A/N: I've seen a few of these around and so I don't take credit for the concept. This fic will be 26 chapters, one per letter, and I am always open to suggestion. I am taking B suggestions. I don't own Pretty Little Liars.
Chapter 1: Anonymous.
Character: A, any of the A-Team that you want.
Quote: One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. (Hamlet)
Anonymous.
It's the perfect setup, really: a person in a hoodie pretending to be someone but at the same time not. It's kind of like a Venn diagram, tilted just enough one way to look like Alison, but by now those girls know Alison would step out of the shadows, the better to manipulate.
Tilted the other way, it looks like someone who knows exactly what Alison knew, and isn't that a lovely thing, putting the liars into a frenzy of who else knew?
Who else did Alison tell?
Even Spencer, for all her intellect, hasn't guessed at the existence of a diary. Still, it wouldn't matter if she did because by now those diaries are scanned onto a heavily protected computer that isn't even in Rosewood.
Anonymity never suited Alison, but then her actions generally were not illegal. She was a performer, the one to proudly take the stage and then confirm or deny her actions as she pleased and then twist your words until you were the one in the wrong and she was the innocent party. I am not the same breed of performer: I have to slink on and off the stage before my presence is realized, and I cannot tell anyone of my deeds. I would like to, but numerous rules forbid me from doing so.
It has occurred to me that there are loopholes and that I could surely get around the rules as I've been doing for so long now, but I choose not to – not because I am modest about my misdeeds, but because I cannot trust in any confidante. Instead I rely on the memory that people don't expect me to have and the sensations that rush through me.
The scent of the gas station, cloying and heavy but still necessary because I've just been for a long drive; the feel of a thick black hoodie that masks my body; the panic that will filter across a face with a message; the mishmash of four ringtones simultaneously sounding; the bad diner coffee singeing my taste buds – these are the things that make me what I am.
I'm sure regular people, the ones outside of the Rosewood bubble, are afraid to see me in my A-gear, hood obscuring my hair and bleaching my skin pale, but it matters little when I see the end results. People need to realize that they cannot trust a pretty smile or friendly greeting: what lies beneath could be far more dangerous. They do not realize that the person greeting you politely is a stalker, has blackmailed and lied and cheated for months to punish people for the same crimes.
Fools. They are sheep, trusting and unassuming and this makes it the perfect way for me to pounce. I am the one to whom they tell their deepest secrets, the one who sits with them at lunches or in classes and shares a friendly eye-roll when the teacher is being strict. My anonymity works best in this way, hiding me in a shroud of dark fabric and sharp text messages while I learn new things.
And the best part – for me, anyway – is that they never guess.
In all the times I've sent a message or blocked them from learning something that might just help their mystery, they have never figured me out. I'm so far off their A-radar that I doubt they've ever thought of me.
Being anonymous was once drab, dull. It meant having no friends to speak of, of never having someone talk to me unless I was the target of the week's rumour (no doubt instigated by Alison DiLaurentis) and of always being bored.
Until one day Alison herself realized she wasn't invincible, wasn't immune to a little illegal activity and it became oh-so-easy to direct her spying elsewhere, because how else to take the heat off me? And that proved to be the first challenge of many, because I quickly learned that she was frighteningly clever, much more so than I'd expected her to be. Still, I was grateful in time, because it made her a worthy adversary. It made shadowing her fun, rather than have her run straight to the nearest adult and demand they fix it like many others might have.
And in time, being anonymous took on a new enjoyment for me. It meant I could continue my various plans and schemes and what did it matter if I had to sneak out of Rosewood to plan, too wary of prying parents and diligent house staff? I was on the radars that mattered, and off the ones that didn't – the rest could be taken care of along the way.
I knew enough to get me by and was able to learn the rest: for all the radars I worked to stay on, I generally kept people at a distance so as to stop them from prying too. It let me hone discipline and practice various things that I might not have in public, work on letting people underestimate me so that I became a well-known face but overall nothing too special. It wouldn't do to give away all my secrets right away and so I kept it all hidden, kept things secret by smoothing my face impassive and silently memorizing snippets of things.
So far it has paid off, being anonymous. I've learnt more about my targets than I ever thought I would. It's no longer just me, alone as I stand in my hoodie and boots. I have a team now and tonight we are scattered throughout the Lair and Rosewood. Some of us are doing surveillance, others are brainstorming and it's all working beautifully.
It still sends a rush through me, my body straightening as I survey the pages in front of me and feel the power. I am not in the background tonight, I am in the front of the room and the one that gives guidance, approval as the others work through the night. None of us fully trusts the others – we would be fools to do so, stupid to expect no mutiny in a group of strong personalities.
No matter – I have the final say on everything, I am the leader here.
Time to sign off on a few plans I'm approving, and tonight will be done. Each sheet is marked with my favourite method: a hand-drawn, contrasting curly capital, rather than the serious typed counterpart.
A.