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Tyler was lost. Uncertain. Unstable. And it wasn't just because he didn't have a master anymore or because his parents were dead or because he was in the car with some woman he’d just met because she’d promised a community of Hydes who could help him.
No, for the first time in his life, someone had set him free instead of binding him in chains. Had saved his life instead of trying to kill him. Had let him make his own choices instead of telling him what to do. And it boggled his mind and haunted his thoughts and stirred his cold dead heart.
As the dull grays and browns of another small town whirred past them, he still didn’t understand why Wednesday had spared him. Still couldn't wrap his head around it.
“I missed,” yeah right. Wednesday was a bad liar, and they both knew she was lying. Her aim was impeccable. If she’d wanted him dead, he would've gotten an axe in the face and chest to destroy his “generic looks,” no questions asked. It was the perfect opportunity for revenge, and she hadn’t taken it. Which meant she’d aimed for a different target than his head or his heart but now had both firmly in the palm of her icy hand. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, obsessing over her, longing for her. It was a sharp ache that cut through the confusion and anger, the frustration and grief.
He’d thrown her out a window, threatened her and Enid, helped his mom and uncle kidnap and restrain and nearly murder her brother, and yet she’d shown him mercy. Mercy his own mother hadn't even shown him.
Why? Was he really so pathetic, bound up on that table and begging her to kill him, that she couldn't help but refuse just to spite him? Or was she against an Outcast having his powers forcibly removed against his will?
Or, and he hardly dared to hope, did some part of her still care about him?
The vibrant greens of a forest raced past them now as he stared out the window. The night his mom had found him, had become his new master, he remembered how close Wednesday had been to injecting him. How close she'd come to becoming his new master. The words she’d told him, the things she’d admitted to him. That he was right, that she’d lied about her feelings when she’d visited him at Willow Hill, that she was attracted to him after all.
He’d wondered if that was just another lie, another manipulation to make him fall into her trap, but maybe it was the truth. Maybe it was the truth she knew he so desperately wanted to hear. Another manipulation then, but what kind of girl manipulated people with the truth?
Wednesday Addams, that was who. He allowed his mouth to twitch a little. She was usually so brutally honest she scared all but the most determined idiots away. He and Enid and that Agnes girl.
He was glad Agnes had run for help like he’d expected her to. He’d known she was there. He’d picked up on her scent, the slight noises she’d made, but he hadn't told his uncle. It was his one small act of rebellion against his mom’s control and his uncle’s machinations. He might've wanted to save his mom, but he didn't want Wednesday to die.
It was shocking, that realization. When his uncle had buried her alive, he thought he’d gloat. Be happy. Thrill at seeing her dead and gone at long last. He was finally getting what he’d thought he’d wanted, after all. Instead he couldn’t look away from her face as a strange ache radiated through his chest and his eyes felt oddly wet.
He swallowed and stared at his haggard, hollow reflection in the window. A world without Wednesday Addams was too much for even a Hyde to handle. She wasn’t his master, and yet he wondered how he could survive without her. Or maybe it was just Tyler Galpin who couldn't bear to live in a world without her, who hurt to see her dying, who longed for her to visit him for weeks on end when he’d been locked up.
No, that was just an excuse. Tyler and the Hyde were one and the same. They were both a part of him, and he was the one who still had feelings for her. He had all along. No matter how deeply he’d tried to bury them, they’d all been unearthed the moment his uncle had buried her, the barriers around his heart hacked to pieces the moment she’d hacked the shackles on his hand, and there was no running or hiding from them any longer.
The further they got from Jericho, the more he regretted leaving town without her and without so much as saying goodbye. But no, he had to do this. He was finished with masters and mothers. He would learn to be his own master or die trying.
Wednesday had seen something in him worth saving, worth sparing. Even though he was a Hyde, even though she had every reason to kill him, even though they supposedly hated each other, even though their families were bitter enemies, she had chosen to free him, even before she’d saved her own brother.
He owed her his life. He had to repay that debt someday. And he would prove her right to spare him. That she hadn't made a mistake.
Until he was under control again though, not someone else's control but his own, he was a danger to her. Which meant he had to stay away from her. He didn't trust himself to be around her right now. His sanity was slipping and the hallucinations had started again. He’d already seen his father, his mother, and his uncle. He didn’t know if Capri had noticed as she cheerfully drove them north, cranking up her favorite tunes on the radio so she could hum along and making the occasional remark here and there. He’d been careful not to respond to any of the hallucinations this time because that only made them worse.
“We're about ten miles away now,” Capri said, interrupting his thoughts. She smiled and tapped the steering wheel in time to the music. “We’ll be there before you know it.”
She was remarkably calm for someone driving a car with a Hyde in it. Maybe she really was telling the truth about her father and the guy she’d dated. And the whole werewolf thing probably helped too.
“Yeah,” he replied, because against all odds, he trusted Capri. Trusted her enough to go with her. He was desperate, and she seemed like she actually wanted to help him. Only time would tell if he was right.
This was the start of his new life, his second chance, and he wouldn't waste it. And when he gained control of himself, he’d find Wednesday again and ask her one more time why she had saved him.
And maybe, just maybe, she’d finally tell him the truth.