Chapter Text
It was sort of a totally logical conclusion...
Tyler stared at her mere feet away, the monster in plain sight. “What does it feel like?” He asked as his father moved back into his office down the hallway and out of earshot.
There were so many things he could be about to say—her mind should be spinning with the possibilities, the outcomes and variables—but all she felt is a disconnected numbness spreading through her chest, creeping down her limbs like frost when the sun goes down in winter.
In that moment. The anger burned away. Dissipates like smoke. The people in this stupid town, the murders, her righteous fury that her warnings went unheeded by the people that should know—have to know—and are simply lying to themselves.
The sheriff—his father, that she should have expected.
The man was his father. Even if he was an incompetent and absent one. He'd married an outcast—and he couldn't be that stupid. He must have known something was happening, and all this time—he was actively covering it up.
Perhaps the answer is rather Addams in nature—even if it is inconvenient for her, and all his victims, he might be a terrible father figure—but Donovan Galpin would rather sacrifice strangers and outcasts alike than admit his only son was a monster.
So, not Addams core exactly. They were well aware of their monstrous natures—they certainly didn't hide them—not from each other and not from the world. They were frequently celebrated.
“What does what feel like?” She snapped, flooded with a fresh wash of irritation at his words.
But beneath that the numb, disconnected feeling was soaking deeper into her veins, curling inside her chest, under her ribs. Like a draught of absinthe on an empty stomach with a chaser of her mother’s favorite belladonna extract. The heartbeat that had traitorously—foolishly—fluttered and jolted around him the last few weeks should be reacting still, racing in fear—outrage—anxiety.
It slowed instead. To a rate so slow sometimes normie healthcare providers thought she might be experiencing an odd cardiac arrest or under the influence of illicit substances.
“To lose?” and something in his eyes went cold and flat. It was like watching a switch flip. A curtain lifted on the second act.
The mask peeled away to reveal what was always underneath—what she should have seen all along—had she not been completely blinded by stupid teenage hormones.
He was prattling on about his lack of memories, then remembering his kills—how much he liked it.
She only heard every other word. Stunned by her own hubris. Wednesday Addams, tricked by her own human weakness.
It was mortifying.
A problematic embarrassment to exhume, examine and execute at another time. For now she buried it, because the words spilling out of him now proved the soft-Tyler—the one who smiled at her and talked to her with that open expression bordering on adoring, the one who wanted her attention, sought out her company, the one that strung up lights in a crypt…it was all a carefully orchestrated act—a lie. None of it had been real, not one word.
The bully, the boy that destroyed Xavier’s mural and beat him up, the boy that hated Nevermore and outcasts and by extension her—the one he claimed he didn't want to be—the bitter townie as he called it.
That was who Tyler Galpin truly was underneath. Hate. Nothing more original or deep.
His fingers locked around her arms, squeezing tight enough to cut off blood flow to her hands—to bruise certainly, the marks likely already forming under her sleeves. A mere hint of the true strength of a shifter, finally peeking through the human veneer.
“You have no idea what's coming,” his breath lifted the delicate hairs beside her ear with the threat.
She exhaled, and something inside her settled—stilled. Went cold in a way that was familiar and far less intriguing or confusing than whatever strange heat had possessed her the last few weeks in his presence.
“Thank you,” she managed to make the words flat, but not cold.
He had just started to draw back from where he’d leaned into her space, crowding her to deliver his blatant threat—but he paused a fraction of a heartbeat at her words, before drawing back again to stare down at her.
Clearly whatever he and his Master had planned was not over. Not yet.
She didn't know who it was—infuriatingly, but she knew this—it had all been a lie, an act, and while falling for it burned her insides with shame—it also righted a world that had tilted dangerously on its axis for weeks.
The world was not a strange and mysterious place, there was no need to question herself and her understanding of reality as it swung wildly out of control. That deep uncertainty that had fluttered her insides and tickled her neurons with unknown scenarios, and possibilities unzipped to reveal the ploy underneath.
Wednesday Addams did not know what to do with a boy that was soft, and sweet and seemed to genuinely care for her, crave her company—one who kissed her like she was a precious, delicate thing.
But being disliked? Avoided? Reviled? Seeing the fear, disgust or hate in the eyes of everyone that met her—that was her normal reality.
She dropped back into the self-correction with a settling certainty. Her pulse no longer affected by the hazel eyes filling her vision.
“For what?” Tyler was staring down at her, but the snide tone to his voice, the heat in the threat of moments ago seemed to have bled away to a confused sort of weariness again.
“This finally makes sense—” Wednesday inclined her head minutely indicating the space between them, small as it was since he had not properly stepped back. “A boy liking me? It defies logic, the idea is preposterous, has been from the beginning. You should have been jeering at me with your friends, crossing the street, or at the very least—pretending I didn’t exist.”
She huffed a breath like she could push the idea from her body with the exhale—force the last foolish notions from her head.
“I should have known from the start that was a lie—you’re a very good actor—I knew Uncle Fester wasn't who he said he was, and Debbie too—but you?” and here she could not stop the scoff that rushed from her lungs, the twist of an ache that curdled like sour milk in her stomach—her eyes slid past his shoulder to the cork board of missing hikers on the wall of his father’s police station.
She had been a fool, yes, but at least the one to pull the wool over her eyes had been a worthy adversary. He had not just tricked her—he had a whole town believing his innocence. A small comfort—that she was not alone, she was not immune to his act—but clearly no one else was either. And the rest of the town did not have the aid of visions to reveal the truth of his deceit. He was one of them, a wolf in sheep's clothing. And she was an outsider that would never fit in. It was no small wonder that no one believed her.
“I actually started to believe it—really—it's been so confusing for weeks—but this?” Her eyes returned to his face, studying the lines and angles she thought she had learned to read— “You hate me? I disgust you? The entire thing was a joke to you?” She felt the smile twisting her lips as the reality and depth of her disbelief settled around her. She had been the biggest fool to believe anything else were possible.
He flinched back like she'd struck him.
“The truth that you've been lying to me for weeks? Every interaction being nothing but an elaborate game for you—a distraction from small-town mediocrity? Or are you just a monster that likes to play with their food? I can relate to that. I wanted to find the monster, yes—but I hardly needed to visit a coffee shop, or seek help from a local boy for that; for weeks I've been trying to puzzle out what was happening here. I should have remembered—there's no such thing as coincidence. There is no other explanation for why someone like you would even look at someone like me. Two mysteries solved in one revelation.”
She absolutely refused to acknowledge the widening of his eyes. The way his lips parted like he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words.
She was done falling for his act. The cards were down. The ruse concluded. He could no longer toy with her emotions. Never again.
That was a ploy he could only pull once.
“So, thank you, Tyler Galpin—for proving to me that nothing changed.” She didn't wait for him to assemble another taunt and she could hardly lay him out on the floor with a judo move here in the police station foyer.
“And I also have to thank you—because I know those body parts we saw in the Gates’ Mansion were from the people you killed—and they're not just serial killer trophies are they? Your Master has a grocery list. Something big is coming? Let me guess, all those seemingly random body parts? Some kind of resurrection ritual? They should be careful—trying to raise the dead has consequences. It’s not as simple as collecting limbs. But you wouldn't know that would you? For all your gloating about winning—you're just an errand boy that comes when his Master calls him.”
He blinked, eyebrows knotting in what she might have once read as confusion, eyes oddly glassy—but she believed none of it now, not even the tremble in his voice when he exhales half her name.
“Wedn—”
“You know,” she cut him off, continuing before he could say anything more, “when we talked about the mural—the night of the Rave’N—and I said I would have taken it farther—and you said you liked me for a reason—that was incredibly clever. I should have known then. You already were. You've been playing a prank for weeks. Laughing with your Master and your outcast hating friends about tricking the pathetic outcast girl into thinking you liked her—” she stared into his eyes, willing her gaze to be flat, cold and as dead as her praise, “well played.”
“Wedn—”
“So, thank you also—for the lesson. It was excruciatingly painful. And one I will not forget.”
A tear rolled down his cheek.
Not surprising. He still wouldn't drop the act, even now. And he was good, shockingly so. His devastated expression—face suddenly blanched of color like he might pass out at any moment. Paler than he’d been in that shed when she’d threatened him with a taser. Paler than the night she’d tricked them into the Gate’s mansion and he must have injured himself after chasing her and Enid out a window.
She had thought it a little odd that the monster had been so slow to attack—had chosen to tip over a shelf in that basement instead of lunging at her, giving her ample time to slip out the casement window.
He was a very good actor.
Showing up at the meeting house ruins right after she left the Weathervane. Showing up in the woods to kill Rowan Laslow, and the morning after—probably covering his own tracks when he’d encountered her searching for evidence.
But the clues had been there—in hindsight—if she had not been so blinded by her own simpering emotional weakness. He'd fooled her completely—because she had allowed it.
A mistake she would never afford herself again.
“You’re leaking, by the way,” she inclined her head a minute fraction to indicate the tears tracking down his cheeks—clearly an act, just more of his emotional manipulation for the cops in the station. The poor sheriff's son, hurt by the mean, evil outcast girl half his size.
“Wedn–” his voice strangled on her name, like his throat was closing off suddenly. Like the ghost of Rowan, his first outcast victim in this scheme had returned from the dead to choke him.
“Enjoy the rest of your game. Goodbye, Tyler.” She cut him off. Having wasted enough time and energy with him and this town.
Wednesday spun on her heel and not waiting for Weems to join her—pushed out the doors and into the night air.
Wednesday’s mind was still spinning as she crossed the darkened lot.
There was more to this than just a bored monster boy playing with her feelings. The body parts, the circles he’d kept her running in—she still didn’t know who was controlling Tyler, but fully believed someone was—and while she had originally thought it was Kimbott—her death at Tyler’s hands had disproved that theory completely.
Now she was faced with another possibility.
Tyler’s father had a good reason for pretending to be blind and ignorant. But Principal Weems?
Wednesday could only think of one reason the woman, shrewd as she was purported to be, would willfully ignore the threat of a Hyde tearing through the woods of Jericho so close to her precious school—and other than Rowan, all the murders before and after had been Normies.
Rowan had likely only died because he had attacked her—Weems for whatever reason did not want her dead, or leaving for that matter— while Weems had had ample reasons to expel her from Nevermore on more than one occasion—the woman had infuriatingly not done so yet.
The conclusion she was reaching was so blindingly obvious she should have seen it long before this moment. Weems was the one controlling Tyler. Perhaps the entire thing had never been about her at all. Merely another chapter in whatever decades old grievance Weems harbored against her dear mother.
Figures, not only was she marooned in a dead-end town to live in her mother’s shadow at Nevermore, she was now cleaning up her Mother’s messes from nearly twenty years ago.
No, none of this had been about her. It was increasingly obvious the longer she considered it.
She was merely a pawn, foolishly allowing herself to be moved around in someone else’s game. Tyler and Weems had played her with disastrous and mortifying efficiency. Humiliating her for their own dark amusement.
She had been a fool, on both accounts. She didn’t have long, Weems would likely realize that she had walked out of the station in a matter of minutes if not less. Tyler had likely run to tattle on her at the first opportunity.
Crossing the lot to the closest non-police car unit Wednesday tried the driver’s-side door handle and was not surprised that even in a police station parking lot–and what was, most likely, a deputies’ private vehicle was unlocked.
She slipped into the seat, shutting the door and pulling out her switch blade from the hidden pocket — the one his father had completely missed because he was an idiot, willfully and in regular run of the mill police procedures — a handy tool she would now use to secure a ride out of this town, once and for all.
She had the wires exposed and was in the process of stripping them when the knock on the glass startled her into stabbing her own thumb.
Her attention snapped to the glass, heartbeat rising in what was definitely not any kind of panic. Simply adrenaline, at the mild inconvenience of being interrupted mid-task.
She expected to see Weems, or Sheriff Galpin or the owner of the vehicle she was currently hotwiring. She should have expected to see Tyler.
He reached for the handle of the door as she lunged upright slamming her hand down on the locking mechanism.
His eyes dropped to her hand, then rose to glare at her through the glass, shoulders rising and falling with each breath like he’d run for miles instead of crossed the less than hundred feet to the vehicle she was currently occupying.
Could he rip the door off the vehicle in human form?
She thought perhaps he might—that he could certainly if he were to transform here in the lot—but if he did that, someone, possibly even his father would see and that would be difficult for even him to deny.
"Open the door," Tyler demanded of her, still glaring—still very human.
Wednesday pressed the lock button engaging the other door, raising an eyebrow in challenge, ensuring even if he circled the vehicle or tried to vault over the hood, unless he broke the glass or ripped the door off she could work undisturbed.
She leaned back down to get back to work.
"Wednesday," her name was muffled through the glass, through the pulse of blood rushing in her ears. She had to get out of here, fast.
She was not afraid to die—an Addams did not fear death, and yet Wednesday felt the clawing need to get away as fast as possible and never see him or this stupid town again.
The wires felt brittle in her hands. One of them slipping from the blood where she’d slipped and nicked her own skin, she hadn’t cut herself on her own blade since she was four – just one more embarrassment to add to the evening’s events.
The engine coughed. Then died. Wednesday swore under her breath and jammed the stripped wires together again.
Outside the vehicle Tyler slapped a hand against the glass, shouting, "Wednesday, stop."
She ignored him. Something she should have done from the very beginning.
The engine sputtered, coughed, then roared to life under her hands. Relief flashed through her so quickly it was almost embarrassing.
She sat up to put the car in gear.
Tyler’s expression changed in an instant, not anger—it looked suspiciously like panic.
Acting. She reminded herself. He was clearly acting again. His hand shot toward the door handle again, his other hand pounding on the glass between them. “Wednesday!”
She started to pull forward—and he leapt half over the vehicle in a move that was far too dexterous to be strictly human, unless he was the luckiest and most agile person she had ever met, to stand in front of her, glaring through the windshield, both hands on the hood.
“Wednesday, Stop!”
She dropped the vehicle into reverse, never mind the car parked half-behind this one. She slammed into it with a shriek of tires against the pavement and a plastic sort of thudding, and crunch as bumper met metal.
Tyler stumbled forward as the metal under his palms retreated so swiftly he barely had time to recover—nearly ate the pavement under him. She cranked the wheel and calculated angles in her head. While Tyler remained in front of her, hands raised, demanding she stop. For one absurd moment she considered running him over – then discarded the idea.
One more attempted murder charge would be mortifying. Bad enough she failed to get the job done once with Dalton on the swim team, but a second time? She’d never be able to show her face at a family reunion.
Not to mention the damage to the vehicle from colliding with his hard head would be inconvenient, and likely more damaging than the police cruiser she’d just smashed into—she hoped it was his father's, and failed to suppress the dark grin at the mental image of the man standing in the lot, viewing the damage and cursing her very existence.
Served him right.
She revved the engine, pedal to the floor, spun the wheel hard and shot around Tyler’s form and toward the exit of the lot and onto the road. For one absurd second she expected him to run after the car.
In the rearview mirror Tyler stood motionless in the center of the lot. Watching.
Good. Let him explain to Weems why her pet monster had failed to keep her in Jericho. He could be the one to lose this time.
Then he bolted — not towards the road – no. Wednesday’s stomach sank through the floorboards, sinking deeper than the road beneath her stolen tires.
Tyler had turned sharply and vanished into the tree line wearing an expression that even across the distance already between them radiated fury. And there was only one way out of this stupid town. And only one reason to cut through the woods instead of taking a vehicle to follow her, or going to tell someone.
Wednesday was about to meet the monster again...and this time? He'd probably split her in two.
She pressed harder on the accelerator. The police station fell away behind her, the town lights blurred in the square, tires screeching as she rounded a corner, the Weathervane was a blip of red and dark windows in the rearview mirror she barely saw.
How fast could he run? She wasn’t sure.
She ran two red lights that had no business being red—there weren’t any other cars. And she couldn’t give him the advantage of more time to head her off.
Freedom was just on the other side of the stretch of woods, a thirty minute drive if one obeyed the legally posted speed limit that she had zero intention of heeding, promising herself she would clear the same stretch in a quarter of the time. If there were any other options that did not lead her to even more back roads and sparse population she would have taken it, but this was the only one that would connect her to the larger state highway and more cars—more witnesses and traffic cameras.
Tyler certainly wouldn’t risk being recorded by such devices in his other form, not somewhere outside the jurisdiction of Jericho and the sphere of his father’s influence—she just had to make it there, before he could stop her.
The speedometer climbed.
Where was he? She kept expecting to see him bolt in front of her vehicle like a rogue deer. He couldn’t be that stupid could he though? Monster versus machine in a battle of physics, with very deadly consequences.
Surely a vehicle going, she glanced down, ninety miles an hour could kill even him?
A violent crack echoed through the night. Her stomach dropped even before her eyes recognized the cause.
A giant tree dropped across the road in the headlights—blocking both lanes and sealing off the entire town of Jericho. Wednesday stood on the brakes, already calculating the lack of space between her and the clearly Hyde introduced obstacle in the roadway.
The sedan shuddered violently beneath her. Rubber screamed. The force of trying to stop sliding her weight in her seat, even as she braced her foot on the pedal, knowing it wouldn't be enough. She fought the wheel as the vehicle slewed sideways across dark asphalt.
The realization arrived with crystal clarity of a vision. She was going too fast not to hit the damn thing. She had two choices, roll the car on its side and hope she showered enough that way without getting killed, or a direct forward impact into a tree that size—that would likely flip the car anyways—directly over the tree and onto the hood, possibly crushing the roof and interior completely.
Decapitation or having her brains pulverized was an interesting way to die, quick certainly, but not on her bucket list.
Wednesday jerked the wheel instead, tires screamed, her ears roared with her heartbeat. The car rocked up and over—just as she'd expected. And still. The impact was jarring. Catastrophically loud and violent.
Metal folded inward with a deafening shriek. The airbag struck her hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs.
Something cracked, her nose possibly, and pain exploded through her face.
Momentum took over, the world rolled and Wednesday realized several things simultaneously – one she had not fastened her seatbelt prior to leaving the station, and two she may have miscalculated her ability to withstand a crash at this velocity.
Glass exploded all around her like confetti. The roof slammed into the pavement with the sound of a sledge hammer striking metal, her entire body slammed into the ceiling – now the floor, and then the seat, and ceiling again while she wrapped her hands around her head and let her body go limp as the vehicle rolled again, and again, before stopping with a final wrenching sound of metal that was sickening.
It took Wednesday a moment to realize the world stopped spinning. Upside down. But a definite improvement.
The sudden silence was deafening. Or perhaps her hearing had simply ceased functioning. A high-pitched ringing filled her skull. She felt something warm tracking down the side of her face, a second trickle against her lip.
She lifted one hand to her face smearing wet blood from a gash on her forehead on her fingertips, staring at them for a long moment questioning the substance, even as she tasted iron on her lips and tongue, proving her initial assessment. Wednesday raised a hand to check hissing and drawing her hand away from her nose, likely broken from the airbag or the impact with the ceiling.
She’d survived a car crash without a seatbelt—for the moment at least. Pugsley would be incredibly jealous, if she indeed lived long enough to tell him. Because the tree, and the hunk of wrecked metal around her was honestly the least of her problems.
She should move—Tyler had clearly sent the tree into the road, and she highly doubted he would assume the crash would kill her—he was likely nearby. She needed to move.
Her body declined to participate as she lay there collecting her scattered thoughts and cataloging injuries.
A violent scream of twisting metal shattered the ringing haze.
Wednesday's eyes snapped open. She didn’t remember closing them.
The driver's side door tore free from the vehicle. Not opened - the frame was so smashed she doubted the hinges functioned properly. The whole door was removed – and even with her limited hazy vision she saw it sail away like a frisbee to land on the other side of the road – definitely not human. Not that she had any doubts who her rescue party was—and she didn’t think rescue was what he had in mind. He'd just gotten tired of waiting for her to crawl out and come to finish the job.
She could see clawed feet in the open doorway, Moonlight giving just enough light to make out the jagged claws that absolutely belonged to a predator. The giant form leaned down, and the monster’s head came into view, wide yellow eyes locked on her, sharp teeth bared in a snarl.
Wednesday shifted, reaching across her body and attempting to crawl through the broken glass around her toward the other shattered window—as if the few feet of twisted metal between them might make a difference.
This is how I die. The thought materialized as the monster reached into the wreck with one long arm. Huge fingers wrapped around her ankle and started to pull.
Wednesday immediately kicked at it with her other foot, hissing in pain as the entire limb protested the violent movement.
Her boot connected with something solid. The Hyde snarled, the sound so deep and guttural it vibrated through her entire being.
He was going to yank her out—and slash her to ribbons on the roadway just like Rowan Laslow, and that old man at the meeting house—and all his other victims.
She kicked at him again and this time the response was a snarled, deep and only half-human sounding, “God Damnit, Wednesday! Stop it!”
Its grip shifted. The hand on her ankle yanked harder.
Wednesday slid out of the overturned vehicle like an unwilling fish being dragged from a body of water. Gasping for air against the pain in much the same way. Glass bit into her clothes and skin like sandpaper. Metal scraped her back exiting the frame.
Clawed hands gripped her jacket, hauling her up off the pavement and leaning her back against the side of the ruined vehicle. She hit the metal hard enough to see stars explode across her vision, unable to stop the pained sound even trying to clamp her teeth down to prevent it’s escape.
The claws were shorter now. Blunter. The monster was shrinking. Bones cracked. Muscles twisted beneath skin. The transformation flowing backward.
Was he planning to kill her while human? Or maybe just gloat some more?
Tyler's face emerged beneath the remaining traces of the Hyde. His eyes still glowed, too round and large for his human face but steadily shrinking down, if she hurt less and wasn’t about to die she might find the process fascinating—as it was she still couldn’t look away. His hands still ended in claws. His teeth remained far too sharp.
Though perhaps that was simply an illusion, knowing what he was.
He looked furious. Absolutely livid. Which was absurd. He had dropped a tree across a roadway. Not her.
"Are you insane?" he snarled, lifting her higher by the lapels of her leather jacket without any visible effort.
Wednesday stared at him. She should not find the casual show of strength impressive, it should not make her heart race faster than surviving a car crash. He needed to put her down so she could get some distance, try to escape. She brought her left hand up to grip the wrist of the hand holding her upright—trying to work out if she could dislodge it—or she tried to, his wrist was still nearly twice the size of hers, her fingers couldn't close around it.
She blinked at the discrepancy, head still swimming and vision blurring. Staring at the contrast in size and skin. She'd probably never be this close to the monster again—considering she was about to be his latest murder victim.
Tyler was saying something—or shouting based on the expression on his face. She couldn’t hear half of it over the ringing in her ears. Something about—
“—killed yourself—”
“—hundred miles an hour—”
“—what the hell were you—”
And that was enough of that.
Wednesday reached into her pocket with her free hand, flicked open her switchblade and drove it into his shoulder.
Tyler froze. For one glorious moment they simply stared at each other. His eyes dropped to her hand, fisted around the knife handle, and the blade buried in his skin, then back at her, eyebrows knitting up,
“SERIOUSLY?”
Wednesday smiled, certain the blood she could taste in her mouth made it a less than friendly expression.
Then he dropped her.