Exposed
- a PrettyLittleLiars fan-fiction novel -
Justin Barnes [a.k.a. PeytonAnneEllie]
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"Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves." - Elias Canetti
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Surfacing Surprises
Remember when you were little and you took a toy or a small object and dug a small hole in your backyard, putting the object there, burying it to come back to it later. Weather it was a few seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, you still came back to it, right? Maybe you forgot about it. But as you dug it up, did you notice something different about it? Maybe you forgot a certain feature on the object or toy, or maybe the dirt stained the clothes on the toy or object, or maybe, if it took you a week or two to find it, you saw that it kind of decomposed, got gross. A little piece of it is gone, but you still dug up several new things, weather they were good or bad. Maybe you dug up another toy you forgot you buried, maybe you dug up something from the previous owner's of the house, or maybe you dug up something you didn't intentionally put there. Like a secret.
Weather it was a harmful secret, or a useless secret, it was still what it's labeled under: a secret. And even though you dug it up, part of you wishes you never found it. Just like the four girls of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, Hanna Marin, Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, and Emily Fields. These four girls have secrets in all sorts of places, and every day they live, each secret slowly gets unraveled, thanks to the help of their certain stalker going by the name of A. And as each secret gets unearthed, a few lives grow closer and closer to their grave to become buried….
"Okay, so the first thing we do here is to make sure we don't kill anybody," Hanna whispered to the other girls as they grabbed their luggage from baggage claim at the airport in Miami, Florida.
"Hanna!" Spencer snapped.
"What?" Hanna asked in defensive mode. "Sorry, but we don't need another T.C. incident to happen while were down here."
"Yeah, Spence, Hanna's right," Aria said. "Sure it's harsh to hear, and risky to say aloud, but she's right. We need to make sure we don't mess up by mistaking that someone random is someone from our past."
"…Sorry about that," Emily said. "I should have kept my mouth shut."
"No, Em," Hanna said. "If I were you I'd have done the same thing. You were scared, worried that she was back to end us all, and thanks to you, you saved our lives, except it wasn't really her. But if you kept your mouth shut, and it had been Ali, who knows where any of us would be right now."
"Probably six feet under back in Rosewood," Spencer said and made sure all of her tags were where she had placed them on her bags. "This is our first vacation since Jamaica, and we can't screw this one up. So, keep away from strangers, stay in a close circle, and keep an eye out for anything or anyone suspicious, okay?"
"Got it," Aria said and grabbed her bags once Hanna and Emily had grabbed theirs.
"Now, let's go grab a taxi and get to our hotel room before someone recognizes us from the tabloids," Spencer said, pulling sunglasses down from her hair and over her eyes.
"It's been a few months, Spence, what makes you think people will still know who we are?" Emily asked and Hanna scoffed.
"That movie has been played more than a Justin Bieber song," Hanna said and pulled her sunglasses over her eyes, mimicking Spencer. "So I'm pretty sure some freak out there has watched it every second of the day, has the deluxe edition of the DVD, if that's even a real version of the stupid docudrama, and has recorded it when it first aired and watches it every time they see it on TV. Someone will remember our names or actually remember our faces from the magazines and other interviews."
Aria and Emily smirked, knowing that Hanna was probably right. They pulled their sunglasses on next and headed for the exit of the airport, ready to find their hotel and see what was in stock of the room-service menus. When the four girls were tormented by Mona and their best friend Alison, whom wasn't the Alison they really knew, not too long ago, the publicity sparked a docudrama to be made and played every minute some network would air it. It was called Pretty Little Killer, and it told the story of what really happened, except leaving out the part that the girls' Alison they knew so well, disappeared and got murdered, was really Courtney, her twin sister, who took Alison's place while Alison took Courtney's place down at a Mental Institution and once she was released she came back the night they threw their end of the seventh grade sleepover party and killed her own sister.
So much for a docudrama that's so successful but leaves out the biggest part of the story, huh? Ever since it was made the girls see it on TV's all the time and hear nasty things about them, weather through tabloids or school. People mistake bad luck for karma or attention getting stunts to get all eyes on them since they were the It girls of Rosewood High at one point in their lives.
"Taxi," Spencer called, flailing her arms above her head and placing her thumb and pointer finger into her mouth, whistling an earsplitting whistle that brought a cab to the curb of the airport in less then thirty seconds.
"Nice whistling, Spence," Aria said, and the trunk of the taxi popped up and the girls placed their things inside the trunk, closed it and climbed into the back of the taxi-cab.
"Where you four girls heading to?" The taxi driver, a man named James Herder, asked.
"Hotel Victor," Spencer said and the driver nodded, putting the car into drive and pulled away from the hotel.
"How'd you hear about Hotel Victor, Spence?" Hanna asked and Spencer pulled her iPhone out, opening a web-browser she bookmarked.
"My parents told me about it. They said they stayed here several times, and I could've had my grandma's beach house but I figured a hotel would be better. Something new and different is what I need," Spencer said and passed the girls her iPhone, showing them the pictures of the resort the website had uploaded.
"Looks amazing," Hanna said. "They better have a spa room waiting for me as soon as we get there."
"Me too," Aria said and Spencer laughed.
"Right? This is exactly what we need right now," She said and all the girls nodded.
"What room are we staying in?" Emily asked and Spencer explained that they just so happened to get the same room Spencer's parents had gotten when they stayed there. "Wow, what a coincidence," Emily said and Spencer just shrugged.
"Actually they helped me pull a few strings. They got one of the best rooms there and, not to say the other rooms aren't great, it's just this one is apparently bigger and more suitable for a four people stay."
"Oh," Emily said, handing Spencer's phone back to her. "Well that's cool."
"Yeah," Spencer said. "I'm just hoping it's not going to be a let down of a vacation."
"Don't think like that," Aria said. "If you jinx it, then it will most likely suck."
Hanna laughed. "Yeah, Spence, just because the last one was kind of a dud, doesn't mean this one will be."
"Yeah," Aria agreed. "We set guidelines, as long as we follow them, it'll be a blast."
"Guidelines we should have followed in the first place last time," Emily said and everyone looked at her, even the taxi driver. Emily looked away and sighed. "Sorry," She said and just then everyone's phones dinged, almost in unison.
"Well it looks like you four are pretty popular to get a message all at once," The taxi driver said and everyone except Spencer smirked.
"Guys," She said, slowly pulling the phone up her messages to see who the text was from. "You don't think it's-"
"Shh," Emily said. "Don't."
"Guys," Hanna said with a big sigh of relief. "It's just a text from Spencer's mom."
"Really?" Spencer asked, opening the message. "Dear girls have a great time. Glad I could help with the resort stay. Enjoy it. Veronica."
"Leave it to your mom to send us a chain message that ends up freaking us out," Hanna said and the girls laughed.
"That's a pretty name," The driver said, stopping at a stoplight.
"Uh...thanks," Spencer said and the girls all passed weird looks to each other.
"Sorry for eavesdropping," The driver said, looking at the girls in the rearview mirror. "But it just happens. Usually the radio's on but I don't wanna' disturb you guys with a radio so the silence just accidentally drifts other people's conversations in."
"It's cool," Emily said and the car started off driving again right as the light turned green.
Spencer slipped her keycard into the door lock and a small ding! filled the air as the door unlocked and turned the knob, opening the door all the way for all the girls to see the inside of the beautiful room they had for two full months.
"Holy chizz, this is our room!" Hanna asked, stepping inside and dropping her bags by the doorway.
"Yes it is," Spencer said.
All four girls walked into the room, the door swinging shut by itself, and they looked around, taking in the scenery. Right as you walk in, you have a large room covered from ceiling to floor in white. White carpet, white couch, white love-seat, white recliner, a white-themed kitchen, you name it. The entertainment center displaying a large case of popular kids, teenage and adult movies, porno's not included unless specially ordered, stood underneath the sixteen inch flat screen TV that balanced on it's shelf. The remotes were resting on the top of the TV with Velcro and the DVD player was positioned on a very small shelf above the TV. The cushy floor broke off into tile once you hit the kitchen and the couch had a huge pull-out bed, if needed.
There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and four TV's. One in each bedroom, one in the living room and one on the kitchen bar. The girls broke off separately to take in every single inch of the place that they could before returning, content with the hookup they got with Spencer's mother.
"Who takes the bedrooms?" Emily asked.
"Well it doesn't really matter to me. There are two beds, so we could all split them two to each bed, but if you guys want space I can sleep on the pullout bed in the living room with someone and the other two can sleep in the beds alone," Spencer said and went to the couch, pulling it out to inspect. "It's pretty comfy, actually, for a couch pullout."
"No," Hanna said. "You're not sleeping on that. Gross. You can share a bed with me."
"Yeah and I can share a bed with Em," Aria said and Emily nodded her head in agreement.
"Alright, so who wants the room on the left and the room on the right of the linen closet?" Spencer asked and Aria and Emily took their bags to the room on the left while Spencer and Hanna took theirs to the room on the right of the linen closet.
"I'm so glad we decided to do this," Hanna said, transferring her clothes to the open closet and the open dresser drawers as Spencer did the same.
"Me too," Spencer said, kicking her first of the three empty bags she packed under the bed. "You can put your suitcases in the closet if you want."
"Okay," Hanna said and just then Emily and Aria entered their room, a small knock on the door.
"Hey," Aria said, jumping onto the big bed.
"You guys already unpack?" Spencer asked.
"Yeah," Emily said. "Living with a mother like mine has taught me to fold and put away quickly. I just had a few stacks to pull out and place where I wanted them then I helped Aria do the same."
"Oddly, it was good help," Aria said and Emily laughed, sitting next to her on the bed.
"You guys want to go down to see what they have at the bar in a few minutes?" Emily asked.
"Sure," Spencer said.
"Definitely, a nice martini would be good right now," Hanna said, pushing her empty bags into the closet while turning to the pile she dumped onto the bed.
"Hey, what's this?" Aria asked, pulling a necklace out of the pile of clothes Hanna dumped onto the bed.
"I don't know," Hanna said, dropping her pairs of underwear into the open drawer and turning back to inspect the necklace. "Ohmigod."
"What?" The other three girls asked in unison.
"This was a necklace I made when I was planning to steal Ali's piece of the Time Capsule Flag long ago," Hanna said, holding it up in the light for her to inspect better. "I had an idea of taking her piece and replacing it with this, hoping she wouldn't really notice."
"You made this to replace with Ali's piece of the flag?" Aria asked. "Why didn't you just buy something. She would have probably flipped if she saw that on her make-up table instead of her piece of the flag."
"It was on her make-up table?" Emily asked and Aria shrugged.
"I don't know where she kept it," Aria said, shrugging and looking at the necklace as Hanna passed it to her. "All I know is Jason gave it to me once I ran into him in the woods after we became friends with Ali - I mean…Courtney."
"It's not that bad, guys," Spencer said, putting the last of her clothes away and pushing the bags under the bed with her foot. "For a homemade craft, this is pretty cute."
"That's what I thought," Hanna said. "I made it for me, a stupid yarn necklace with this old earring my grandma gave me since she lost the other one and it turned out well. At least, the younger, fatter, me did. Now it looks like I took a piece of cloth off a mop and stabbed the earring into it."
"Hanna, no, it's actually pretty," Emily said. "The way the pink and purple blend make the diamond in the earring pop."
"Thanks," Hanna said. "But I don't really like it anymore. Do any of you want it?"
"I'll take it," Aria said and Spencer laughed.
"Of course you will," Emily said.
"What?" Aria asked. "I'm a sucker for unique things…it's not a bad thing."
"Never said it was," Hanna said, tending back to her clothes, disposing of the last of them. "Now let's go get me a martini before I go crazy."
"Sounds good," Spencer said. "Do you guys have your keycards? I'll take mine but just incase I lose mine we all need to carry it in our wallets so we can get back in later."
"I'll go get ours," Emily said and walked off into her and Aria's room to retrieve their keys.
"Thanks," Aria said once Emily met the girls in the kitchen. Aria had already swooped the necklace over her neck and tied it tightly to keep it in place, her hair falling over it. She tugged on the earring to make sure that it wouldn't fall out while going to the bar and, once she was satisfied with the earring staying in place, they all left the room and headed towards the elevator.
On the way down the girls checked their Facebook profiles, logging out to keep the drama away from them while in a different state, and checked their eMails and texts, glad nothing new came in. They then put their phones on silent, pocketed them and walked out of the elevator once the doors opened after the bell dinged.
"Here we go," Spencer said, pushing open the doors to the bar area. "My parents said that this is where they have one of the best rum and coke here."
"Ew, Spence," Hanna said. "I'm not a forty-year-old man. I want to get drunk, not tired."
"It's not for just men," Spencer argued.
"Nor forty something people," Aria added.
"I doubt it makes you tired, too," Emily said and Hanna scoffed.
"Whatever, I want a martini," She said and Spencer glared at her.
"Calm down, you'll get your martini," Spencer said and they all sat down at the bar, balancing on the stools and waited for the waiter to turn around and grab their orders.
Music pumped throughout the entire crowd, the bass shaking the liquid inside the alcohol bottles behind the bar that was a huge half-circle-shaped design taking up space at one end of the area while people danced and sat on thin, tall chairs and nursed their drinks at the tables they sat at. Right as a dubstep version of Katy Perry's song E.T. (Futuristic Lover) ended, a club remix of a David Guetta song featuring Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj started, the crowd cheering and quickly changing their temp of dance to match the new song's tempo.
"I love this song," Hanna said and Aria nodded in agreement.
"I know every word," Emily said and before Spencer could say she did, too, the waiter turned around and looked at them, a rag over his shoulder and a tight-black T-shirt covering his torso while a matching black apron was tied to his waist.
"What can I get you four girls?" The guy asked and everyone froze as they recognized who the bartender really was. "Oh."
"Hey…Jason," Spencer said and Jason's face turned pale white.
"Hey, how are you…guys?" Jason asked and the girls all looked at each other before they answered with fine. "Good to hear. What can I, uh, get you girls to drink?"
"Martini, please," Hanna said and Emily told Jason she wanted a glass of wine while Aria ordered a vodka and sprite with Spencer ordering a rum and coke.
"Got it," Jason said and turned around to make their drinks.
The four girls immediately hunched closer and started talking. "What is he doing here!" Hanna asked.
"Well he does have a life," Emily said.
"Yeah, but the last time we saw Jason DiLaurentis was when we were almost killed by the real Ali around the time of the Pocono's fire," Aria said and Spencer nodded.
"So is this where he went after he vanished once we made it out alive?"
"I don't know but we need to keep our guard up before something else happens," Aria said and Hanna sighed.
"We can never escape her," She said. "Why is Alison everywhere?"
"Because we keep bringing her everywhere," Emily pointed out and the girls turned around just as their drinks were delivered by a different bartender.
"Here you go," The waitress asked.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" Spencer asked and the girl turned around. "Do you know where Jason went?"
"Jason? We don't have a Jason working here," The girl said.
"Yeah, he just tended our orders right before you gave us the drinks, do you know where he went?" Spencer asked.
"The only other person working here is named Keith, and he just got off the clock. Sorry, no Jason." The girl then turned around and tended to a couple who just sat down.
"Where do you think he went?" Emily asked.
"Home?" Hanna suggested and Aria shrugged.
"Maybe Mr. and Mrs. DiLaurentis are here, too," She said and Spencer shook her head.
"Whatever the reason on why he's here in Florida while we are, we just need to make sure nothing bad happens."
"Last thing we need is another fire," Hanna said, picked up her martini and drained it in one gulp.
"Do you guys want to go?" Emily asked.
"Yeah," Spencer said. "I feel like, somehow, Ali's watching us right now."
"Or Jason," Hanna said.
"Or the whole club," Aria said and they all looked to see a few people were staring their way, murmuring something as they looked.
"Let's go," Hanna said, hopped off her stool and spun on her heel, the other three following suite, and almost ran into a girl her age coming into the club.
"Ohmigod, I'm so sorry!" Hanna sputtered and the girl caught herself before falling backwards and started laughing.
"Dude, chill, it's totally fine," She said and readjusted her purse to be up on her shoulder. "You didn't damage anything of Lilly's, so you're good."
"Is your name Lilly?" Spencer asked and the girl nodded, a giggle escaping her lips.
"Yes, sure is," She said. "And you must be…"
"Uhh…" Spencer froze. "Darla."
"Oh, well…hi, Darla, what brings you girls here?"
"We are on vacation," Aria said, sticking her hand out. "My name is Kim."
"I'm…Melody," Emily said, shaking Lilly's hand.
"And I'm Jamie," Hanna said.
Lilly nodded. "Well you girls seem like a tight group of friends. Anyways, I guess I'll be seeing you around. I'm on vacation, too. Do you guys want to get a couple drinks?"
"We'd love to," Spencer said. "But we can't. We have to get up really early tomorrow to do something, but thanks for the offer."
"No problem," Lilly said. "Bye, girls."
"Bye, Lilly," The four girls said and they pushed through the doors and clomped up the stairs, heading back up to the elevators.
"Darla? Really?" Aria hissed.
"I didn't want to risk her recognizing us," Spencer said, pressing the UP button on the elevator keypad.
"Do you think the crowd recognized us?" Aria asked, the elevator's doors opening up, the soft ding filling the air.
"I don't know, but let's not double back to find out," Spencer said and punched the button to take them back up to their room.
"HOLD THE DOOR!" A voice boomed and they instantly started to keep the door open for the man but as they realized who was running towards the door, they let them slide closed and forgot who tried to catch a ride down at the bottom of the hotel.
"Was that our cab driver?" Aria asked.
"Yeah. It was." Spencer answered and Emily gasped.
"Why is he here at the hotel? Did we forget something in the cab?"
"No," Hanna said. "I have a feeling he recognizes us."
Somehow, the driver of the cab was running after them. For some reason he wanted their attention, and they all prayed that they didn't get a knock on the door from him later tonight once he finally got an elevator.
How could everyone know who they are? Did everyone even know who they are? If so, who told them? Someone might have leaked, someone might have made the connection, but either way, this vacation would have to be a guarded one, because if someone already knows who they are, it's a matter of time before everyone knows who they are.
Back in Rosewood, they're known as the Pretty Little Liars.