Well, I'm back. Miss me?
This is, of course, the sequel to 'A is for Arlene' - so if you haven't read that first, you might want to go ahead and do that so this story makes more sense. I haven't quite finished writing it yet, but I promised you I'd start publishing by the end of the month, so here's the first chapter. I'll leave this up for a few days, so I can get some feedback on it and finish writing the rest, and then I'll be back to updating regularly. Oh, and there's a poll on my profile about this story, so if anyone went and did that I'd really appreciate it; I think I know which way I'm going to go but other opinions are always welcome.
So. Not much else to say about this one. It pretty much explains everything you need to know. Reviews, as always, are very welcome. I hope you enjoy the first chapter of 'S is for Salvation'.
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It had only been a month, but it felt like a lifetime. A month since Aria's best friend had betrayed her, coming clean about the murder she'd committed and the efforts she'd made to cover it up. A month since her friend had held a knife to her throat, since she'd threatened to kill her if they tried to turn her in. A month since they'd had to run from the police to save their own skins. Though the visible scars had faded, she still felt torn up inside.
She, Emily, and Hanna were sitting at their usual lunch table, trying to ignore the empty chair that served as a reminder that the fourth member of their group had been a traitor. After that night Spencer, Mona, and Toby had fled; nobody had heard from them since. The girls hadn't even received any –A texts, which was both a relief and cause for concern. It either meant that the A-Team had given up, or that they were planning something even worse for them. And if Aria knew Spencer – which at one point she'd thought she had – she wasn't likely to give up so easily.
Emily and Hanna were currently engaged in a lively discussion about the latest episode of their new soap opera obsession, and Aria was sitting across from them, enjoying the light-heartedness.
"You can't still seriously like Milson after he slept with Catrina, can you?" Emily asked, indignant.
"He didn't know it was her!" Hanna protested. "He thought it was Dina."
"They may be twins but he should still have been able to tell them apart." Emily pouted, getting too heavily invested in the conversation. She was, as Hanna had told them time and again, 'shipping so hard she's going to crash into an iceberg'. Emily turned to Aria. "Back me up here. What do you think?"
Aria twirled a piece of lettuce around her fork, looking at her two best – and pretty much only - friends. She grinned. "You're both dorks."
"Hey!" Hanna said, mock-offended, and flicked a piece of cucumber at her.
Aria ducked, and the cucumber flew over her head. She turned to watch its path, and with horrified eyes saw it crash into the person behind her. The girl, on her way over to her own table, stiffened. The cucumber fell to the ground, and the girl stayed still.
Hanna hesitated, and then said, "Sorry, Jenna. I didn't -"
"Hanna," Jenna said, her face surprisingly expressive given she was still wearing her dark glasses. "Still not big on the salad, huh? That's a shame."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Emily demanded, her playful fight with Hanna forgotten in the face of a real enemy. Aria slid back in her seat, watching things progress. She found it interesting that Jenna was normally civil to Emily, who in turn was always snippy with her – which, for sweet, lovely Em, was strange.
"It's not supposed to mean anything." Jenna shrugged. "I'll see you later, girls."
The others watched as she left, bumping into a table and a chair on her way. Aria always felt a little uncomfortable when Jenna said things like 'see you later' or 'it's good to see you', and she'd done so for as long as the other girl had been blind. But now Jenna could see again, only nobody aside from Aria, Hanna, and Emily knew. And that just made it that much more uncomfortable.
Aria turned back to her friends. Emily was still watching Jenna, but Hanna was looking down at her plate with a grim expression. Before Aria had a chance to ask what was wrong, Hanna got to her feet, said a quick farewell, and marched off. She dumped the rest of her food – it had over half left – in the trash on the way, not looking back.
"Is she okay?" Aria asked Emily, suddenly worried for her friend. For the past couple of weeks Hanna had been quieter than usual, more withdrawn, and she'd stopped hanging out with them as much. Once she would have told them what was going on, but now she just deflected any questions with a half-hearted smile.
Emily turned to see Hanna disappearing down the hall. She sighed. "I don't think any of us are okay, Aria," she said quietly. "Not after…"
After that first day, when they'd talked over everything that had happened, they'd tried not to mention it. The entire A-Team – Spencer, Mona, and Toby – had completely disappeared. Admittedly Aria and the girls hadn't tried very hard to look for them, but they'd stopped seeing them at school or around town. That either meant they were lying very low, or they were actually gone.
Every time Aria thought of Spencer, her heart ached. She kept wondering if it was something she'd done, if she'd somehow pushed Spencer into this. If there was anything she could have done to prevent it. Her logical side reminded her that it had been about Ali, not her, but it didn't stop her from feeling the heavy weight of guilt. She felt like she should have done more for her friend, although that lead to her questioning whether Spencer ever really was her friend. She'd always stop when she reached that point in her thought process, because she didn't want to contemplate whether it was more tragic if Spencer had been her friend or if she hadn't.
Aria opened her mouth to reply, but Emily's cell went off. Even though they hadn't heard from –A in a month, it didn't stop them from being nervous. Emily read the message, then glanced up at Aria. "It's not from –A," she said, and Aria felt herself relax. "But I do have to go."
"Oh."
Emily was already standing up, and Aria barely had time to say goodbye before her friend had hurried into the building. Aria picked at a bread roll, trying not to let herself overanalyze it. So her friends were distant. Maybe they were hiding things, but it wasn't like she'd never kept secrets from them. If they wanted to talk, they could, but she wasn't going to push. After Spencer's betrayal her confidence had been shattered; she no longer trusted her own judgment, and, to some extent, her friends either. She hated that she still doubted them, but she knew she had to be cautious in order to stay safe.
It was times like these, when she was alone, three empty chairs around her, that her mind wandered to that place she tried not to allow it to go. It was times like these when she wondered what Spencer was doing. As soon as the thought crossed her mind she firmly pushed it away, picked up her tray, and left the table.
If only it was that easy to leave the memories behind.
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"Oh, how the mighty have fallen."
Spencer turned at the sound and saw Mona coming into the room, carrying three cups of coffee and a paper bag. She set these down on the low table in front of the couch where Spencer was currently sitting, ignoring the fact that the other girl rolled her eyes at that remark. Spencer gathered some of the pieces of paper that were strewn across the table, sorted them into a pile (alphabetically by subject heading, of course), and moved them out of the way.
"Toby!" she called, and a moment later the blue-eyed boy appeared from the next room; he paused at the doorway, stretched his arms, and let out a luxurious yawn. "Were you sleeping again?"
He came and sat down next to her, and Mona sat on the chair across the table. Spencer opened the paper bag and pulled out three sandwiches, which she distributed among them. Toby took a bite of his, leaning back against the couch and wrapping his free arm around Spencer's shoulders.
"This is good," he said, dipping his head to indicate the sandwich. "Where'd you get it?"
"The bakery down the road," Mona replied, taking a sip of coffee. "Not the one on the corner, the one by the post office."
As Spencer listened to them discuss the food, she marvelled at how comfortable all of this was. She, Mona, and Toby had been in this dingy motel for a month now, and it was almost like they'd become family. They bickered, they argued about a lot of things that didn't matter at all, and there was still some residual tension over the failure of their last grand plan, but she felt that in a way they did care about each other. She and Toby loved each other, of course, but she even found herself not only tolerating but enjoying Mona's company.
After that night, she'd skipped school for the two remaining weeks until the nearest break. Then she'd made up some story to her parents about staying with friends in Philly, and she'd spent the two weeks of vacation holed up here with Mona and Toby, trying to plan their next move.
None of her 'friends' had contacted her, but she hadn't expected them to. After what she'd done she understood that they'd want nothing to do with her. At first she'd assumed she'd be okay with that, but as the days wore on she began to miss their company. She was reasonably confident that this was just because she'd been accustomed to seeing them every day, and that the feeling would wear off soon. It would have to, or it would make the next part of their plan so much more difficult.
"And to answer your question," Toby said, bringing Spencer's thoughts back into the present moment, "yes, I was sleeping. But it's not like there's much else to do here."
"I'm sorry," she said, resting her hand on his and meeting his eyes. "I know it sucks being here, but our exile is almost over."
His eyes lit up at the prospect. "The plans are coming along well, then?" he asked, picking up the pile of paper and flicking through.
Spencer nodded, flipping her black hood up in response to a cold draught that had slipped through the cracks in the door. The room was dark, slightly moldy, and smelled faintly of alcohol, but it was home for now. It was good enough, too; it was out of the way, it was cheap, and it was convenient. Still, she found herself missing their old lair back in Rosewood; after they'd been found out they'd had to clear everything out of there and take off.
"It's almost time to start putting them into action, don't you think?" Mona asked, regarding Spencer calmly over the rim of her cup of coffee. Her black fingernails curled around the cup, something almost predatory in the action. Spencer was glad, not for the first time, that the dark-haired girl was on her side.
"We've almost got everything we need," Spencer said, snuggling closer to Toby, "which means it's almost time for us to go back."
"Who's going to go back first?" Toby asked, putting the pile of papers down so he could wrap his arms around Spencer, who closed her eyes in contentment as he gently stroked her hair. Mona tried not to roll her eyes at them.
"I think we all know," Mona said. Spencer opened her eyes and looked at her quizzically. "I mean, school starts again tomorrow, and it's going to be suspicious if you miss any more."
Spencer pulled herself into an upright position, but stayed enveloped in Toby's arms. She sighed. "My parents will kill me if I miss any more class," she agreed.
"So I guess that's it," Toby said. "We're going back."
"I don't know if you should come with me, Toby." Spencer chewed on her thumbnail, thinking. "I mean, if we all arrive in this big flurry of activity, I think the girls are going to notice."
"Don't we want them to notice?" Mona pointed out.
"Well, yes. But not right away."
"So what are you thinking?" Toby asked her. "Send someone in to do some recon?"
"Something like that."
Mona finished her coffee and tossed the cup into the trash without taking her eyes off Spencer and Toby. They heard the gentle thud of the cup landing perfectly in the trash can, and Mona gave a small self-satisfied smile. "So Spencer," she said, her smile widening, "how do you feel about a little trip to Rosewood?"
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So, what did you think? Interested in reading more?
I hope to see you all next chapter. ;)