A/N: Hello my Emison fam! I know I said "The Dawn of Autumn" was my last Emison venture. But I got the writing bug for this wild Dexter meets Grey's Anatomy meets CSI fic and so here I am again, back to torture you on my roller coaster of feels.
Please don't skip this author's note. First things first, I want you all to be aware that this story is 50 Shades of Fucked Up. When I say "M" I mean *screams from mountain top*: "M!"
Please heed the rating and take it seriously. Children, this is not for you.
It has graphic depictions of violence and allusions to other triggering material. I don't normally do trigger warnings, but there will be one or two scattered throughout the chapters for what I feel is something people need to be prepared for.
I want people to know exactly what they're getting in to. We're talking about a serial killer thriller. It's going to be brutal. The first chapter is about as graphic as it gets as far as violence goes. If you make it through the first one you should survive the rest. In addition to the graphic nature, the sex scenes are more detailed than anything I've ever done.
There will be some topics from the show that were not handled as seriously as they should have been. Including the pedophiles in Rosewood who preyed upon younger girls and never saw consequences for their actions and the NAT club. None of that particular content will be graphic, though there will be some of it that is a little difficult to read. There will also be allusions to violence and abuse in the home.
I will be keeping an eye on this story, as I don't know if I'm breaking the ratings rules. They aren't exactly crystal clear. I've seen a lot of fucked up things in R-rated movies with graphic content. So I don't know what FF equates to for their R-rated standards (M). It's possible the content in the story might get it removed at some point. If that happens I WILL post on AO3 and potentially Wattpad. If this story does disappear I will note it in an author's note in my previous Emison story.
People have been asking me for a Dark Alison for a long time. This is as dark as it gets. But as always, I do promise some twists and a hell of a journey. My characters are never black and white. There is a lot of grey area.
Just remember that I always have a plan in store.
As always, reviews are appreciated, especially considering the PLL fandom is dwindling. I love hearing from my Emison fam. All I ask is that you be kind.
Be warned: This first chapter is gory and graphic.
Prologue:
"What is it that you're so afraid of?"
Emily pecked her lips and peered into her eyes.
"I'm sorry."
It came out breathless.
"For what?"
"I don't…I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
How to love.
Chapter 1:
The Doctor
The blade sliced through the thin layer of skin on his cheek. She applied light pressure at first, watching as the first trickle oozed out. She'd always been fascinated by blood. She respected that it was a life force. She also loved the various different ways it could be drained from the body. The way it seeped out if a cut was superficial. The way it poured out if a vein had been hit. The way it spurted out in explosions of bright crimson in the time of a heartbeat if you hit an artery.
Her first memory of blood was an abrasion on her knee. She'd been fascinated to see the bright red substance oozing out from beneath her skin. She'd squeezed and squeezed until the warm liquid was dripping down her leg, cooling against her skin as it slid down to her ankle.
Life was so fragile. It was funny how a person's very existence hinged upon a single fluid. Without blood, organs would stop functioning. The heart would stop pumping. The brain would stop receiving the oxygen it needed to survive.
Blood was everything.
It's why red was her favorite color.
She pushed the scalpel in deeper beneath the skin, carving carefully and concisely. She preferred to make it look a little sloppy. It was hard work for a perfectionist to make highly skilled surgical talent look like a hack job.
When she was working on people like Ian Thomas she spaced out. Her mind did the work. It was as if a force inside of her took over. She couldn't control herself. Something deep inside of her guided her as her hands did impeccable things.
If it's one thing she prided herself on, it was her work. Her job put her in the perfect position for what she did.
She'd always been interested in how things operated from the inside. She liked tinkering with toys, taking things apart and looking at the heart of the matter.
Going to medical school and becoming a surgeon had been exhilarating. Holding life and death in her hands was powerful.
Her job also provided her with the perfect vantage point to choose her victims. Data-mining. It was easy to find people when they gave her all of their information.
In medical school they learned "first do no harm" but sometimes people needed to be punished.
She made careful imperfect cuts, working diligently.
Make it look sloppy.
No one could know a surgeon had done it.
As she dragged the scalpel across the thin layer of tissue on his cheek she was reminded of the first cut she'd ever made on human skin.
At least…the first cut she could remember.
The rush she'd felt. The pure unadulterated joy. The freedom of it all. The control.
She smiled at the boy on the table.
She had plans for him.
o ~ O ~ o
The glint of the scalpel flickered underneath the bright overhead light. It was blinding. But what was even more blinding was the pain burning his right cheek.
Blood dripped down against the floor, leaving crimson stains on the large tarp there.
Ian Thomas blinked, staring at the light above him. His face was pulsing in pain. A warm substance was dribbling down into a puddle next to his ear. It smelled like copper. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but when he moved his jaw a white hot flash of pain rendered him speechless. Little black speckles clouded his vision.
He thought he was passing out.
It would have been better for him if he did.
The steel table beneath him felt cold against his back. The sensation made him realize he was naked. He tried to sit up, but felt restraint against his motions. He looked down to see he'd been strapped down. The restraints were tight against his chest. His arms and legs were bound tightly.
His heart started racing. The pulsing sensation in his cheek worsened. He moaned.
"You didn't think I'd let you get away that easily, did you?" A shadow fell over him. The voice was light and airy. It belonged to a female.
He saw a pair of pasty white hands. He blinked, his vision still blurry.
Her fingers were small. Dainty. That of a surgeon.
"What happened? Was I in an accident? Am I at the hospital?" He tried to face her, but all he saw was her hands, drenched in his blood.
There was no answer.
He couldn't stop staring at her hands. They looked so strange to him. They were so white. They didn't match the rest of her arms.
It took a few seconds for him to realize she was wearing gloves. He just hadn't been able to see them underneath all the blood.
"Who are you?" He demanded, trying to sound bold even though he felt like wetting himself. His face ached as he spoke. "What did you do to me?"
"I wanted you to be awake for this part." She moved down towards the end of the table. He heard rustling as she slipped on a surgical gown, though he couldn't see her doing it.
She pulled her hair back and put on a surgical cap.
She leaned between his legs, sliding her fingertips up along his bare thigh. He tried to lift his neck, but he couldn't see her.
"Wait. Is this…is this a kink thing?" Her touch coupled with the immense fear had made him hard.
She laughed.
"Is that it? That's all you've got?"
A broiling rage exploded inside of him.
"Fuck you." He spit angrily.
But then he felt her hand moving against him. He squeaked out a surprised cry of pleasure.
"Let's see what we can do here." She slid her hand up and down, agonizingly slowly.
For him it was about the pleasure. For her it was about the surgical field, looking at it as a piece of a whole. Nothing sexual. Men like Ian Thomas disgusted her.
He hissed under his breath.
She laughed again. That laugh was haunting. From the ether. But in a strange way it turned him on.
He felt the pressure mounting and he bucked upwards. Just as he was getting ready to let go he felt a splitting pain in his right testicle. Then his left.
Stars exploded in his field of vision as she jammed the blade into the most sensitive areas of his body. His screams echoed off the wall. He thrashed wildly against the table, but the restraints held him in place.
She leaned over him, into his line of sight, and he saw her for the first time. Piercing blue eyes. Blonde hair pulled back and tucked neatly under a surgical cap. There were painted splatters of blood on the face shield she was wearing.
She took his breath away. At least, that's what it seemed like. In reality he was still screaming. The pain was unbearable.
She tightened her grip around him as she leaned next to his ear and whispered,
"I know what you did to those girls, Ian."
A shock jolted his body. He was suddenly very still. He was very very aware of her hand on his member.
"I saw those videos." She growled at him, disgusted. "I saw what you did to that fourteen-year-old girl in that barn."
His eyes widened. He was so fucking stupid for recording that day. So fucking stupid. He swore he'd destroyed all the evidence. He wasn't sure how this bitch knew it. But it hadn't been that bad. Sure, the girl was drunk, but she'd wanted to do it. She'd been awake for the most part. She'd never told him no.
His voice came out shaky,
"I…I didn't know she was so young. Please, I didn't…"
But she was gone, out of sight, moving quickly. Her reflexes were like a cat.
He heard a noise, a tinny tink of something metal hitting something else metal. A tray.
He bucked again, trying to get free. His face hurt. His balls were on fire. But all the pain he was in couldn't compare to what came next.
"You know…" The woman maneuvered her hand around him again. "It'll stay like this for hours. You've got enough drugs in your system to see to that."
"Fuck." He ached, but he couldn't release himself because of the pain.
She leaned close to inspect the tip. She dragged her gloved finger over the sensitive area and he moaned.
"Lady, please..."
Without warning, she drove a brand new scalpel blade into his tip.
It was a new excruciating agony. The shapes and colors he saw made his head spin.
He heard screams from somewhere. Another room maybe?
No. It was him again.
He was painfully cognizant of everything she was doing.
"I could just chop it off and be done with it. But I like to take my time."
He wanted to scream at her and tell her she was a sick bitch, but he couldn't find the words.
She dragged the blade down his length, watching the blood oozing out in the skin-splitting line it left behind. She dragged it around the circumference, jagged and sloppy. She was doing her best to make it look emotional and not surgical.
He could feel a sickening warm liquid pooling near his base and down his ass crack. He made a horrible gurgling noise, choking on his own spit.
"Did you know that it's statistically unlikely that a person will bleed out when a sexual appendage is detached from their body?" She put the scalpel down and picked up a knife. She sawed deeper into his skin.
She wanted to torture him. She wanted him to suffer. She wanted him to suffer like the girls in his videos would suffer for the rest of their lives.
He thrashed wildly, bucking against the restraints. Tears were streaming down his face.
"Scream all you want." She tugged as she sliced through him. "No one will hear you."
"Just fucking kill me!" He begged.
"Oh…" A wicked grin. "We'll get to that. I promise."
As the pain and blood loss started to get to him he faded in and out of consciousness. She always waited for him to wake up and then she continued the torture.
After she was finished she held the severed piece of his body out carefully, letting him see it.
It was a kindness so he could say goodbye. Because Ian Thomas would never see his dick again. He would be walking around in hell, dickless. The demons would make fun of him. She imagined that even demons had a code of conduct when it came to raping children. He would suffer if there was a hell.
Seeing a piece of himself ripped away from his body elicited a panicked yell. He knew that's what she'd been doing. He'd felt every fucking bit of it. But to actually see it? The scream was so visceral and full of fear that it gave her life. It transcended her.
She simply smiled at him as she transported it into a red and yellow bag labeled medical waste. She dropped it inside and sealed it shut. She would dispose of it and no one would ever know.
Ian screamed for nearly an hour. The pain was unbearable. He begged to die. But the surgeon just stood next to him, quietly relishing in his pain.
"What you did to that girl..." She growled, disgusted. "You deserve this."
Ian Thomas had hurt several children. Children who would have to live with what he'd done to them for the rest of their lives.
She made several cuts into his inner groin. Not deep enough to kill him quickly. Just deep enough that he would slowly bleed out. She watched the blood start to flow.
Then she calmly sat down and watched Ian Thomas bleed to death.
The blood dripping against the floor sent flashes of memories through her mind. She still remembered the way the blood had looked that day when she was kid.
With most people it started with animals. With her, it had started with her parents.
o ~ O ~ o
~ Then ~
A droplet of blood splashed against the pearly white carpet in the living room. Then another. And another. A trail of it was streaming down off of the knife that was hanging loosely from her hand. The entire blade was coated in the thick wet substance.
A child stood in the middle of a horrific bloodbath in the middle of her living room.
She had no idea how she'd gotten there. But she knew she had a weapon in her hand, and she knew she liked the feel of it. It made her feel powerful. Wildly out of control in the best way.
In her other hand she was wielding her mom's cell phone. She wasn't sure how she'd gotten her hands on it. Her mom usually left it on the table in the living room. Had she picked it up? She didn't remember picking it up.
She took a moment to observe the scene. She was very astute for her young seven years of age. She carefully visualized everything.
Her mother was splayed out on the floor, the upper half of her body twisted sideways. Blood pooled near her stomach. She had a gash in her head from where she'd hit it on the counter when she fell to the ground.
Her father was on his belly, blood seeping out from both sides of his body from the five gaping wounds in his stomach and chest. He had a gash in his lower back that had severed his spinal cord. His eyes were looking directly at her, fixed and frozen.
She studied the way they were positioned. She studied the blood splatter. She couldn't say she'd miss her parents. Not after the things they had done.
It wasn't until she turned away from her mom and dad that she saw him.
Her big brother.
His throat was slit from under one ear to the other, his thin skin severed to the point where he was almost decapitated.
The knife and cell phone clamored against the floor as she rushed to the fifteen-year-old's side. He had just turned fifteen. He'd been so excited to start learning how to drive. He'd told her he was going to drive them away from their crazy parents.
"Jason…" Little hands pressed against his lifeless body. She started sobbing. "Jason, get up. Please get up!"
She clutched his blood-drenched shirt.
"No!" She cried as she shoved her hands against him. "No, no, NO!"
She fell back on to the ground and wiped frantically at her face, clearing her tears, but smearing blood all over her cheeks.
What was she supposed to do now?
She curled her knees up to her body and wrapped her arms around her legs, rocking back and forth.
Her brain felt like a blank slate. Like some kind of monster had been born there and was waiting to jump out and scare her. She closed her eyes, letting herself get lost in the darkness.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there. One minute? Two? Ten?
She tried to think logically. She tried to think like one of the characters on the true crime dramas that Jason watched all the time. She had a high level of intelligence for a child. She knew things that no normal child would know.
A good lie was one close to the truth, so she played out the scene in her head. She'd watched enough true crime and procedural cop shows with her brother to know that blood splatter mattered. She also knew that she needed to plan things out very carefully. The evidence had to match.
She stood up next to her brother, careful to get far enough away so she wouldn't get her blood on him.
She found a spot on the ground and sat down.
She blinked, her brain a haze of white noise. Everything was so quiet.
Her hand started to move, though it's not like she wanted it to. It was like a force she couldn't control. She had to. She had to do it to survive.
She took the knife and pressed the bloody blade against her thigh. She made sure the angle was right and then cut into her skin. Deep, but not deep enough to cause serious damage. She cried as the knife tore into her flesh. Tears streamed down her blood-stained face leaving streaks of clean skin, washing the crimson stains away.
When she was done she wiped the knife's handle off, trying to get rid of her fingerprints. Even if they found her fingerprints on it, hers wouldn't be the only ones. She'd throw in that there was a struggle. It would be easy for police to believe she'd picked up the knife in the chaos.
She stood up and stood still for several seconds, letting her blood dribble against the floor. Then she took several hesitant steps back before rushing towards her father as if she was concerned. She leaned down next to him, staring at his open palm. She put the knife in his hand, curling his fingertips around the handle, making sure his fingers touched it in several places. She used her dress to cover her hand and then pulled the knife out of his hand carefully, trying not to touch the handle.
She got up and rushed over to her mother. She carefully placed the knife in her mom's hand, repeating the process. She let the handle slip slightly as though she'd dropped it.
She fell to her knees, letting her mother's blood soak into her skin. She pushed against her, shaking her as she'd done to Jason. She put her hands against the gaping wound in her stomach, because even though her mother was dead she needed the police to believe she'd tried to stop the bleeding. She stayed there for exactly three minutes, her eyes watching the clock on the stove.
The minutes ticking by.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
She mindlessly continued her movements. She made sure to smear as much blood around as she moved between them so no one would be able to tell whose blood was whose. She made sure her dad's hands had Jason's and her mom's blood on them and that her mom's hands had her dad's blood on them. She made sure that she was covered in so much blood that it was indistinguishable.
The last thing she did was kneel next to Jason. She stared into his piercing blue eyes. His skin was pale white. His mouth was open in a horrified grimace.
What had he seen in those moments before he died?
The little girl tried not to think about it. She felt her hands shaking as she touched him again. She had to get her bloody handprints all over him for the story to work.
Her lower lip trembled. Her big brother was gone.
She was starting to feel very sleepy and she knew it was because she was bleeding. So she picked up her mom's cell phone and climbed the stairs. The hallway to her bedroom felt like it was spinning around and around. She didn't remember going into her room, but when she blinked she was rushing towards her safe place.
Her closet.
"Hide. Hide and don't come out." Memories of her brother swirled in her head, and it made her dizzier.
She waited two minutes and then called the police.
"Please come." She whispered helplessly into the phone, forcing herself to exhale heavily. "He hurt my mommy and my brother."
When they asked for her address she gave it to them, but when they asked her to stay on the line she hung up.
She took a deep breath and tried to prepare herself. She knew she was going to have to work hard to sell her story.
"You didn't do anything wrong. It's important that you know that." A flash of Jason in her head, but his face was all wrong. He was dead. His eyes were glassy and clouded over. His mouth was hanging off of his jaw, but he was talking to her.
"I want my brother," she cried.
She heard the sirens four minutes later. They grew closer and closer. Her heart beat faster and faster.
The cops tried pounding on the door first, but when no one answered they forced themselves inside.
They were not prepared for the scene that they stumbled upon in the open area of the living room. Blood painted the walls and had seeped into the carpet and the surrounding hardwood floor.
"Jesus Christ." It was Officer Barry Maple who spotted the bodies first. "Fuck. This one's a kid." He glanced at his partner, who was staring, dumbfounded and in shock. "The operator say whether the kid sounded like a boy or girl?"
"Didn't give any indication either way. Said the kid sounded scared and out of breath."
"Cordon off the scene." Barry felt his stomach churning. He heard the sounds of nosy neighbors rousing from the other houses on the street. "Shit. We've got lookie-loos. I'll get them out of here. Secure the perimeters. See if there is anyone else here."
He leaned down and pressed a button on his radio, calling it into the station, who immediately dispatched their best two homicide detectives, Detective Linda Tanner and Detective Marco Furey.
It only took them two minutes to get there. Barry's partner was searching the garage when they pulled in the driveway. Linda went to talk to him. Marco walked towards the porch.
The front door was open, which felt like an affront to privacy, even though it was something he was used to seeing. When he stepped into the house his felt a sinking pit of disgust in his stomach.
He was careful not to step in the blood or to contaminate the area. Barry waved to him.
"Triple homicide…" Barry shook his head, trying not to look at the body of the boy.
"Three? Not four?" Marco interrupted him. "In that case, this..." He waved towards the scene, "...is on the backburner. We got a problem. We looked the family up. They have a daughter. Age seven. Alison. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. I'll put out an APB, get an Amber Alert out there. The house been searched?"
His main concern was with finding the child. If she'd been taken they couldn't waste time. Every second counted.
Barry was suddenly whipping his head around, looking for family portraits. How had they missed that? They'd been so preoccupied with the horrific scene and the violent nature of how the bodies were discovered that the standard policing had fallen by the wayside.
"Basement. Garage. Everything but upstairs. I had to deal with some nosy neighbors. The media, too. Had to get a few officers to escort some of them away. It's been a fucking circus here. I didn't know there was a missing kid."
Marco glanced at the steps. It was impossible to tell where the blood ended and the floor began. It was one of the most gruesome scenes he had ever seen.
He walked towards the steps to get a closer look. It was a spiral staircase, so it was easy to miss the first little red footprint. But he leaned down and saw the second one. There were several splatters of blood accompanying each bloody footprint.
The child was hurt.
His heart started pounding. He raced up the stairs without hesitation, following the footsteps. They ended near a closed bedroom door in the hallway.
Normally, the door stayed locked. Jason had always been adamant about that.
"Lock your door, Ali. Remember, always lock your door."
But she hadn't locked it just this once. Because she knew she needed help.
Marco put his hand on the door handle, ripping it open. The room appeared empty. There was a large smudge of blood on the carpet, like someone had fallen down and crawled a few paces.
"Alison?" He glanced under the bed, knowing that a scared kid would look for a place to hide. "Alison, my name is Detective Marco Furey. I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help."
He thought he heard a rustling noise in the closet. He walked over and pulled the swinging doors open. The clothes on the hangers were high up off of the ground for him to see the movement. He shoved the hangers aside.
He'd never forget the sight of her. She was curled up, knees to her chest, her head buried in them. She was covered from head to toe in blood, and she was sitting in a puddle of her own blood.
Alison could feel it seeping into her underwear. It was wet and cold and it felt like she'd peed herself.
She remembered the last time she'd peed herself.
Sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor in her favorite dress, panties and carpet wet from her own urine, huddled, crying. Scared. Confused.
"What did I do wrong?" Clinging to Jason.
"You didn't do anything wrong." Her brother's soft words comforting her.
The little girl pushed the memory away.
She shivered as the man leaned down. She lifted her eyes to meet his, reserved about him, distrust on her face. Her cheeks were pale from the blood loss. Her skin had taken on a milky white clammy appearance.
"Please don't hurt me," she whimpered.
"Hey, it's okay. I'm a police detective. I'm here to help you. Can you crawl out to me sweetheart?" He reached in and offered her his hand.
Alison shook her head vigorously and scooted backwards.
Strange man. Stranger danger. Alarm bells went off in her head. Her brother had told her all about strange men. How to avoid them. How to stay safe.
"You've probably learned about police officers in school, haven't you?" Marco inched forward. He pulled the lanyard holding his badge over his head.
She nodded in response.
"See this?" He held his badge out towards her. "It's called a shield. It's my badge."
"Police officers have badges," she said in a matter-of-fact manner.
"That's right. That's right, sweetheart. And I just want to help you. You look like you've got a cut there that needs to be looked at by a doctor."
Alison took a breath, forcing herself to sound as sincere as possible, but the words made her want to vomit.
"I want my mommy."
She didn't. She never wanted her mommy again.
"Come on out to me, Alison." He tried again.
Alison looked at him. She knew she had to seem scared. She had to make him believe she'd witnessed an atrocity.
But had she witnessed an atrocity? She still wasn't sure. It was all a blank slate. A black hole.
What happened to Jason?
There was a thunderous explosion of heavy footsteps below them that made Alison flinch. The fear was real this time. She'd heard angry heavy footsteps before.
"I'll protect you."
"I want my brother." She sobbed the words this time. "I want Jason."
"Alison, it's okay. It's going to be okay."
No, it's not. It will never be okay again. I'll never see my brother again. It's not fair.
"Hey, look at me." Sad blue eyes slowly met his. "I promise to protect you. I promise." Marco reached his hand out to her, so close that he could practically grab her and pull her out if he wanted to, but he didn't want to add to the trauma she was already suffering from.
Instead, he spoke softly to her and slowly coaxed her out.
When she reached him she collapsed into his arms. Maybe she'd cut too deep after all.
"I need an ambulance." Marco grabbed his radio. He lifted her up into his arms, wrapping them protectively around her. He rattled off the address before switching channels. "Linda, I got her. She's hurt. But she's alive."
He laid her against her bed and felt for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. He searched for a wound, but it was hard to find the source of the blood since it was all over her.
Finally, he saw the gash in her leg. He pulled her leg out and put pressure on her inner thigh to stop the bleeding.
Her little body twitched at the touch, but she didn't dare open her eyes.
"Hang in there, kid."
She heard him talking, but she kept her eyes closed. She pretended she couldn't see or hear. No one could ask her questions while she was sleeping. And she needed time. She needed time to make her story perfect.
Fortunately she had a lot of time. The medications they gave her at the hospital made her very sleepy. The police officers tried to ask her what had happened, but Alison just whined in a haze and begged to know if her brother was okay.
They had kept her overnight just to be safe. She'd been released to her guardian who lived a few miles away. Alison's aunt was her mother's twin. Alison was going to hate seeing her face every day, but she would hide it well. Her Aunt Mary was different than her mother. She would never do the things her mommy did.
If she did, Alison would take care of it.
Over the course of the next several days the police officers tried to get her to talk. Alison refused them the first several times. She knew it was common for children who witnessed a tragedy to go mute, to retreat into themselves. So that's what she did. Or at least, what she pretended to do.
On the fourth day she finally gave them a bite. Marco had gotten the call from the aunt that the kid was ready to talk, so they trudged out to her house. They passed the DiLaurentis house on the way. It was still covered in yellow crime scene tape. The house was still a mess.
It would never be Alison's home again. Mary would go on to sell it, though she would keep their vacation cabin in the Poconos.
The aunt's house was a bit smaller. She didn't have a family of her own, so she didn't need much space. But there was enough room for her, Alison, and their dog.
Mary greeted them at the door with a polite hello and asked them to assure her that if Alison seemed uncomfortable at any time they would stop questioning her immediately.
"She hasn't slept since I brought her home from the hospital," Mary explained as they walked towards the living room.
Marco walked beside her in tandem. Linda Tanner held back, taking in the pictures of her family on the wall. Some of them had her posing with her sister's family. There were a few of her as a child with her twin sister. No pictures of her parents that Linda could see. There were a lot of photos of her sister's family that had probably been sent to her over the years.
"She crawls into my bed and cries all night. When she does sleep she screams because of the night terrors. She even wet the bed once. I don't want her put under any undue pressure."
"Ma'am, I assure you we've been specially trained for this." Marco nodded sincerely.
Mary walked into the living room, which was more casual than the living room at the DiLaurentis house.
Alison was sitting on the couch, alert, but tired. There was a white and brown dog on the couch next to the girl watching the detective with wary eyes. Alison was scratching the dog's head.
She looked up at Marco. The undersides of her lower lashes were caved in and dark from the circles forming there. Alison had purposefully been depriving herself of sleep. She needed to look as pitiful as possible.
Alison's aunt sat down on the couch beside her. She was stiff and looked uncomfortable. The woman had to bury her twin sister, her nephew, and her brother-in-law all in the same week. On top of that, she'd been given full guardianship of her niece. She was dealing with a lot.
"Hello, Alison. Remember me?" He leaned down, putting his hands on his knees and getting down to her level.
For a split second Alison saw Jason there, leaning in front of her, hands on his knees to keep his balance.
"Are you okay?"
She blinked and he was gone.
Alison nodded at Marco to answer his question.
"You saved me."
Linda walked in, notepad out, tape recorder on, and ready to go.
"How are you feeling?" Marco asked.
"My leg hurts. But my heart hurts more." She'd been practicing that for the last two days.
It landed. Marco looked pained to hear it.
"I'm sorry to hear that." His face twisted into paternal concern. "Your aunt says you have some things you want to tell us?"
Another timid nod. She wrapped her arms around the dog, burying her face into his fur.
"Well, whenever you're ready to start we're ready to listen." Marco glanced up at Linda and then back at Alison.
Alison let go of the dog and he licked her face. She turned towards her aunt, her bottom lip quivering.
"It's alright, love." She pat Alison's knee gently.
Alison faced the officer in front of her again.
"I heard mommy and daddy yelling when Jason and I walked in from playing in the treehouse." She squinted her eyes like she was concentrating really hard. "They were fighting. I wanted to tell them not to fight. We learned in school to love each other and I wanted to tell mommy and daddy that."
She paused, chewing at her lip. She tried to remember to stop and use all the cues she'd learned from watching TV with Jason. He liked crime shows. She would only realize later that he liked them so much because he was trying to learn how to survive from them.
"Daddy got real mad. He picked up a knife. A really big knife, like the ones my mommy tells me never to touch because they are so sharp."
She added the little detail to plant the seed in their heads that she would never touch a knife.
"Jason told him to stop. He tried to get the knife away from him, but daddy shoved him. Jason shoved him back. Daddy was really mad at Jason after that. Jason tried to tell me to go run and hide, but I was too scared. I didn't want to go without my big brother. I held his hand and tried to get him to come with me."
She saw a flash of her brother's face. But they weren't in the living room. She was standing in her bathroom doorway wrapped up in a Barbie towel, bubbles in her hair. She'd been unable to make her feet move. He'd picked her up and carried her to her room.
She remembered crying,
"I thought he hurt you. I was so scared you were never coming back."
Alison tried to shake it off and continue,
"Daddy ran over and cut him really bad. Jason was trying to protect me. He…he wanted me to be safe."
The proper response was to cry. She knew she needed to cry, but for some reason she wasn't crying. Or didn't want to. But she forced the tears.
Is this that shock thing they talk about on TV?
Her aunt shifted uncomfortably beside her. She put her hand on top of Alison's hand. It was enough to encourage the little girl to keep going.
"Mommy was screaming and crying really loud and daddy told her to shut up. But mommy wouldn't stop screaming. Daddy grabbed me and I thought he was going do to me what he did to Jason. I told him please don't, daddy and tried to take the knife away even though I'm not supposed to touch them."
She was telling the story so well she could see it playing out in her mind. Her father with the knife. Jason. Her mother.
"I was scared. He knocked me over and when he tried to grab me he cut me on my leg. It hurt a lot."
She touched the bandage around her thigh.
"Mommy saved me."
The words made her feel like throwing up. Her mother had never protected them.
"You have to learn…"
Alison closed her eyes, quieting her mother's voice in her head.
Shut. Up.
"Mommy tried to take the knife, but daddy pushed it in her belly and she got really quiet. She told me to run just like Jason said. I was scared, but I listened to my mommy because I'm a good girl. Daddy turned towards me and tried to stop me, but mommy grabbed the knife and put it in his belly a bunch of times. Like twelve or thirteen times. It was a lot of times."
The inaccuracy was on purpose. She needed to get some of the facts wrong. If her story was too perfect they wouldn't buy it.
"But daddy pushed her away and still tried to come after me. I was running away and I saw mommy put the knife in his back. Daddy fell on his knees and then on to his tummy. Mommy looked at me and I thought she was going to be okay, but then she couldn't walk and she looked like I feel after I've played on the merry-go-round on the park. The spinny feeling. She fell and hit her head. I thought I saw daddy move so I went to check on him. But he wasn't moving, so I ran to check on mommy. She wasn't moving. I tried to stop all the blood. I tried to make it stop. And then I…"
This was the crucial part of the story. She had to draw sympathy.
"…I saw my brother."
She'd studied his face carefully that night. For this moment. She needed to remember. She needed to feel what she'd felt when she saw him, even though she didn't want to.
"His eyes were open so I thought he might be okay, so ran over to him. I was pushing him and shaking him and telling him we needed to get help. But he didn't get up. I couldn't get him to wake up."
She dropped her head and started sobbing. Tears she didn't have to force this time. Because her brother wasn't supposed to be dead. Something had gone horribly wrong.
"I think that's enough for today." Marco glanced at Linda.
"Absolutely not." Linda replied gruffly.
She pulled him aside.
"Have a heart, Linda," he uttered under his breath.
"I don't like this any more than you do. But the more time passes the less she'll remember." Linda's eyes darted over to the little girl sitting patiently on the couch. Her teary blue eyes were big and sad and focused on the two of them.
"I don't think she's likely to forget what she saw." Marco glanced at a photo in a glass case full of family portraits.
The display showed the little girl at all ages up to the most recent one six months prior. There was a forced smile on her face in every photo. Her brother wasn't smiling either.
"Children repress," Linda said.
Marco hung his head and sighed. He took a step back towards Alison and her aunt.
"Alison, sweetheart…" He leaned down and touched her knee.
She jumped.
A strange vision of her father phased into her mind for a moment. He'd never been kind to her or comforted her. But she could see his hand on her knee. But he didn't ever touch her knee. All he ever did was spank her.
The dog sensed her fear and he let out a low growl directed at Marco.
The detective quickly yanked his hand away.
"Pepe, no." Mary snapped her fingers and forced him to look at her.
The snap startled Alison. She heard a slapping noise in her head. Then the sound of knuckles cracking.
Marco pulled back. He looked at Linda, who had a curious expression in her eyes.
Children repress.
Her dad faded and her mom was standing in front of her with a camera. Jason was next to her, his arm around her.
"Alison, smile for the camera, dear."
One big perfect happy family.
There was a flash and then Jason was arguing with her mommy about something.
"We need to know what else you remember," Marco said, jolting Alison back to the present.
"My…my brother." She picked up where she left off. "I remember…he…he had a look like he had seen something scary. His mouth was open and he was staring off into space. He was just…staring…"
She shut down for a few seconds, a playful act of drama. Then she faced Detective Furey and cocked her head innocently.
"Did you ask him? Was he scared?"
It seemed to throw the officers off.
"What do you mean?" Marco asked.
"I want to see my brother. Is he okay?" Her lips trembled.
Linda cocked her head and clucked her tongue, her lips tugging down at the corners of her mouth,
"Oh, Alison…honey…he's…"
Marco put his hand up, signaling for Linda not to say anything.
"Let's talk about your daddy for a minute." He shifted the subject. He looked at the aunt to make sure the topic change was okay. The woman nodded. "Did your daddy get mad a lot?"
Alison had been expecting the question, but it still made her flinch. She found herself curling up against her aunt. The older woman wrapped her arm around the little girl.
"He spanked me and Jason sometimes when we were bad. And he would yell at mommy." She molded herself against her aunt's body.
She was safe with her Aunt Mary. She would be safe.
"How often did he spank you?"
She shivered. But she wasn't cold. She wasn't sure why she was shivering.
"I…I don't know." She looked up at her aunt. "I think I want to go to bed now."
"Okay, sweetheart." Mary glanced at them, letting them politely, but firmly, know that their visit was over.
Marco stood up, thanking her for answering his questions.
"Will you be coming back again?" Alison asked, climbing to her feet, careful not to put pressure on the leg she'd cut.
"We might." Marco nodded. "But we'll always make sure to check with your aunt first."
"Okay."
She started to walk off. The dog trailed along behind her.
"Oh, and Alison?" He asked. She faced him. "You're a very brave little girl."
Alison simply nodded absentmindedly. She couldn't appear too excited.
Mary walked off after her, telling the officers she'd be back as soon as she got the little girl settled.
"Did you see her reaction when I tried to comfort her?" Marco asked.
Tanner nodded intently.
"She was terrified. The dog felt it, too. It's why he growled at you." She gave Marco a smarmy look. "You're lucky you didn't get your face bitten off, though maybe it would have been an improvement over that mug you got now."
"You're a riot." Marco rolled his eyes. "It's hard to tell if her reactions are from what she witnessed or if it's something more…" He tapped his pen against his notepad.
"Our records indicate a few reports of domestic violence, but every single one of them found nothing worth investigating." Linda flipped through her notes.
"Well they were clearly worth fucking something." Marco slammed his notepad closed angrily. He sighed heatedly. "The question is do we think there was more than just physical abuse happening?"
"Her exam showed no signs of sexual trauma. There has never been any notation of it. And apparently the intake physician had a child psychiatrist go through all that with her."
"So he just beat the shit out of them then? What a charming father." The angry sarcasm oozed off of him.
"Furey, maybe you need to cool off."
"Pull her medical records, along with her brother's. I want every damn incident you can find."
Alison listened to their hushed whispers outside the living room.
She smirked. She'd planted all the right seeds.
She knew the police would believe her, not only because she was a good story-teller, but because history was on their side. Jason had called the cops on their dad a few times, but by the time the police arrived Ken was calm and was able to smooth things over, chalking Jason's calls up to teenage rebellion. But Jason's medical records would show a few trips to the ER for "skateboarding" accidents. Her history would show a broken arm, a fall from the swingset. She was too young to remember the fall.
She repeated the story dozens of times over the course of the next several weeks, not faltering once. It became official gospel.
The brutal slaying at the DiLaurentis household had rocked the little town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania. The little girl who had survived was the talk of the town, though her aunt feverishly protected her from the media. She pulled her out of her classes at school and home-schooled her for a year until things had settled. Then she enrolled her in a private academy. She wanted to do everything she could to make sure the little girl had a normal childhood.
But Alison wasn't normal. Not after that day. Not after what she'd seen.
The town had been fascinated by the story at first, but years had a way of making people forget. Other deaths overshadowed it. Robberies. Murders. Shootings. Fires. The news loved covering the fresh trail of blood, so the DiLaurentis murders became something of an echo in time.
But Alison carried that legacy over the years.
It made her better.
Smarter. Stronger.
It made her into the kind of woman who wouldn't flinch as she hacked off a man's body appendage and callously watched him die.
o ~ O ~ o
Alison DiLaurentis was a surgeon. She was sharp. She was manipulative. She was a seductress.
And thanks to her parents, she was also a killer. All the therapy in the world hadn't bought her sanity. But she was good at fooling the doctors. So good. She was a phenomenal liar. She had fooled everyone her entire life.
No one suspected that she was a monster in the shadows. A hunter. A vigilante for justice. She'd called herself a lot of things over the years.
She stared at the dead body in front of her.
Time to get to work.
Her favorite part was setting the scene after the fact, showing their sins. She had transported him to a field in the cover of darkness. She was always very clever about not leaving behind any trace evidence.
She laid out two pieces of plywood, one shorter than the other. She laid the shorter piece near the top of the longer piece and then secured them, creating a cross. She laid Ian's body against it and pulled his arms out. They were starting to stiffen, but she managed to get them splayed out. She crossed his ankles at the feet and took a step back to admire what she'd done.
She stared at the holes she'd cut into his hands and feet. Then she observed the slashes in his cheek. The moniker was somewhat new. Her previous victims over the years she'd simply slashed their cheeks. But she'd started a new game. So it had new rules.
On the thin skin of his right cheek there was the letter A, perfectly shaped and cut into the skin. It was identical to the A on the cover of the book The Scarlet Letter.
The news had already dubbed her The Scarlet Letter Killer, or SLK, for short. Ian was her third victim in this set of kills, so they would officially know she was back. The cops were already tying the new murders back to her old ones.
Alison made sure she'd left no trace of herself. She was very thorough in cleaning up after herself. Surgeons were pristine people.
She set an alert on her phone that would ping her cell phone when the call came through the police scanner.
Prior to this set of kills she never went back to the scene, but things had changed. Now, she enjoyed watching the scene.
The body had been found three hours later. A couple of teenagers had gone out to the field to sneak a few beers and stumbled across him. It was sooner than Alison was expecting, but it worked out. She didn't have to be at the hospital for her shift until 6 the next morning.
Alison's alert went off and she quickly made her way back to the woods. She watched as the police put the tent up. Light flashes from the photographer lit up the darkness around them.
She pulled out her binoculars and scanned the area. She caught a glimpse of the pretty brunette she'd been waiting for. She'd seen the detective from afar at the previous two crime scenes.
The first person she'd killed in this cycle had been a woman named Talia Standival, an exotic dancer who preyed on little girls. Alison had cut off her fingers so she could never touch a child again. She'd super-glued them, quite sloppily, in a pose that looked as though she was touching herself. Then she left her naked in a field.
The one before that was Sydney Driscoll, a young college athlete who had nearly killed one of her swimming teammates by poisoning her. After some careful investigative work she discovered that Driscoll had been doing it for years to get ahead. In high school one of her teammates had died. Though the autopsy had listed the death as natural causes, Alison knew all too well how easy it was to get your hands on poisons that were undetectable.
Alison hacked off her arms and legs and left them laid spread eagle next to her body by the pool. Her swimsuit was soaked in blood. By the time the police found her the water was tinged red.
Ian was the easiest to kill. His screams were different than the girls. Their screams had bothered her a bit. At least in the sense that she couldn't concentrate. But Ian's screams thrilled her.
She watched as the crime scene investigators combed the area, looking for traces of her. They wouldn't find anything.
Her eyes landed on the detectives near the body. The male put his hand against the female's shoulder.
The touch triggered something in the blonde.
"Let me teach you."
A flash. Then another flash.
"Jason, put your arm around your sister." There was a grunt of disapproval, followed by his heavy arm around her shoulder. "Good. Now, give her a little kiss on the cheek."
"Mooom." He complained.
Alison tugged on the hem of her dress and wriggled her little toes in her dress shoes.
"Alison, smile for the camera, dear."
The rest of the memory was a fuzzy haze. A door sealed shut somewhere in the depths of her mind. She just remembered Jason getting really angry. Then her father was angry.
Alison shook her head and focused on the scene.
The fact that the third victim was a male might confuse them. Though in truth she hadn't planned it that way. She'd always chosen her victims based on strict rules. No one innocent. No children. Only atrocious people. Murderers. Rapists. Child Abusers. People the world would be better off without.
It had been a few years since she had terrorized the town of Rosewood. The officer on the old case had retired. Then again, she'd lost track of it for a while.
She had started up again two months ago when a little girl she saw for a urinary tract infection told her that her dance teacher touched her in funny places sometimes.
When Talia's body had been found Alison noticed that there were new detectives on the case. The brunette had caught her eye that day.
She'd watched as the beautiful bold woman controlled the scene. Her chest filled out her white button up shirt to the point where it looked like her breasts might just pop out. Suspenders crossed down over her shoulders and led down into her tight black pants. Around her waist there was a belt that had several items clipped to it. Her gun. Her badge. Her two-way radio. Her keys.
She'd pulled off her overcoat and wiped some sweat from her brow as she divvied out orders. Everything about her set Alison's nerve-endings on fire. The way she moved. The way she spoke. The command in her tone. It was…invigorating for Alison. Something had stirred in her heart. What was she feeling? Why did this woman call to her?
Who are you?
She locked in on her that day. She couldn't get her out of her head. That night she'd envisioned her in bed. She could picture riding a strap-on as the woman pounded into her mercilessly. She imagined flipping them over and throwing her long tone legs up over her shoulders and slamming into her. But more than that she wanted to hold her. She wanted to feel the detective's body against hers. She wanted to tenderly caress her cheeks and help her come down from her high with gentle butterfly kisses.
What is this feeling that I'm feeling?
Unlike the partners she'd had in the past which were just fucks to pass the time, she wanted more from this woman. But she didn't even know her. How did one woman have so much power?
It's ridiculous. How could it ever work? I'm a killer. She is hunting me.
The thought of it only turned her on more. A predator hunting a predator. It was tantalizing. Her body shuddered and she felt something burning in her groin.
What is wrong with me? Why does she do this to me?
She was great at pretending to feel things. It had been a very long time since she'd actually felt something. It was exciting. It was terrifying. The rush made her lightheaded.
To think, had she not started killing again this beautiful young woman would remain a faceless stranger in a crowd.
The ironic thing is that she hadn't planned on starting up her ritual again. It had just happened. And it had dumped this detective right into her lap. The new kills became about more than just killing and getting justice for those wronged. It was also about the rush of seeing her. Her body. Her glowing bronze skin. Her voluptuous curves.
She never got close enough to see her eyes, but she could sense that the expression behind them was hardened. She'd been weathered by life. Alison felt the strangest urge to protect her. She'd never felt that way before.
Alison looked at the gun and the badge, but they didn't scare her. What scared her was that the detective was a target for criminals because of those items. People out there like the Sydney Driscolls and the Ian Thomases.
I'll never let anyone hurt you, Detective.
Seeing her through binoculars wasn't enough.
God, I want to know her. I want her to know me.
She was so close. Yet so far away.
She needed to get closer.
She just had to figure out how.
Fortunately, fate had something in store for her, though nothing could have prepared her for the day they finally met.
The circumstances surrounding their first meeting would be cataclysmic, something that neither of them would ever forget. It would set them on a wild course. A visceral thrill-seeking ride with sharp curves and steep climbs that would catapult them into the strangest kind of love in the world.
The wily blonde thought that she had everything figured out, who she was...what she was. But that was before Special Detective Emily Fields came into her life and turned everything she thought she knew upside down on its head.
A/N: Before you all start screaming at me, and before anyone asks…yes, as twisted as this beginning is, this *is* a love story. It's just one fucked up ride of a love story. I know this first one was a doozy, but trust me when I tell you you're not going to be disappointed in how this one ends (I hope). Give it a few chapters before you throw a dictionary at my head.