So, here's my third chapter, it's the longest yet. I have tried to make the story more 'dynamic', in some way… anyways, I wanted to thank everyone who wrote a review, those are always very much appreciated, and Tzei for the PM, you're really supportive. Also, I might not be able to always post a chapter every week, because I'm really really busy with school.
So, this is it. Please review and tell me what you think, hope you enjoy =)
Chapter 3:
Alison stood up immediately when she heard the heavy footsteps in the hallway suddenly getting to a halt right in front of her cell.
The guard hit the bars to make sure he had her attention before he spoke. 'You have visitors, inmate.' He said briskly before moving away from the cell to let the visitors show themselves.
Four pretty girls appeared and got close to the cell, so that they could speak face to face with the blonde girl a few steps away from them. Ali looked worn out and jaded . A bruise was showing on her left cheek, under her eye. It mustn't have been easy for her either, being locked in there.
'I knew you would come, eventually.' She said, her tone bitter. She tried to keep it neutral, but her eyes betrayed her, showing the anger she was feeling. 'You do need me, after all…' She trailed off.
'This is why I didn't wanna come.' Hanna said suddenly. 'She couldn't wait for us to come and beg for her help. Can't you see it? She won't help us! She'll just play with us to get her revenge.' All eyes turned to the girl. They knew she was probably right, but they had to at least try. Spencer sighed before starting to speak. 'It was hard enough for us to get here, especially for Emily.' She said turning briefly to the dark-haired girl, hoping that Alison did have feelings for her, even if remote and hidden under the various layers of her distorted mind. It was the only thing she could come up with right now. Besides, desperate situations, called for desperate solutions.
'You know she's been through a lot lately, but we convinced her to come anyway because last time you refused to talk to us since we weren't all here.' She gave one pleading look to the girl behind the bars. 'So, please, for once, don't look at this as a game, because it's not. Our lives are at stake and we really need answers… Ali?' She asked when the girl didn't budge. 'I never thought this was a game, Spencer. I always knew what I was dealing with.' This time her tone sounded angry. The girl couldn't stop it from transpiring. Not when the sting of betrayal hurt so much. 'I've struggled with A for longer than you have. I had to hide for two years pretending I was dead, and when I finally come home, you, who are supposed to be my friends, turn your backs on me.' Aria decided to swoop in, noticing Ali's eyes on the verge of watering. She had never seen Ali this way before, the girl looked really hurt. If it was all an act she really deserved an award for pulling off that kind of performance. 'I know we haven't told you yet, but we are sorry. We really are, and we're gonna do whatever we can to help you, but we need your help too.' Aria said trying to be convincing. She still didn't trust the girl entirely, but she needed Ali to trust them. She may or may not be A, but she still kept lots of secrets. She was either a victim of A or she was A. And for all they knew this was part of her big plan of destroying them.
Alison looked at them one by one. Her gaze stopped on the girl that hadn't spoken all this time. Emily looked up at her. She looked tired. Like she didn't want to be there but was forced to come. She was also keeping her distance, but Ali knew it wasn't entirely because of her. She was going through her own problems. Beside the A situation, Paige leaving had taken its toll on her and she felt her throat constrict when she saw the pain in the girl's dark eyes.
'How about you, Em? Do you want my help?' Emily inhaled deeply before nodding her head. 'I don't want it, Ali. I need it.' She finally managed to say. 'Then I guess I'll help you.' Ali uttered after a small pause. 'But at one condition.' The four girls gazed again at each other, exchanging worried looks. 'What's that?' Spencer asked, creasing her brows in concern.
'This time you have to trust me. No matter what I do, or what I ask of you, you have to trust what I say and follow my lead. I'm the only one that can help you get read of A, for good… so, do we have a deal?'
Spencer glanced at her friends to make sure they all agreed. They hadn't gone that far to just pull away at the last second. When they all nodded in agreement she finally faced the blonde girl, determined. 'We have a deal.' She confirmed.
'I know we really had no choice, but I think making a deal with the devil won't help us when Lilith will come knocking at our doors...' Hanna said while they were walking around town after they left the prison so that they could ease the tension built in there earlier. '…besides, we still don't know if the devil and Lilith are the same person.' 'Yeah, or for all we know they could be working together.' Aria suggested speaking her thoughts. 'Guys, I don't think Ali is related to A any other way than being its victim.' Spencer said, making all eyes turn on her. 'What?! You were the one who insisted that she was A and was trying to frame you in the first place!' Hanna insisted, incredulous at Spencer's answer. 'Yeah, but that was a firework show and a bruised Ali ago, lots has changed since then. I just don't think she would do this to herself just so that we would trust her again.' This time it was Aria debating. 'Well, technically, we were the ones getting her in jail thanks to Mona's security cameras, so maybe this wasn't part of her plan, but she could still be playing us…'
Outnumbered, Spencer just stared at the girl, seemingly defeated. She turned to Emily, who hadn't said a word all this time. 'Em, what do you think? Is Ali A's victim or is she just playing us again?' Emily looked at her warily, passing a hand through her hair. 'I think…' All eyes on her, the three girls were waiting to hear her opinion. 'I think I'm late for my shift at the Brew.' She finally said. 'I gotta go, see you later?' She asked leaving before they could respond.
'I'm worried about her.' Spencer uttered watching her leave. 'Yeah, we all are, Spence. But she'll get over it, I'm sure. She's been through much worse.' Hanna said reassuringly to her friend before looking away to hide the concern in her own eyes.
Emily looked around herself while putting her apron on. The place crawled with people and she couldn't believe it; in all the time she worked there she had never seen so many customers. 'What's going on here?' She asked turning to the guy next to her behind the counter. His name was Carter, the new handsome barista hired just some days before, but that had already lots of experience from working all around the West Coast. 'I've worked here for years and I've never seen this place so crowded.' She explained widening her eyes when she quickly glared around. 'Yeah, we're gonna hold an event here tonight. We needed to get people to come, but Trip asked me not to tell you anything…' He said referring to the new owner of the bar. Emily looked at him again, confused. 'He said you had a really hard time lately, and didn't want to put more pressure on you. So he asked me, Brody and Jane to work tonight at the event.' He gave a second to the girl before speaking again. 'So, can this be like our secret? It's just my third day, I don't want any trouble for not minding my own business and telling you everything…' He glared at her with a hopeful look. 'Yeah, sure.' Emily finally said with a small smile. 'But I don't want to be treated differently. If Trip needed help for tonight he just should've asked me to come.' She continued annoyed at her boss' behavior.
'You know why he's doing this, right?' He asked glancing at the girl quickly before handing a coffee to a customer who had been waiting in line for a while. 'He cares about you… he told me he was stunned the second he laid eyes on you.' He continued when the girl didn't say anything. 'And who could blame him, you do make a great first impression… but that's beside the point.' He added seemingly in his own monologue. 'You know, just forget I said anything, sometimes I just can't keep my mouth shut and I really wanna keep this job, so…' 'Yeah, don't worry about it. As far as I'm concerned this conversation never happened.' She smiled at him before moving to a table to take the orders. 'Thanks, you're the best.' Carter said before turning to the customers again.
The sun was shining intensely in the sky, unwilling to let the temperature drop. Meanwhile a brown-haired girl was jogging underneath it, all sweaty and breathless, in a beautiful running attire that conformed perfectly to her toned body. Paige had been swimming that morning and was now having a run, because she needed to take her mind off things. She couldn't just sit in her room or she would have started to think about the dark-haired girl again. About her beautiful eyes, her long eyelashes, her soft lips curling into a smile… and there she was again. Now not even jogging was working. She burst into a desperate run to escape from her feelings of longing and desire to meet Emily's eyes and kiss those soft lips just one more time.
She faltered in her steps finding herself in front of her house once again. And I always end up back where I've started. She thought defeated by her own mind. She went straight to her room. She really wanted to call Emily and look at the girl through her laptop's screen, or just hear her voice… but it was Saturday and she had to wait the end of the day before she could talk to her again. She had felt so confident in herself their last conversation, but passing a week away from the girl had been hard as nothing she had experienced yet. She didn't know for how long she could keep it together. But she knew Emily was a mess right now. She saw it in the girl's eyes the previous week. So she had to be strong. For the both of them.
She sighed, tired and pained. Besides, she couldn't talk to Emily often even if her parents let her… it was hard enough to look the girl in the eyes and lie to her once a week. She opened a drawer, taking a black piece of clothing out. It looked like it was ripped off something, like a shirt or a sweater. She looked at it worriedly. And Emily couldn't know. No one could.
'Hey there.' Emily looked up. Her shift was almost over. She had been running around taking orders and serving customers for the past four hours and she was really tired. A look of bewilderment passed through her eyes when they laid on a graceful, smiling girl, who was looking at her as if they knew each other. 'I'm sorry…' She began uncertain. 'Do I know you?' The girl's face had slim pretty features, framed by shoulder-length straight dark hair and her eyes were of a shining green, like emeralds. 'Actually… no. But I can help with that.' She said, seeming confident, her grin widening. 'I'm Grace, I'm new in town, but I've been a regular customer since I got here.' She concluded, her eyes not leaving Emily's.
'Grace…' Emily repeated. 'Yeah, that's my name.' The girl said suddenly looking a bit nervous. Fate must have played its part. Emily thought amused. 'Uhm, I'm Emily.' She said realizing the girl was waiting for some kind of response. 'Yeah, I know. I noticed you my first time here and I read your name on your apron… I've been coming to this place almost every day since… you were kinda hard to forget, you made a great first impression…' She kept going to fill Emily's silence. Not the great first impression speech again. Emily thought, uncomfortable all of a sudden.
'You know, this is a very small town, and apparently everyone knows each other. So I asked around… and you're not dating anyone. Right?' Emily froze, incredulous that someone told the new girl she was available and that Grace was making a move on her right now. The girl continued, seeming more worried by the minute because she wasn't receiving any kind of response. 'So I thought that maybe… would you like to go out with-' 'I can't. Sorry.' Emily said hurriedly finally finding her voice. She saw the perplexed look on the girl's face and tried to explain. 'It's not you. It's that… I'm not. Available, I mean. I have a girlfriend. She actually moved across country to California, but we're still together.' She concluded earnestly.
'Oh.' The girl in front of her uttered. 'I'm really sorry, I didn't know…' Her face turning a light shade of red. 'It's okay, don't worry about it… really.' Emily added when the girl didn't budge. 'Okay… I'm gonna go then. Have a nice evening. And again, sorry for bothering you.' She said looking a bit embarrassed. 'Yeah, you too.' Emily smiled warmly at the girl to convince her everything was alright. The girl smiled back before turning around to leave. Emily sighed looking sad all of a sudden. She wished Paige was here right now. Why aren't you here? She thought holding back her tears.
It was pit black out of her window. It was 11p.m. Emily had left the Brew and headed home to do some homework; the days of school she had skipped the previous week had provided her with cumulus of papers she had to write. It was like every teacher in Rosewood High had waited for her to miss school to give every possible assignment they could come up with. Right now she didn't mind, though. Her mom had gone to the airport to meet her father and take him home. He had a permit to momentarily leave the forces and spend some time with his family, after being recognized for his courage and bravery on the field with a medal. They were gonna come home soon and she was waiting to see him before crushing on her bed and falling asleep. She was also going to talk to Paige in the morning and that one thought alone triggered various emotions in her. Excitement. Eagerness. Happiness. But also longing. Desire. And the feeling that something was still missing.
She stood up as soon as she heard a car park in the front of her house. Something moving in the woods caught her attention, though. It was only for a moment but she thought she saw something. Adjusting her eyes to the darkness she looked at a black hooded figure, who was also staring up at her. Her blood ran cold and her breath hitched in her throat. A feel of dread subtly took place, washing away every possible positive emotion.
The figure turned to look at the parked car, were her parents were, seemingly engaged in conversation. Her heartbeat quickened. Adrenaline pushing her heart to its limit. She burst through the door, jumping the steps of the stairs two at a time. She had already suffered enough. She couldn't take it if A hurt either one of her parents or both. She slammed the door open and looked wide-eyed at her parents, who had turned around and were now staring at her in bewilderment. Her father's lips slightly open for the surprise in seeing his daughter run out so suddenly. His face quickly changed and his lips curled into a wide grin as he moved to unbuckle his seatbelt and go hug his precious child.
Then all hell broke loose. It was just a second. But in that second everything changed. A deafening sound roamed in the neighborhood. The car windshield shattered into a million pieces. Emily felt a stinging pain as they penetrated her skin and she was pushed backwards into the house with an incredible force. Her parents' car had been blown up.
She tried to open her eyes, but they were burning, together with her skin and her shoulder was sending intense waves of pain through her arm. She finally managed to open them slightly. The car in front of her was on fire and a dense grey smoke was leaving from it. The dark figure stepped a little closer and she could see it standing just a few steps away, leaning in on her aching body almost as if it was checking on her. Focusing on the figure in front of her, she noticed something. The figure's black hoody had a piece missing. It was its right sleeve, above the gloves the figure was wearing. It looked like it had been ripped off or… then another wave of pain ran through her body, making her contort on the floor. Slowly everything became a blur. The only sound being the steady beating of her heart and her mind instantly ran to the one thing that could save her. Make her forget her agony. Her guardian-angel. 'Paige.' She uttered before giving in to the darkness.