Chapter Text
I unearth the urn of one of the people profiled in Galpin's cabin from behind their wall inside one of Grandmama's many graveyards. "Nothing stirs the senses like a funerary urn." Grandmama says to me as I lift it from the hole in the wall. "The only people who deserve to be buried in this dump are the maintenance staff." She grimaces.
"Grandmama, you're here." I approach her, almost smiling.
"My granddaughter calls up for dirt on a competitor? You practically dared me to show up."
"I knew you'd be working weekends." She takes the urn from me while I say this.
"Death never takes a holiday, so neither do I." She sits down on the stone bench in the middle of the room. "Why are you interested in this Patricia Redcar?"
"She's a part of my ongoing investigation. Look." I pick up the pieces of paper. "I found all of these obituaries. All Outcasts, all patients at Willow Hill. They're all cremated and buried here."
"What does this have to do with you?" She asks me.
"I saw a vision of my..." I pause. What were we, really? Not just roommates, not just friends. Something more, but not just best friends either. "...My friend's death. Somehow it's all connected."
"Your friend? Sure. Please give her my card." She pulls a business card out. What did she mean 'sure'? "I offer a friends and family discount on all funerals and caskets." Reluctantly, I take it and put it on the inside pocket of my black coat.
"If I had my psychic ability back, I would have solved this already." I cross my arms. "Now, my mother is going to burn Goody's book."
"No crying over spilt ashes. You know what I say about feelings." She's a little like the human, female version of the Grinch now that I think about it.
"Bury them deep inside and allow them to slowly eat away at you." I smile. She is not wrong with here statement. I have been doing this with Enid ever since she saved my life last year. Her wolf form was so magnificent, and I haven't allowed it to exit my thoughts just yet. I attempt to open the urn, but I unfortunately forgot the technique.
"It's all in the wrist." She does it for me, dust coming out of the rim a little when she does. "Ah. Shoddy work, I must say. Lumpy." She walks over to the exit again and gives it a sniff. "Hmm. That's odd." She hands it over to me. "Here. Just like I taught you."
I shake it around a few times, smelling it. "Overtones of deer. Hints of... squirrel and raccoon. And a subtle finish of Shih Tzu."
"Very good." She nods at me. "What's missing?" I smell it again, coming to a very odd conclusion.
"Human." Just as the word leaves my mouth, I hear a menacing caw, and then that one-eyed raven swoops down, stealing the obituaries. "My evidence!" I hand Grandmama the urn, and run after the crow, dodging large headstones and graves. And yet I am not fast enough: a person on a motorbike speeds away when the black, winged animal reaches them. I realise that I have just seen the person who is going to be responsible for Enid's untimely death by the control of a murder of crows.
I head back to the car. "A good run through the tombstones always makes you feel alive. Was that crow luring you into a murderous trap? Varicose and I had wagers."
"The Avian that controls them just stole all my evidence. I've rattled their birdcage. The plot thickens. What's next?"
"Buy this cemetery and find out who authorised those cremations." I know full well that she is wealthy enough to purchase it.
"Why would I do something so rash?" I know just how to persuade her.
"Because once you tell my mother you're finally getting me into the family business, all of her childhood insecurities will come bubbling to the surface." She smiles at me.
"Well played, my dear. You know exactly how to worm your way into my cold, desiccated heart." She takes a sip of some kind of alcoholic drink, looking pleased. Usually an obituary is the end of the story, not the beginning of an even stranger one.
When I walk into the Nevermore courtyard, I hear a bird caw behind me. What a bold move: the Avian has decided to allow their spy to come into the gates of the school. I begin heading upstairs to our dormitory. Who faked those patients' deaths? Who is Lois? And how is all of this connected to Enid's impending death? Before entering the room, I hear her saying: "Gotta go, bye!" And the sound of someone laughing, then saying: "Why, is your"—I did not hear this part—"back?" When I enter, she awkwardly looks at my from her bed.
"Hi, Wednesday." She smiles, sitting up.
"Who were you talking to?" It was obviously not Thing. It could have been Yoko or Divina on a phone call with her.
"Yoko." What did I tell you? "We were just... talking about... homework." The bow to my cello drops to the floor.
"You know I'm not above using a nail gun." I tell the empty space next to my desk, which is soon replaced by Agnes.
"Uh... How long have you been here?" She stares at her with wide eyes, as if she is scared of something. I do not understand what there is to be scared of. She has no knives right now.
"Long enough to know what your 'homework' talk was all about." Agnes looks between the two of us, smiling evilly.
"I'm gonna go. Have fun with this little eavesdropper." She gives the ginger one what some might call a dirty look.
"Do you want me to tell her?" She asks. Enid rapidly shakes her head. "Then go." She leaves as fast as I've ever seen her go.
"Tell me about what, exactly? Also, why are you even here?"
"It doesn't matter. And I was just taking mundane tasks off your plate so you can focus on the case." She hands me some mail. "Got a letter from your publisher. Figured you'd want it ASAP."
"Dear Miss Addams, we all love Viper..." I really do not feel like reading this whole thing out loud. It is just a handful of boring excuses. "...Dah-duh-dah-duh-dah... You're incredibly difficult to work with, blah-blah-blah... Adamant refusal to engage in the editing and re-writing process. Dah-duh-dah-duh-dah. Regrettably, I must drop you as a writer. Please seek help." I look up at her awkwardly. This is the third publisher that had said the exact same thing as the others.
"I'm sorry." I fold up the letter while she apologises for no reason.
"Why? I'd rather no one read my novel than make a compromise." I put it in my bin next to the desk that holds my typewriter and manuscript before hearing a caw outside. That idiotic Avian has sent the one-eyed raven to watch me again. "Now that this Avian is aware of our investigation, we don't have much time. All of our answers are in the Willow Hill asylum. And I know just to lunatic to get them for me." I wish Enid were here. I know she would understand.
As I am heading up Iago Tower's elevator, I presume that Agnes is already there, unless she is in this contraption alongside me. I can usually sense her presence, because she emits heat, but I cannot right now. I slide the door open, walking out and keeping a sharp eye for Fester. "Hello?" I call, and as I turn around, I see his pale face.
"You rang?" He is wearing a black coat and hat.
"Thanks for coming on such short notice."
"For my favourite niece, I'm always a lurk away." He reveals his bald head after saying this.
"I need you to get into Willow Hill." I walk around him.
"The last time I did that was for your mother. She wanted me to check on her sister." Why was Ophelia in there?
"Aunt Ophelia was in there? When?"
"Oh, years ago. She'd flown the coop by the time I got committed. I stuck around for a few weeks." He shrugs. "They had a top-notch electroshock therapist, Igor. He ran a gulag in Siberia. He really knew how to rattle the old cerebral cortex." He stops and smiles for a second, as if reminiscing on old times. Suddenly, he frowns, and reaches his hand out. Blue bolts of electricity come out, and Agnes reveals herself, her hair looking like a mad scientist's. "Nobody sneaks up on me, kid." She whimpers. "She with you?"
"This is my stalker. I turned her into an unpaid expendable gofer." I walk over to him, and face Agnes.
"Hm. I'm a big fan of child labour. A stampede of chupacabras makes less noise than you. Learn to hold your breath, and walk on the seams of the floorboards."
"Thanks for the pro tip." She sighs. "I took the liberty of getting you the Willow Hill blueprints." She hands a scroll over to me, and I immediately unroll it for me and Fester.
"I need you to find Lois." I tell him. "Could be a patient, could be a doctor. Just make sure that the head shrink, Dr. Fairburn, can't trace you back to me." I cannot have her knowing that I sent a relative in, because then he'll probably end up in prison and his cover will be blown, which will compromise my mission to save Enid.
"Oh, don't worry. If there's an expert on getting committed to a loony bin..." He smiles cheekily. "...It's me!" His signature laugh is quite nice to hear after all this time, I will admit that.
I walk into the cottage as Lurch adds more wood to the crackling fire. I do not enjoy the smell of burning logs as much as I used to, seeing as I nearly died from ingesting carbon dioxide just a few days ago at the 'celebration of our bravery'. "Building a funeral pyre for Goody's book?" I ask. My mother turns to me, her pale skin illuminated by the orange lighting.
"Darling, if you're here to plead your case again—"
"I don't grovel." I interrupt her before she can finish her sentence. "Like Grandmama said, there's no crying over spilt ashes."
"Hm. She seems to be showering you with advice lately." She smiles a little, and I begin walking towards her.
"Aunt Ophelia was sent to Willow Hill. Why?"
"Ask your Grandmama." She tells me. More things on my list that I must complete. If I am honest, I would like to spend time with Enid, just in case. And it never hurts to see her face. It's quite the contrary. "It was her decision."
"You accuse me of keeping secrets, but you're no better." I tell her. "Maybe that's where I get it from." She looks up at Lurch when I say this, and I hear his footsteps walking away, and he is most likely getting Goody's book.
"In her sophomore year... Ophelia was found screaming in the quad. Black tears running down her cheeks. She had pushed her psychic ability too far. That's when she was sent away. Unlike you, I did grovel. I pleaded with Grandmama that Ophelia would only get worse in Willow Hill. That her problems were not mental, they were psychic. But my appeals fell on deaf ears. Grandmama was always better at burying things rather than fixing them." She tells me. I now understand her concern for me. "Speaking of secrets, I know you still haven't told Enid the truth. About two things." I appreciate why she changed the subject, because it is quite sensitive.
"You're wrong about one of them." I turn my head away, thinking about the fact that Ophelia went mad, and then went missing. But I will not do either until I can guarantee Enid's safety.
"Old memories are like old corpses." Grandmama walks in after this exchange. "They never quite seem the same when you dig them up." She is holding a piece of paper. She must have bought the cemetery after all.
"Mama, what an unpleasant surprise."
"Varicose told me you rang." She walks over to us. "And I wanted to give Wednesday the deed to the cemetery I bought her." She hands me the piece of paper, and I grin. "Just a little starter property to give her a taste of the family business." Sometimes Enid smiles at me and I can see her canines sticking out, and I would never say it, but it is an extremely pretty smile. "A woman should have a portfolio of her own, and not be reliant on a husband."
"You do spoil her rotten. Darling, Grandmama and I need to speak. Alone." As I am about to leave, she whispers something to me.
"Augustus Stonehurst. That's who signed those death certificates." I nod at her a little. I look through the window, and while I can't hear what they are saying, I do see my mother throwing Goody's book into the fireplace. Grandmama is genuinely stunned by her action.
"Augustus Stonehurst used to be the Normie head doctor at Willow Hill." Agnes tells me while we walk into the quad. I can see Enid from afar, and her words snap me back to focus, reminding me that the purpose of this is to save her. "Before that, he taught science at Nevermore."
"When he's not signing these questionable death certificates, where is the good doctor these days?" She hands me a piece of paper.
"In Willow Hill. He had a psychotic break." I unfold it, and it is and old copy of a news article detailing his career and admission to his own workplace. There is a black-and-white image of him in a wheelchair.
"Confined to his own asylum. That's a plot twist worthy of Poe."
"Wednesday!" Enid waves at me, and her smile is just like the one I was daydreaming about earlier. "Wanna order a quad and join us?" She asks. It would pain me to say no to her if she wasn't sitting with her pack. I do feel jealous, but there is a very good reason as to why I am avoiding her. Agnes poofs out of existence when she sees her. "Maybe have some fun?"
"I'm where fun goes to die. Where's Thing?" He hops off the pack's table. "I need you. It's urgent." I can still feel Enid's gaze lingering on me. "Get a message to Fester. I need him to track down Augustus Stonehurst. I think he might be our key to finding Lois." I hear Enid behind me after folding up the paper Agnes gave me.
"I know you're a chronic under-sharer, but after last year I figured we'd be closer." I know exactly what she means. She was specifically talking about that hug. I have not really been able to get that out of my dreams and my thoughts since that particular event, but it was something I had tried to block out. I don't want to have feelings for anyone because of last time with Tyler. I can't let myself be in such a position of weakness again. But wouldn't Enid be the perfect person to see me in such a state? She does look upset, and for that I do feel bad. "Seems like you prefer hanging out with that pint-sized psycho, Agnes, more than me."
"Seems like you're a little preoccupied." I can't stop the words from coming out. My automatic excuse makes me look away.
"You can't blame this whole thing on the pack."
"Didn't you say you wanted fun and freedom?"
"I can also help on non-case related issues too. Like a boundary-challenged mother? Hello, been there." I zone out the second I hear at least three crows cawing behind me. "And also, who's had powers that have failed them? Done that too." There are at least ten of them already, and when I turn back, I find myself closer to her. "Hello? Wednesday?" There is twenty now, probably actually thirty.
"Enid, get inside now." I tell her.
"No! You're my... best friend, I'm not gonna let you keep pulling away like this."
"Enid!" I yell at her, and I grab her sleeve. Just as I do, they launch towards us. I immediately push the picnic table to cover us, and she grabs Thing before he falls, placing him next to us. I pull her close to me, and swat away a bird that comes a little too close.
"What the fuck is going on?" She says, and her voice is quivering. She is terrified.
"It's an Avian. Don't worry, it will be okay." I try to reassure her, but I don't think that it's working. The students clamour and shout, but I know why they're here. And I won't let them take their target. She leans into my shoulder, her hands shaking while brushing up against mine. She whimpers a little, sounding like a puppy. I feel so sorry for her, but I cannot tell her what is going on. It is impossible for me to inform her of her fate, and I want to tell her the second thing that my mother had inferred. Of course, I could never admit that she was right. Dort starts to shoot fireballs at the black, winged creatures, and a few of them start flying away.
I look up, seeing the Avian in their black cloak hiding in a window. I squeeze her hand a little, trying not to be as distant as I have been recently, and I bolt after them, running as fast as I can, up some stairs, through a secret passageway hidden behind a bookcase, through musty and cobwebbed halls, through a painting and—they aren't there. It is just their cloak. The doors behind me let the breeze in, but I run up this set of stairs and into Capri's classroom. Fairburn is there, on her phone.
"Miss Addams?" She says. "This is a surprise."
"I think you dropped this." I offer the black coat to her.
"Excuse me?"
"What brings you to Nevermore, Dr. Fairburn?"
"Miss Capri generously offered to teach a music therapy class at Willow Hill. You know what they say, music soothes the savage beast." She says. I feel like tricking her into saying aluminium, but I know there is no time to fool around with a British person right now.
"I'll take weapons over Wagner." I say. Birds chitter, while Capri comes out from behind me, through the doors I just entered, carrying a tray with tea and snacks. Tea is quite fitting.
"I don't wanna guess how you two know each other." She says.
"Miss Addams assisted with a certain homicidal Hyde." A car horn sounds outside. "No time for tea. Judi keeps me on a tight leash. I have a board meeting. I'll see you tomorrow night." I frown. Why is she breathing so heavily?
"You seem out of breath."
"It's been a long day." She shrugs. "I assume you're here to drop out of the gala orchestra."
"I've decided to stick around. Every Mozart needs their Salieri." I walk away, eyeing the bird cage. Not more birds. Well, Grandmama always has her shooting range where I can take out my anger on clay pigeons.
Later, when Fairburn leaves, I send Thing after her, and he hops onto the car. My mother approaches me. "I hear your Uncle Fester's in Willow Hill. We both know he only gets caught when he wants to. What ill-advised mission is he doing for you?"
"He's helping me find the truth. I won't allow Enid to die because of me. I know what I saw in that vision."
"A torrent of birds around her gravestone, the same torrent that attacked you both today. You need to stop, Wednesday. Or you're going to make everything worse. This has gone much farther than your feelings for—"
"I have no feelings for her. She is a friend. You are not always right, and you must accept that."
FESTER GOT CAUGHT AND HE'S ROOMIES WITH PUGSLEY'S ZOMBIE FROM THE CAMP JERICHO INCIDENT! ALSO I THINK THORNHILL IS THERE! He's in a straightjacket though, so at least he has that to enjoy, right? Thing tells me while I pace.
I slam my hands down. "You need to go back to Willow Hill. Keep an eye on Fester until I can figure out a way to break him out." He bows, and jumps off the desk, then walks away.
A few hours later, I have Enid and Agnes with me. I do need help for this. "Weather's turning ugly." Enid tells us while me and my copycat study the blueprints.
"Capri has a music therapy class tonight at Willow Hill. She's our way in and out." I point to the room she'll be in. "Her class lasts forty-five minutes. That's our window. Thing is already connected with Fester's contact on the inside. She knows where he's being held. Thing will lie low until I've secured Fester, and make his own way out." I drag my finger over to the entrance. "There's a vehicle inspection at the gate. Agnes, I need you to distract the guard so I can get inside."
"I'll be in position before you arrive." She smiles.
"After I rendezvous with Fester's contact, I'll extract him from his cell, then go find Lois." Enid steps forward.
"What about me?" She asks. "What's my part of the plan?" I really do not want her to get hurt or caught in any crossfire. I don't even know if I should let her be part of this. "Do you even want to be my friend anymore?" Her voice dies down a little at the word 'friend'. Maybe she wants to say that we're best friends, like she said earlier, or maybe she wanted to say something else that she knows we are not (yet).
"That has never been in question." I feel my voice crack. "You're on lookout."
She scoffs, while Agnes happily watches us. I still want to know what that 'homework' conversation was about. "I figured I'd be a little bit more mission-critical." She has no idea how critical she is. To me or the mission.
"You are." I pause, thinking of a reason why she would be other than the fact that I am trying to save her. "You see, if I get caught, I need someone to anonymously tip off Sheriff Santiago that something is going down at Willow Hill." She sighs.
When I manage to get to Willow Hill, having hidden in Capri's trunk (I had to endure her singing), and then gotten out and into the building with Louise when Agnes used some sort of explosion in the toilet to cover the noise of the boot [author's note: I don't know if Americans call the back of a car a boot or trunk, but we call them boots in Britain so that's what that means] opening and closing. I get into Louise's food trolley, which she delivers to the patients kept in their cells.
"Evening, Louise." I hear a guard say outside. "What's on the menu tonight?"
"Nothing edible." She chuckles. After a short pause, it seems that she is given permission to go ahead. I snag his ID card before we go ahead, and I know that these doors will probably need it. She stops the trolley outside a cell after a little while, which I presume is Fester's. "Tell Fester I'll be waiting for him." She says while carrying on down the hall. I unlock his door, dodging Pugsley's zombie as I enter, trying not to get my brain taken away from me. After unlocking the straightjacket, I realise how quickly I managed to do it, even with the pressure of a zombie behind me.
"Less than ten seconds!" He smiles. "That might be a family record." He says, then electrocutes the zombie. "Play nice!" He shouts at it.
"We don't have much time." I say as I check my watch. "We need to find Lois."
"Alright." He says, leading me out. I can slightly hear a distant piano playing: it must be Capri. As me and Fester run down the hall, I see carnage up ahead, because of the zombie, as well as... Laurel Gates. The one who triggered the events of last year. The one who gave me and Enid permanent scars and trauma. An alarm sounds shortly after I see that disgusting woman. Fester leads me to a maintenance door with a keypad next to it. I try to swipe the card anyways, which does not work.
"Five, one, nine, seven, one." He says the numbers as he presses down on them. The lock clicks open.
"How'd you know the code?" I ask.
"Trash-talking parrot." He shrugs. "Don't ask." I wasn't planning on it. We step into what seems to be a normal room, but after some analysis, I see the marks of a bookcase dragging along the floor, so I attempt to open it, and it leads me to a staircase. The words painted onto the wall say: Long-term Outcast Integration Study.
"Look at the initials." Fester says, so I read the ever so slightly faded words out loud.
"LOIS isn't a person. It's a secret program." I head down the metal stairs. There are numerous metal cell doors, and when I turn the lights on, I see a very odd-looking piece of machinery behind a glass panel, as well as lots of controls on our side of the room. When I look through one of the slits in the door, I see a face that is a little bit familiar to me. "I think that's Patricia Redcar." I close the slit, heading over to the next one. "And that's Julian Meiojas. I recognise them from their obituaries."
"Except neither is six feet under." Fester sounds intrigued, just as I do.
"Their deaths must have been faked so they could be kept as living experiments. This is what Galpin was afraid of—this happening to Tyler." I tell him. It all makes so much more sense now. I go to the next door.
"HELP ME!" She screams. I am not sure who she is, and I feel sorry for her, but I will let all these people out soon, or at least I hope I can.
I open the next one. A woman is crouched, sitting in the corner on her bench. "Hello?"
"Are you here to kill me?" She looks at us. I shake my head, and I realise that this place has driven them all insane and most likely past the point of rehabilitation or getting back to normal life. "Then leave me alone." She says, turning back. I have never felt so bad for a complete stranger. When a crow caws, I do have no choice but to follow her order. The Avian is stood there, adorned with another black cloak. Where do they even get them from? It doesn't make much sense to me.
"So you are the new face of mad doctors." I tell her. It has to be Fairburn. It must be. "You do realise that Fairburn doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Frankenstein." She then unmasks herself, and the face I see is not one that I would have ever expected.
"There's nothing mad about what I'm doing. Fairburn works for me. I recruited her to be the public face of this institution and continue my father's work." It was Judi. All along, it was her. It is her that is going to cause Enid's demise. But not if I get to the woman standing in front of me. I will not let her take Enid's life. I now can admit it, but not to Enid herself. I do have feelings for her. That is what has driven me this whole way.
"You're Augustus Stonehurst's daughter." I say. It all makes so much sense now. "That's how you knew about the secret passages at Nevermore. You must've used them to visit your aviary in Iago Tower."
"I have very fond memories of my father's time at Nevermore." What a psychotic smile. "He loved Outcasts."
"Evidence to the contrary." Why would he kidnap and lock them up for years, if that truly was the case?
"He wanted to be one. Imagine being able to extract their abilities and share it with Normies." She pulls a gun out.
"You mean steal them and exploit them." I step towards her. Outcasts were and still sometimes are mistreated and the black sheep of the world, and now Normies want that too. Diverse communities cannot have anything to themselves. "This is a basement bargain attempt at Dr. Moreau."
She chuckles, waving the gun in her face. "I did more than just attempt. I am living proof. I was born a Normie, and thanks to my father's work, my beautiful black-winged friends obey my every whim." That can't be right. So this whole time, Enid could have been murdered by a sadistic, hybrid maniac? I will never allow that to happen, especially now that I know her true identity. I will make it out of here, and I will tell her the truth, and I might just follow my mother's instructions for once in my life.
"Experimenting on his own daughter. That's twisted. Even by my own sick standards." Fester chips in.
"Bah! I volunteered! My father and I were a team. He needed a subject. I wanted to be part of his legacy." She is still smiling madly.
"Until he lost his mind?" I ask.
"He wanted to be a DaVinci, but his body couldn't take it." I can ever so slightly see light coming from behind Fester. He is building up energy. I need to keep her talking.
"Well, if you can't bring Icarus to the sun, bring the sun to Icarus. Right, Fester?" I look to him, and he smiles devilishly, then removes his hands from behind his back, releasing all of the built-up tension from behind him, the room exploding into blinding light, throwing all of us to the floor. This happens to fry the electricity, which releases the Outcasts from captivity. How convenient. I'm sure Judi will be the only person they will want to harm. I hear her screams as they rabidly pursue her, dragging her from the few stairs she managed to climb.
"As much as I wanna watch them pluck her feathers, we gotta vamoose." He tells me. I look toward the woman who asked me if we were going to kill her. She has not come out of her cell. I approach.
"You go." I say to him. "I owe you one, Uncle Fester."
"Are you kidding me? We just liberated our first asylum! I live for days like this." He walks off while I enter her room.
"I'm going to get you out of here." I grab her arm, taking her with me.
"What kind of angel are you?" She asks.
"An avenging one."
As we leave, or at least, are trying to find an exit, I look down a corridor. Something just growled from over there. And then a massive, grey-skinned, lumbering beast appears, looking our way. "Go." I say to the woman. I will not let her get caught in the crossfire of our feud. "Now." He runs towards me, his humungous figure breaking the lights as he does. When he gets to me, he stops, saliva pouring out of his open mouth, revealing sharp teeth. He roars, and his breath reeks. But that is not my biggest concern, because he throws me full-force out of a window. And I know I will pull through, because I still have a duty to save Enid Sinclair, no matter what happens.
Enid Sinclair's perspective
While me and Agnes are hiding in the bushes, a window in the very center of the building smashes to pieces and... No. No, it can't be her. "What the hell happened?" Agnes asks me, eyes wider than ever as she stares at Wednesday's body hitting the ground with a loud thud.
"Shit! NO!" Tyler the fucking disgusting brute who did this to her jumps out onto the police cars that have just arrived, and I know I can't go there yet, or he'll probably kill me. The second he leaves, I sprint over to her, and I see her beautiful face covered in rain and blood. The red liquid is streaking down her face, and her eyes are closed. When I scramble to the floor, I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her, just like I did when she couldn't breathe after being in the fire of the pyre a few days ago. She isn't conscious, but I can hear a small heartbeat, and her breath—it is slowing down. "NO! WEDNESDAY, PLEASE!" I scream, my tears mixing with the droplets pouring from the sky.
"I need an ambulance!" Santiago yells at her officers. She comes to me. "Let her go, Miss Sinclair." I turn away, holding her a little tighter. I won't let them fucking touch her. Not until the ambulance gets here. They can't. What if they hurt her even more? What if she dies? I can't let her die. I can't. And she won't. "Enid." Santiago tries to coerce me into letting her go.
"No." I say, my voice barely above a whisper. And then I hear another siren added to the noise of the others. The ambulance is here. When they finally bring a stretcher over, it takes Agnes and three police officers to take me away from her. As soon as she is stable, I swear I will not leave her side.