A/N: Just finished this chapter! The girls meet up to discuss the new A and things don't go as planned, Spemily has a small therapy session and there is an A clue. I wonder who on the show likes Breakfast At Tiffany's? Cece, Aria, Ezra, even Ali. Review and leave who your current suspect is
"I feel like someone has shot up my veins with hot sauce." Hanna ran her perfectly manicured hands through her honey blonde hair, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Spencer shot her a fiery look, annoyed by her seemingly naive comparison.
"Hot sauce really? Arsenic is more like it, Han. Do you just not get it? A's back, Mona's , how the hell are we supposed to explain to Zach why there was a message from some vandal who goes by a scarlet letter alias?" She stared intently at her double sugared, large cup of hazelnut coffee, as if it would have the answers to the girls predicament. Aria sat perched on the corner stoll in the Apple Rose Grille, her face had lost all color and the once neon pink of her feather earrings seemed dim. Emily, the constant mediator of the group, grasped Hanna's hand in her own, a worried look plastered on her face.
Briskly moving to the chair directly across from Spencer's, Emily tugged the coffee cup from her hand, safely moving the caffeine from her on-edge friend. She knew that if she could help Spencer with anything, it would be with the crippling stress, Emily knew was coming. "Don't think like that, it could all just be a hoax. Practically everyone in this town knows what that Mona monster did to us. She's locked up anyway." The way she said it, it was as if Emily was trying to convince herself of those facts, not Spencer.
"She was locked up last time she started up the game, what's to say that psycho won't go back to her old tricks? I bet Mona's beheading dolls as we speak." Aria spoke up for the first time in that afternoon, a sharpness and sass in her tone. Looking up from her furious salad chewing, Hanna rolled her eyes slightly, Aria always had a knack for making things extra morbid.
"Thanks Aria, you're really little miss sunrays today." She countered, sliding a whole avocado slice around her plate, absentmindedly.
"Hanna, while I enjoy your grade A comebacks, it's little miss sunshine. Like the movie with Abigail Breslin." Spencer corrected Hanna like she always did, unlike Melissa, she rarely used her intelligence as a way to manipulate others, but sometimes with Hanna, it just happened.
"Whatever Spencer, I have some ideas of who could be behind this, if you want to listen." Pleasantly surprised, Spencer and Emily nodded in near unison, something they did quite often. "I've made a list on my phone, it goes in order like this: Cece, Jenna, Noel, and.." Hanna stuttered for a second, a quiver in her voice. "And Alison." The table grew silent as the name of their former ring leader fell from Hanna's apple red lips.
Spencer was the first to object to this seemingly absurd theory, "Han, take a few steps back, you and all of us know that Ali is dead. D-E-A-D, dead as a doornail, the sooner you let go of your insane theories and heartache, the better." With that, the slender brunette stood up and promptly strutted out of the restaurant, leaving her Italian panini cold on her plate. Emily jolted out of her seat to follow Spencer, hoping to calm her down.
Cold, tiny droplets of rain drenched the Main Street as Spencer speed walked through the sidewalk, her white button up blouse getting soaked. "Listen to me, I get that you're stressed but all of us are. You can't just run away everytime Hanna has a crazy theory, we're a team and we have to stick together. Look, do you think I believe Ali is alive?" Hearing those three words, she turned her damp head of dark curls toward Emily.
"Really Em? To be completely honest, sometimes I doubt that. I'm always afraid that the facts are right in front of me, but I'm too blinded by the overtly obvious things." Her hands sat firmly on her denim covered hips, as white hot lightning crackled overhead.
"Your weakness is your inability to see what has been there the whole time Spence, we all get that." Emily felt a sudden rush of heat to ears and cheeks, but now was not the time to be questioning her emotions, so she let it go. "I have weaknesses, Hanna does, Aria does. But if anyone can solve this, it's you." Spencer made her way toward Emily, the corners of her lips were turned up, the tiniest clue of happiness.
"I should just start calling you Dr. Emily now, huh?" She looped her sopping wet arm through Emily's, leading her back toward the Grille. "All you need is a mustache and your own talk show."
As Emily opened her mouth to respond, Spencer had an A related lightbulb in her brain. "What do Cece Drake, Mona, and Ali's family all have in common?" In that moment, she knew that Emily was thinking the same thing as her.
"Radley!" They both shouted, that was one of the many reasons they were best friends.
"You know what we have to do." Spencer cryptically told Emily, as words and thoughts of lock picking swam through her head…
The poetic words of Truman Capote played from a rickety old tape as a black hooded person sewed away rigorously, the thread wobbling at the end of the needle. They were constructing a plush rag doll, its sewn on silky black hair and signature forehead crease shown in the lamp light. Next to this horrid thing were three more ragdolls, all different yet frighteningly similar. One was lean with a miniature black hoodie on and piercing blue buttons for eyes, he had a metallic hammer in his left hand. To the left, was a smaller female doll with a broad frame and blunt bangs, she wore a Rosewood Sharks jacket, in teal of course. The most detailed doll was the last one, he had a custom made plaid vest on, with a well put together nest of dark hair, he held a page from "Lolita" in his pale hand. As the figure admired these dolls, they plunged intensely sharp needles into the girl, the carpenter doll, and of course, the one with the long hair. Yet they put aside the plaid clad one, they were saving it for later...