Aria smells like dried paint from the art room to her. Spencer's scent is quite close to old library books and new text books.
(They both reek of exhaustion and dismal hope for the future.)
Hanna wears the same perfume that Alison once did, and if Emily squints it's almost like the other blonde never left.
(She wouldn't be the only one thinking that these days.)
Somehow they all find each other in the woods like clockwork, and Emily is only a little discouraged that the flash of blonde hair wasn't Alison.
(She realizes that those footsteps were Spencer, the two of them had always walked similarly.)
(They all have lingering pieces of Alison inside.)
Spencer starts a fire, and maybe it's a stupid idea to camp in a town that just had a girl go missing, but no one objects.
(None of them really care anymore, they were all hiding from the public. The four of them made for good headlines.)
Emily glazed into the fire as Aria asked all them a question. Does anyone really deserve to die?
(No, Hanna said. Yes, that was Spencer. Not Alison. Emily.)
Their group isn't the same anymore, not when they could be all in a room and everyone knows someone's missing.
("Not that it's for the worse." A teacher says, looking at the girls setting separately in the cafeteria. No one argues.)
But it's different under the cover of the Stygian sky. The night masks everything but their voices.
(The only expectation is the embers of the fire Spencer always starts, and Emily always puts out)
Hanna brings a flask one time, they take turns having swings of the liquid. Talking about doing the impossible. Getting out of Rosewood.
(Would you leave? Emily asked. An answer went unsaid, but not unheard. Not without you guys.)
(After all, the remaining devils will take care of their own. Even if it's only in the blinding black.)
(In the woods it's easy to pretend that they don't notice each other dying inside. Doesn't change the facts)
(It's only makes sense that that's the way it is. Alison taught them how to ignore others suffering)
Aria leaves to Iceland, and their little ritual ends. No one brings it up, not until Maya dies.
Then they do it again, the wind howling with more then just Alison's ghost those nights.
(Emily can still hear Maya's voice. Hanna knows that Mona is all but dead.)
(Aria wishes that she could deny her feelings for Jason. Spencer wonders about Ian.)
A/N This is the second installment of a series already posted on AO3. 'A Tale of Liars' is a collection of mildly related drabbles that are slightly AU.