Wednesday Addams was not a girl prone to repetition.
Failure was an unfamiliar taste, and she despised it.
Dirk Sanchez had slipped past her first trap with ease—too much ease. He had not simply avoided it, but dismantled it as though it were child's play. Worse still, he'd done it with the same expression one might wear while brushing lint from a sleeve.
That memory gnawed at her like a rat in the walls.
Which is why she found herself in the library, candlelight flickering over pages of alchemical formulae, occult diagrams, and half-forbidden histories. Her violin leaned against her chair, silent for once.
"This time," she whispered to herself, ink scratching across parchment as she mapped out a design, "he won't walk away untouched."
---
The Design
Wednesday's second trap was no mere snare of rope or pressure plate. No, this one was layered—a concoction of psychological misdirection, subtle alchemy, and environmental manipulation.
She had studied Dirk closely in the days since their last encounter. His towering form, his unnatural calm, the way even silence seemed to bend around him.
Not human, she thought. Or not entirely. But everything bleeds. Everything breaks.
She set her quill down and surveyed her work: a ritualized cage, hidden in the abandoned conservatory, woven with threads of occult energy she'd pieced together from fragments of books most students would faint to even touch.
---
The Lure
Two nights later, Dirk entered the conservatory.
He wasn't lured by accident—Wednesday had been precise. A note slipped under his door, the handwriting elegant, deliberate.
Much like Weems.
But not quite.
Dirk's eyes flicked across the glass-roofed chamber. Dusty vines crept along shattered panes, moonlight pouring silver over broken instruments and long-dead plants.
And in the center, like a spider awaiting prey, stood Wednesday.
"Another invitation?" Dirk's voice was calm, low, filling the room like distant thunder. "Should I expect tea next?"
Wednesday tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "You amuse yourself far too easily. Let's see if you still laugh when the walls close in."
---
The Spring
The moment Dirk stepped further in, her trap activated.
Shadows bled from the corners, runes sparking faintly to life. The air grew heavy, pressing down as though the very atmosphere had grown claws.
From the floor, spectral vines erupted—phantoms of long-dead flora, animated by her ritual. They lashed out, wrapping around Dirk's legs, arms, torso. A coffin of shadows began to form around him, sealing him in.
Wednesday's dark eyes gleamed.
"Even titans suffocate in silence."
---
The Break
For a moment, Dirk didn't move.
Then, with a sigh—an actual sigh—he flexed.
The vines strained, shuddered, and then shattered like brittle glass. The spectral walls cracked and burst outward, collapsing into nothingness with a thunderous echo.
Wednesday's fingers tightened around her notebook, but she didn't step back. Instead, she watched with ravenous curiosity as the dust settled around him.
"You didn't even test the edges," she remarked. "You just… crushed it."
Dirk brushed phantom dust from his shoulder. "Because I knew it wasn't built to hold me. It was built to watch how I'd try."
Her lips curled into the faintest smile. "And you saw through it."
---
The Shift
Dirk stepped closer, his shadow falling over her.
"You're clever," he admitted. "But cleverness isn't the same as dangerous. You keep playing with blades sharper than you realize."
Wednesday's gaze never wavered. "And you keep pretending you're not one yourself."
The silence between them grew taut, heavy. Her dark eyes searched his, hunting for cracks. Instead, she found a wall of steel, unreadable and immovable.
And yet—she also found the faintest glimmer of something else. Amusement. Respect.
"You intrigue me, Mr. Sanchez," she finally said, voice softening by a fraction. "But don't mistake that for affection."
Dirk leaned in, his voice low, dangerous.
"I wouldn't dream of it."
But when he walked away, Wednesday realized her pulse was quickened—not from fear, but from something far more dangerous.
Anticipation.