Chapter 32- The End of an Era (Part 2)

Spencer ran through the halls of Rosewood day in search of Aria so they could attempt to find –A once and for all. She pulled to a stop outside the doors of the gym where some of her peers were standing around her sister who was bouncing Elijah on her hip while girls crooned over him. She listened as people told Melissa how beautiful the child was and how they all immediately fell in love with the way he would giggle whenever someone unwound some of his curls or stroked the tip of his nose. There was this feeling of complete and utter pride filling her chest and she wished Toby would be there to see how mesmerizing the vision in front of her was.

"If you stand there staring at him all day we will never find –A" Aria whispered over Spencer's shoulder. She pulled her eyes away and turned to see Aria smiling wistfully at her best friend "he really is beautiful though Spence, I'm proud of you both"

"I know he is. But you are right; time is ticking so we need to get a move on. Do you know where everyone else went?"

"I don't know where they are but I got told that we need to go check upstairs."

"Okay, well we need to stick together so don't you dare leave my side" Spencer looked straight at Aria as she began dragging her towards to stairwell that would help them look for any suspicions of –A.

"Calm down Spence, I know you find it hard to switch of this parenting thing but you seem to forget that I am not your child. You need looking after too" The girls came to an abrupt halt outside the door of the girls' toilet where they could hear someone crying quietly. "Who do you think it is?"

"I don't know but I think we should go see; she might need a hand or something." Spencer pushed open the door slowly to reveal Jenna sat on the floor with her head buried in her hands, crying her heart out. She hadn't noticed the girl's presence as she jumped when Aria cleared her throat.

"Jenna, are you alright?" Aria whispered. Despite not being friends with Jenna both the girls felt they needed to comfort her because she could lead them to –A.

"What do you two want? Have you come to gloat or something? If you have then go ahead, you may as well kick me while I'm down." Jenna spoke between brief sobs that were coursing through her body.

"We're not as evil as you like to think Jenna. At least not when we don't think you could be a threat to anything decent in our lives. Believe it or not we do actually care" Spencer spoke, her words seemed weird as they came out of her mouth but she knew if she wanted to hear what was wrong with Jenna then she had to play this perfectly.

"I need to speak to someone because I can't deal with all this on my own anymore. I know it's happening to both of you as well. Please can you tell me how you do this? I feel like my head is about to explode"

"What do you mean?" Aria questioned, intrigued by where she was going with this.

"The constant texts, emails, letters fucking any way that they can get in touch with you at any time day or night. The threats that never stop. They want to tell everyone my secret yet I don't even know them, never mind how they know"

"What secret do you mean Jenna?" Aria whispered with anticipation yet she had the feeling in the pit of her stomach that gave her the sense she knew what was going to leave her mouth.

"Don't you mean Courtney" Spencer choked out. Jenna's green eyes flicked up in surprise as she stared at Spencer with complete shock.

"You know?" She gasped "How do you know? Tell me now Spencer. Please, I need to know!" Green eyes clashed with brown as Jenna pleaded.

"Toby. Well Toby and Jason really. They figured it all out and they told me. I wanted to speak to you about it but they all thought I was crazy, but just because I want to ask you doesn't make me crazy. You have every reason to be broken Jenna because you've been through some pretty tough shit and now that we know you're on the receiving end of –A's wrath makes me realise that you need us right now. You need to speak to Jason because I can tell he's cut up about this. He wouldn't let us leave you behind knowing that you're just as involved as we are"

"But why would you all do that for me? I was horrible to all of you. Especially you and Toby, why would you let me near you?"

"I'll let you near us because I remember what you said when you came to the apartment; about wanting to fix things. I also know that this life, the constantly being followed and being scrutinized is absolutely horrific. But I need you to realise that I have a lot more at stake than you do Jenna; me and Toby have a lot more to lose. If anything happens to us then our son will be in danger and we need everything that you can tell us to help Jenna. If you're on our side now then you need to tell us everything you know."

"I swear to you Spencer, I will do everything I can to help you because I can't live this life anymore. You and Toby deserve to be happy and I need to fix things with Jason; my brother."

"Jenna, you do understand that this means you need to tell us absolutely everything you know about Wilden and –A." Aria placed her hand on Jenna's shoulder as she tried her hardest to reassure the girl that she was convinced was the person making their lives hell.

"I know and I will but please can I do it when you're all there? I don't want to have to repeat myself over and over just so you can all hear"

"I'll ring Toby and get him to find everyone else. We need to get this over and done with before we graduate because it could get messy." Spencer walked into the hallway with her cell phone in hand as she began to dial Toby's number while she thought about how messed up all this had become while the dial tone sounded in her ear.

"Hi Spence, what's wrong? Has something happened?" The worry in his voice was obvious to Spencer.

"I need you to get everyone and bring them to the girls' bathroom on the second floor. There's something we need to hear" With that, she hung up and started pacing around the hall trying to sort through all the mess that had taken over her mind. "I swear to God, I'm going crazy and there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it"

Soon enough she could hear the noises of the others coming down the hall towards the bathroom. There was a feeling of complete calm that settled over Spencer as she realised that they could be ending this and would be able to carry on with their lives as the family they craves to be.

"Spence, what the hell is going on?" Hanna was running towards Spencer looking completely bewildered "If you needed me up here in these heels then it must be important."

"Jenna, she's in there and she has some stuff she needs to tell us" Spencer began to push the door open, revealing Jenna and Aria to the rest of the group.

"What the hell do you want Jenna? I thought I told you to stay away from Spencer" Toby pushed his way in front of Spencer and squared himself up in front of Jenna while her green eyes pierced his own aquamarine ones.

"I want to fix things Toby; I want to tell you what I know because the exact same thing that has been happening to you is now happening to me. They know everything about me; they know I'm Courtney and I swear to God, they're not going to stop until I'm dead. Just like Alison wanted."

"Well quit your sentimental bullshit and just tell us everything Jenna" Hanna chipped in.

"Wilden has something to do with this, I know that for definite. I don't know why else he'd be looking in Emily's window. Bu-"

"What do you mean, 'looking in my window'? Why the hell did I not hear about this?" Emily interrupted. The fear that was in her eyes was evident to the girls.

"Do you really think that's what's important right now? For all you know I could know exactly who –A is but all you're bothered about is why Wilden was looking in your window? Please Emily, get your priorities straight."

"Well do you know exactly who –A is?" The sharpness to Emily's tone was a complete shock to the rest of the group considering they had never heard Emily speak to anyone like that before. There was a fire in her eyes and her teeth were gritted as she tried to make the most of whatever it was Jenna had to tell them.

"No, I don't. But you could probably benefit from hearing some of this" Jenna kept staring at Emily until her opponent sighed with defeat and gestured for her to go on. "Before Ali went missing I lent some money to Eric Kahn. No one knew what that I'd given it to him and to be honest if Noel found out now it could potentially be the end of whatever we had. Ali heard me hounding Eric for the money the night of one of their parties; I really needed that money back and he was refusing to budge after I asked him nicely so naturally I just kept going. I didn't know that Alison had heard any of our conversation until Eric found me after school about a week later screaming and shouting at me about how I could be stupid enough to tell Alison out of all people."

There was a sound coming down the hall way outside the bathroom which caused Jenna to stop talking and listen to see if there was any give away as to whether or not the person had stopped to listen in to their conversation. Jason moved to the door and pulled it open a crack so he could see the back of a girl that had carried on walking past.

"Carry on Jenna…" Jason urged as he turned his attention back to the room and the people within it.

"Well, he had me pinned up against a wall in the parking lot screaming that if anyone else found out because of Alison someone was going to come to an end because he had so much at stake. He punched me in the gut so hard I could barely eat for days after. He genuinely thought I went out of my way to tell Alison everything that I knew because I knew it would end him. Apparently when she went to see him she was black mailing him with whatever information she knew, saying that if he didn't give her money then she'd go to the police."

"Can you tell us what it was he'd borrowed money for Jenna?" Toby asked.

"I didn't find out until afterwards but I want you to know that I just wanted him to get along with me for Noel's sake. I thought I could help bring them together so Noel would see me as being indispensable. He'd used the money to buy drugs. He bought shit loads of drugs. Coke, heroin, weed whatever you can think of, he'd bought it and was smuggling it to some guy he knew that was dealing and offered him a fuck load of money. From what I gather it all turned to shit and there was some fight between Eric and the guy he was selling it all to and the other guy ended up in coma and is now paralyzed. The police never found out that it was him that had been in that fight but they never knew about the drugs. If any of this got out it could potentially end whatever business the Kahn's have for good. Noel would hate me." Jenna's face was a white as a sheet as she finished explaining to the group and sat waiting for the criticism of how stupid she had been, only to realise it wasn't going to come.

"Wait, this might seem a bit farfetched; but do you think Eric could have had anything to do with Alison's death? Or at least her disappearing? It would all make sense wouldn't it? Eric couldn't afford to pay off Ali because he still owed you money but he's more scared of what she would do than he is of you; so the only way to sort it out would be to take her out of the picture. Please, just think about it before you completely dismiss it." Aria was pacing the floor of the bathroom as she spoke all the words that were trying to escape from her mind all at once.

"Didn't Eric leave town for like, 3 months after Ali went missing? I'm sure it was something to do with being offered a job out of town that would only be temporary. What if he'd taken some well needed time away to get out of the spotlight while everyone was hunting for Ali, making his appearance again when people had started to lose hope?" Spencer chipped in.

"It's all well and good getting to the bottom of one mystery but it still doesn't solve the issue of –A and who the hell is tearing the fuck out of our lives. I think I want to get to the bottom of that one before we graduate." Hanna shouted to get the attention of the group. "Shouldn't we be thinking about the people that obviously hates Jenna and all of us? Jenna is a threat to them and they hate us because we're associated with Ali. If Jenna told someone important everything that she told us then it would ruin anything to do with Eric and definitely his family. Who would want to protect that other than either Eric or your precious little boyfriend?"

"Hanna, you absolute genius!" Spencer pushed herself away from the sink she was leaning on and took over Aria's position in pacing the bathroom floor while she verbalised her thoughts "If Eric could potentially be in a whole load of trouble with the police because of Alison finding out about all of this then it would mean the downfall of the Kahn's and who out of all people relies on the power that that family has more than Noel? Who would he be if he didn't have money? He's trying to threaten us because he's trying to make sure we're too scared to ever go to the police about any secrets we might have so if Alison did tell us about Eric then he'd made sure we would never let on."

"Are you saying that Noel, my boyfriend, is the one that is threatening me and telling me that he's going to tell everyone my secret about being Courtney. He would never that to me! You're all deluded!"

"Oh shut up Jenna, you should know by now that Noel believes in anything buy loyalty. Have you ever heard the phrase keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Because I'm pretty sure that's the situation you're in right now" Hanna quipped.

"So if we're all thinking that Noel is –A then surely we need to figure out what it is that he's on to and stop him so that we can actually graduate" Emily muttered.

"Yes we do, and quickly so that I can get back to my son who's probably still being fawned over by Melissa's friends"

"So, what's the plan Spence?"

"Well, we just need to split up and find him I guess. But again go in pairs and make sure that you don't go near anyone suspicious looking that isn't Noel."

It had been half an hour since they had come to the conclusion that Noel was behind all of the tormenting that was such a huge part of the girl's life. Spencer and Toby were frantically searching through classrooms of Rosewood Day hoping to find some form of sign that Noel was there and plotting against them.

"SPENCER IN HERE" Toby shouted from a classroom down the hall.

TO BE CONTINUED…

AN- Hi guys, I am so sorry I haven't updated in a very long time but I've only just found time to start writing again. There's going to be one more chapter then it'll be the end of this story. I am however going to start a sequel so I hope you all haven't completely lost faith in me. Thank you all for reading and sticking by reviewing. I will try write more now that I'm enjoying it again. Please review and tell me what you think! Thank you, Chloe :')xx