𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ℂ𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ➶

𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕥𝕪-𝕊𝕚𝕩: ℕ𝕠𝕟-𝔹𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣

No one was in handcuffs, but they were all going to be escorted in the back of police cars to the station. Valentina, Morticia, Gomez, and Vincent were just the first of the group to be taken in.

Sergeant Howie had Tish gather all her guests into the lobby and assigned a few of his men to guard them until the police cars could make a return trip. All of Morticia's friends gave Valentina of all people the stink eye, as if she and not Vincent was responsible for all this trouble. In a way, they were right.

Strange how it was her admission to underage drinking and not his assault allegation that landed them in hot water.

"Oh Hell no!" Vincent exclaimed when one of the officers tried to usher him into the same backseat as Gomez. "No way am I getting in the same car as him or Morticia!" Here he turned to Val. "The only way I'm going is with her."

Tish and Gomez didn't look pleased, but --before they could protest-- Valentina spoke up for herself. "I'll go." It was obvious that her beaus didn't want her talking to Vincent... Which was all the more reason for her to do so.

She slid into the backseat and watched the policeman close the car door behind her, taking her time to buckle her seat belt before turning to her classmate. He was already looking at her, madness gleaming in his gaze.

"How much do you remember?" He demanded right off the bat, like her own mind was keeping secrets from her.

"As much as I told the sergeant. I woke up this evening, hungover, with Gomez and Morticia in bed with me," she replied with a shrug, expression tight and uncertain.

"Just like that? Don't you have any sense of deja vu?"

Valentina took a moment to take stock of her memories. Thinking too hard made her head hurt, but she attributed that to the hangover.

Impatient, Vincent snapped, "Come on, Val! I need you to remember. What with the healing salve Addams applied to my shoulder, and the forgetfulness potion Tish fed you... Right now I have zip, zilch, nada in the way of evidence to prove my case! Just a wild story."

"What do you think happened?" What precisely did he want her to remember?

And it was a wild story indeed. A stone severed head... A chase across the hotel grounds... An arrow in the shoulder... Then, finally, a healing salve and a forgetfulness potion to make it all go away.

He spoke with so much conviction that she almost believed him. Here was the catch, though...

"Vincent," Valentina said, in the gentlest tone she could manage. "It's impossible to brew a forgetfulness potion anymore. It requires valerian sprigs, and we learned in botany class that valeria went extinct decades ago."

Attempting to soothe him proved a grievous error in judgment, though. He lurched toward her, only held back by the tight strap of his seatbelt. She shrunk away, into the door on her side. Snarling, he all but spat, "And what?! You think I made this whole thing up?!"

"An untrained psychic is a monster courting madness. Often they have a hard time differentiating fact from fiction, visions from living nightmares." Gomez said so himself when she admitted a psychic told her they had a vision of him killing Deuce... And she believed there was some truth there.

"I'm just saying... Maybe you mistook a nightmare for reality?" At the mere suggestion, Vincent looked away and sagged forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his head in his hands. "I do the same thing sometimes! Our brains can play tricks on us."

"If you don't believe me, no one will," he said, his voice thick with mucus and unshed tears. "And my friend's murderer will never be brought to justice."

Valentina felt like a monster. But, still... "I can't give you what I don't have-- And I don't have any memories of what you told me."

He didn't say anything in reply, just began to tremble. She bodily turned away from him, staring out the window, giving him as much privacy that she could so that he could cry in peace for the remainder of the ride.