A/N: All right. I know I have a million things going right now that I have to finish, but I wanted to start another canon multi-chapter that can start getting us through the hiatus. I have all kinds of thoughts and theories about how Season 4 is going to play out, and I want an opportunity to explore it a bit before June.

As always, you guys are fantastic and I love all of you.

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming

Or the moment of truth in your lies

When everything feels like the movies

Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

("Iris" - Goo Goo Dolls)

EVERYTHING'S MADE TO BE BROKEN

CHAPTER 1

The eerie silence that befell the woods around him felt immediately ominous. It was like the proverbial calm before the storm, and some distant stinging in his gut alerted him that this was far from over.

He tried to stand, but found that his legs felt akin to Jell-O and his head throbbed at the mere notion. He collapsed back onto his chest, sending a cloud of dust right into his eyes. As if his vision weren't blurred enough from being clubbed in the back of the neck.

Right. He had been hit by something – or someone. His recollection was slowly coming back, a whirlwind of chaos poking unmercifully at his already-bruised mind.

Who had it been? Was it Mona? Though she would have been his first guess, his instincts told him he was wrong. Mona never attacked someone behind their back – she did it straight to their face. She took great pride in soaking up every ounce of credit for everything she'd ever done. This would be no different. She would want him to know that it was she who discovered his transgressions. Would want him to know where the warning was coming from.

He'd seen someone sneaking through the woods in front of him, only a few feet away. He hadn't been able to quite make out the face, but…something was familiar about it. It was someone who didn't belong there…

He turned the zippo over in his hand once more, studying the insignia. It was a cardinal compass etched onto the metal, a fixed display of directional arrows that could never truly serve the purpose the picture implied. Who did it belong to? It wasn't his, and he was pretty sure it hadn't been there before.

The sound of voices approaching was what ultimately lit the fire under his ass. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the jolting pain that seared through his head as a result, and hurried back into the cover of the night. As much as he wanted to duck behind a tree and wait to see their faces, he knew in his gut that it would be a foolish idea. He was clearly outnumbered – and they may opt to do something much worse than just knocking him out this time.

So instead, he crept his way through the expanse of trees, attempting to neglect the painful ringing in his ears that accompanied his growing migraine. When the woods began to thin out once more, he knew he was approaching a main road.

More voices – but these ones he recognized. Emily's dulcet tones floated toward him on the breeze, and he picked up his pace.

And then there was a horrified shriek, piercing the still night air on all sides of him. His heart leapt into his throat, and he feared that his assailants had caught up with the girls. Instinctively, he broke into a run.

"Hanna! Hanna, it's okay, he's alive!" Aria cried loudly, just as Toby emerged onto the street. He could see now that the girls and Mona were hovering over the trunk of a police car, and Hanna was all but inconsolable. Spencer was holding onto her tightly, stroking her hair in an attempt to comfort her.

"Help me get them out," Emily declared brashly, gesturing to Mona and Aria standing aghast beside her. The three of them leaned into the trunk, concealing the contents from Toby's view.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Toby demanded worriedly as he jogged up alongside them. Hanna peered at him incredulously from beneath her tear-soaked eyelashes, a look of terrified anger marring her features.

"I knew we couldn't trust you," she mumbled tearfully. "Mona was with us – it had to be you – "

"Hanna, don't," Spencer began.

Under any other circumstances, he may have been offended at her cynicism. But with everything that had happened, he couldn't really blame her. He'd probably be thinking the same thing.

He stepped up beside Emily to look into the car, seeing now that Paige and Caleb had been bound and gagged and tossed unceremoniously into the back. Caleb had started to come to, his eyes roving the faces above him as if trying to make sense of their identities.

Emily and Aria had each taken Paige by one arm, slowly lifting her out of the trunk and gently setting her onto the ground. Toby took it upon himself to pull Caleb up by the armpits, carefully extracting him.

Caleb seemed to be regaining his consciousness at record speed now, his eyes widening with dazed confusion as he assessed Toby's attire. He was quickly putting the pieces of the puzzle together. He shouted something through his gag, the words of which were muffled. But Toby had the distinct impression that it was probably something derogatory aimed at him.

"We shouldn't be standing around," Mona insisted at last, wringing her hands together. "We need to get away from here."

"She's right," Toby agreed. "It isn't safe in the open."

"My house," Hanna murmured. She had calmed down considerably, and was now simply wiping away the remnants of her tears. "My mom's out of town. We'll have privacy."

Toby nodded, and leaned down to adjust his grip on Caleb. The younger boy was bucking wildly in his bindings, as if trying to fight him off. He was wasting time.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" Toby growled at last, lifting Caleb over his shoulder in a fireman carry. He was still squirming violently, using his conjoined fists to halfheartedly punch at Toby's back.

Aria and Emily had succeeded in lifting Paige to her feet, though her head still half-consciously lolled to one shoulder as they walked her toward the car. Hanna and Spencer were rushing in front of them to get the back doors open.

Toby tossed Caleb down onto the back seat, perhaps with more force than necessary, and turned around to assist with Paige. His head was pounding with more ferocity now, and he was trying to keep himself from giving in to the dizziness.

"We're not all going to fit," Mona declared. "Toby, where's your car?"

"Just around the curve," he said, and he was surprised at how tired his voice sounded all of a sudden.

"I'm going with you," Spencer decided quickly, her frightened doe eyes silently pleading for him to protect her. He wrapped an arm around her waist to indicate wordlessly that that was precisely what he would do, and her head immediately found the crook in his neck.

"Me, too," Mona announced pointedly. The intensity with which she was staring him down made him nervous for a moment, and he found himself wondering whether she had caught on to his true intentions yet.

Hanna was already climbing in the back to get Caleb untied, and Emily slipped into the driver seat with some distinct element of hesitation. Toby knew that she'd rather be making sure Paige was all right, but she understood the gravity of making a quick getaway.

Toby began walking hurriedly toward the black Navigator that didn't quite belong to him, clinging to Spencer's hand along the way.

"I never thought I'd say this," Mona began darkly, "but that wasn't me. I didn't do that."

"Well, who did?" Toby demanded icily, glancing over his shoulder at the smaller girl's desperate attempt to keep up with their long strides. "Who else takes people hostage just to mess with someone?"

"Don't even start with that 'holier-than-thou' bullshit," Mona hissed. "With everything you've done, you look just as bad as I do."

He felt Spencer's eyes burning holes in the side of his head. He knew she was thinking this over, and wondering precisely which A-Team horrors he had contributed to.

Once they approached the SUV stranded on the side of the road, he hopped into the driver seat. Spencer beat Mona to shot gun, a silent stand-off occurring between them as a result. Mona did not take kindly to being dethroned, and she had experienced this loss of power countless times tonight already. She was resigned to the backseat – and she positively loathed the idea, both in the literal ad metaphorical sense. In any other situation, Toby may have stopped to appreciate the comedy of the moment. Instead, he gestured wildly in her direction.

"Get in, Mona," he growled impatiently.

She narrowed her eyes at Spencer one last time before skulking to the back of the car and climbing in. Toby had already gunned the gas before she had completely shut the door, and she jolted back against the seat unexpectedly. She stared at his reflection incredulously in the rear-view mirror.

"What are you trying to do? Kill me?"

The thought had crossed his mind. He had considered just leaving her out here by herself.

But he didn't reply. He caught a brief smirk on Spencer's face out of his peripherals, and couldn't resist smiling a bit in return.

Mona crossed her arms irritably, huffing, "So where did you disappear to tonight?"

Recalling the events from a half hour or so prior made his head ache all over again. "Someone knocked me out," he said pointedly, eyeing her through the mirror.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," she muttered in annoyance. "That wasn't me, either."

"Then who was it?" he demanded. "Who else could it have been?"

"I don't know, Toby," she returned venomously. "Someone also tried to barbeque us. Who else could that have been?"

He felt his heart plummet into his stomach as he realized the significance of the lighter in his pocket.

"Would you both stop it?" Spencer said at last, massaging her temples in frustration. "I was with both of you at some point tonight. I know neither of you did this. Neither of you set that fire, or planted Caleb and Paige for us to find."

There was a moment of silence that settled in the car before Mona quietly spoke up.

"Do you think it was Alison?"

"Alison?" Toby laughed derisively. "Are we really going to start blaming dead people now?"

Neither Mona nor Spencer spoke. The pregnant pause that filled the air around him made his blood run cold.

"She isn't dead," Spencer said softly. "We saw her."

"You what?" he cried. "When? Where?"

"She's Red Coat," Mona agreed in undertones.

The thought was ridiculous. Alison had been dead for over two years now – there was no possible way.

But if Toby had learned anything since getting out of reform school, it was that there were no coincidences in Rosewood. The impossible became possible and the inconceivable became conceivable.

"She couldn't have started the fire, though," Spencer insisted. "She was the one who pulled you out of it."

"Then who else is there?" Mona snapped.

The images were coming back to Toby slowly but surely now, as he began to regain his memory of what had happened in the woods. The person he had been following was not there by accident. There had been a glint in the depths of her green eyes –

He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, wishing suddenly that he could share his thought without Mona hearing. But in the end, they were on the same side right now. They had all been attacked tonight by someone – or several someones – who thought they were all equally deserving of punishment.

There was another faction of people out to get them. There had to be. Something bigger than NAT. Something bigger than 'A'.

"When I was in the woods, I saw someone," he began. "Just before I got knocked out."

Spencer snapped her gaze to him, her brow creasing in confusion. "Who? Who was it, Toby?"

He gulped against the lump in his throat and chanced a glance at Mona's reflection in the rear view mirror. She, too, was on the edge of her seat, anticipating his answer.

"I…I think it might have been Jenna."

[TO BE CONTINUED]