48 hours ago

She felt Paige behind her, practically trembling from the emotions swirling inside her. Instinctively, she grabbed at her girlfriend's hand and squeezed. She locked their gazes, trying to reassure Paige without words. The other girl looked away.

Spencer sighed as she turned back to Ali. 'What is this all about?"

Ali remained utterly indifferent. "You always have to have the answers, don't you, Spence?"

"She's not the only one." Emily said, giving off a stern air as she clenched her fists at her sides. It was as if she was trying to keep from reaching out and touching the apparition on the other side of the room. "Tell us what happened to you."

She moved in that quiet, confident, Ali way and leaned back against the kitchen island. "I'm gonna tell you. Why else would I be here?"

"Maybe to screw with our heads some more." Hanna's words held an edge that crackled with anger.

"What's this? Has hefty Hanna finally grown a backbone?" Hanna lunged, forcing Caleb to hold her back. Ali barked out a laugh. "Easy. You could lose a few pounds moving like that."

"Back off, Ali." Spencer's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Tell us what you want."

"Relax. I'm here to help."

Today

The first thing Paige heard was the screaming. Spencer's husky voice was distinctive, crackling along the very edges, and Paige strained to decipher what was being said. All she could make out was something about Fitz.

Uh-oh. She took the stairs two at a time and practically catapulted through the bedroom door, finding Spencer and Aria poised on either side of the bed, both caught in mid-scream by the intrusion. There were tear tracks on Aria's face and the threat of tears in Spencer's eyes. Paige looked from one to the other and back again. "You told her, didn't you?"

Aria huffed and crossed her arms, defiant. "Neither of you knows what the hell you're talking about."

Paige had known her long enough to see that she was deflating. She believed them; she just didn't want to admit it. "Aria." She started gently, like she was talking to a wild animal.

"No! I don't have to stand here and take this." She tried to brush past, but Paige wouldn't let her. She took the smaller girl by the shoulders and held her there.

"You have to. We wouldn't be telling you this if we weren't sure." Spencer circled the bed to stand beside them, one hand reaching out to rest on Aria's forearm.

"How? How are you so sure?" The tremble that broke her question apart made Paige want to cry herself.

"He's writing a book, Aria. About Ali. About us. He just wants a good story." Spencer's other hand wrapped around Aria's and laced their fingers together. "You have to believe me."

"He told me something about you, too, you know."

Fear blanched Spencer's cheeks. "What do you mean? What did he tell you?"

"He told me you killed the girl in Ali's grave."

Paige glanced at Spencer, but the other girl's reaction was impossible to decipher. Spencer, a killer? Paige couldn't wrap her head around it.

"Why…why would he tell you that?"

"Because it's true, Spencer. He had proof."

Paige had never imagined Spencer could look so pale and fragile. Defeat wasn't something either of them were well-versed in, but it settled over them now, a weight heavy enough to turn their bones to ash.

Spencer stared at Aria, her eyes haunted with memories of that awful night. "You can't actually believe I would do something like that."

"I don't know what I believe anymore." Aria replied.

Paige watched Spencer's arms fall limply to her sides and let go of Aria in the same moment. Aria shoved past both of them and out of the room. The clomp of footsteps and the slamming of the front door were the only sounds for what felt like years to Paige but was in actuality only a couple of minutes. Spencer's dark eyes were on her and she turned to look, knowing her own shell-shocked expression matched the one Spencer wore.

"I know what they're doing." Spencer's thin voice tore into the thickness of the silence.

"What?"

"They're isolating me. Turning the others against me. Exploiting my weaknesses."

Paige didn't want to ask her next questions. They came, anyway. "What for? Why you?"

"Because, Paige, I'm the weakest link."

She always knew when Ali was in a room. It was like her presence created a kind of atmospheric vacuum that sucked all the air in the room in her direction. There was always a distinctive whoosh at Ali's entrance. Just like there was right now, as she glided uninvited into Emily's room.

Emily barely reacted, aside from a microscopic twitch at her left eye. "How'd you get in here?"

Ali smirked. "You should lock the door behind you."

A shiver quaked along her spine. Never in her life had Ali ever made her this uneasy. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to see you." Ali replied simply, shrugging.

"Really? Cause that didn't seem to concern you for 2 years." Emily wasn't accustomed to her own capacity for cruelty, but it was welling inside her and tumbling out of her mouth, leaving behind a sour taste on her tongue.

Ali didn't appear hurt or even remotely affected. "I suppose I deserved that."

"Yes." She let out a breath. "What do you want from me?" The crack of emotion couldn't be hidden. Her entire world was crumbling at her feet and yet, Ali had the nerve to stand here, smelling like vanilla and looking at her like she was the last person on Earth.

Ali must've spotted the signs of her internal struggle because she said, "Poor Em. Pigskin isn't who thought she was, is she?"

The fury spiked a little higher. "Don't call her that."

Ali wasn't even paying attention. "I should've seen this coming, honestly."

"Seen what coming?"

"Pigskin and Spencer. There always was something there."

Emily was starting to feel off kilter, like her equilibrium was abandoning her. She could barely see Ali in front of her; her vision was blurring at the edges. "What are you talking about?"

"Spencer never told you about the crush, did she?"

"What crush?"

"While Pigskin was girl crushing on you, Spencer was girl crushing on Pigskin." Ali sounded so fucking smug. It made Emily seethe behind her utter confusion.

"She told you this?"

"Not in so many words." Ali said, stepping farther into the room, closer to Emily. The more the distance shrunk, the more unsteady Emily felt. "But I'm not an idiot."

"You were reading it wrong. Spencer hated Paige."

"I don't read anything wrong, Em. Give me some credit."

"This just…it doesn't seem possible. Spencer accused Paige of being A."

Ali scoffed. "Spencer accuses everyone of being A."

"So, the whole time Paige and I were together, Spencer was what? Trying to put Paige in a bad light so she could get over a crush?"

"Isn't that what any Hastings would do with a problem? Beat it with a stick until it goes away?"

Emily gaped, the gears in her head stalling and squeaking at the idea of Spencer keeping something like this from her. "Spencer would have told me." She said it with more conviction than she actually had.

"Don't be so sure."

"You know I didn't do it, right? You know I didn't kill anyone?"

Paige – beautiful, clear eyed, clear headed Paige – actually smiled. "Of course I know that, Spence. But, there has to be a reason why Ezra thinks you did."

That night was a haze that carried blurred silhouettes of her friends and broken pieces of conversation. She'd been drunk and on speed at the time, after all. "I don't know what happened, Paige. I swear I don't."

"You guys had been drinking that night, right?"

"Yeah." She left it at that. Paige's disappointment upon learning about the speed would probably rip through Spencer like a knife.

Paige must've caught onto her, anyway. "What is it?"

Fuck it. "There's something else about that night. Something only Ali knows."