Milk
When Spencer is drugged by an A-team member at Gamma Zeta party and the unspeakable happens, she must rely on Toby, the girls, and most of all, herself to get through it.
Before we get down to business, I want to clear up a little misconception from Ch.3 - the girls' "unannounced" arrival was coordinated by Toby (and Emily, to a degree). Now, time to get reading :)
xx
Dark curls flew loosely behind Spencer as she ran, flustered and pissed, out the door.
Shitshitshit... Toby's mind cursed as he took off after his girlfriend. He flew down the stairs, out of the side door, and spilled out onto the busy evening sidewalk.
"Spencer! Wait" he shouted, trying to keep his icy blue eyes targeted to Spencer's back.
Dodging passersby proved too hard, though. Lost in the swarm of worker bees bustling home from work, she slipped out of view.
Spencer was gone.
"Goddamnit," Toby muttered with a scowl. He was livid - not at Spencer, but at himself, for thinking that inviting the girls over was even a remotely good idea. Of course Spencer would realize something was up; she wasn't president of the National Honors Society because of her athleticism.
Mere seconds passed before the girls were crowded around him. "Well, that went over well," Hanna observed, sarcasm lacing her words.
"Hanna!" Emily chastised.
The blonde shrugged. "What? We basically just made everything worse."
Ruby lips turned downwards into a frown. "She's right," Aria remarked. "We made a mess. Why did you guys keep this from me if you knew all along why Spence has been acting like a pod person?"
"Because it wasn't our secret to tell," snapped an irritated Toby. He saw the taken-aback look on Aria's face and immediately felt ashamed at his outburst. "I'm sorry, Aria," he amended, choosing his next words carefully. "We all wanted to tell you, but it was Spencer's decision to keep quiet. We had to respect that choice."
Aria gave Toby a forgiving smile. "Don't apologize. I get it. What I don't get is why A hasn't threatened Spencer with this. Everything has been way too quiet lately."
Toby nodded in agreement. "That's what worries me."
"And I still have the gun I found in my mom's closet," Hanna added. An elbow nudged hard into the side of her rib. "What?" the blonde hissed, dropping her voice. "It's true. And A hasn't bothered to call me or Emily out on it."
A ominous silence fell over the group.
What the hell was A up to?
xx
Spencer sat at her cluttered desk, a single salty tear dripping onto her copy of The Scarlet Letter, blurring the neatly typed A that denoted Hester's ignominy. How could her friends - how could Toby - do that to her? How could they gang up on her and expect her to welcome their intrusion with open arms? It's not like Spencer could tell them what she was feeling; no one would possibly understand.
One thing Spencer felt was exhaustion. She was sososo tired of being tired. Her mind was still sharp, and it told her that depression was likely settling in, weighing down her bones and making it harder and harder to wade through the mire of the day. She pushed away from her desk, sighed. Stood up and started pacing. In her own bedroom, Spencer felt cornered, vulnerable. A sitting target, she thought. Despite her anger at Toby, Spencer all of a sudden felt an overwhelming desire to be buried in his arms, where it was safe.
A sharp knock sounded on the door, disrupting Spencer's thoughts.
Veronica Hastings peeked her head into the room. "Spencer, honey, I thought were you staying at Toby's. Is everything okay? You guys aren't fighting are you?"
Spencer forced a quaint smile. "Everything's fine, mom," she lied (easily, as was par for the course). "I just figured I'd get more studying done here." She felt her mother scrutinize her face for any hint that suggested otherwise.
"Okay," Veronica relented. She nudged open the door with her foot, and Spencer saw that she was holding something in her arms. "This came for you yesterday, by the way."
Spencer was bewildered. "Uh, thanks," she remarked, taking a white box out of her mother's hands, inspecting it carefully. The box was long and thin, unlabeled but for Spencer's name and home address, which was written in elaborate calligraphy. So distracted by the mystery box, it took a minute for Spencer to register that her mother was talking.
"...early meeting tomorrow at six-thirty, so goodnight, sweetie. Love you."
"Love you too, mom," Spencer replied hurriedly. She waited until Veronica left the room before re-focusing on cumbersome package. Sitting down on the bed, Spencer placed the box on the blanket in front of her. Ignoring the faint growl of her stomach, she reached over for the scissors that rested in the cup on her desk.
Baboombaboombaboom
Spencer's heart thudded thunderously in her chest as she debated her next move. She considered chucking the whole box, unopened, into the garbage can outside. After all, the world spun before she received the package and would continue spinning after the package was discarded. But what about the alternative? Spencer thought - shredding the box open to see... see what, exactly?
The detective in Spencer won out as she brought the sharp end of the scissors to the clear tape on the box. She hesitated for one beat, two. Dragged the scissors across the box and pulled the two cardboard flaps apart. The inside of the box was filled with royal purple tissue paper, Spencer's favorite color. For a fleeting second, she wondered if this was a preemptive strike on Toby's part to keep her from staying mad. More and more tissue paper flew out of the box, almost as if it were part of an endless flow of magician's scarves.
Her fingers pawed the box for something, anything, before finally gripping around a soft, thick fabric. Spencer's brows furrowed as she pulled the material from the box and began unfolding it with caution.
Expresso eyes widened in horror.
There it was, the belted, royal blue dress that Spencer had worn to the Gamma Zeta party. The belted, royal blue dress that was supposed to have been taken to the town dump and incinerated weeks ago. A queasy sensation formed in the pit of her stomach as she eyed the unmistakable white stain marring the dress' hem.
Before Spencer could react further, her cell phone chirped loudly beside her. The queasiness developing into full-blown nausea, Spencer hesitantly picked it up.
The screen read:
1 new text message
And suddenly, everything was starting to become clear. Spencer swallowed hard as she opened the text message, dread constricting her throat.
Inside was a camera photo of a figured sheathed in black, hunched over a limp Spencer inside of Gamma Zeta. The rest of the message read:
You can't trust anyone. Take care of this, Spencer, or else I will.
Kisses,
-A
xx
What did you guys think? Any idea of where this is going? Let me know what you think. Thank you so much for the reviews so far!