𝒇𝒊𝒗𝒆. don't say i didn't warn you

      "Ah, Miss Monroe, I've been itching to meet with you," Principal Weems exuded.

      Eve pressed her lips together to form a fake smile. "I wish I could say the same."

      Weems leaned back into her leather desk chair, seemingly unamused by her student's antics. Eve challenged her by tilting her head to the left, taunting her principal for a response.

      "I assume you're well aware of the mysteries surrounding this town, yes?" Weems asked, earning a nod from Eve. "Am I also correct in assuming that you're aware of Wednesday Addams' obsession with these murders?"

      "I'm aware that you and the rest of the faculty are covering up something ominous," Eve shortly replied. "Whatever that is, however, I am unaware of."

      "Based on your attitude with me, I see you're one to hold grudges. You remind me of myself, Evette," the blonde–haired woman smiled.

      Eve narrowed her eyes at the woman. "Whether that's supposed to be a compliment or an insult is a mystery to me. May we get to the reason you called this meeting or am I free to go?"

      "I called you in to warn you, Miss Monroe," Weems spoke sternly. "I warn you to steer clear of Wednesday Addams and all of her far–fetched theories. I hypothesize that she will be delivering her silly stories to you next."

      "And I'll be waiting until she does. Have you stopped to consider what good would come to Wednesday if she truly has just been lying about everything?" Eve asked. "She's only been teased and ridiculed by her classmates. You're lucky that she can handle it."

      "And what about you? Have you been handling it?" Weems asked.

      "Oh, you suddenly care about the well–being of your students?" Evette said through a disbelieving laugh. "All this school cares about is covering up deaths and blaming your mistakes on others, isn't that right? It wouldn't be the first time, after all."

      Larissa Weems uncomfortably shifted in her chair as her gaze left Eve's. The student let out a laugh as she stood from the seat. The logs cracking in the room's fireplace was the only thing providing any sort of sound.

      "For the record, some grudges are worth holding," Eve spit venomously. She traveled towards the exit of the room and placed her hand on the cold doorknob.

      "Holding this against the world won't make him come back, Evette," Principal Weems spoke. "Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something. Forgiveness, perhaps?"

      "Don't speak on something you know nothing of," Eve's eyes swelled with sorrow and anger as she replied, proceeding to exit the room.

      Eve exited Principal Weem's office, missing her first class of the day in return. She got a warm drink from the cafeteria and checked her phone to find Xavier's many worried text messages after her unpredictable behavior.

      As she rounded a corner, her heart fell to her feet and she squeezed the steaming cup of tea in her hand, hardly phased by the temperature of it.

      Eve's eyes blinked profusely in disbelief as she took in the sight before her. On a wall that Xavier commonly painted on was a new large mural covered in detailed orchid flowers. The petals were colored orange at the column and faded into a soft white at the ends.

      The reason as to why Xavier would trade his typical drawings of various birds for a flower as simple as an orchid was beyond Eve. In her mind, the entire ordeal just had to be some sort of bizarre coincidence.

     Her mind travelled to a seemingly insignificant moment that she and Xavier had shared a few days prior:

     Xavier was notably quiet that morning. Loose hair fell from his bun and his hands were stained with a multitude of dark paints.

      He noticed her staring through his peripheral vision and leaned over the desk. "What's your favorite flower?" Xavier asked with his eyes still glued to his book.

      "Orchids," she simply replied with a shrug from her shoulders.

      Xavier took his pencil into his hand and sketched away at the bronze shaded paper. It didn't take long for him to draw the fine details of a beautiful flower and its smooth stem. He hovered his hand above the page with great concentration and the flower appeared out of thin air.

      He took the flower into his grasp and handed it to her, an exhausted yet kind smile playing over his features. "A pretty flower for a pretty girl," he said.

      Eve shook off the vision of the memory and soothed her scrambling mind with a sip from her boiling tea. She then set out on route for Xavier's art studio.

      The wilderness surrounding the shed was particularly calm that morning, something that Evette was awfully thankful for.

      Although most disregarded Wednesday's theories of a monster lurking in the middle of the woods, nothing bad would come from being a tad bit more cautious of the possibility.

      Eve opened the unlocked shed door and took a step inside of the studio. The room smelled of expensive paints and mahogany candles; a scent that Xavier had also come to have.

      "Xavier?" she spoke softly as she tread further into the empty room.

      Just as she was about to retreat, she noticed a large canvas standing tall with a black sheet covering it. Her eyebrows pinched together in both confusion and intrigue as she approached it.

      All of the other paintings in the room seemed to grow insignificant in comparison to one that hadn't even revealed itself. Using her telekinesis, Eve began to lift the corner of the sheet off of the painting.

      "Hey. What are you doing in here?" Xavier's voice greeted her as he shut the door behind him.

      Eve nearly jumped out of her skin and dropped hold of the sheet, turning to face him. "God, don't do that!" she exclaimed before smoothing down her clothes. "I came here looking for you."

      "Sometimes I forget how easily you scare," he chuckled. "What's up?"

      "I saw your mural," she replied. "It's really.. It's really pretty."

      Xavier's eyes softened as he smiled. "Thanks. You're my muse, you know? I know orchids are your favorite."

      "You remembered?" Eve's lips parted, partially shocked that he could recall such a small detail about her.

      Xavier nodded and turned his head to the side, revealing three red dark scratch marks. Eve traveled over to him and closed most of the distance between them, taking his jaw in her hands and gently turning his head to the side.

      "What happened?" Eve asked, her voice ridden with genuine concern. Her cold hand fell into the nape of his neck as she closely examined his injury.

      His eyes were locked onto her beautiful face as she held his head in place. Her fingers lightly trailed along the irritated skin that surrounded his wounds, her thumb caressing the side of his jaw as her gaze faltered between his neck and his eyes. Xavier let out a hushed groan of pain that he had been trying to suppress, provoking her to pull arms to her sides and step backwards.

      "I'm sorry," she said through a breath.

      "No. No, it's okay," Xavier assured her.

      Eve nodded while dropping her head to her feet. "How did it happen?"

      "I, uh– I get these really bizarre dreams sometimes. Lately this creature has been haunting them for weeks," he admitted as he turned the light on in the room, revealing many paintings of a demonic monster with blazing red eyes. "I try to block it out, but I can't. Whenever that happens, I paint it."

      Xavier pointed to a specific canvas, one that hadn't been entirely finished. It only had a face with the typical trait of red eyes. "When I was painting this one, its claws reached out and took a swipe at me. That's how I got the scratches."

      "I thought you were able to control your powers," she spoke softly.

      He shook his head. "I haven't been able to ever since the dreams started to get worse."

      "In what way?"

      Xavier's eyes flicked back and forth between Eve's dark eyes and the wooden floorboards. "I've been seeing you in my dreams. In the ones with the monster, I mean. Each time, it hurts you in some way but never allows me to see it."

      Eve's lips quivered as he spoke. "I–I mean... that can't mean anything bad. They're just dreams, right?"

      He took a seat on the wooden stool in front of the paintings and sighed. "I thought so until Wednesday showed me pieces of my dreams that were actually linked to the scenes of the murders. She's been investigating them herself and has found tons of things that relate back to Rowan's mom and other anomalies in Jericho. Like–"

      "The Nightshades library? Crackstone's crypt?" she finished his sentence. Eve sighed before speaking again: "Why did Rowan attempt to kill Wednesday and I with the gargoyle statue?"

      "How did you–" Xavier gulped and slouched into his seat, subsequently eating his words. "You and Wednesday appear in a painting that Rowan's mother drew before she died. He told me that his mother used to have awful visions of the two girls in the painting fighting against a man who was destined to save the world from your 'wretchedness'... I always used to brush it off as stuff that his mind made him see."

      Eve's eyes widened at his words, thus developing an inability to form any of her own. It seemed as though she needed to do some digging of her own.

      "Rowan said he saw you and Wednesday standing in the courtyard and intended to kill you both with the gargoyle statue before the prophecy beneath the painting could come true," Xavier concluded.

      "What prophecy?" Eve inquired.

      Xavier pulled a crinkled paper from his desk drawer and handed it to Eve:

𝐒𝐎 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐖𝐎𝐄 𝐓𝐇'𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄
𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆.

𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐈𝐒'𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐒 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐈𝐒'𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐎 𝐆𝐀𝐙𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇 𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐊 𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐄.

𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐌𝐒𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈'𝐑𝐒 𝐅'𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐓 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐀𝐒 𝐖𝐄 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐓𝐇.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆.

      "Rowan wrote it down on practically everything in the weeks leading up to the Harvest Festival. The paper was somehow left on the floor after Rowan's 'expulsion,'" Xavier said in air–quotes.

      "You don't believe that Rowan was expelled?" Eve asked.

      Xavier shook his head. "Not anymore. I texted Rowan and asked him if he'd still be going to our annual snowboarding trip during Spring Break."

      "I didn't know you two went snowboarding," she replied.

      "We never did," he clarified. "Yet Rowan still played along as if we had. That's when I started to believe Wednesday's theories about the monster lurking in the woods."

      Eve pointed at the various portraits of the beast. "And you believe that this is what it looks like?"

      Xavier's jaw tensed as he turned to face the drawing of the monster. "Yeah, I think so."

Evette entered a long golden hall designated for fencing practice – a promotion requirement for Nevermore Academy. She had been putting it off for months on end, but it was finally time that she completed it.

Her uniform forced her to have pristine posture and her body cringed with every step she took. The material was foreign to her and was most definitely not her style.

Evette walked with steady steps along the large group of students. She held her mask in her hand and her blade in the other.

"Everyone find your partners," Coach announced to the room of sluggish students.

Evette felt two taps on her left shoulder, her eyes immediately following the hand to its owner: Benjamin Lievs – a notably quiet vampire. He stood an estimated four inches above her, his brown curly hair only adding to his height.

"Yes?" she said.

"You're new to the class, right? I noticed you from across the room. Wanna partner up?" he replied, a sly smile forming on his lips.

"She's with me," Xavier spoke with a voice that was stern and clear. He hovered above both Evette and Benjamin with a scowl over his face.

Eve scoffed at his dramatics, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. Benjamin nodded and left the pair standing alone.

"Has anybody ever told you that jealousy is the thief of joy?" Eve complained.

Xavier pressed his hand against her lower back as he guided them to an unclaimed mat at the end of the room.

      "Are you insinuating that your afternoon would've been more joyous if you had partnered with Fangs?"

"And if I am?" Eve was amused by his attempt to conceal his jealousy.

"Then you'd be wrong," he replied.

Eve chuckled. "Don't be so sure. He's cute, isn't he?" she spoke while looking over at Benjamin who was already smiling back at her.

Xavier scoffed at her attempt to get a rise out of him, his green eyes locked onto hers before he spoke again: "Do us both a favor and behave."

Eve blinked up at him a few times through her eyelashes, giving him an incensed smile. She instinctively took a step forward, closing the small gap between them.

"You can't tell me what to do," she hummed. "Because guess what? You're not my real boyfriend."

The corner of Xavier's lips curved upwards into a ravenous smile."If there's nothing real between us then why do you still insist on being so close to me?"

Eve bit the inner side of her cheek, not wishing to break the tense stare that they held. "There's a lot to hate about you, Xavier Thorpe."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd assume that you're actually beginning to like me," he smiled.

"It's a good thing you know better, isn't it?" she hummed.

"You two act quite odd for a couple," Wednesday's brooding voice interrupted their conversation.

"Right? They just seem so..." Bianca began. "...Incompatible."

Xavier and Eve exchanged a million words with a single worried glance. They stammered their words, unable to speak clearly over the other.

"Relax. Among the other mysteries in this town, your weird dynamic of a relationship is the least of my worries," Wednesday said.

Although the uncomfortable conversation ceased, tension still lingered in the air. Apparently bickering in public was not a very convincing image for the couple. The fencing lesson soon ended, leaving the majority of the students to be exhausted and out of breath.

After changing into their clothes for the remainder day, Xavier caught into the sleeve of Eve's navy blue cardigan.

"Do you want to go get lunch?" Xavier questioned through a single breath. "I– I have something that I want to show you."

Eve shook her head with a frown. "I can't, I need to run into town."

"I'll join you," Wednesday joined their conversation once more.

"Oh, what for?" Evette asked.

"I'm meeting Tyler," she coldly replied.

Xavier shook his head. "I told you he was bad news."

Wednesday dismissed Xavier's presence entirely and kept her gaze locked onto Eve who was staring in confusion at both of them. "...Am I missing something?"

"No, you're not missing anything," Xavier replied. He placed a kiss on top of her head as he exited the room. "I'll see you later, Eve."

Wednesday narrowed her eyes at Evette, still not blinking. "Quite the brooding boyfriend you have there."

Eve shrugged before replying: "Yeah, tell me about it."

      The sky above Jericho was dark and gloomy, Wednesday hadn't missed her opportunity to comment on the weather to be her favorite: overcast with chance of a thunderstorm.

      The two girls walked in silence for the most part until Wednesday stopped in her tracks right outside of the Weathervane.

      Eve turned to look at her. "Why'd you stop walking? I'm pretty sure Tyler is working today."

      "Never mind him, I didn't come to visit Tyler at all," she emotionlessly replied.

      "But you said–"

      "I lied. The real reason I came into town with you was to warn you without the possibility of any witnesses," Wednesday spoke.

      Eve had a slight Deja Vu moment occur as her mind revisited the meeting that she had with Weems. She found it to be surprising that her Principal's prediction was actually coming true.

      "I'd advise you to steer clear from Xavier Thorpe though you probably won't listen," Wednesday continued. "Instead, I want you to be diligent around him when alone. And no, I'm not going this out of the goodness of my heart. I'd just prefer to keep blood off of my hands this one time."

Eve was slightly taken aback. "I appreciate that but there's nothing to look out for, Wednesday."

"Maybe you feel that way now. Have you ever considered why his shed is located in the woods where no one can witness anything? Why his studio is decorated with portraits of a bloodthirsty monster? Why Rowan was murdered after he and Xavier have a huge fight? How his dreams display the graphic images of each crime scene?"

"Look – whatever lead you're chasing, I suggest you drop it. Xavier isn't capable of doing... anything like that," Evette replied.

"Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you," Wednesday spoke before leaving her on the sidewalk and entering the coffee shop.

Notes.
there was so much information thrown out in this chapter I nearly confused myself while writing this – all of the small pieces will fit together reallyy soon, I promise. 🙏

also HELLO?? this book just hit 10k reads that's so crazy to me. i'm so happy that this fic has reached this many people already 🫶

thank you so much for reading and interacting <3 it's so motivating and I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed!