Chapter 1:

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

-Edgar Allen Poe

Her reflection was the first thing she saw. In shattered pieces, scattered across the gravel, her own bloody, marred face stared back at her, looking as dizzy and incoherent as she felt. Her hand quickly went to the pavement beneath her body in an attempt to pull herself upward, her palm immediately colliding with a sharp slice of glass. She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes shut, rolling back onto her side and pulling the glass out from beneath the surface of her skin. She grimaced as she beheld the blood that ran from her palm, onto her already-red-splattered sleeve, which hovered multiple cuts and bruises.

Her head was killing her.

In a haze, she struggled to remember the circumstances as to why she was there, on the ground, in the middle of the road, finally conscious. The iron smell of her own blood filled her nostrils, blocking her thought process.

"Aria?"

A familiar voice brought with it a swarm of memories, hitting her like a ton of bricks.

His face.

The car.

The road.

The man.

The crash.

The sound of tires screeching on gravel, the feel of her stomach turning as the car was flipped off the side of the road, and she was hurled from the vehicle, sent tumbling about, amid the piles of shattering glass, onto the pavement. The sound of her scream as her head cracked against the hard ground, and the panicked sound of his voice – just as she had heard it only moments ago – calling out her name.

"Aria?"

She was finally able to roll onto her stomach, bracing her forearm beneath her, and hoisting herself into a semi-kneeling position. Her head was spinning, and she struggled to keep herself upright. She could hear the sound of broken glass shuffling and suddenly, she could feel his breath at her ear.

"Oh, God, Aria…" He sounded terrified, panicked, but like he could scarcely get a breath as well.

"Mmm?" She tried to say, blinking a few times. His hands were at her shoulders, and he carefully pulled her into his arms, his fingers anxiously pushing her hair from her eyes, turning her face towards him.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Mm…" Aria nodded. "I think so…" She said, her voice dry and sober. Her free, bleeding hand reached up to touch the side of her head, and when she lowered it back down, a fresh layer of blood coated her palm.

"How bad are you bleeding? Did you break anything?" He asked.

She shook her head. "I don't think I broke anything." She replied hoarsely. Still a bit uncoordinated, she closed her eyes tight, trying to remember what had happened. Where was she? Why…why was she on the road so late? Why was she with him? Where did she meet him?

When she opened her eyes, her gaze fell on a shoe, connected to a foot, connected to a third body, strewn across the pavement, face-down on the ground.

"Oh, God. Oh, God, Jason." Her eyes went wide and she started to panic. "What…did we…?"

"I think he's dead." Jason chocked out, and Aria put a hand over her mouth, her pulse pounding in her ears, her heart beating in her throat.

Oh God.

The man.

The blood.

The wreck.


"I don't think you're as different as you want everyone to think you are."

"Really?" She looked over at him, a soft smile on her face, "And how do you figure that?" She took another sip from the flask, tasting the burnt-wood-and-chemical taste of Scotch, but swallowing it anyway.

Her fingernails were bright red, like cherries, as she tapped them against the dashboard to the tune of the song. What was it again? Fleetwood Mac? M83?

"The hair, the clothes, the black makeup…it was all a mask. You're different, but not in the way that you think." He replied, and she could see his coy grin in the low light of the moon, amid the darkness of the car. Through her haze of alcohol, she could still make out his eyes, as they flickered from the road and then back to her face.

"You're special. Why don't you want anyone to see that?"


Her eyes opened and she gasped aloud.

"Jason…" She whispered softly, shaking her head slowly. "What do we do?" She could feel tears well up in her eyes, and her voice quivered.

Kneeling beside her, he tightened his arms around her. "I don't know."

The blood on her hands.

Was it hers?

Was it his?

Was it…his?

"How did this happen?" She asked, her voice just a breath.

He didn't answer, but instead shakily got to his feet, and began to approach the body. She looked up at him, getting a better look at the damage that had been done to him: a few cuts across his face, his knuckles bleeding, and he was limping on one of his legs.

"What do we do, Jason?" She asked again. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she was close to sounding desperate.

He knelt down by the body, wincing a bit as did so, and grasped each of the man's ankles. He tugged the body upward so that it slumped against the gravel.

"Come on, help me pull." He told her, looking at her like he really meant it, "Can you stand?"

Aria just looked at him, her lips parted, blinking a few times. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He continued to stare back at her, his hands still grasping the body's ankles. "Well?"

"Jason…"

"Aria, we have to get out of here, fast. Before you lose too much blood or someone finds us. Now, can you stand? Can you help me?"

"Where would we take it?"

"Over the trench. Into the river." He nodded towards the side of the windy road, where, indeed, a deep, bush-covered trench lay, surrounding the side of the cliff. A bent, spindly tree reached over the edge, with the wrecked car tight in its grip, twisted and held snuggly in its grasp. The braches stretched over the broken windows, and thorns punctured the already-thrashed tires.

Aria looked back at Jason. "We can call someone…"

"No." He replied grimly.

"Jason – "

"Aria, I don't think you understand the seriousness of what this is; this guy…is dead. Because of us. If anyone finds out that we did this, we're done."

"But it was an accident – "

"Doesn't matter. We were drunk driving. That's one platform to persecute against us for. And murder is murder; it doesn't matter what the context is."

"Jason, we can't run from this."

"What else can we do? If anyone finds out that I was wasted, it'll only be a matter of time before they find the rest of the stuff I have in the back of my closet."

"It was your choice to get high all summer, Jason. Not mine." She said seriously.

"Oh, have you forgotten the Fourth of July? Or are you just choosing not to remember it?"

"That was one time, Jason." Aria replied gravely.

"It doesn't matter; one time is enough to get you in trouble for your whole life. Your dreams of going off to college? Becoming a writer? Or a teacher? Done. Out the window faster than you can say 'trouble.'" Jason looked at her seriously. "So come on; help me pull."

She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes, watching him for a moment longer before hesitantly getting to her feet. A wave of vertigo hit her, and she put a hand to her head, immediately feeling dried blood there. She forced herself to stand up tall, and crossed over to meet him where the body lay on the pavement.

After one last look at Jason, she reached down and grasped the man's shoulders, trying to hoist him upwards. Her weakened, tired arms gave out beneath her, and Jason set the body down, rounding the side to switch places with her. The two of them worked over the body in silence, careful to remove any of the clothing they made contact with – the man's jacket, shoes, socks. Finally, when they were able to cross the road and hoist the body over the edge of the trench – after one last look at one another – they stood in silence along the cliff, staring down into the black hole, as the body disappeared within the shadows.

Aria was the first to speak. "He probably was someone, you know?"

"What?" Jason looked at her.

"You know, he probably had a family, and a job. A wife and kids of his own. Parents that loved him and a good life." She could feet her voice get thick as tears welled up in her eyes.

Jason didn't answer; he looked back down into the trench and ran a hand through his bloodied hair.

"And now all of that's gone; it's like it wasn't even there at all. He didn't even get a goodbye. Tomorrow, when his wife wakes up, she'll probably be worried about him. Sometime soon, they'll find his body here, all broken up and stowed away like it never meant anything. We'll hear about it all on the news, and our parents will say what a terrible shame it was, and we'll go back to just being those two Rosewood kids on the block. I'll still have that oak tree stump in my backyard where my tree house used to be, and you'll still be that guy whose sister died just last year. Nothing else will change; and yet, nothing will be the same for us after this." Aria shook her head. Her face was like a stone, stoic and unmoving as it all sunk in.

"Rosewood won't change. Even if this did get out, Rosewood would stay the same. We'd be put through hell, but then we'd disappear, like we didn't even exist. They'd talk about us from time to time – how we were sent to Juvie for killing an innocent man, like Toby Cavanaugh was shipped away for blinding his stepsister. But other than that, we'd just be one more problem this town has to deal with. One more thing they want to put away." Jason replied, his face the same mask of unfeeling. Suddenly, he reached out and took her hand, intertwining their fingers.

Just last week, that would have made Aria's heart race. It would have made her blush and sent a torrent of thoughts churning through her head. It would give her some mad hope that he liked her…


"I think Ali would have liked that one." He had pointed to an old photograph of his little sister in pink, "she's showing off her 'good side.'"

Aria giggled and picked the picture from the card table, holding it up to the light, "Yeah, she is!" She agreed, setting it down on a page of the scrapbook, beside a few other pictures showcasing her best friend.

"It was really nice of you to make this, especially with the memorial coming up." Jason had said. He sat a little closer to her, and, naturally, her breath caught in her throat.

"Well, it's been a year – I thought it would be a good way to remember her."

"We only just found her body last week…and yet…I feel like she's been gone this whole time. Like finding her was just telling me what I already knew."

"Really? I guess I always pictured her…out there, somewhere. With some cute, foreign boy. Having a cup of coffee at a café in France. Wearing a filmy scarf and a flimsy sun hat. A pair of red sunglasses."

Jason chuckled. "Ali at her finest."

"Definitely. Probably changed her name to something glamorous."

"Naturally." He laughed. She grinned and looked up at him. His face was closer than she thought, and her heart immediately skipped a beat.

She could feel his breath on her face, his eyes watching her. Could he even hear how fast her heart was beating?


Nothing would ever be the same between them again. After that moment, everything changed. They were no longer just two stupid kids, with the younger desperately crushing on the older, but a pair of convicts, running from the truth, in it together for the long run. Involuntary partners in crime, damned to live a life of worry and apprehension.

"The river will carry the body away; in a few hours, it'll be somewhere miles away." Jason said.

Aria nodded. "Where do we go from here?" She asked. "It's too far to walk home."

"Noel and Eric Kahn's cabin is up here. Eric and I were friends in high school. He'll let us stay for the night."

"Will he even know we're there?"

"Not likely."

"We should start walking then." She whispered. He nodded. He kept holding her hand.

With a breath and one last look into the black trench, where the river subtly rushed along, they turned and began walking down the windy, dark road, their hands clasped between them.

The lonely moon hung over them, and in the quiet depths of the night, somewhere far away, a wolf howled a cry of agony.

so this is the first Jaria fanfic I've written (after many many Spoby ones) and I thought it would be fun to try out! Please note - this story as an AU (Alternate Universe). Ezra isn't in the picture (bummer), and Aria didn't spend the year in Iceland. Hope you all like it! Your reviews keep the story going! And mean the world!

-AJ