Okay guys, so now that I'm in the writing mood again I'm going to pick up with the two other stories I have going on. The story that gets the most reviews after each chapter is the story I will write first. So if you like this leave me a review to let me know.
Emily's POV:
After we had decided on a plan, it was just about waiting for the others to actually get here. Ezra was in Philly, so it didn't take him but an hour or two to arrive. The two of them looked super cute, and super in love. Something I desperately wish that I had.
We were all sitting in the living room goofing around, bringing up old memories from high school, I noticed that Ali didn't really have any, mostly because she was 'dead' for most of it, and the other part because the only memories we had with her were filled with pain or insults.
The last few days had been different for me and Alison, it was like she retracted her claws, like she had finally come to terms with the fact that we were going to be spending too much time together for her to continue to hate me. But I don't blame her. We made love, she let her guard down, and the next day I practically ran out of town, and she has no idea why... now it seems like the stupidest thing I'd ever do in my life.
Hanna was bouncing up and down in her seat, she was so excited to see Caleb. If you could believe it, he is working at some private security company that contracts out to government agencies and high powered corporations. All in all if you looked at the majority of us, we actually had our lives together.
Ali is interning with a huge design firm in New York, Hanna is working her way up the later on the New York fashion scene, Spencer... well Spencer still has to go to law school, and Aria starts her job at the newspaper in the fall. Ezra is a professor, Toby is a cop... and then there is me. Yeah I want to apply to med school, but how the hell am I supposed to pay for that? I need a job, I can't just be here fighting A and let the rest of my life slip away.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by Ezra coming into the living room holding a bottle of wine and Aria carrying seven wine glasses. He cleared his throat to get our attention. "Okay because Aria couldn't find the right time, between your crazy plan for taking back this town," he said trying to hold back a laugh. I guess we really had come a lot farther than what he remembered of us, "we have an announcement."
They poured us each a glass and Aria passed is to us. We already knew she was pregnant, what else were they going to tell us... but at least I had the sense to say that in my head, Spencer on the other hand, lacked patience, "Ezra we already know! Your gonna be a great dad," she told him.
Obviously that was not what the older man was expecting to hear come out of her mouth. Aria's expression was priceless, it almost looked like the bottle of wine was going to drop out of her hand so I moved quickly to support it in her grasp.
Out of the silence, Ali erupted into laughter, god her laughter was angelic, "You know, Spencer I really don't think that was what we were celebrating," she tried to contain her laughter, but no matter how much she has changed since high school, sometimes you can't change peoples fundamental building blocks, and being catty with other peoples secrets is just written in her bones.
I couldn't help it, Ali sounded like a little girl without a care in the world, I giggled a little, not at the situation but at Ali. She cut her eyes to look at me and gave me a soft smile. It was nice, to be somewhat comfortable around each other again.
"You-your pregnant?" Ezra was facing Aria now, it looked like his knees were about to give out, so he just slumped down into the chair behind him. Spencer looked like a deer caught in the headlights, "Oops."
Aria just looked over at Spencer and shook her head, "What? You didn't tell us it was secret!" Spencer's voice sounded strained.
"How long? How far along are you?" Ezra whispered it, I'm pretty sure he didn't mean too, but he sounded as if he didn't trust his own voice.
"Not long, only 2 months," Aria said as she rubbed her hand up and down his back trying to bring him back to reality.
"So what WERE we celebrating?" Hanna broke through the silence.
"Well," Ezra was regaining his ability to speak like an adult male, "I was going to say that we were getting married."
All of us cooed over them for the better part of thirty minutes, asking all about the wedding, of course Ali and Hanna jumped right into career mode, and insisted that they be in charge of the decoration, and the attire.
This was going to be one wedding this town was never going to forget, now that Ezra knew Aria was pregnant, they decided to move up the wedding. Hanna wanted to make sure that Aria could still fit into an amazing dress before she started showing. This was the first time since we arrived that we weren't 100% focused on stopping A.
As we all took turns hugging Aria, the door opened and Caleb walked into the house. He stopped at the doorway and furrowed his eyebrows, "What's going on?" he asked Hanna quizzically.
"We are having a baby!" she said squealing. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack, Hanna could have worded that much differently. She saw him start to freak out on his head and laughed hysterically.
"I don't mean 'we' as in you and me, I mean 'we' as in Ezra and Aria," she said patting his back to remind him to breath.
"How the hell do you get 'we' out of Aria and Ezra? Woman you sure do know how to make a guy piss his pants," Caleb said as he pulled Hanna in for a hug. He smiled at Ezra and Aria over Hanna's shoulder, "Congrats man," he said as he shook Ezra's hand.
I'm not sure why I'm so nervous about this, I mean, nobody else in this town is as qualified to coach this team as I am. As I walk into the pool area, it brings back so many memories, so many good memories, it also brings back the times when I thought I would never swim again. The team was already in the water. It was almost dark, so practice should be wrapping up soon. When it does end I am just going to introduce myself to the girls and then let them get out of here. We could get into more detail of how I run practice on Monday.
See that would have happened, if I hadn't received a text message that mademy heart literally stop. It wasn't just one text, it was ten texts back to back, no words, just pictures. Just pictures of Ali, she is walking down the street, going into her family's offices, sitting at her dads desk, looking through filling cabinets, and the last picture was Alison tied up in a room, blindfolded and gagged.
I was in shock, I didn't know exactly what I was looking at yet, my head hasn't stopped spinning long enough to comprehend what this means.
That's when I received an actual text message, 'I told you to leave, and never come back... now you get to watch me kill her. You're a good swimmer when you're trying to break records. How good are you when you have to find Alison before the clock stops? - x.o.x.o. A' I went back to look at the picture of Ali tied to the chair. That's when I noticed it, she had a suicide bomb vest wrapped around her torso.
Spencer's POV:
I'm all for the smart approach, I mean hello I'm Spencer Hastings, but I also believe if you want something done right, then do it yourself. And me, I do snooping right. After letting the whole baby thing slip, I decided I needed to redeem myself, so I figured that while Caleb was hacking into the computer system at Radley, that I would take it upon myself to do it the old fashion way.
I'm pretty sure that nothing about Charles DiLaurentis, will be under that name, but there had to be something around here that would nail him. I mean it's the nut house, they can't lie about everything. I don't know why the others were so afraid to do this, it's not like we haven't snuck in and out of Radley before...
As I'm rifling through paper work in the records room I hear a loud door shut, the only loud door is the main door. I shut my flashlight off really quickly and hid behind the desk. Okay maybe the girls had a point, this was kind of dumb, especially with our luck in this town.
A shadow stopped in front of the door. It was big, had to be a guy. No there was no fucking way A knew I was here, I didn't tell anyone, I never spoke it out loud or in a text, so unless this fucker can read my mind, there is no way he knows I'm here. The door opened slowly and a flashlight scanned the room. The person that was standing in the door way moved slowly around the room, I had not picked a good hiding spot, eventually this intruder would find me... my thought process is interrupted by being yanked up by my arm.
I spun around to punch the person, I couldn't stop myself fast enough as my fist landed squarely against Toby's jaw. It worked though, he did let me go. "What the fuck Spencer?" he asked as he stumbled backwards.
"You should really learn to announce yourself before you go walking into dark rooms," I tell him with my hands on my hips like this was the most normal situation in the world.
"Really? I should learn to announce myself? Spencer I'm a cop! You should learn not to break into insane asylums!" he threw his hands in the air. But he wasn't really mad at me, because he started to laugh.
"Why is this funny?" I asked him very confused at his laughter.
He looked at me from across the room, "You, you are insufferable. You missed a few things in the last few years Spence, like the silent alarm they had installed." He slumped down in one of the chairs situated across the desk, "You are lucky it was me who answered the call, this is why we agreed for Caleb to do it remotely from a computer, so that you don't end up in jail... AGAIN."
"Are you going to arrest me?" I asked him. I honestly didn't know the answer to that question, he had refused to help me, maybe he would arrest me.
"No, we are on the same side, when I got the call I had a feeling I'd find one of you guys in here, I was pretty sure it was you though, you never could leave well enough alone," he stood up and I thought he was going to make me leave, but he just turned on the light. "Which of these have you looked through?"
I was kind of speechless, I didn't expect that. But I pointed out the ones I'd been through. "I don't know what I'm looking for though, I haven't found anything that would be him. No Charles DiLaurentis, not C.D. No nothing."
"What about Charles Hastings?" I froze. No that is just too fucked up to actually be true. But Toby did pull out a very thick folder full of shit. It wasn't labeled Charles Hastings, but it was labeled C.H.
I snatched it out of his hands and opened it up on the desk, the picture in the folder resembled Jason a lot. "Let's get out of here," I say but I feel haunted, I'm not sure that leaving this place was going to help with that feeling at all.
Alison POV:
I can't see anything, I can't hear anything. I don't even know where I'm at. Why is this always happening to me? What the hell did I do to this psycho? I was just a kid, it couldn't have been my fault. I hear a door open but my eyes are covered. I can't see anything.
"Who's there? What do you want?" I could hear the desperate plea in my voice, I didn't mean to sound like that, but this, this is different than anything that I've been through. Not being able to see my attacker is fucking with my head.
"You have been a bad girl," a man's voice broke through the silence.
"Charles?" I knew the answer, but since I couldn't see anything and my hands were tied behind my back, I had nothing but my words. When I wasn't answered I continued, trying to get him to talk to me, "Can I ask you a question? What the hell did I ever do to you? I didn't even know you existed!"
"Did you ever think that maybe that's why I'm doing this? You were the princess! You got everything! When you came along it was like no one else mattered!" he was yelling at me, clearly he wasn't as level headed as we thought. If he is coming unhinged, he might slip up, that's what they say about serial killers, that's why they get caught, because they start loosing control.
"So you strapped a bomb to my chest, because 'mommy' and 'daddy' got excited about a new baby?" I was not going to let this inbred, freak shut me up. I am Alison DiLaurentis, and if I'm going to die, I'm going to bring him as far down as I can.
"Well, they weren't very receptive when I tried to stab you in your sleep," I could hear the disgust dripping from his voice. I don't understand how anyone could get to this point. I've been fucked up before, god knows I have, but this is a whole new level.
"So let me see if I can guess how your life has gone. I wanna see just how right I am," maybe it wasn't the best idea to provoke the unhinged serial killer type, but I didn't have anything to loose, nobody knew I was going to my dads office, nobody knew to expect me home for dinner or something normal like that. "You tried to stab me as a baby, I'm guessing you failed at that too, because here I am. I'm sure mom and dad decided you were to crazy to have near their precious daughter. What they didn't tell you, is dad probably wanted you gone, because you aren't really a DiLaurentis at all," I messed up at some point because he had moved close enough that he grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked me out of my chair.
I felt something cold and sharp against the part of my neck that Charles had completely exposed, "Do it Charles, kill me, I dare you," I hissed at him. He wouldn't win. Emily would be murderous if something happened to me, no one in this town that had ever even heard of Charles DiLaurentis would be safe from her. She covered it up really well, she just wants to be a normal person, but that kind of anger doesn't come from having a normal life.
Emily's POV:
I didn't have time to go get the other girls, I did call, let them know the basics of what was going on. A, Alison, bomb, clock. That is pretty much the gist of what's happening. I'm not sure what I am actually going to do though.. I don't know how to disarm a bomb, I don't know the rules for taking a bomb vest off the person, I'm way out of my league.
As I got to the building that was in the middle of town, if he blew Ali up he was going to take innocent people with him. This was insane, but charging in was my best bet, I mean he knew I was coming, he could have made it hard for me, maybe he didn't really wanna kill her, maybe he wasn't that crazy.
There was a basement in the building, that's where they always are in the movies so that's where I'm going. A probably saw me coming a mile away, maybe he was already gone, maybe he just wanted to scare me.
I opened the door to the basement and that's when I saw them. Ali with a bomb, A in all black with a ski mask covering his face, he had a knife to her throat. I was going to kill him, when this was over it was going to be me, he wasn't going to jail, that wasn't enough, it was going to be my hands that choked the life out of him. "Stop!" I yelled at him, that's all I knew to do.
"Look Alison, Emily's here! Now she gets to watch you die," he was pushing his luck, he was pushing my control on my temper.
"Ali, it's okay. I'm here," my hands were out in front of my body, I didn't want him to think I was making any sudden moves, I don't know how I'm going to get us both out of here alive, but I'm going too, I have too.
"Emily get out of here!" she yelled at me. I could hear the fear in her voice, but I don't know if it was fear for her own life, or fear for mine.
"No, she should be here, it's her fault that I had to do this to begin with." Charles turned his body so that Alison could look me in the eyes. "I told her to stay away, she didn't listen."
I saw the confusion in Alison's eyes, but I couldn't explain right now, this was not the time to bring up old memories. "What do you want from me? You told me she was here, if you had wanted to kill her, you wouldn't have given me the chance to save her, so what do you want?" I had to grit my teeth so that he didn't hear the panic in my voice.
"I don't want to kill her, if I kill her, then my game is over. And I just started playing again." he threw Ali into the wall and she screamed as her body slammed into concrete. Her hands still tied behind her back, she couldn't break her fall. "I want her to watch as I destroy each and every one of the people she cares about, because I had to watch everyone I ever cared about, forget me. So I'm going to kill everyone, until nobody knows her name. She will be as alone as I am."
He turned his back on me and he moved towards Alison to pick her up off the ground, taking the few seconds his eyes weren't trained on me, I reached for my waist line and pulled out the gun. I've never seen the kind of fear in Ali's eyes that I see right now, I've never used a gun, I never even thought I would need too. But now, I don't see an other way out of this.
I squeezed the trigger, I didn't realize that I had shut my eyes too. The shot was deafening, especially in an enclosed space. I knew I had hit him, because he screamed out and dropped to the floor. I didn't have time to make sure he was dead, all I could think about was getting Ali.
I ran over to her and hauled her up by her arm, I didn't have time to be nice about it, I didn't know how long he would be down. My foot kicked something across the room, and all I saw was a red button... that is probably important. "Go Ali, just go," I pushed her towards the door. She was trying to get the vest off but we didn't have time for that.
As I passed the detonator on the floor I swept it up in my left hand. Holding the gun in my right just in case he got up. As we ran out of the building I heard Alison crying and struggling with the vest. "Alison stop! If you take it off, it might explode. Let's just get back home. Let the brain trusts figure out how to disarm a bomb."