In the woods of Jericho, Wednesday stopped in front of the cave.
It was exactly where Xavier's drawings had placed it—hidden behind a cluster of trees.
Eugene lifted the sketch again, comparing it to the real thing. "See? This is the same cave in the picture."
"Yes," Wednesday said, studying the lines of stone and shadow.
She held the drawing beside the entrance; the angles, the proportions, even the jagged edge of rock matched almost perfectly. "A hundred percent match."
There was no hesitation in her tone.
She could say it with certainty now—this was the monster's lair.
Wednesday slipped the drawing back into her bag and pulled out a flashlight, clicking it on. The beam cut into the darkness, revealing damp stone and a path that disappeared deeper underground.
Eugene shifted uneasily. "You're… going inside?"
He hadn't believed the monster rumors before. Not really. But after the recent murders, standing this close to the cave made his skin crawl.
"Yes," Wednesday replied.
She took a step forward.
"If you're scared," she added calmly, "you can stay here. And if you hear my screams about blood and murder, don't come down to do anything. It just means I'm enjoying myself."
Eugene stared at her, unsure whether to laugh or run. He had never quite known what to say about Wednesday's hobbies, and right now, words completely failed him.
Before he could manage a response, Wednesday stepped into the cave. The beam of her flashlight slid across the stone walls—and then she was swallowed by the darkness.
Eugene swallowed hard.
Left alone among the trees, with the cave breathing quietly in front of him, he hesitated for half a second longer than he meant to.
Then, muttering under his breath, he followed her inside.
As Wednesday moved deeper into the cave, her boots crunched softly against the ground. Pale shapes littered the path ahead.
Bones.
Eugene slowed, his breath catching. He swallowed. "Are those… human bones?"
If they were, he had no desire for his bones to join them.
Wednesday crouched and picked one up, turning it once in her hand. She studied the length, the curve, the bite marks.
"No," she said. "Deer. Judging by the scoring, the monster prefers venison."
Eugene exhaled shakily, only slightly reassured.
She swept the flashlight beam across the walls—and stopped.
Metal glinted back at her.
Chains. Heavy ones. Bolted into the stone. At their ends hung rusted handcuffs.
Eugene frowned. "That's… weird. Why would there be cuffs in a place like this?"
"Perhaps the monster enjoys restraint," he offered weakly.
Wednesday didn't look at him. Her eyes traced the walls instead—scratches, stains, the faint outlines of repeated movement. Patterns.
"No," she said finally. "Every confirmed victim died at the scene. Organs removed. No abductions. No prolonged captivity."
She stepped closer to the wall, running the light over the marks again. "Which means these weren't used on victims."
"They served another purpose."
She brushed her fingers over the claw marks etched into the cave wall.
The shock hit instantly—violent, invasive, unavoidable.
Her head snapped back as the cave dissolved, sound collapsing into a hollow rush. Darkness folded inward—
—and the vision took her.
Night. Wet earth beneath her knees. The smell of iron so thick it coated her tongue.
She was kneeling.
Ethan lay sprawled in the dirt, unnaturally still. His chest was torn open, a brutal cavity where his heart should have been. Blood soaked through his clothes, pooling beneath him.
Her hands were shaking.
One of them clutched his—cold, slack, unresponsive.
"Ethan," she tried to say, but the name scraped out of her throat soundless.
His eyes were half-open, glassy, unfocused—already gone.
A pressure crushed her chest. Not fear. Not panic.
Something worse.
Loss.
Laughter followed.
Low. Cruel.
Wednesday lifted her head.
Joseph Crackstone stood before her, pale and wrong, his skin stretched tight, his eyes burning with something that wasn't life.
"One wretched outcast is dead," he said, smiling.
"Next is you—the descendant of the Addams."
She tried to move. She couldn't.
The image cracked.
Moonlight fractured into white—
—and the vision snapped apart.
Wednesday gasped and staggered back, ripping her hand from the wall as reality slammed into place. The cave rushed back around her, damp stone and darkness, Eugene's startled voice muffled and distant.
"Wednesday… are you okay?" Eugene asked, his voice tight in the dark.
"I'm fine," Wednesday said automatically.
It was a lie.
Every vision she'd had so far had come true. Every fragment, every warning. And if that pattern held, then the image burned into her mind had only one conclusion.
Ethan was going to die.
The thought lodged somewhere it shouldn't have, sharp and unwelcome. It made her chest feel constricted, irritated—an unfamiliar reaction she had no interest in analyzing.
"I need to see him," she said abruptly, already turning toward the cave entrance.
Eugene barely had time to react before she was moving past him. As she did, her gaze snagged on something caught against the stone—a single strand of hair, clinging to the rough wall near the claw marks.
She stopped, reached out, and carefully pulled it free.
Evidence.
Wednesday closed her fist around it and headed back toward Nevermore, her pace faster than before.
*****
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