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Aria's POV

Buzz… Buzz… Buzz…

My phone went off for the tenth time in the past hour, this time, fully waking me up. I picked it up and glanced at the caller ID: Home. I swiftly clicked ignore and dropped the phone back into the cup holder beside my seat.

"Where are we?" I yawned, as I stretched out my arms.

Ezra clicked on the GPS, bringing it to life. A map popped up, showing us our exact location.

"We're in Manis. Almost a hundred thirty miles from Rosewood." He said, pointing to the map.

I let out a sigh as I sunk back into the leather cushion of the seat. I could not believe that we were actually doing this. Ezra and I actually left Rosewood to get away from A. How could one person have such a huge affect on four teenage girls? Albeit Hanna, Spencer, Emily, and I were not angels, we were not that bad of people, were we? Sure I ended up falling in love with my high school English teacher and getting pregnant at sixteen, but Ezra and I were soul mates. Fate brought us together at Snookers so many months ago, and fate kept us together by making Ezra my teacher. And yeah, Emily was gay, but so were plenty of other girls. Hanna had bulimia, but she was not the only girl in the world who was insecure about her weight. Hanna used to struggle to fit in, but so did a countless number of other people. And Spencer, she may have kissed one or two of her sisters' past boyfriends, but Melissa must not have truly loved any of them, or else she would have taken them back, even after they cheated. If they were mean to be, they would have ended up together. Just like Ezra and I. We have been through hell and back, yet we still are together and madly in love with each other.

If Alison were still alive, would A still be stalking us? Would any of this have happened?

No, it wouldn't have. Because I went to Snookers the day I got back from Iceland just to waste some time. If Alison had still been alive, I would have gone to hang out with the girls, not to be alone at a local Rosewood pub. If Alison had still been alive, the girls and I would not have lost touch with each other the summer before our Junior year.

And even if I had gone to Snookers after dropping Mike off at lacrosse practice, I would not have ended up falling in love with Ezra, because Alison was the reason Ezra and I started talking to each other in the first place. If Alison's missing poster was not hanging up on the bulletin board in that pub, then Ezra never would have asked me if I was okay. Meaning we never would have talked, and we never would have gotten together.

For the first time in my life, and as wrong as it sounds, I was so thankful that Ali had gone missing.

I looked over to Ezra. I loved him so much, and I could not bear to lose him. Now that Lucy was in our lives, it was so important to me that he would always be there. For both Lucy and I.

"Aria, are you okay?" Ezra asked me. He glanced at me with a worried look on his face. I knew that I could not let him worry too much about me. We both knew that this was hard on both of us.

"Y-yeah." I assured him, giving him a small smile.

A moment of silence followed, before I spoke again.

"Ezra, thank you… For doing this with me. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you." I whispered to him.

He immediately took my hand in his free one. "I love you, Aria, and I promise that I will never leave you."

"I love you too, Ezra." I whispered.

He slowed the car as we reached a red traffic light. He leaned over to give me a kiss, in reassurance that he would always protect me.

"Do you want to stop and get anything?" Ezra asked me, as he pulled away. He pointed towards a shopping center that was nearby. "I bet they're still open."

I glanced at the GPS of the car, in search for the time. It read 9:42 in bright green numbers.

"Sure."

I shifted my body in the seat so I could take a look at Lucy. She was sleeping peacefully in her car seat, her chest rising and falling with each breath she took. She was so beautiful. Angelic, even. Her light skin contrasted her dark hair so perfectly, that she truly looked too beautiful to be true.

"Is she asleep?" Ezra glanced in the front mirror to look at Lucy in the back seat.

"Yeah, we need to feed her in about two hours though… The formula's in my red bag in the trunk." I informed him.

Buzz… Buzz…

The screen of Ezra's phone lit up signaling a text. Ezra lifted it out of the cup holder next to mine that it was sitting in and opened up the text.

I heard him suck in a breath, as he stopped the car at another red light.

"Ezra, what's wrong?" I asked, looking at him in confusion.

Wordlessly, he held his phone up to me so I could read the text that lit up the screen.

"You can run but you can't hide. –A" I recited out loud.

"Ari-" Ezra began.

"Is A following us?"

"Well obviously they know we left town." Ezra said softly.

"How the hell did A even get your number?" I asked angrily.

"No idea." He said. "But Aria, I was thinking," Ezra began hesitantly, as he glanced at me before looking back at the road. "We should probably get new cell phones."

"So A can't text us anymore?" I asked hopefully, as I brought my legs up to the seat and curled my legs to my chest.

He nodded in response.

"We should have done that the day all this started." I said.

"Well you didn't know how dangerous A actually was back then." He reminded me.

Buzz… Buzz… Buzz…

My phone rang once again and I let out a sigh as I picked it up again. I looked at the caller ID: Home. I felt my eyes welling up with tears as I held my vibrating phone in my hands. I had two options: I could click ignore once again and force my parents to continue worrying over Ezra, Lucy, and I even more, or I could answer the phone. Answering the call would lead to me having to confess about where we were, why we left Rosewood, and all about A. I knew that confessing about A would lead to even more disaster, probably ending in my death.

Actually… A's desires are to hurt me. A could care less about my family and friends if they had no connections to me. A wouldn't kill me. A would rather see me in pain, and hurt everyone I care about, then see everyone I care about in pain. A wants to hurt me.

I shook my head and took a deep breath, before swiftly pressing ignore. I closed my eyes as I felt fresh, hot tears fall down my cheeks.

What did I do to deserve to go through this misery? Who wanted to hurt me so badly? Why couldn't the world be the happy place my parents had told me it was when I was a little girl? Why couldn't people just forget the past?

I felt Ezra's thumb brush against my cheek as he wiped away one of my stray tears. I finally opened my eyes as I dropped my phone back into the cup holder.

Ezra wordlessly took my left hand in his right, intertwining our fingers together. He brought our fingers up to his mouth, before he softly pressed his lips to my knuckles. I closed my eyes as I shifted in my seat so I was leaning against his body, with my head resting on his shoulder.

"Aria, we're here." I heard Ezra whisper softly, moments later.

I slowly opened my eyes, as they adjusted to the bright lights. I picked up my phone from the cup holder and slid it into my back pocket, before unbuckling my seatbelt and getting out of the car.

Ezra opened up the passenger door to get Lucy as I opened up the trunk to get my purse. As I slung it over my shoulder, Ezra told me that Lucy was awake.

Ezra was watching me, as he held Lucy against his chest. He had wrapped her up in her pink blanket.

I took Ezra's free hand in mine before looking around the parking lot. A few cars were scattered in spaces all around us, belonging to late night shoppers, who like Hanna, loved to shop until the stores kicked you out because they were closing.

I held Ezra's hand tighter in mine as I realized that A could be watching us right now.

We walked through the sliding doors in entrance to the mall. I followed Ezra as he led me to a map.

"Right there." I pointed to the AT&T store that was located near Nordstrom on the other side of the mall.

"Do you think they're still open?" I asked as we passed by the Guess store, where a woman was shutting off the lights, as she started to close the store.

"No idea." He replied.

We walked into the vacant phone store a few minutes later. Standing at the counter was a tired young woman who appeared to be in her early twenty's. She was mindlessly flipping through a magazine.

"What can I do for you tonight?" She asked, looking up at Ezra and I from the magazine.

"We need two new phones. Preferably prepaid?" Ezra asked, looking at me.

"Yeah." I nodded in affirmation.

"Well why don't you take a look over there and find two that you like, and I'll find two numbers for you." She smiled at us, before turning to her computer.

Ten minutes later, Ezra and I had activated two new prepaid phones under phony names, and had deactivated our old ones.

"A can no longer contact us." I said triumphantly as we walked out of the store.

"Hopefully this will all be over soon." Ezra sighed.

I felt a little bit better as we made our way through the mall and back into the parking lot.

Ezra buckled Lucy back into her car seat, before sliding into the drivers seat beside me.

"Where to now?" He asked me, as he took my hand in his again.

"Uh," I said as I tried to stifle a yawn. "Why don't we try and find a hotel to stay the night?"

Ezra clicked a few buttons on his GPS, before finding out that an Embassy Suites was nearby.

"How far should we go before we can safely go back home?" I asked Ezra sadly.

"I don't know baby. I don't know." He sighed.

We pulled up to the front doors of the hotel ten minutes later. I sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting room with Lucy in my arms as Ezra talked to the receptionist in search of a room for us.

Ezra appeared by my side a few minutes later, holding two room keys in his hands.

"We're room 316 on the third floor." He gave me a small smile before leading me to the elevator.

As we entered the room, I was surprised that a crib was already placed in the far corner of the room. I turned to Ezra, confused on how it got there.

"They must be fast." He shrugged, motioning to our few bags that had been placed on the bed.

Ezra held his hands out for Lucy. "Why don't you make her a bottle?"

"Yeah." I nodded, as I dug through my red bag in search for a baby bottle and formula. I picked up the two items and took them into the bathroom. I unscrewed the cap of the baby bottle and filled it up with water, before measuring the correct amount of formula and dumping the contents of the measuring cup into the bottle. I screwed the cap back onto the bottle, before turning on the tap and holding the bottle under the hot water to warm the milk.

I looked up at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red and puffy, but thankfully, my waterproof mascara had done its job.

These past few months had been the hardest I have ever had to endure. With finding out that Maria was not Ezra's daughter, to Lucy being born so premature and everything she ended up going through, along with the fact that A currently holds the power to send Ezra to jail, and that Ezra and I had to run away from Rosewood in order to escape A, I was surprised how I was actually functioning. I knew that I never would have been able to get through any of this, had Ezra not been by my side the whole time.

I touched my finger to the bottle to check if it was warm enough. I dried it off with a towel and walked back into the main room. Ezra was sitting in a chair near the window holding Lucy, whose big brown eyes were wide open, in his arms.

"I changed her." Ezra informed me, as I handed him the lukewarm bottle. He put it to Lucy's lips, and she eagerly started drinking. When she was done, Ezra set the bottle down on the end table and laid Lucy down in the crib so she could sleep.

I sat down on the arm of the chair and looked out the window. It held a great view of the town of Rosewood.

"It looks so innocent." I said softly.

"It is." Ezra responded, coming up behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder as he too, gazed out the window at the small town.

I looked at him questioningly. How could he say something like that after everything we have been through? Rosewood was a monster.

"The people inside of it are the problems." Ezra clarified when he saw the way I was looking at him.

He released me from his grip but took my hand in his and gently pulled my body towards him, as a signal for me to follow him. He sat down on the chair and pulled me into his lap. I curled my body against his and he wrapped one of his arms protectively around me. He started stroking my hair in a comforting manner with the other. I had to admit; being in Ezra's arms was my safe haven. He was my shield. When I was with him, I knew that he would protect me and that A had a smaller chance of hurting me, then when I was alone. I looked up at Ezra, to see that he was watching me.

"Aria, I love you." He said softly. "So much."

"Me too." I leaned up so I could press a kiss to his lips. He gently kissed me back, but held me tighter against him, as if reassurance that he would always protect me.

When I pulled away, I rested my head against Ezra's chest and closed my eyes, wishing for the day when all this A drama would be over.

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