A/N: Thank y'all for continuing to read my story! I hope to get to post new chapters sooner. I appreciate all your comments.


Chapter Seven

It was around 2330 hours when Emily hung up the phone with Spencer that night. She had ignored the sound of TAPS that played at 2100 hours in the house, and the lights were all off in her room. They had talked about how she was thinking about joining Fort Knox High School's swim team, as she had been missing being in the water and did not like not being able to work out, and how Aria's relationship with Mr. Fitz had been getting stronger because Aria had told him about A and how she didn't have to lie about things any more. Hanna complained about how she was the only one single in their circle, even though at the moment it was really only Aria that was in a relationship.

Spencer had talked about how A still manage to ruin her day, and how she had speculated that her new coach could be a possible A since she's pushing Spencer over the edge. Emily had explained to Spencer what she had learned from the military, how in the military they push the leaders harder than the other members, and that was what was happening with Spencer. Spencer had told her how she also felt that her teammates were holding back because they hated her, and she was the one that got punished whenever they slack off.

Emily lay in her bed and looked at the photo frame longingly before closing her eyes. She knew that breaking her bedtime tonight would have had a negative effect on her the next day but did not care since she were able to talk to Spencer for a few hours. Lately, Spencer had been falling asleep early that they weren't able to talk as much, and she appreciated her taking the time to talk to her. Even with making friends at her new school, Emily still didn't feel quite right in Kentucky.

Emily received an urgent message from Spencer and had agreed to meet with her at the Wright's Playground. She didn't know how she ended up back in Rosewood, but decided to go to Spencer anyway, disregarding the thought that this could have been a trap from A. The only thing she wanted to do was to make sure Spencer was okay and she would have done anything to keep it that way.

She walked from her car through the dark woods, flinching every moment she heard a noise, calling out, "Spencer?" Spencer was not at the playground when she got there, a cool breeze passing made her shiver and a dark ominous feeling shot through her.

"Spencer!" She called out again. When she heard Spencer's screaming from afar, she began to ran fast, trying to follow the sound of Spencer's voice. "Spencer!" She called out louder, "Where are you?"

Emily could see Spencer being held by three hooded figures, she could see Spencer trying to fight their hold on her but was struggling. She tried to move faster toward Spencer.

"Emily! Behind you!" Spencer screamed; Emily turned around to see another hooded figure who grabbed her with a rough, decomposing hand. She noticed the pink nail polish on the fingernails or whatever was left of them; if that wasn't enough of a sign that it was Alison who was holding onto her, a few golden locks slipped from the hood. When the decaying Alison revealed herself completely, while still holding onto Emily, the one behind Spencer also took off the hood and revealed himself to be Ian Thomas. He moved closer to Spencer, his face decaying as much as Alison's face was. He tried to smile, but part of his lips fell off, his teeth rotting and inching closer and closer onto Spencer's shoulder..

Emily woke up before she could figure out what was about to happen in her dream, a little damp from sweat even though it was a chilly night. It was still dark out; she looked at the alarm clock and found it was only 0438 hours. She sighed. She decided to just run around the base until school started. It was going to be a long day.


"Hastings!" Coach Pacheco screamed across the field, surprising Spencer that a small figure like her coach can be that loud or scary. "Get your ass over here!"

"Yes, coach?" Spencer said, panting.

"Did you know that half of your teammates came to practice late today?" She flipped the clipboard holding up the time sheets of the girls on her team. "Now you know what you have to do, Hastings." Spencer took a deep breath. One push up for every minute the girls were late, each.

"Seriously?" She said to herself. She got to her feet and started doing push-ups, only 153 to go.

"You think that's bad, Hastings? You have five laps waiting for you after you're done." Spencer took another deep breath, and thought about all the words she could call them but decided to keep the words to herself. "Get your teammates' acts together, Hastings."

Spencer was halfway through her third lap when she noticed Micela joining in behind her. "Coach's gone, you know—you can stop now."

"It's okay, only two more laps to go." Spencer continued to run. She was too mad to stop.

"You're going to hurt yourself!" Micela tried to run faster to catch up, "You haven't even hydrated since you started! Don't make me come and tackle you, because you know I will!"

Spencer paced herself and slowed down. "This is bullshit," Spencer struggled to get the words out while trying to catch her breath.

"Don't punish yourself for those girls. We'll get them back for this." Micela smiled, handing Spencer a cold water bottle. Spencer took a few gulps before pouring some on herself, soaking her sweat-drenched top.

"That was a bad idea," Spencer said, shivering from the cold water. She looked at Micela and they both burst into laughter.

Spencer passed out on her bed as soon as she got home and woke up around 10 pm. Today at practice was just brutal and she felt the soreness of her arms and her legs. She grabbed her phone and sent text messages to Aria, Hanna and Toby. She had missed a couple of calls from Emily.

She wondered if Emily was still awake, and decided to call her back anyway. "Hey," Spencer said when Emily answered.

"Hey, Spence," Emily replied, "Tough day at school?"

"That would be an understatement. I feel like the girls are intentionally punishing me by doing stupid things like not showing up on time for practice or forgetting their equipments."

"They're just jealous of you getting all the medals all the time."

"Well, if they push themselves harder, they would be closer to where I am." Spencer sighed, "But I'm not their mother, I shouldn't be running after all of them, making sure they have everything they need."

"But you are the captain, so talk to them."

"They hate me. Only one will listen."

"Talk to that one girl and get the others to listen to her?"

"Yeah, I'll figure it out later." Spencer said, "I'm sorry. How are you? How was your day?"

"It was okay," Emily replied with a yawn, "I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Any reasons why?"

"I've been having nightmares about you." Emily said, then quickly added, "I mean, they weren't bad dreams because you were in it.. they were bad because of other things.."

"Well, what happened?"

"There were zombies, two particularly nasty ones were going after us."

"Em, you need to stop watching scary movies before bed." Spencer laughed, "Sounds like we both could use a vacation, huh?"

"Yeah, so you should come over here."

"We have school tomorrow."

"You can always skip." Emily recommended, "Who am I kidding? Spencer Hastings has never missed a day of school since.. ever!"

"Don't make me sound so geeky. But yeah, I am somehow even there when no one else is."

"So be bad, skip school and come over here."

"Go to sleep, Em. You could really use some. Just.. no more zombies, okay?"

"Fine," Emily sighed, "Good night, Spence."

"Missing you already." Spencer said quietly, hanging up.