Chapter 12: An Old Friend

Hours later and Ali and Caleb found themselves outside of Mona's house, eventually convincing Mona to let them in.

"Mona, I don't think either one of us would be here if I didn't really need your help."

Ali tried desperately to get Mona to tell her anything she knew.

"Look Ali, I want to help, but like I said, I was under a lot of medication when I was in Radley, I don't even know what I can say was real and what was a-"

"Bullshit!" Caleb had been quiet while the awkward interaction between Ali and Mona commenced. He stood back and felt the tension between the two grow until he couldn't take it anymore. They talked in circles and Caleb had enough.

"Mona," he grumbled in a low voice, "that is bullshit and you know it."

"What?" Mona gasped and was shocked at the sudden outburst.

"Look, you were once Hanna's friend and I know you seriously can't stand there and say you don't know anything about Alison's alleged other brother and not say anything."

Mona shook her head, "look I told the cops-"

"We're not the cops Mona!" Caleb walked closer to the short brunette and looked her square in the eye. "Do you know? Do you know about the plane crash! Do you dammit!"

Mona's eyes watered and she shook her head subtly, looking at the floor.

"Then help us, please," Ali pleaded softly, "if not us, then help Hanna, she didn't deserve- please Mona, you're our last hope at finding who did this to us, you're included in this too you know, just help me understand if the lies about my childhood were actually real, if there's an even bigger secret about my family. I'm- I'm begging."

Mona managed a smirk, "wow the great Alison DiLaurentis begging loser Mona for help, this moment should be put in the books for the whole-"

Ali didn't hear much, she lunged forward and went for Mona's shoulder, successfully wrapping her fingers around them before Caleb could stop her and pinned Mona to the nearest wall.

"Fuck you Mona, I apologized, I know what I did, but I'm not that person anymore, I wouldn't be here if I was still the old me."

"Still, I don't see why you care, you weren't even-"

"Why I care! You don't know a god damn thing do you?! You have no fucking clue!"

Mona was genuinely confused when an expression crossed Ali's face, an expression she had yet to see: fear.

Alison dropped her hands but there was still barely an inch separately her body from Mona's.

"I went to find –A myself Mona, that's why I left. –A made me an offer and I thought I was a step ahead for once, I was going to do what he wanted and catch the sonofabitch. But I had to lie to the girls, even Em about everything I was going to do, I made Emily promise to not follow me, to give me some time. That time came and gone and –A knew something was up, I was kept in a hole in the ground and I thought I was going to die in there, I faked a break up with Em to keep her safe but when I didn't call when I was supposed to she knew-"

"Why are you-"

"Shutup and listen!"

Ali continued without wasting another second, the grit in her voice making her words come from someplace dark, "Em came, I don't know how, but she found me, she tracked me down and she was stupid because she didn't tell anyone, I think she thought it would be okay, that –A wouldn't be there, because he usually never is, only the smoke and mirrors, that's how close we get.

"Em came and when –A caught her too, things changed, -A never hurt me, but when –A came, he hurt me in places no one sees."

Ali started to cry red and angry tears and it sent a cold shiver down Mona's spine, she was scared, she wasn't sure she could relive anything –A had done, not so soon, not this early.

"I sat, silenced in a basement while, watching-," Ali's voice cracking, she sobbed and bit her lip.

"Ali, you don't-"

"No Caleb, she wants to know why I care, I will fucking tell her!"

"I sat there watching as –A beat the only person I thought would ever love me, the one person I want to give myself to. I watched, unable to do anything, paralyzed by fear and because I was tied to a chair, just feet away. I could hear the sound, her ribs broke. I could smell the fresh blood the spilled from her cuts. The whimpers of pain, I hear them now. She looked me in the eyes, pleading. I wanted it to stop. Em didn't do anything wrong, she never did.

"It was my punishment, to watch and not be able to help her. I might as well been the one hitting her repeatedly. She was tied, her hands above her head until she couldn't stand anymore, I watched her head loll off to the side, I thought she had died in front of my eyes.

"Do you know where Emily is now? Do you?"

Both girls were in tears, the words rattling Mona's bones to her very core. She shook her head.

"We escaped, Em did most of it, and told me to run, she took bullets for me you know?" Ali nodded her head, tears glossy her eyes and trailing down her cheeks, her chin still held high, fighting the growing urge to crumble to the floor.

"She laid in the dirt and told me to run, to go and get help. It was the hardest fuckest thing to run from her, leave her like that when the last image I remembered when I did was her limp bleeding body laying in the dirt, blood choking her, words lost in her throat.

"And now she's in a hospital bed, no family, no friends, no memory, fighting for her fucking life, and I can't pretend that none of it is my fault! Because it is! I know that! I looked into her lost eyes, I felt the warmth leave her body once, she died in the back of an ambulance and for what? Because she was stupid enough to love me."

Mona wasn't sure what to say, she had her jaw clenched, swallowing the words Ali spit into her face. The images flashing like pictures through her mind. Mona knew Em was the least guilty and the thought that Ali had to sit and watch her be tortured…

Ali sighed and dropped her head, lifting it in time to meet her eyes, "that's why I fucking care. Other than the girls, Emily is the only family I have left. No blood is thicker than what we five had. So help me or sit here and do nothing."

Ali turned from the Mona, dragged her hand across her cheeks and made way towards the door.

Just as her hand gripped the handle, "Alison, wait." Mona croaked, her voice raspy from the silent tears she shed.

"I'll help. For Emily, and the others, and- and for Hanna."

Ali dropped her head, shut the door and turned around.

Mona smiled weakly at Caleb who simply shook his head, he was too overwhelmed thing about his girlfriend to show any sign of emotion, clearing his throat he asked, "should I take notes?"

"That depends," Mona offered, "where do you want to begin?"

"Radley. You said that someone stole the game from you there, I need to know all you know about who that might be."

"I have an idea but I can't put a name to his face."

"His? You're sure?"

"Yeah."

"Well I might have the name for the face. I think –A is my brother."

Mona shook her head, "yeah, you've said that before and I don't think that helped you the first ti-"

"Not Jason, Mona. Another brother, Jason's twin."

"Jason had a twin?"

"Has. And yes, I think so. I think my parents sent him to Radley when we were little, and kept it hidden from us, and I think he came back to teach us all a lesson for leaving him there."

Mona was reeling, the image of the person she was in Radley with, who she would sometimes play chess in silence with, who would watch her from across the room…then the resemblance hit her, she couldn't deny that he and Jason had a remarkable resemblance, she couldn't ignore the baby blues and perfect blonde hair, nor could she the bone structure."

Ali nodded, understanding that Mona was piecing together the idea of him and the actual being.

Ali slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled an old battered photo from an album she found in the attic, the picture had been folded and she never realized, not until she had the dreams that turned out to be memories and the false accusations against Jason.

"This," Ali pointed to the hidden half of the photo to another little boy, "this is Charles DiLaurentis…," and after a while she added, "this is –A."

Mona's jaw dropped and in a moment she was speechless. It was a minute before she found her voice, "I know him, I know him."

Ali sighed and a strange mixture of fear and relief watched over her.

"Ali, I seen him in Radley, but he looked different, somehow and and he told me-"

All the words Mona wanted to say were bubbling to the surface at once and then she went silent, "I don't get it though-"

"Get what Mona?"

Mona scrunched her eyebrows and massaged her temples, "I thought he was made up at first, I only seen him a few times, he would find me in the places I hid and I thought only I knew about. And then a week before I was let out, he was gone, he escaped."

"The same way you have before?"

"No, no, unless he already knew of a way out."

"Mona, if you really had the game stolen from you in Radley, then this, this is –A, this is Charles and-"

"He knows everything, because I told him, I thought he was a figment of my imagination, I don't know how he could sneak around publicly in front of everyone and not be-" But Mona stopped, "Eddie, it was Eddie who helped him."

"What do you mean?"

"Eddie, the man Spencer talked to, who left the drawing at Ezra's, when I was with Charles, it was always somewhere in a room I wasn't scheduled to be in, and Eddie was the one supervising, he had to have been in on it."

Ali's head was reeling, she felt so close yet far away.

"What else Mona, what else could Charles want? What is he after now?"

Mona shook her head, "he…Charles told me a story once. About his family."

Ali gulped, this is what her parents didn't want her to know, she nodded for Mona to keep going.

"He told me, when he was really little, he and his brother were close. He said they had a little sister that they liked to take care of, but one day she wasn't doing what he wanted. And he didn't like that. His brother wouldn't help him so he said he would spend more time with his sister, she became his favorite. And once he made her cry….," Mona took a deep breath, trying to shake the fact that she had been face to face with the sociopath.

"What else Mona, I have to find him."

"He-he said something about hurting his sister, but it was an accident, his parents didn't understand him and they kept the sister from him. He said he had to watch them give her everything and soon he hated her, he wanted to hurt her on purpose then and- and"

"He did, didn't he?" Ali rubbed her arm and sat on the bed looking at Caleb who moved to sit beside her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder.

Mona smiled weakly and continued, "that's when his parents took him to Radley, they called it his big playhouse, that he would have fun there. He said his mom was the only one who cared, she brought him cake once and he spent the day with his brother and sister, he wasn't mad then because he thought he was going home, but he didn't and they didn't visit again.

"He told me he faked his death at 16 because he found a way out. That's why I'm confused, if he knew a way out, why did he say? And that's all I know, I swear."

"How much did you tell him?"

Mona looked guiltily into eyes much like the monster's she confided in, "I-I, I didn't use our names-"

"How much!"

"Everything! I told him everything, how I was bullied and I wanted revenge and I spent years patiently waiting and planning and-"

"Dammit Mona, you were that desperate for a friend?!"

Mona stood, "I didn't do this Alison! You can't come in here and turn this on me, I told you all I know!"

Caleb spoke up then, "Ali, Mona is right, Charles is the only bad guy right now."

Alison took a deep breath, "well we have his motive, he wanted to take away everything I had, because I did that to him right, I was a fucking baby and he wants revenge."

"That's how the game is played."

Alison stood and threw her hands on either side of her body, "Mona, you think this is still a game? Games are played for fun, Charles is out for blood, haven't you noticed that! My mom is dead, my dad and Jason have disowned me, Emily doesn't have any parents, I don't even know if she is going to make it," Ali threw her phone on the bed, near Caleb, "and the girls, Spencer, Aria, Hanna, they're…they're-"

Mona was in tears for Hanna, knowing that she should've been a better friend for her.

"Hey," Mona spoke softly, "they didn't find all the bodies on that plane Ali, I know that, so they could still be-"

But she was cut off, Ali's phone buzzing off near Caleb. He picked it up and his jaw dropped, he stood looked at the message displayed and quickly brought his hand to his mouth, dropping the phone and stumbling backwards into Mona's dresser, crashing into the wall, sliding down to the floor and letting his tears spill over.

Ali rushed to his side, the phone forgotten, not noticing Mona grab her phone and gasp, crying tears of her own, "A-ali, Alison, th-they, they're…"

Mona sat on the bed, eyes glazed over and Ali snatched the phone from her hands, her eyes falling on the picture and message attached.

Unknown: what good are dolls if I can't play with them? They're still breathing, but for how long?

Caleb was shaking violently, his hair matted to his forehead where sweat had formed, Mona in shock as the gears in her head turned.

Ali scrolled and her eyes fell on the picture, and there, lying on a floor similar to where she remembered she and Emily were held were five bodies: tied with hands behind their back, sitting against a wall and blindfolded, the body that she recognized as Hanna's holding up a newspaper with the day's date on it.

"They're alive." Alison's voice was dead, the shock making her lightheaded, the air in her lungs getting trapped and she slumped to the ground light slipping from around her until it was gone altogether.

AN: hey I hope you're happy about the quick upload, I surprised myself…thoughts on the chapter? Sorry for the cliffhanger, let me know please, I live for your feedback…and I was thinking I want to have a regular upload day? Maybe? Idk…yay or nay?
Also some of you have been leaving suggestions for prompts for stories I should write…if you have one that you'd like me to look at and maybe bring to life, don't be shy, I welcome it!

Lina