Paige gripped the edge of Emily's plaid flannel over shirt pulling her closer allowing their pelvises to mesh together. Emily indulged in the kiss for a few more moments. She let Paige sweep her lips slowly down the side of her neck leaving a moist trail to her shoulder. After a few a moans she pulled back, "This isn't over." Paige smiled nodding along with Emily's protest, "Yes it is." She reached her hand up cupping it around Emily's neck pulling her back into the kiss but Emily resisted pushing her hands up to enforce distance. Emily's face was overcome with a serious stare; her eyebrows and lips pushed together, "No, it really isn't." She backed away from Paige; her voice stern with conviction, "You can't keep looking for the boogieman!" She shook her head at Paige's stubbornness turning away and walking to the bed, "He's big and bad and really freaking ugly!"
She sat on the edge and looked over to Paige who was unwilling to comprise. "I've seen the boogieman; he kidnapped me and locked me in a closet." She sat down beside Emily moving close to her, "And, he tried to kill the woman I'm in love with." Emily flashed a flattered smile looking up to meet Paige's deep sultry brown eyes. Paige reached over taking Emily's hand and interlocking their fingers, "I'm in this with you, one day you are going to realize that and stop hiding from me." Emily looked at Paige feeling guilty for trying to protect her and keeping her in the dark. She wanted to allow Paige into every aspect of her life but this aspect was like handing her a hand grenade without the pin and she loved her too much to throw her under the bus.
"I know you think you're protecting me but I'm a big girl. I'm capable of taking care of myself," Paige moved her face in front of Emily's forcing her to make eye contact, "I'm capable of taking care of you." Emily closed her eyes shaking her head in protest. Paige had no idea what she was trying to sign herself up for. "I'm going to do this with or without your blessing. You, Hanna, Spencer, Aria, you have all been fighting this battle for years hiding from everyone, pushing everyone away, and it isn't working. I rather be on the inside attempting to help than on the outside waiting for something bad to happen. I know you don't agree with Caleb and me but we aren't giving you guys a choice. You are just going to have to deal." Paige removed her hand from Emily's hand becoming wound up by the speech.
Emily smiled at her girlfriend's spunk, she chuckled a little, "Whoa, Cujo." Paige and Emily both laughed making eye contact with each other. Emily took Paige's hand again, "Paige, I could never give you my blessing," Emily looked down at their hands and traced along her fingers with the unaccompanied hand, "I could never put the woman I'm in love with in the middle of my psychotic crap." Emily looked up into Paige melted chocolate eyes. "I couldn't bare it if something happened to you," she choked out her words, "if someone took you from me." An ocean exploded from Emily's eyes and she leaned down into Paige's lap. Emily was consumed with the vivid emotion as if "A" had already taken Paige from her.
Paige was caught off guard and her mouth hung open. She tried to comfort her weeping beauty by rubbing her hand along her back and threw her hair, "Em, no one is taking me away from you." She sniffed up her juices and picked herself up out of Paige's lap, "Don't you see? They almost did!" She stood up from the bed, "you have no idea how messed up this is!" Paige shook her head, "You're right because you won't tell me. I have to snoop and piece together every scrap of information; being in the dark is more danger than knowing." Emily shook her head and widened her eyes, "not with this. You have no idea what they are capable; the kinds of things that have already happened to us," she paused looking over to Paige fearing she may have already said too much. Paige nodded, "So, tell me with?"
Emily rolled her eyes shaking her head at the nonchalant tone, "It isn't that simple." Paige pushed her brows together confused, "Yes it is." Emily was frustrated by the aggressiveness of the conversation, "It is if I want you to end up in a body bag." Emily's smartass-ness seeped out, "I could tell you bits and piece of the whole story and bits and pieces of you would start appearing all over town; one for every betrayal." Emily's world started to cave in as she realized who tightly "A" had them strung up.
Emily imagined herself and the others as marionettes. But, they were entangled in the strings; their bodies mangled and bent in unfeasible ways. They pulled and pushed at the strings but they were only getting tighter as the giant gloved hand above moved about pulling the controller higher and higher. The strings climbed up their bodies the further the hand inched up. It took only second before they were all being choked, reaching for each other's help and pulling at the rope around their necks.