Baiting Thornhill to get closer and reach her arm inside while he stares at her in sorrow and wonder and then immediately choking her.
Holding her in his arms until the 5 second headstart line.
"RUN"
"I could never abandon you... wish i could say the same about you".
"You aren't my mother, you're my master... or should i say you were".
Pausing at the end to just scream at Wednesday's face for a few seconds.
Like my guy stop murdering people and join a theatre group instead. Of course a mental institution couldn’t fix him, nothing's wrong with him, my boy's just a diva.
I think it’s kind of interesting how this flashback implies that before her scorpion was killed, Wednesday had the personality she was depicted with before the 90s.
master list part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 part 14 part 15 part 16 part 17 part 18 part 19 part 20 (you're here) part 21 part 22 ...
A/N: this has to be like my favorite chapter to write yet tbh, that's why i lowkey expedited writing it, so sorry if it feels rushed at all. also fun fact, scorpion grass is another name for a forget-me-not flower!
Obviously, spoiler warnings to those who have yet to finish the second season of Wednesday.
warnings: violence, graphic descriptions, dark themes/thoughts, mentions of drugging and grooming (Laurel Gates should be trigger warning enough tbh)
word count: 4.8 K
I sat with my notebook open, pen hovering uselessly above a page half-filled with equations that no longer made sense to me. The numbers blurred, smearing together into a dark, shapeless tangle. Around me, the class went on as normal— chattering, glass clinking, the faint scratch of pencils against paper.
And yet, it all sounded so far away.
It was strange— how easy it could be to fall apart in plain sight. My hand trembled slightly when I reached for a beaker. My eyes lingered too long on the pale curve of a preserved heart in a jar, or how I twisted the red-and-black bracelet at my wrist until it bit into my skin, cutting off circulation. As if pain could distract me from spiraling thoughts. I was thankful no one cared enough about me to notice anything was wrong.
The police had no questions for me, which meant Pugsley didn’t mention my involvement in caring for Isaac. That cadet leader was pronounced missing, though a few of his cadets insisted they saw something eat him that night, though there was little the officers could do with no body being found.
They checked Pugsley's tent, which was bare of anything truly incriminating, and considering the testimonies from other Nevermore students about how discriminatory the cadets were, their claims of watching their leader get murdered in a random outcast's tent fell flat.
Everything was set into place just fine, so why? Why couldn’t I breathe?
This was still unbearable. I spent thirty years away from Isaac, yet somehow knowing he was alive, locked away, felt almost more maddening. The idea that he was still around yet out of reach it made me feel angry all over again.
“Miss (L/N).”
The sound cut through me— sharp, distorted, bubbling slightly through the liquid inside a glass jar. My head snapped up. I hadn’t even noticed him roll closer. Professor Orloff’s face floated in the jar atop his mechanical frame, the faint light of the room refracting through the glass, painting his features in strange, but calming distortion.
“Ah, Professor—” I blinked hard, trying to recalibrate. The classroom was empty. When had that happened? The clock on the far wall ticked mockingly— ten minutes past the dismissal. I’d sat through it like a ghost.
“I—sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to—” I stood too quickly, my chair scraping across the stone floor. My movements felt jerky, automatic. “I’ll get things back in order for you—”
Orloff didn’t say anything at first; he seemed to be searching my face for something. “Your mind seems to be… elsewhere, these past few days,” he said. His voice, always calm, vibrated faintly through the liquid, giving it that strange echo that made every sentence feel slightly detached, like it came from underwater. “Why is that?”
My mouth opened. Closed. I didn’t have a real answer, not one I could say aloud. “I guess…” I forced out a weak laugh, brittle at the edges. “Boy troubles. Maybe.”
“Boy troubles.” The professor repeated it as though tasting the phrase for the first time. It was certainly the first time he ever heard something so girlish from me. His eyes studied me in silence. There was no ridicule there, no coldness. Just quiet, clinical observation, softened despite his usual strict approach to handling students.
“I am… glad,” he said finally, “to hear you are coming out of your shell again. I was afraid you might never do so again.”
Something in me stuttered. My hands froze over the stack of worksheets I was clumsily trying to straighten. I couldn’t look at him. Coming out of my shell— was that what he thought this was? I guess it wasn’t too far off from how I had been behaving since Isaac’s return, but now I felt like I had been pushed back to square one.
“Your work this past week,” he continued. “Incomplete. Rushed. Uncharacteristic of you.”
The words were gentle, but they cut deep anyway. My throat tightened. “I—yeah. I’ve just been… distracted.”
He tilted his head slightly, the light refracting again through the greenish fluid that kept him alive— or whatever version of alive this was. “Whoever this boy is,” he said, “I hope he is worth it. You are an intelligent and responsible young girl.”
The way he said young girl didn’t sting like it usually would. Only Professor Orloff could say something like that to a vampire over a century old and make it sound…kind; it didn’t feel condescending from him.
I guess I never truly understood that truth about who I was, that no matter how many years had passed, eternal youth had a way of keeping me from feeling any wiser. At the end of the day, I was still truly just a child, yet I gave myself little time to be.
“I suggest,” he went on, “you take this coming weekend to collect yourself. I am aware you have… much on your plate.” The pause lingered like he knew more than he should. “I will extend your deadlines until next week so you may have time to recover. I would hate for your grades, or your potential, to suffer because you’ve remembered what it is to live a little.”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t mean it like that— but the words lodged in me anyway. Remembered what it is to live. Isaac was what first came to mind.
“That’s… incredibly generous of you,” I said softly. “Thank you, sir. I think that’s just what I need. Time to think.”
“Understanding is often the first step to recovery,” Orloff said. He smiled up at me. There was a reason this man had become my favorite professor. Despite his reputation, he was far kinder than most gave him credit for. His mechanical frame whirred softly as he rolled toward the door. “Be sure to lock up, dear. Last time this room was left open, some students thought it amusing to steal cadaver parts.”
He said it so casually, as though we were discussing misplaced homework.
And then he was gone, humming faintly to himself, the sound of wheels fading down the hall until only the hum of the lab lights remained.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty seat where his mechanical shell had been. The beakers, the bones, the faint chemical chill in the air. I should’ve felt comforted by the order of it all. Instead, I felt the edges of my mind start to fray again— the fragile scaffolding that kept me upright shaking in the quiet.
I twisted the bracelet tighter around my wrist until it hurt, then exhaled and let go, forcing myself to move. Time to think, he said.
God help me— how was one weekend supposed to be enough time to figure this out? If I could not figure shit out in the first hundred years of my life, what was three days supposed to do? Tomorrow was Friday, I had early release, and I might go insane if I were left alone in my room with these thoughts.
I heard them before I saw them— two sets of heartbeats echoing against the tile floor. One steady, one a touch uneven, light. I didn’t even have to turn around to know. The air had that specific stillness to it, heavy, deliberate. I knew why that was before I saw her face.
When I looked up, the familiar braided silhouette stood framed in the classroom doorway, eyes like black ice.
“You helped my brother house a zombie and hid the evidence,” Wednesday said, skipping any pretense of a greeting. “Why?”
My pencil paused mid-tap. I sighed. “You know,” I said, swinging my bag over my shoulder, “any normal person would start with thank you for keeping their brother from being expelled.”
“Pugsley is sentimental and impressionable,” she replied. “Keeping him from straying into idiocy is my duty as his sister and keeper.” Her stare didn’t waver— that dead, glassy kind of gaze that made most people fidget. “He told me everything he failed to tell the police. Including your involvement with his dead pet, only you would have known to be rid of all of that evidence, I doubt Eugene would have the gall to stomach such a heist.”
The nerve of this girl. I was already in the negatives with how much more I could take today, but I kept my tone even. “You’re welcome for saving your brother’s ass.” But my eyes drifted over her shoulder, “You brought backup?”
For a split second, Wednesday looked mildly puzzled — which was a miracle in itself. Then her eyes flicked to the side, and the air shimmered faintly before solidifying into the shape of a younger girl.
“Anges,” Wednesday said, as though announcing a recurring migraine.
The girl appeared at her shoulder, pale and red-haired, braids done in the same grim style as her idol’s. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen, her posture straight but fidgeting, like she was trying to imitate poise.
“You have fans now?” I asked dryly, arching a brow.
“Unfortunately,” Wednesday replied, monotone as ever.
“For your information,” the kid piped up, “I’m here to help Wednesday with any and all assignments, including low-priority ones. Like keeping her brother in check.”
Low-priority? My jaw flexed. I forced a smirk and continued organizing textbooks back into the middle of the desks. “That’s sweet. Guess you two share the same talent for pissing people off.”
Anges’s smile was condensing as she continued, “I heard you talking to Professor Orloff. Something about Nevermore’s ‘star student’ slipping behind in her grades.” Her tone was meant to mimic Wednesday’s, but it came out rather mousy, trying too hard. “Distracted by… ‘boy troubles,’ was it?”
My hand froze halfway to the next desk. For half a second, everything went quiet in my head.
Wednesday caught the shift, her lips twitching upward just enough to pass as a smirk. “Perhaps if you put the same effort into your studies as you do hiding corpses, your transcript wouldn’t be circling the drain.”
There it was. The jab was meant to make me bleed.
I took a breath through my nose. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
“You know…” My voice was too calm. “It’s funny. You both are very young, and you don’t seem to know what happens when you run your mouth at the wrong person.”
Wednesday’s chin lifted, defiant, but I saw her eyes narrow just slightly— assessing.
Anges blinked. “We’re just asking questions, no need to get your fangs in a fix—”
“No,” I cut in, my voice sharp enough to make her flinch. My hands shook— not from fear, but from the effort of holding it all in. “You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” I stepped forward. “You think because I’m distracted, that I won’t say anything when someone’s making a dig at me?”
Anges looked away for a moment then back at her idol. Wednesday didn’t move, but her gaze flicked downward — the tiniest twitch of her fingers betraying tension.
I laughed once, but it came out wrong — cracked, too loud, half a choke. “Let me tell you both something, something your school and parents clearly failed to teach you.”
I took another step, close enough now that Anges’s breath hitched. “There is an art of minding your own fucking business, of picking and choosing your own battles before you sign yourself up for shit you can’t handle. I don’t have to explain shit to two brats, so whatever conclusion you come to about why I was helping Pugsley doesn’t fucking matter. Who cares if there was some evil and selfish ulterior motive from me? It’s over, I’ll fuck right off and go back to my old life, you girls should do the same before someone gets hurt.”
I hadn’t even realized just how loud I was being. I wasn’t yelling, but I hadn’t had a reason to project my voice like that in years, to get to this tone. I could feel the heat in my face, the throb in my chest.
For a moment, I could hear how unsteady my breathing had become. Wednesday’s mask of indifference had fractured just slightly — her posture tightening, her pupils dilating. Anges was as white as paper.
I was scaring these girls. The thought made me straighten up, forcing myself to take a deep breath. I didn’t even bother to act like I didn’t just snap at the two of them. “We’re done here,” I said simply.
As I moved past them, I could feel both their gazes on my back — Wednesday’s sharp with analysis, Anges slightly trembling. Did I overdo it? I was reminded of the girl's age when she refused to meet me like that.
“And before you send your vanisher to spy on me, Addams, teach her how to hold her breath. I could hear her heartbeat from the hallway. So maybe get out of the habit of snooping around my business.”
The silence that followed wasn’t victory. It was too heavy, too hollow. I wasn’t the type to take pride in snapping at a few young girls. But I also couldn’t bring myself to feel bad enough to apologize, that was for someone who was a better person than me.
I had a bigger test of patience coming tonight anyway.
—-
The walk down to the lower levels of Willow Hill had the air feeling heavy, and the deeper we went, the colder it seemed to get. It was as though the walls themselves were holding their breath. Dr. Fairburn’s boots hit in measured rhythm beside me, the sound echoing down the sterile corridor. I matched her pace, but my mind wasn’t here.
“Are you sure this is worth it?” My voice came out low, brittle. “This isn’t—”
Fairburn cut me off gently. “We’ve tried everything else. Tyler’s resistant to conventional therapy. If seeing Laurel Gates forces an emotional reaction, even one negative, we’ll at least understand how deep her hold still is.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t trust myself not to just fold and decide last second that I couldn’t stomach this.
Every step closer to that cell made my teeth ache with something feral. The idea of Laurel being near him again— even separated by glass, even chained— made my vision tighten at the edges.
And then I saw her.
Marilyn Thronhill— no, Laurel Gates stood wrists cuffed, wearing an institutional white uniform that somehow still managed to look like it belonged to her. Her hair had been cut short, no longer cascading in that neat auburn wave she used to hide behind. Nor her glasses, she looked very different, but she still had that same smug, serpentine smile.
Her eyes lit up when she saw me. Recognition. Delight.
“Oh,” she said sweetly, her voice dripping like honey left too long in the sun. “Miss (L/N). What a pleasant surprise. Don’t tell me you’ve been admitted too?”
I froze, jaw locked so tight it hurt. I didn’t answer. I just stood there, staring at her.
Fairburn offered a polite, professional nod. “You two are familiar?”
Laurel’s smile widened, stretching until it was almost grotesque. “Of course. She was one of my finest students once back at Nevermore, my scorpion grass girl.” Her gaze flicked over me with nauseating fondness. “So clever, so quiet, so misunderstood. You know, she taught me a great deal— even about my own class. She once pointed out that, if you extract the right compounds from the nightshade flower, you can keep delirium without the fatal repercusions.”
Her eyes gleamed.
“That little tip was quite helpful when I was brewing the perfect drug when grooming Tyler,” she added casually, like she was talking about a recipe.
I felt my breath leave my body. Just gone. Something inside me turned over — not violently, but slowly, deliberately, like a knife twisting in its own time. She used my own intelligence against that boy?
Still, I said nothing. If I had, then Fairburn might have called for guards to escort me off the property.
Laurel tilted her head, watching me like a scientist studying a reaction. “Oh come now, that can’t be the best glare you can manage.” Her voice was sing-song, too light for the room. “I heard vampires can paralyze their prey with a look. Why don’t you give it a try? I’d love to see if the rumors are true.”
Fairburn’s brow furrowed. “That’s enough,” she said sharply.
But Laurel didn’t stop. She leaned forward slightly in her chair, the chains clinking just enough to remind everyone that she was supposed to be powerless. “I expected something clever, or at least cutting from you. Tell me, is your silence for my benefit, or his?”
My fingers twitched.
I didn’t know if it was the mention of Tyler or the way she said “his” like she still owned him, but I could feel heat rushing up the back of my neck. I wanted to lunge at her. To make her stop speaking in that soft, knowing way, like everything she’d done to him was still something she could be proud of.
Fairburn’s hand brushed against my arm — a wordless warning. I forced myself to breathe, slow and deliberate, because one wrong move here and I’d be the one in chains.
Laurel noticed, of course. She always noticed. Her grin spread wider, satisfaction blooming in her face like rot. “Ah,” she breathed, “there it is. I wondered if my words could pierce a proud creature like you.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
After all the damage she had done, she had killed so many, burned our school down, but all of that paled in my mind after what she had done to Tyler. Maybe my priorities were out of place, but that was what enraged me the most. She got to him, and I wasn’t there to protect him like I should have been.
And she had the audacity to smile at me. I hated that she still had this power — that even chained, with her freedom stripped, Laurel Gates could infect a room just by breathing.
The guard behind her shoved her shoulder roughly, muttering something under his breath. Laurel only laughed, breathy and pleased, as if she’d won a game only she knew the rules to.
Fairburn shot me a wary glance before signaling for the guard to move her forward. I stayed back, jaw tight, nails digging half-moon crescents into my palms. I could feel the blood seeping into my palm as I broke my skin, until I felt my own bone under my fingernails.
The lock buzzed, and the door gave way with a hiss. Fairburn’s hand tightened on Laurel’s shoulder as he guided her inside, making sure she couldn’t bolt. I followed, the air thick with disinfectant and the faint, sour tang of iron.
“Tyler.” Laurel’s voice came out breathy, trembling, as though the mere sight of him hurt her. It was a performance. Even now, she couldn’t help but make it one.
She turned to the guard, her wrists raised like a child pleading with a parent. Please, her expression said. I only crossed my arms, jaw set. Fairburn gave a reluctant nod, and the cuffs came off with a metallic click.
I told myself to look at Tyler. I owed him that much. He was standing in the shadows, still and silent, but something about him had changed. He looked more tragic than monstrous. I could still see the echo of the creature in the shape of his scars, the way his eyes flickered with something feral, restrained only by the chains that bound him to the wall.
Laurel took a tentative step forward, voice softening into a grotesque parody of tenderness. “It’s okay. Mama’s here. Look what they’ve done to you.”
The sound of his chains dragging across the floor made my stomach twist. His hands—still human for the moment—lifted toward her, trembling under the weight of the iron. They’d moved him farther from the bars since the last incident. Apparently, not far enough.
“Oh, I know, baby.” She reached through the bars, fingertips brushing air. “I missed you, too.”
Tyler’s voice broke on the edge of something raw. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment…”
His body convulsed as the change took hold— bones cracking, skin stretching thin and pale like wax. The sound was wet, unnatural. His arm elongated, tendons pulling tight, fingers splitting into claws. He lunged forward with a guttural roar that didn’t sound human at all.
The Hyde’s claws slipped between the bars and closed around Laurel’s throat.
For a moment, I could hear her heart pounding louder than a drum in my ear, almost drowning out the rattle of chains and her strangled gasps. His grip tightened, lifting her off her feet as her nails scraped at his wrist.
“Don’t hit the shock collar,” Fairburn barked behind me. “It’ll kill her.”
I doubt anyone would mourn it.
Laurel’s feet kicked, her voice ragged between gasps. “Easy… easy, sweetie. I know you’re upset. Just put Mommy down, okay? I promise, I’ll get you out of here—”
Her voice broke on the last word. The Hyde snarled, a low, shuddering sound that made the walls vibrate, before hurling her backward. She hit the concrete with a sickening crack and slid down, coughing, eyes wild with both pain and satisfaction.
He didn’t move again. He just stood there, claws gripping the bars, his chest heaving, the collar around his neck blinking faintly red. His stare locked onto her with a kind of pure, wordless hatred that no creature should ever be capable of.
And she— she laughed. Even through her own pain, she smiled at him like he was hers again, like she’d won something.
The guard hauled her upright with a grunt, the chains clinking like a deathwatch. He didn’t bother to steady her or check the blood; he yanked her toward the door with the same rough efficiency he’d used on a dozen other inmates. Fairburn’s hand found my shoulder, gentle as ever, and guided me out like I might snap if left to my own devices. The door sighed shut behind us with the dull finality of a coffin lid.
Laurel collapsed to her knees in the center of the room. The guard didn’t hesitate. He huffed, shook his head, and left her there— her breathing was ragged, uneven, theatrical like a woman who always performed pain better than she felt it. As if anyone here would feel bad for her.
“Now I don’t know what business you had being here…” She croaked out, throat raw, forcing the syllables into something resembling civility. A smile pulled crooked across her face; it was a practiced thing meant to unsettle. “But I was happy to see my favorite and most promising pupil again.”
She lifted a chained hand, the links clinking like a bell, the motion theatrical. “(Y/N), be a dear and help me up…”
Her tone was syrupy; the smile she offered was the same predatory smile she’d always worn—slick, practiced. She was mocking me. I could have walked away. I could have let the guards drag her back and have done with it. All the sensible things demanded I turn my heel and breathe, to let professionals handle the monster.
Instead, I walked forward.
My steps were slow because I wanted her to see me, to feel small as I stood across from her now. White-hot anger was a physical thing, a heat coiling in my ribs until every rational thought felt far away and useless.
The world narrowed down to her and the sound of my own breathing.
The movement was almost mechanical; my fingers closed over her hand, and the world narrowed to the pressure in my palms. I didn’t think about it— crunching the bones in my grip, hauling her forward. Her head snapped like a rag pulling taut, with no time to scream before I drove my knee straight into her face.
A hard, hollow crack punched the air and seemed to hang there, magnified by the tile and linoleum. She made a sound that could have been a scream if it wasn’t shredded into a wet, surprised choke before cutting off into a violent cough. Her hands flew up instinctively, claws at her own mouth; they came away slick, warm, staining her fingers. Blood glushing past her fingers, the splat of some teeth falling into the puddle. She crumpled, knees folding, and for a moment she was smaller than I’d expected — just a broken, shuddering thing on the ground.
“I had a really bad day today…”
My words and tone were calm. Something familiar and dangerous settled under my ribs: a cold, clinical satisfaction that had nothing to do with joy. It was the same feeling I got when I looked at what had become of Augustus Stonehearst; there was always some satisfaction I seemed to get when I watched parasites like them suffer.
“And I’ve had just about enough of people, whose lifetimes are a fraction of my own, getting away with saying stupid shit to my face.” My voice was low, flat, and I kept my eyes fixed on hers, tilting my head down at her. “You mortals act like there aren’t bigger fish in the sea; you are all so stupid and weak. Does any of your intelligence and wit truly matter? If you are so fragile that someone like me could kill you with a single step.”
I put my boot down over her face, pressing just enough to make the point. Her breath hitched into a gurgle, holding back her own crying as her eyes were covered by the dark sole of my shoe. The hallway seemed to turn slow, like a reel with the sound turned down; Fairburn and the guard stood frozen, neither one making a move to stop me.
“The only reason I’ll let you live is for Tyler’s sake,” I said, and the words had the flat cruelty of iron. “But make no mistake. If there’s ever a next time with the two of us meeting again, I won’t be as nice as I was today. I’ve lived for many decades, so don’t think I’m above spending a few of them behind bars.”
I wiped the blood off my boot on her shirt like she was a rug I simply tread over, and it made my hands stop trembling for a beat. I turned, meeting Fairburn’s eyes. The doctor’s pupils were small pinpricks; she had that look of someone cataloguing an unexpected variable. The guard shifted his weight, uncomfortable and unwilling to intervene.
Fairburn came forward at last, measured, clinical, the professional hand replacing the humane one. “I’ll send her back to Northern State Correctional as soon as possible,” she said, the bureaucratic calm sounding absurd beside what I’d just done. “I’ll keep things off the record…any injuries she had gotten from today were simply from another unruly inmate.”
“And I’m sorry for any additional harm this session might have caused…” she added, like an offering. She wanted— no, she needed me to calm down.
The silence was loaded, only interrupted by a few choked sobs from Laurel and her own ragged heartbeat. It was irritating; I wished she would stop entirely, but I suppose this was as quiet as she was capable of being in this moment.
“Just keep her away from him.” My reply came out brittle and final. “That boy has been through enough; this was the least I could do for him after my failure as his guardian today.”
The guard hauled Laurel to her feet at Fairburn’s nudge— more to move her than to help her up— and dragged her away, wrists clinking, her sobs swallowed by the corridor. The raw adrenaline that had been my fuel for a razor-sharp minute drained into a cold, hungry feeling. My hands shook. My breath was a thing I had to remember to take.
I had crossed some line. I knew it. I could feel the seam where something in me unclenched and rewired. For thirty years, I’d learned to be the polite, distant thing: the dutiful student, the tough and careful friend, the ghost of classrooms. It had been years since I let myself truly snap like that, to the point I’d deliberately hurt someone.
I straightened my shoulders, the mask falling back into place with practiced ease. Fairburn watched me with a look that asked a dozen questions she wouldn’t voice. I let her have that silence. I could pretend that I was horrified, that my hands shook with reluctance, but I didn’t care this time around. In truth, what I saw in that room between Laurel and Tyler had broken whatever was left of my patience.
I breathed out slowly, steadily, counting the seconds, but the scent of blood hitting my nose had me thinking clearly for the first time in days. The logical part of my brain could whisper ethics and consequences, but my mind was made up the moment I stepped out of that room.
I was getting Tyler and Isaac the fuck out of this hellhole.
The way the Laurel & Tyler relationship is handled is absolutely wonderful. Tyler's absolute hatred for her ? The tears in his eyes when he sees her ? The dream of being able to kill her with his own hands for everything she did to him and why he got locked up ? Is so satisfying ! And the way he used her to get out ?! Absolutely brilliant... The way Laurel's death is handled is fabulous to me. After all she done to him ? I always dream he end up killing her.
