𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ℂ𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ➶

𝕊𝕚𝕩: 𝔸 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕖

Now, Valentina was usually a stickler for the rules. That was just how she was raised, though. Her mother repeatedly stressed that rules had to be put in place for a good reason. There were very few exceptions.

But one of the benefits of boarding school was that she was away from her mother's influence. And it wasn't like she was committing arson... She was just sneaking out past curfew.

CC was very encouraging. Valentina half-hoped she would try to dissuade her. But when she confessed she had a midnight meeting with Deuce, her roommate squealed in excitement and started digging through her wardrobe, looking for the perfect outfit for her to wear.

In the end, they settled on a poet blouse tucked into a pair of extremely high-waisted flared jeans. It looked so romantic, very Byronic. She kept her make-up simple: just dabbed some loose glitter on her eyelids and coated her lips in candy-flavored gloss.

"You look gorgeous," CC cooed. "Go get 'im, girl!"

With midnight fast approaching, Valentina cracked open the door and peered out into Ophelia's halls. She didn't know if Deuce really did have a deal with the dorm proctor or if she was just lucky, but no one intercepted her on her way to the greenhouse.

The moon wasn't quite full --just waxing-- but still bathed the entire greenhouse in silvery moonlight, which was a very good thing because she didn't dare turn on the overhead lights in fear of getting caught. He hadn't specified where in the glass building to meet, so she just wandered around in the open area.

She kept checking her wristwatch, a useless gesture since it was too dark to see the hands. But eventually she heard the greenhouse door creak open. "Deuce?" She called out into the darkness.

The door shut with a click. Then there was a second, more menacing click. Did he just lock the door?

"Deu-- Deuce...?" Valentina stuttered. A bead of cold sweat ran down her spine, making her shiver. She was beginning to think this was a bad idea.

"Not exactly," someone replied. It was a masculine voice, but it didn't sound like Deuce. Then the figure stepped out of the shadows and into a beam of moonlight. She could recognize him in a second.

"Gomez. What-- What are you doing here?" Where was Deuce? That was a better question. She should have led with that.

"I have something of yours I wanted to return." Gomez held something up, dangling it, pinched between thumb and forefinger, before balling it up and throwing it at her. It hit her in the chest. It wasn't hard or heavy. In fact, it felt like just a scrap of fabric.

A sense of dread washed over her. But her terror didn't peak until she unfolded it and realized what it was. Her balaclava. "This isn't mine," she said, putting as much conviction as she could manage into her tone. Hopefully it was enough.

It wasn't.

"Your face says otherwise..." He smiled menacingly. She wasn't sure he intended it to be a smile, though... More of a baring of teeth. "You hurt my Tish." He took a step toward her.

Valentina took a step back with a panicked protest, "I didn't-- I didn't mean to!"

"But you did."

That's when she noticed he was holding something in his other hand. He must have noticed the direction of her gaze, because he helpfully held it up to the light for her to see.

It was a knife, the edge of which winked at her.

"What are you going to do?" Word around campus was that Gomez had vowed he would kill whoever injured his girlfriend... But Valentina didn't think he was actually serious! Outcast or not, murder was still murder.

He smirked at her, his teeth glistening in the moonlight, much like the blade of his knife. "I'm going to do the best I can," he said. The words oozed out of his mouth like a tease. It still managed to set off her fight-or-flight reflexes, though.

She turned on her heels and ran. He was standing between her and the only exit, but that didn't mean she couldn't make her own. He made the mistake of cornering her in a literal glass house, after all.

As soon as she'd put some distance between herself and the knife-wielding maniac, she grabbed a big flower pot and threw it through one of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

There were still jagged shards of glass poking out around the borders, but she didn't have time to be careful. Instead, she threw herself through the broken window and hit the ground running.

"Help!" Valentina screamed at the top of her lungs, "Someone help me! Please!"

It was useless, though. There was no one around. The greenhouse was in the northmost corner of campus, whereas all the dormitories were on the southern border. If she could just get back to Ophelia Hall--

That's when she felt a hand bury itself in her hair and pull her backwards with enough force to give her a neck injury. That was the least of her worries right now, though. Because that hand was attached to an arm and that arm belonged to Gomez Addams.

Before she knew it, the length of him was pressed against her back. Then he brought his other arm up and under her chin. She had no idea what he was doing... That was, until her feet left the ground and her air supply abruptly cut off.

She grabbed his arm, digging her nails into it in her efforts to pry it up. She kicked him as hard as she could, which wasn't very hard, considering her feet were dangling off the ground.

She didn't know how long she spent struggling in vain, but it was long enough for her head to get fuzzy from oxygen deprivation.

Valentina didn't want to do this, but Gomez had left her no other choice! At this rate, he was going to strangle her to death, then probably chop her body into bits and feed it to the carnivorous plants in the greenhouse to cover his tracks.

She materialized a Cupid's arrow in her hand and --with all her remaining strength-- stabbed him in the arm.

Immediately, she was released. She gracelessly fell to the ground, sprawled out on her belly. In her haste to fill her lungs again, she inhaled so suddenly that she choked on her own spit. When her breathing finally evened out, she risked peeking over her shoulder at her attacker.

He was looking incredulously at the arrow lodged in his forearm. Didn't try to remove it at all, just stared at it. Then he looked down at Valentina, locked eyes with her.

She once asked her mother what she loved most about her job as a matchmaker. It was a relevant question, seeing as she expected her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Her answer was the look on people's faces when they fall in love.

Gomez was wearing the most lovestruck expression she'd ever seen, looking at her in a way he only ever looked at Morticia.

She hated him, and she hated that stupid look on his face.

With a sneer, she flipped over onto her back and kicked him with as much force as she could muster. Right between the legs.

With what sounded like more of a moan than a groan, he toppled down like a house of cards. And, as he did, she found her legs beneath her again and started sprinting off into the night, not slowing or stopping until she was at Ophelia's doorstep.