Thing's fingers moved with such frenetic speed on Pugsley's shoulder that the friction seemed capable of starting a bonfire on the fabric of his T-shirt.
But they weren't simple taps, it was sign language, a Morse code that narrated a story.
Wednesday watched the hand with every gesture and her face lost one more degree of temperature.
Thing described chains, a chair, metal tools and Morticia's stoic pain.
She clenched her fists with such force that her nails dug deep into her palms, seeking in physical pain a way to anchor her mind that threatened to collapse.
"W-We have to go save Mom now!" shouted Pugsley, on the verge of tears, unable to process the horror in silence.
"Shut your mouth, Pugsley!" Wednesday snapped at him with severity, turning her head sharply toward him.
She tried to project authority, but the trembling of her shoulders betrayed her own panic, "Panic makes us clumsy, and I cannot allow you to be clumsy today."
Taking a deep breath and swallowing her fear she turned slowly toward the motorcyclist.
Arrogance had disappeared from her eyes replaced by an urgent need.
"You were right..." she admitted tensely, "She cannot do it alone. We need Dad."
"Then let's not waste another second." Lief didn't waste time on "I told you so's" or formalities. With a jump he mounted Fenrir and turned the key, making the engine come to life, "Get on. I'll take you, but hold on tight."
Although she hadn't told him where they lived, Wednesday didn't hesitate and pulled Pugsley's arm to snap him out of it and both climbed agilely onto the back seat of the motorcycle, settling in as best they could behind Lief, with Thing clinging to the boy's jacket like a scared spider.
Fenrir emitted a deafening roar and, with a jolt, shot out toward the road like a black arrow, devouring the asphalt in the direction of the motel.
The wind hit their faces violently, whistling furiously in their ears and blurring the landscape into smears of color.
Wednesday, who had never before been so close to anyone outside her family, was forced to hug Lief's waist tightly so as not to be thrown off.
She rested her cold cheek against his back, burying her face in the leather jacket.
Unexpectedly, a scent invaded her senses: a mixture of leather, gasoline and something that reminded her of sunlight.
It was a warm smell... that for some inexplicable reason, that smell and the heat radiating from Lief's body managed to slightly calm the runaway rhythm of her heart.
A few minutes later, which seemed like hours of agony, the flashing neon sign of the motel appeared on the horizon.
Fenrir did a controlled skid, kicking up a cloud of gravel before stopping firmly right in front of the door to the Addams' room.
Boom
The motel room door burst open, but the crash didn't even make the man occupying the sofa blink.
The three burst into the room laden with stale air and encountered the same desolate scene.
Gomez was still there, sunk into the cushions like a dethroned king, with his glassy gaze fixed on the emotional static of the television, oblivious to the return of his children and the panic warping their faces.
"Dad!" Wednesday ran toward him, abandoning her usual coldness and grabbed him by the lapels of his wrinkled striped suit and shook him with desperate strength, "Dad, wake up at once! Mom is in mortal danger! Tully and Abigail have caught her!"
Gomez's head bobbed with the movement, and his eyes moved slowly toward his daughter, but there was no recognition in them.
It was like shouting at a corpse.
"It's useless, his mind is closed," said Lief, taking a step forward and observing with pity the crumbled man in front of him.
Screams wouldn't be enough to pull him out of that pit of self-pity.
Shaking his head slightly, he approached and placed his hand firmly on Gomez's shoulder.
Instantly a faint golden light shone in his palm, Lief projected his intention like a needle seeking to pierce the fog suffocating the man's mind.
"Listen to me well, Gomez Addams." His voice resonated with supernatural authority, vibrating directly in the man's soul, "Your wife has gone alone into the wolf's mouth to protect the home that you have surrendered to lose. While you rot here watching television, she faces the criminals. Is this the end of your legend? Do you let your passion and your honor be consumed on this sofa?"
His influence acted like a defibrillator for his soul.
The fog in Gomez's eyes began to dissipate, replaced by a spark of confusion and pain.
His gaze began to focus, passing from Lief to his children.
"Mom...?"
Pugsley, with tears running down his cheeks, delivered the final blow.
"They are going to torture her, Dad!" sobbed the boy, being brutally graphic, "They said they would use hot irons against her skin!"
"Hot... irons?" Gomez's pupils contracted.
"And they will tie her to a torture rack to stretch her until she breaks!" added Wednesday.
A torture rack?!" repeated Gomez and his body began to tremble.
But it wasn't a tremor of fear. Something called "passion" that had been asleep in his veins, woke up suddenly at the idea that someone else dared to lay a hand on his woman.
!
Suddenly, he jumped to his feet and the fire that had gone out in his eyes rekindled, burning with a manic intensity.
"Cara Mia!"
The scream was so powerful that it seemed to shake the whole motel.
"They have taken my beloved! They are going to torture my muse without my permission! It is unforgivable!" He began to wave his arms frantically, "Children! Grab your weapons! Thing! Prepare the car immediately! We are going to rescue her!"
He ran toward a corner of the room, opened an old suitcase and took out a perfectly polished fencing saber.
With an elegant movement, he pointed the tip of the sword directly at the ceiling, defying fate.
His aura had changed radically, the depressed man had disappeared, giving way to the passionate, crazy and charming patriarch that the family needed.
Minutes later, the Addams family hearse, a majestic classic-style black Rolls-Royce, shot out of the motel parking lot, leaving burnt tire marks on the asphalt.
Gomez drove personally muttering death threats and in the back seat, Wednesday and Pugsley prepared their little gadgets.
Mounted on Fenrir, Lief followed them at a safe distance without rushing.
An amused smile curved his lips as he accelerated.
…
While the funereal Rolls-Royce launched itself at full speed down the road, the Addams Mansion waited wrapped in an oppressive mist.
The magnificent Gothic structure seemed the perfect setting for the drama unfolding inside.
In the basement…
Morticia Addams was firmly immobilized, tied to a medieval torture rack.
Her four limbs were held and stretched by taut ropes toward four cardinal points, extending her slender body into a large macabre 'X'.
However, on her pale and elegant face there was not a trace of pain or fear, on the contrary, a smile of exquisite enjoyment curved her red lips.
"Oh, Tully, my little disaster," she said to the lawyer, with a mellifluous tone that exuded mockery, "Your technique remains so deliciously crude. Force is not enough, and frankly, the angle of tension is not correct. True torture, darling, is a subtle and complex art, something you will never understand."
Tully Alford's face was livid, soaked in a sweat of frustration and rage.
He held a red-hot iron in his hand, and Morticia's imperturbable composure made him feel an unbearable humiliation.
"Shut up!" shouted Abigail Craven approaching the rack with a red-hot poker, "Speak now! Tell us where the vault is! If you don't cooperate, I swear I will stamp this mark on your face!"
But at this threat, Morticia laughed elegantly.
"The vault, you say?" she asked, "How could you, simple small-minded mortals, expect to even lay a finger on the wealth, the honor, and the legacy of the Addams family? It is simply ridiculous..."
Meanwhile, in a corner of the basement, the man who was posing as Uncle Fester, Gordon Craven, observed all this with a pale face.
He remembered the brief time he had lived in the mansion.
Gomez had invited him with inexhaustible passion to fencing duels with very sharp swords. Morticia, with gentle patience, had taught him to dance her unique waltz under the moonlight. And the children, with their strange fascination for explosions, had invited him to play their dangerous games.
Although each of those activities was full of potential danger, the brutal sincerity and total acceptance in the eyes of the Addams were something he had never received from his own mother.
For them... he was Fester, he was family.... And now, his mother was torturing the woman who had treated him with a kindness that he did not deserve.
"Mom... Mom..." He finally broke the silence with a trembling voice, "What if... what if we leave it like this? We already have the mansion, we have a lot of money..."
"Shut up, useless!" Abigail turned sharply toward her son, looking at him with a ferocity that was no less cold than Morticia's torture, "Do you think this ruin is enough?! What I want is the vault! It is all the wealth, the gold that the Addams family has accumulated for centuries! What do you know how to do besides eat and complain? If you didn't look like that idiot Fester, you would have absolutely no value to me!"
Those cruel words, poured out without remorse, were like a sharp knife that plunged with precision into Gordon's heart.
"..."
He looked at his mother with unfocused eyes.
The truth was becoming clearer and clearer, he was just a disposable tool.
Boom
But just at that moment, a thunderous crash shook the basement. The sound of metal tearing violently.
Immediately after, Gomez's scream resonated, piercing the solemnity of the castle:
"Tish! My heart, my soul! I am going to save you, Cara Mia!"
The hearse had rammed and ripped the iron gate of the mansion directly off its hinges, bursting into the courtyard with a suicidal manner.
And before the Rolls-Royce finished its violent skid, the driver's door burst open and Gomez shot out like a cannonball.
With a beautiful flourish of his saber in his hand, he pointed directly at the castle.
"Tully, you wretch! Abigail, witch of greed! I come to claim what is mine and to avenge myself with a duel to the death!"
________
Time: If you're craving more (and I know you are!), I have just what you need. On my Patreon, you'll find exclusive chapters. Join our community and be the first to discover what happens next!
👉 [patreon.com/Athome790]
Your support fuels me. Thank you for the support! 💖