𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ℂ𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 ➶

𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕥𝕪-𝕊𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟: 𝔸𝕕𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟

Once they arrived at the station, everyone waited in the lobby for their turn to use the police's telephone. Sergeant Howie supervised each call in a private room away from the others, of course. Valentina hadn't a clue what the other kids said to their parents.

Morticia was first. Next Vincent. Then Gomez. And, finally, Valentina.

She placed her hand on the handle of the landline, but didn't dial her mother's number right away. Instead, she paused for what felt like a full minute.

"Any day now..." Said the sergeant. He was sitting back in his chair, arms crossed, wearing a thoroughly satisfied expression. Secretly, she wondered how much of this was done to shame them so they never touched a drop of liquor again.

She dragged her teeth over her lower lip before eventually admitting, "There's something I need to tell you, before I call my mother."

"And that is?"

"I wasn't supposed to be spending my winter break at the Briarswood Hotel."

That certainly got his attention.

His expression suddenly turned stormy. He leaned forward before climbing to his face, bracing his hands on the edge of the table and leaning across it so his shadow loomed over her. "Are you telling me that, on top of everything, you're a teenage runaway?"

"No! No, of course not. It's just..." Valentina looked to the side. Despite everything, she didn't really want to get her boyfriend or girlfriend in trouble. But, if she didn't tell the truth, then all that trouble would land in her lap. "Morticia and Gomez kinda... Sorta... Kidnapped me."

A long pause. And then just, "What?"

"Yeah. One of them --I didn't see who, but I'm guessing Gomez-- chloroformed me, zip-tied my arms and legs, put me in the trunk of their car, and drove me to the Briarswood."

Goodness, that sounded bad. Then again, it had been bad. She remembered how terrified she'd been when she woke up in that car trunk, and felt a little less guilty about telling Sergeant Howie exactly what Gomez and Morticia had done.

"Why didn't you say or do anything?" A kind of gruff response to a kidnapping victim, but a logical one she supposed.

"They threatened me. I was afraid of what they'd do to me if I didn't play along."

The sergeant let a deep breath out through his nose before sitting back down in his chair and running a hand down his face. "Okay... Okay. Call your mom. Tell her everything you just told me."

The call went about as well as Valentina imagined it would.

It took her mother a while just to reign in her hysterics. She spent several minutes simply sobbing into the receiver, relieved and overjoyed that her baby was alive and safe. That flood of endorphins turned to fury on a dime when she learned exactly what happened, though.

"They what?!" Yelling turned her voice to angry static over the phone.

Val sighed. "Yeah... I know they're in love with me, but I never thought they'd pull a stunt like this. I don't want to press charges or anything. They're still my friends." She knew her mother would want to dissect every word she just said, but-- "I just... I just want to come home..."

Her tone started to get watery near the end. She was trying desperately to hold back tears of her own, had been since she heard her mother's voice over the tinny speaker.

A brief pause. Then, "Of course, my little cherub. We'll talk more about this once you're settled back here."

Sergeant Howie, for all his faults, did a stellar job of taking care of things from there. Valentina had a ticket for a flight to California within the hour. He personally escorted her to the airport. None of the other kids were still in the lobby when she left the private room. Which begged the question...

"What's going to happen to Gomez and Morticia and Vincent?" She asked anxiously during the drive to the airport.

"I suppose that depends on their parents, as well as yours. Mr Addams will likely face charges for assault. Miss Frump for property damage. Both for kidnapping." He remarked with a shrug, keeping his hands at ten and two on the wheel.

She didn't know if that made her feel better or worse. Vincent seemed utterly convinced that events unfolded exactly as he described them... But she remembered absolutely nothing. Plus he was a novice psychic and thus more than a tad unstable. Gomez was undoubtedly capable of violence, but murder? Really? She still didn't know.

All Valentina knew was that she couldn't wait to set foot back on the West Coast.