Sorry guys. School is hell. Your reviews are lovely. Keep 'em coming and I'll update when I can. Enjoy the chapter.

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X

"You're sure?" Hanna asked, sitting down on the end of Aria's bed. Emily was already there, cross-legged and fiddling with Aria's stuffed pig toy.

"I'm sure." Aria looked down at her phone, tallying up the calls and texts. "I've called her at least ten times. I went round to her house after school, and she wasn't there. She's not responding to texts, emails, anything."

"So what are we saying? Do you think A might have…?" Emily trailed off, too uncomfortable to even voice the thought that A, their omniscient tormentor, might have had something to do with this.

"I don't want to jump to conclusions," Aria said cautiously, "but it's not like Spencer to disappear like this. Not without telling us first."

"And Toby didn't know where she was either," Hanna added, "so it's not like the two of them decided to start the weekend early and head down to her lake-house or anything."

"So she's not with us, and she's not with Toby," Emily summarized. "As far as we know, nobody's seen her since – when was the last time we saw her?"

"I didn't see her after lunch yesterday," Hanna said. "We weren't in the same classes."

"I was. She was in class." Aria folded her arms around herself, lost in thought. If she hadn't been so busy with Ezra last night – Ezra, their English teacher – she might have taken Spencer up on her offer to sleep over. She might have been able to stop whatever had happened, or at the very least been able to find out what it was. But no, she was at Ezra's all night, and she couldn't even tell her friends because they didn't know she was dating anyone, let alone their teacher.

"So something happened sometime after school finished," Emily said. "Something that means she didn't turn up to school today, and isn't trying to get in touch with any of us."

"What would cause her to do that, though?" Aria asked. "This is Spencer we're talking about. She almost hyperventilated that time she was stuck in traffic and ended up five minutes late for school. There's no way she'd miss an entire day of school without at least telling us what was going on."

"Maybe she was following a clue," Hanna suggested, but she didn't sound like she believed it herself. "You know, she found out something about A, and she's trying to track them down."

"She's too smart to do something like that by herself," Emily said, as much to reassure as to convince them. "She would have taken one of us with her, or at the very least told us where she was going."

Aria got to her feet and started pacing, an idea tugging at the edges of her mind. She tried to focus on it, but it kept dancing out of her reach. Hanna and Emily kept talking, bouncing theories back and forth, but it washed over Aria. Suddenly the idea not only tugged at the corners but unrolled a page in her mind, and there it was.

"Maybe she did tell us," Aria said. "Come on."

Her two startled friends wordlessly followed her out the door and to her car, and five minutes later they were pulling up outside Spencer's house. Her parents weren't there, as per usual, but the girls knew where the spare key was. Aria led the way inside and up to Spencer's room, and only then did she stop to explain.

"What if she left us a clue in her room?" Aria asked, gesturing to where they were standing. Everything was so neat and tidy; study notes stacked and organized by subject, books in alphabetical order, clothes grouped by color. If she'd left something, it shouldn't be too hard to find it. "Maybe she didn't have time to call us, or maybe she didn't take her phone with her. But she could have left a note or something, so if we just look…"

But looking proved fruitless, and after fifteen minutes of searching they gave up, more dejected than ever. Aria lay down on Spencer's bed, after searching in the pillowcases; it would be just like Spencer to hide something there. But there was nothing there, no sign anywhere of what had happened to their friend.

"It was a good thought, Aria," Emily said gently, sitting down beside her.

Hanna kept going through Spencer's desk drawers, looking under piles of paper and miscellaneous stationery items for any clue as to their friend's whereabouts.

"I just don't like the thought of not knowing what happened to her," Aria said, looking outside. It was dark now, and the streetlight outside the window was broken, so the street was completely dark. Anyone – anything – could be lurking out there. She shivered, turning back inside. "We have to be able to do something. She didn't take her car, so maybe she didn't go that far. Or maybe she didn't want to be followed."

"She could have taken a cab," Emily said, thinking, "or a train or bus. Or walked, if it was close enough."

"But we still don't know where she would have gone," Hanna pointed out, giving up on her search and sinking into the nearest chair, "or why."

"Which is why we should -" Aria broke off as a shrill beeping sounded throughout the room. It wasn't her phone, so she looked at the others, expecting one of them to answer it. But the noise kept on, and Hanna and Emily looked as confused as she was.

"Wait," Hanna said. "If that's not my phone, or yours…"

"It sounds like Spencer's," Emily said, frowning.

Aria was on her feet at once, trying to find the source of the sound. Spencer had left her phone behind; that explained a lot. It didn't explain where she was, or why, but it was something. The other two quickly joined the search, and just before the phone stopped ringing, Aria found it on the floor under Spencer's bed. She pounced on it, pressing Answer without giving herself a second to think. "Hello?"

The voice on the other end wasn't familiar; it sounded like it had been altered somehow. Someone really didn't want their identity known. But they did want to get their message across.

"We have Spencer. You have until midnight tomorrow to find her."

Before she had time to ask even a single question, the line went dead.

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X

Next chapter is one of my favorites, so I'm excited to share it with you all. Stay tuned.