was an aspect of the show, where the kids seemed to live in and be imprisoned inside a water tower most of the time. This could have just been silly cartoon writing, and they may have been treated very well by the studio in the real world, but Paige felt a pit in her stomach when she thought about it too long.
Kevin was making hushed plans with Wile E. to drive him back to the desert after work, still talking to him distractedly as he held open the door for Paige. He didn’t immediately see what she and Wile E. saw.
Dot Warner stood on top of Dottie’s desk, having placed a large bag down to cover most of her name plate, leaving only the word “Dot” visible. She smiled sweetly, smoothing out her skirt and folding her hands behind her back.
“Good morning!” She said cheerily “My name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third. But you can call me Dot!” She held out her hand towards Paige, as if to shake it “Call me Dottie and you die.”
Paige stared for a moment, looking between Dot and the door. She’d have to break in to get inside this early.
Dot huffed, letting her arm drop to her side.
“I’m here to emancipate.”