Thank you all, once again, with being so involved with this story! Honestly your reviews are heart-warming to read.

As many of you noted, Emily's personality definitely is changing. That loving, care-taker Emily has left the building and the new and improved one is making her way to the front of the battle field.

Let's see where this battle takes us….

CHAPTER #3: Impulse

Italics means thoughts, emphasized word or action. Bolded is a flashback. (….) is an indication that time has passed.

Sitting in the back lounge of the Brew, Hanna, Aria, and Spencer are spending the beginning of their weekend afternoon talking over coffee and pastries.

"Have any of you guys seen Emily? I haven't seen her since lunch yesterday." Aria throws out the question.

"Yeah, I haven't seen her lately either." Spencer responds, prompting her and Aria to look at Hanna.

"I spoke on the phone with her after school..." Hanna shrugs, "She hasn't answered any of my texts or calls since."

"Maybe she's sick?" Aria shifts her concerned eyes between the other two friends. "Maybe we should go check on her?"

The girls nod in agreement as they stand and pick up their belongings to get ready to leave in hopes of seeing Emily.

"Maybe she's with Alison?" Spencer asks as she hoists her bag onto her shoulders.

"I doubt that." Hanna mutters under her breath.

...

Parking on the sidewalk next to Emily's house, the gang walks up to the door and knocks, hoping for Emily to answer and explain her absence.

The door opens only to reveal a Mr. Fields.

"Hey, girls. How can I help you guys?"

"Hello, Mr. Fields." Spencer puts on a smile while she speaks up on behalf for everyone. "We wanted to know if we can see Emily?"

Wayne gives his most sympathetic look as he rests his hands on his hip. "I'm sorry, girls. Emily is not really up to any company right now."

"Is-is everything ok?" Hanna quickly interjects, "We haven't heard from her for a while."

"Yeah, she's just tired and needs her rest. I'll tell her you girls came by."

The girls sadly nod in an understanding before they turn around and walk back to their car.

"I don't know, guys..." Spencer says in a hushed voice. "Something is wrong with this picture."

...

Knock. Knock. Knock

"Emmy?" Wayne pokes his head from behind the door into his daughter's room. With her back facing him, Emily blinks aimlessly at the wall in front of her as she lays on her bed.

"Your friends just came to the door asking for you...I told them that you needed rest and you'll talk to them later." He informs Emily still standing by the door.

Silence.

"Emily?" Wayne comes from behind the door and walks over to Emily's side of the bed to check if Emily is asleep. Hearing her father's footsteps getting closer, Emily shuts her eyes to avoid any conversation that might transpire between the two. Seeing that she is indeed sleeping, the father silently sighs before letting himself out of the room.

Once hearing the door close, Emily opens her eyes again only to be gazing at the same yellow stained walls.

Buzzzzz. Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzz. Buzzzzzz.

Emily's phone vibrates on the night stand across from her. Slightly annoyed at whoever is trying to contact her, she reaches over and silences it, not caring to look who it is.

She tosses her phone to the side as she goes back to her lying position facing the wall.

This damn color needs to go.
...

As the sun shines high in the sky and dwindles low to darkness, Emily's mattress transforms into memory foam with an indentation of where her body laid still but mind ran rampant. For the long hours, she was permitted to stay in her room until dinner came along. No matter what feelings were felt during the day, no one could skip dinner. Especially if Pam slaved in the kitchen. Shuffling down the stairs with shorts and an oversized shirt, Emily reluctantly joins her parents for dinner.

Spaghetti Carbonara with hot, juicy meatballs topped off with tomato sauce and a side of hot and chewy garlic bread. Served by the best hands inside the Fields' housing.

...

The sound of forks scooping along the plates, drinks behind gulped and sighs being exhaled, the family eats in the quietness of their dining room.

"You haven't touched your food, Em..." Pam breaks the silence noticing that her daughter's plate hasn't been touch. Neither has her silverware. Only her glass of orange juice.

Or what appears to be orange juice.

"I've just had a loss of appetite." Emily's eyes sagged at her plate while she keeps her hands tight around her glass.

A deep crease appears on Wayne's forehead as he carefully eyes over her, "What happened yesterday? You haven't mentioned a word about what happened up there."

Emily vaguely shakes her head in dismissal. "Nothing."

"Screaming, Alison sprinting down the stairs nearly knocking me over, doors slamming, glass breaking," Wayne counts on his fingers, "That's far from nothing."

Emily avoids eye contact with both of her parents as she takes another sip of her "orange juice".

"Emily." He calls out in a serious, stern voice. Some kids can ignore their parents when being confronted, however, Emily's household doesn't allow that. Wayne would never run his house like a boot camp, especially with a daughter, but he won't tolerate any kind of disrespect.

"Yes?" she sighs out.

"What happened up there?"

Emily lets out a long breath, reenacting the entire scene in her head for the thousandth time today.

"Alison, please!"

"Emily, I have to go."

"No." Emily viciously shakes her head with her tears blurring her sight. "Nononono." She sniffles, "You don't get to leave. You always leave me."

"Emily…" She now uses all her force to pry out of Emily's stronger hands. "Emily, let me go!"

"Just answer me!" Emily yells out.

"Things just got heated, I guess." Emily slumps back into her chair not wanting to dig into this conversation.

"You guess?-" Wayne is interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. Being saved by the bell, or knock, Emily quickly uses this disruption as her escape from dinner.

"Can I go to my room, please?" she whispers to her mom across from her. "I really don't want to do this." After a brief moment, Pam gives a sad nod, allowing Emily to excuse herself from the table, put her plate in the fridge and jog up the stairs with her cup and orange juice carton.

…..

And that's where she stays.

In her room.

With her glass.

And orange juice.

With an accompanying extra shot of flavor under her bed.

That's where she stays.

…..

Monday slowly makes its debut for the week and the three girls are sitting outside at their usual table spot before school. Having a small conversation to pass the time, they anxiously wait for Emily to join them. Not seeing one of the four for more than 24 hours is unnatural unless they are out of town. However, being ignored definitely had their ears up in curiosity. Especially Hanna. Hanna would never expect Emily to shut her out.

"It scares me out how A hasn't been found yet." Hanna shrugs her down body. "It's been two weeks and the cops have nothing. This creep is still walking around, waiting to pounce on us again at any given moment."

Aria tries to comfort Hanna to ease her nerves a bit. "But the cops are here to protect us. They follow us everywhere we go and are camped out in our yards all day. A can't possibly come in contact with us with all that security,"

"Not entirely," Spencer shakes her head in disagreement. "Yesterday, I was sitting at my window watching the cops switch shifts. For the last switch before I fell asleep, there was a ten minute gap between the time the first squad car left and the other one showed up." Spencer looks between Hanna and Aria. "Ten minutes. Do you know what could happen in ten minutes?"

"Yes, Spencer." Aria exasperatingly rebuttals, "We've all seen Prom Night and we're not trying to recreate that movie."

"All I'm saying is that we have to learn how to protect ourselves. We can't rely on police to protect us all the time."

After a few more moments of "A" talk, Emily emerges from the bike rack and walks over to the table; stealing looks from everyone. Sitting beside Hanna, she takes off her backpack from behind her and rummages through it, looking for something.

The girls continue to gawk at Emily with wide eyes, having no idea what to say to her.

Aria looks to Spencer who looks back at Aria who looks at Emily who is being looked by Hanna who looks at Spencer who confusedly shrugs and looks back at Emily who is oblivious to all the back and forth looks who gets a look from a student walking by who does a double take at Emily.

"Hey…Em…" Aria hesitantly greets, trying to start a conversation.

"Hey…" Emily sighs out as she pulls her textbook out of her bag.

Spencer takes over seeing that Aria is still in small shock to continue. "Is-is everything ok? With you last weekend?"

"Yeah, I've just been really tired. I needed time to myself."

Spencer slowly nods, carefully gazing over her friend.

Noticing the eerie silence coming from the table, Emily pulls her head up, moving her red hair out of her face.

She is received by everyone staring at her.

"What?"

"Your hair…It's…different." Aria tries to sound positive but can't stop looking at Emily's hair as if it was a bad car wreck that you gawk at while you're slowly driving past. "You...you're...you're uhmm….."

"You're a redhead!" Hanna impatiently fills in for the stammering Aria. "We left you a brunette and you came back a redhead!"

Emily squints and raises an apprehensive eyebrow at Hanna. "So you can have a hair change but I can't?"

Hanna grabs a hold the ends of her hair, "All I did was cut and dye my ends. You went full ginger on us."

Emily rolls her eyes, "Its dark copper. I think it looks just fine."

"Not only that but Emily...you do look different." Spencer states as she has been observing the new redhead's body language and overall look. "Your eyes are droopy and irritated, your skin is paler, your mouth is hanging...you look tired." The other girls look at Emily more thoroughly after hearing Spencer observation, realizing that she's right. "You said you needed rest but it looks like you got everything but."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Emily disinterestedly dismisses Spencer's examination.

Spencer pushes on. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Last night." Emily crosses her arms as she narrows her eyes at Spencer.

"You're lying."

"How would you know?"

"Because I once had your face." Spencer leans forward towards Emily, "It looks like you're not only sleeping but not eating neither. Your face looks sunken and-"

Emily scrambles to grab her bag, books and rises to her feet, "Ok, I didn't come here to be interrogated by Inspector gadget and her trusty sidekicks." She annoyingly spits out.

"Emily..." Aria hurtfully calls out.

"I'm going to class." Emily leaves the three as Hanna hopelessly watches her walk away. She knows her friend is hurting and wishes she can help but she knows, of all people, you can't help someone who doesn't want it.

...

Not only getting looks from her friends, other students and teachers, Emily blearily gets through the school day. As much as she doesn't want to admit it, Spencer is right. Ever since her run in with Alison Friday afternoon, Emily has hardly eaten and hasn't really gotten any sleep. If you consider munching on crackers eating and napping for an hour at a time sleeping, that was Emily's weekend. Biking her way back to her house, Emily hastily hops off her bike and leaves it tossed on the grass as she walks to her front steps. While she staggers towards her door, she notices a black car in her driveway.

That could only mean one thing.

"Hey, Emily." Pam greets her daughter as she, Wayne, and Detective Tanner sit in the living room.

Emily slowly walks in the direction of the adults confused at what's happening? Why is Tanner here? Do they have new information? Did they find Charles?

"Emily…Almost didn't recognize you there. Nice hair color." Tanner welcomes Emily.

"Thanks" Emily mutters back in response. Pam gestures Emily to sit beside her but Emily crosses her arms and stands instead. "What's going on here?"

"Well, I promised your parents for a constant update on our investigation and I'm just here to inform you all-"

"Did you find him? Did you out who did this?" Emily blatantly cuts the wrap around and goes straight to the point.

Tanner sympathetically shakes her head, "No. No we haven't but I can assure you my team and I are working in overtime to figure out who did. In the meantime we are going to continue to have our officers outside and escorting you girls everywhere you go."

"Do you think that's all we need to protect ourselves? You have some freaking lunatic running out there and you assign some parking ticket rookies who play Candy Crush while they become bored watching over a house?"

"Emily," Pam speaks up, not appreciating her daughter's tone.

"This psycho kidnapped us while being ushered to a jail! Under your watch!" She jabs her finger at Tanner, "If they can take us away while being under a federal escort, what makes you think they can't just sneak in here and do it again?!"

"Emily!" Pam rises to her feet but Tanner puts a hand out, signally that she has the situation handled.

"Yes, those things happened under our care and we are taking the extra precautions to make sure nothing like that ever happens again." Tanner takes a step in front of Emily and looks her into her eyes, "You have my word."

"Your word doesn't mean shit to me." Within that beat, Emily turns around and paces in the direction of the stairs to her room, leaving her parents dumbfounded and blindsided.

"I am so sorry, Detective Tanner." Pam rushes out an apology after she comes out of astonishment of hearing Emily curse at an adult like that. "I don't know what has gotten into her lately."

Tanner understandingly nods, not taking the redhead's words to heart. "This behavior is predictable and I don't blame her. However, my word still stands. Emily and the other girls will be protected."

Walking past the local stores, enjoying the air, Alison approaches a field of little kids playing a game of soccer. One of the children kicks the ball too hard and it speeds out of the field, across the street and into Alison's path which she stops with her feet.

"Hey, lady." Lorenzo waves down Alison as he jogs across the street. "Can we get our ball back?"

Alison uses the inside of her foot to kick the ball back into Lorenzo's direction. Catching the ball with his feet, Lorenzo turns around and punts the ball back to a waiting kid on the field. "Nice kick." Lorenzo compliments Alison as he jogs up to her on the sidewalk, "You got great control."

"Thank you." Alison gives a closed lipped smile. Lorenzo smiles back creating an awkward silence between the two for a few moments, "Are those boys all from church?" Alison points to the kids to keep the conversation going.

Lorenzo looks behind him to the boys and shakes his head, "Not all. It's a church program, but any kid can join."

"Where are the girls?"

"Um…Co-ed…doesn't work well at this age. They're starting to notice certain distinctions." He raises his eyebrows in a knowing matter.

Alison lightly chuckles, "So the girls lose out? That's not fair."

"Oh, we had a group for girls but, uh, they lost their youth leader. Can't have a program without proper supervision."

"That's too bad." Alison nods her head and proceeds to continue onto her walk.

"Would you like to volunteer?" Lorenzo rushes up to Alison, stopping her once again.

Alison narrows her eyes out in front of her before she slowly turns back to Lorenzo, "For what?"

"To run the girls' soccer program." Lorenzo smirks to himself as his eyes trail down Alison's body. "You've got the moves." Alison gives him a puzzled, unamused look before he gives her a look right back. "I'm talking about your kick."

Alison sweeps the floor with her eyes, unsure of such proposition. "I don't think that's a very good idea."

"Why not?"

"Being a leader of girls…that hasn't worked out well for me."

"Maybe that's something you can talk to them about." Lorenzo continues with a slow smile creeping, not allowing Alison off the hook.

Alison's face turns serious as she takes a step closer to Lorenzo, "There are mothers in this town who wouldn't appreciate me supervising their daughters." She responds back in a more grim tone.

Lorenzo's eyes doesn't leave Alison's as he continues to smirk, his voice lowering persuadably. "Why don't you let me worry about them?"

Alison smiles as she cocks her head at the persisting rookie cop/soccer coach. "You don't take no for an answer, do you?"

"Not if it can be avoided, no."

Alison smiles as she shakes her head, looking out into the street. Seeing a girl riding a bike in the distance, Alison focuses her sights on her. Wearing shades, from the looks of it, it looked like Emily, however, she noticed the red/orange hair shimmering in the sun and dismissed her thoughts. The girl turns the street corner before Alison and disappears out of her sight. She turns back to Lorenzo who is still awaiting an answer.

"Well?"

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

CLICK! CLACK!

Emptying her first clip, Emily breathes in as she adds more rounds to her magazine. Reloading her .22 Smith and Wesson pistol, she extends her arms in front of her as she focuses on the target about 10-15 feet before her: A masked, hoodie bandit.

Not being phased by the kickback, Emily blasts through her clip, piercing the target all over in the chest, stomach and arms region. The shots of her pistol rings throughout the entire shooting range as Emily practices by herself. As she goes through her rounds, she feels her anger rising up again, thinking of everything she went through with this entire "A" debacle.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Emily uses her last bullet as a head-shot, hitting the bandit square between the eyes. She continues to pull back the trigger, although it spits nothing out in return, she keeps squeezing.

Click

She keeps squeezing.

Click

Keeps squeezing.

Click

Squeezing.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

"That means the gun is out of ammo." A man places his hand on Emily's shoulder which causes her to jump a little.

"Oh! Didn't mean to scare ya!" Jimmy apologizes with his hands up. Emily quickly rips off her ear guards, trying to understand what he had said.

"The gun…" He points to Emily's pistol, "When it clicks like that it means it's out of ammo."

"Oh," Emily clicks the gun safety on and places it down in front of her. "I just thought it got jammed." She forces out a laugh as she lies.

"Those bad boys are pretty equipped. Just like you! Goodness gracious, Emily!" Jimmy tilts his baseball cap forward as looks at Emily up and down in amazement. "I remember you coming here with your dad when you were younger, watching him teach you the right way to shoot these things. Boy, he surely did a great job." Jimmy walks over to a switch that brings her target to her, still in amazement.

"Thanks," Emily gives a forced smile, "Just testing the waters. I am a bit drained but I know I can do better next time."

"For a test, you did good." Jimmy unhooks the target paper and hands it to Emily, "Is Pam or Wayne coming?"

"No… Just me by myself." She observes at her target, avoiding Jimmy's eyes, "Uhmm… How much would it be for a permit to carry?"

"Well, if you are asking on the behalf of yourself, you won't be able to."

"Why?" Emily drops her target, looking at Jimmy.

"Because you have to be at least 21 years old to carry in the state of Pennsylvania." Jimmy shoves his hands in his front pockets, "If this was somewhere like Alabama, the age would be lower but since we are more up north…21 is the lucky number."

Emily looks down as she mentally curses herself before she raises her head back at Jimmy with concerned eyes. "I would like to stay under customer confidently, please. I don't want no one to know I was here." She shakes her head, "Not even my parents."

"Don't worry." He nods his head. "Nobody will never know."

Lying to her parents saying she's going over Hanna's, Emily returns home to find her mother in the kitchen.

"Hey. How was Hanna's?" She asks as she digs in one of the lower cabinets.

Luckily I moved the bottle from that cabinet or else I would be so dead right now. "It was fine." Emily lies as she leans her groggy body over the island counter.

"Well I hope it gave you a chance to simmer down after the stunt you just pulled a few hours ago."

"About that…" Emily props her head up with her hand, "I'm sorry, mom. It's just that with everything that happened, I just feel like protection is the big necessity in this picture. I don't want what happened to happen again."

With her heart breaking inside from hearing such words from her daughter, Pam walks over to Emily and places her hand in her hair, gently rubbing as Emily buries her face into the counter. "I understand, Em. I just wish you would talk to us. Anything you need help with we can help. I don't want you doing anything reckless to endanger yourself."

Hmmm…I wonder like what? Drinking, not eating or sleeping, sneaking out to the shooting range? Aw man, I wonder what else I could do to "endanger myself".

"I'm not…" Emily lifts herself of the island and stretches, "But I'm going to head upstairs and take a nap." She yawns, "I've been barely hanging on today."

…..

Opening her bedroom door, Emily throws herself face first into the bed, leaving her feet hanging off the edge. Being so tired, Emily wonders why she won't allow herself to sleep a good 10 hours. She grabs her pillow and rests her head upon it, permitting herself to drift off into a coma like sleep.

"Emily…" She now uses all her force to pry out of Emily's stronger hands. "Emily, let me go!"

"Just answer me!" Emily yells out. The seriousness of Emily's anger begins to frighten Alison as she stays quiet, still struggling in the grasps of the brunette.

"FUCK, ALI! JUST FUCKING ANSWER ME!" She angrily shakes Alison's head again, shouting out in such loudness that's probably alerting every person in ear-shot distance.

"NO!" Alison uses all the energy she has to shove Emily out of her face, causing the brunette to stumble back.

"Ican't!" she shakes her head, "I can't do this!"

Oh. Emily opens her eyes to face her yellow stained wall. That's why.

As you may know, heartache is one of the worst feelings a person could feel. So many things could go wrong within you if you let it consume you. Some people have even died of a "broken heart".

Sleep deprived.

Lack of food consumption.

Impulsiveness as in dying your hair

Or planning to own a gun

All fall under what happens when you go through such emotion.

Is Emily going to confront her feelings and do something to move on from it?

Ooooooooooor

Is there going to be another reckless decision?

Maybe Emily will take up on that "Ink" offer she was thinking of getting a few days ago?

*Shrugs* Who knows?

What is going on between Alison and Lorenzo?

Will we be seeing more and more of him?

*Shrugs* Who knows?

Do you know?