The gravel creaked under the sneakers once she stepped inside the abandoned building. The sound of her own steps scared her, echoing around the mute windows and flowing around the wild plants that were growing high towards the glass ceiling, left there to survive on their own. Silence and darkness were worse inside the greenhouse than outside in the forest: her body kept making strange noises, breathing too hard, beating too fast, stepping too loud on the ground, while the light of the moon passed through the dirty crystal panels and created strange shadows and forms, branches too long that looked like arms reaching out or striking a blow. The place was creepy. It always had been, but it had gotten worse now that she was alone. Even the forest seemed safer than the glass house right now. She wished she could just wait outside, where the darkness and the silence sounded natural and not horror-movie-like. However, any chance of getting a clue or a message or even the much-needed document she was after resided in here.
That was the reason she was in the greenhouse.
She wasn't chickening out.
In lack of a flashlight, Emily used her phone to illuminate the way. Pressing a button every time the screen went off, she saw her phone suddenly shining brighter, signalling either an incoming call or a text. She'd asked the girls not to call, but Spencer had called – three times – when she was walking, almost running towards the place. Even though the phone was on mute mode and Emily didn't hear, the light of the screen showed Spencer's increasing desperation, a slap on Emily's face every time it shone in fear and anxiety. Emily could imagine Spencer screaming at the other end. If she picked up, Spencer's metallic goat-like voice when she was bearing too much on her nerves would screech and rip the air of the night, sending Emily into a completely different mood and situation. She couldn't afford to be distracted now. But she did look at the screen, wanting to know if it was Spencer or A who was calling or sending a text. It was Spencer. This time she'd decided to text, asking her not to go alone, saying she was on her way. On my way. Emily could hardly read the words, lost almost afterway, her eyes already looking everywhere around. Don't go alone. The words somehow stuck to her, cutting the path open to her brain, making the way through her now enhanced sensibility. Wait for me. Her brain seemed to be working full-mode, registering different kinds of information, adrenaline moving her muscles, readying them up for anything that could come up to meet her, forward, backward, connecting neurons on so many levels she didn't know she had, she didn't know if she was imagining them. Em. Almost there, Em. Did Spencer write that? Was Spencer almost here already? She had to warn her not to put herself in danger, but she couldn't start typing right now. She didn't want her eyes to be deceived in the dark, with the screen, under the arm-branches, under the moon-lit cracked glass. She needed her eyes to look everywhere and at everything. But everything was nothing now. Nothing was here, nothing was of use, she saw nothing but shadows and moving, blowing forms, and she was alone, here, with her multitasked, hypersensitive, overcharged brain.
Wait for me.
Emily inspected the cracking pots and the metallic counters where the plants grew wild.
Not only had she not brought a flashlight, she had no weapons either except the adrenaline feeding her heart, lungs and brain. But an excessive breathing and an excessive heart rate would not help her win this fight unless she found something else. But what? It was clear she wasn't going to find a secret rifle or a knife under one pot, left there by a compassionate soul for stalked teenagers who needed them for self-defence. The sense of fear, combined with the nothingness and the everythingness she simultaneously felt inside and outside, was starting to be too intense to bear, contracting her heart at too high a speed, making her sight blurred and weak and seasick before she slightly recovered her breath and made out the color white under one of the tables in the left corner. She approached the whiteness holding her breath, wishing it wouldn't be a hallucination of her brain. But there was no reason for the whiteness to be there in a greenhouse – except A. A was related to it, it was a clue, a message or a document, and the whiteness turned whiter and showed a red shade underneath when she approached it even more, bending down to touch it with her fingers so she'd make sure it was actually there.
Scratching the cement floor to grab its thin border, she took the page and read it.
Numbers and figures and letters and percentages and a doctor's name.
She looked at the back, red ink threatening to reveal what she already knew, what she instantly knew when she scanned the all too black seal at the bottom of the page.
It was a photocopy. It was not an original report.
She slowly started to stand up again, anger rushing to her head to replace the hallucinatory mood, red ink staining her eyes, blowing her nostrils with the sharp intake of air.
Red ink running though her veins.
"I'm keeping the original, Em. You play until you're out.
Or are you ready to die for it? –A"
She stood up completely, thinking fast of a weapon now that she got to see what the whiteness really was. A weapon to fight this thing. A weapon to destroy the glass above her head, to scream, to win at least one battle. One battle. That was all she asked.
She looked around again, scanning the place with her red eyes, and a fast-moving shadow briefly shone like a black shooting star, faded behind the panels, disappearing again into the night.
"Shit."
Emily choked on the word and held her breath again, paralyzed.
A weapon.
A weapon beyond the adrenaline and the red in her veins.
Are you ready to die for it?
She let the air she was holding out, then looked around again in a panic, searching for the shadow, her arms moving up against her chest so she'd be prepared to get physical.
But the shadow didn't yet come back.
The shadow was trying to scare her shitless (and was succeeding).
Or was the shadow a branch? Was it only a product of her imagination? Was the shadow even real, like the page she had found on the ground?
Was all of this a prank, like the one Alison played on them that time in Halloween, like the prank someone else had played on Alison before killing her?
She moved so very slowly, trying not to crack the gravel under her feet, unable to realize the shadow could use the same light of the moon to discover her shape at the other side of the crystal panels.
The shadow was not scared by darkness and silence and the echo a body made inside a glass house.
The shadow was not scared like her.
The shadow was invincible.
A branch moved, or seemed to move. It didn't seem like the shadow, but she wondered again if she was imagining all of this, her eyes so wide and sharpened as the knife she wished she had as a weapon.
A crack sounded, not her own, and her heart stopped dead.
"YOU FUCKING BASTARD, COME OUT!"
Emily yelled with all the air in her lungs, and the glass trembled, reflecting her own fear.
"YOU BITCH!", she rephrased, because it did seem more appropriate to call A a bitch, the same way A kept calling them bitches. "YOU COME OUT, OR ARE YOU THE ONE WHO'S SCARED?"
Surprised at the sound of her voice, high-pitched but strong, she realized, if she was going to be terrified to death, if she was going to die for this in yet another useless effort to become a braver, more efficient and resolute version of herself, she'd better use her voice to speak up to the shadow that was A instead of remaining silent and stupefied again.
Come out.
Come out of your shadow, bastard-bitch shadow.
I'm so sick of this game.
But the shadow stayed in the night outside.
"WHO'S THE WEAKEST LINK NOW?", she yelled again, looking around the panels and wondering if she should go outside the house to search for the shadow under the moonlight. "COME HERE HAVE FUN WITH ME! I'M WAITING FOR YOU, THAT'S WHY I CAME!"
Her voice broke the air in reckless desperation once and again.
She was the weakest link because she'd come here alone and foolishly, but it would take more than a scary shadow to really break her. It was going to take so much more.
She heard another crack and turned to face the back, thinking she'd see the shadow running again.
But she didn't.
Another crack sounded so much louder this time, almost as if a stone had been thrown against one of the windows. The shadow was always so funny, so nice, and she turned around once more to direct her eyes to the door, her muscles moving fast in a defensive gesture to avoid being hit on the back.
Her eyes scanned the darkness, red against black.
The hooded figure was standing outside.
Its shadow was covered by more shadows not entirely like it, not as solid and threatening like it, not as human, not as strangely human like it, and Emily felt paralyzed again.
The shadow gazed back in calm.
But the shadow had no eyes. Emily couldn't see them. She tried, narrowing her own eyes, fighting to distinguish the figure and assign it a body, but she couldn't see eyes or face or hands.
"What do you fucking want from us?"
This time she didn't yell, and her voice sounded small and almost childish.
The voice of the sweetest one.
A lifted its black arm and stretched it in the air.
It took a moment to aim, and Emily didn't understand what A was doing. What was that? Was it a gun? Did this mean she was finally going to die? But what was she dying for? She didn't know yet. She wanted to know. Was it for the HGH report? Was that the reason she came here and exposed herself? Or was it for the game A had set for each of them? Was it planned, programmed from the beginning, was it written for her like a play, was this the end of her game? Or was it her own mistake, her own failed decision, just because she couldn't give the pool up? But the pool… it wasn't that much for her. Sure, it was important, very important, but it wasn't the actual reason she was here, she was dying here. Was it because she would never give Spencer up? Did she want to show that she would never give Spencer up? Did A know that? Did Spencer know that? Or was she the only one who knew it? Did she know it? Destiny was not written in the stars, but inside of her, in her acts. She was dying because of her acts, right? That was why.
Or what was she dying for?
Just because?
No reason.
Just because.
Just because she was once Alison's friend, Alison's lover, Alison's pet.
Was A killing her with a ray-shooting arm?
Not with a shovel, not with a gun, not with a knife.
An arm which was holding nothing but a puff of air.
Spencer would never forgive her if she died like this.
Spencer would never forgive her if she died tonight.
Please forgive me.
But A wasn't shooting a destructive ray against her. Or a gun, or a knife, or a shovel against her. A was taking a picture with its blackmailing phone. It was what A did best. Pictures of them.
A picture of Emily saying goodbye.
One second after aiming at Emily, A lowered its arm and ran away from the house, and Emily started running almost instantly, even before A moved, when she thought she was going to die, before she understood she was just being photographed and not actually shot to death with an arm-weapon; she didn't know how or why, she just started running for her life.
For her life. Against A. After A.
For Spencer.
The muscles in her thighs and calves exploded in unison, all at once elevating her feet from the ground in a splendid sprint that instantly took her out of the house. She stopped there, at the threshold where A had stood before shooting (a picture) at her, and her knees hurt with the sudden stop when her body stuck into the soil like a post, like a banner planted on the moon, the flag of Emily Fields still standing, still alive, still here and ready to fight. She looked again for the shadow, who had disappeared into the night. It had fled, again, as every other time.
Breathing hard, her breath mixed with the air outside without an echo.
I'm not dead yet.
A cloud moved in the sky, allowing the moon to shed its light on the earth.
The shadow turned, running, on the path, far away.
Red eyes, red scanning eyes saw.
Blood in her veins.
She moved again, picking up a rhythm and a wide, powerful stride that sent electricity throughout her legs and arms. She was a runner. All that running she had always done in times of stress, well, maybe she was a better runner than she'd ever thought she was, maybe she was more of a runner than of a swimmer, maybe she was just too good at this game, maybe she was really the best at any kind of sport, at anything, maybe she was just better than A. She was fast. She was an athlete. She had the body of an athlete and she was fast and there was no HGH running in her veins and enhancing her performance, only adrenaline, only pure wrath and an instinct to strike back, to get some kind of revenge, to get this thing done once and forever.
Too many horror movies had told her not to run from the bad guy.
The bad guy always caught up with the girl in the forest, and the girl ended up dead after screaming like a demon.
It was just as good to run after the bad guy.
Of course, horror movies were not to be trusted when it came to actual survival skills, but Emily didn't mind because, in truth, there was a reason to run after the shadow, and it was that the shadow was human, it had a human body, though it was covered in black, and the shadow was running and it wasn't running so fast, because Emily could see it getting closer, turning and striding and turning again, small but closer, the shadow was small. As it got closer, the shadow grew smaller than it looked earlier, and weaker too because it was running from her. It was not this all too powerful, all too destructive shadow with unimaginable skills and superhuman strength and crazy rays that came out of its murderous hands, it was a person dressed in black, running for life, running away with its phone, running away with her HGH report (maybe, but surely not), running away from the game it had set up against Emily, weakest link, sweetest voice, defeated pawn.
Her body hurt with the shocks on her legs, her breathing short and deep and fast.
She was alive.
She was in the game.
She was fast, faster than A knew she was, faster than anyone knew, even her. She was so mad.
The figure kept getting smaller as she ran, and Emily swore she could hear it breathing so hard now. But perhaps it was her own breathing she heard, she wasn't sure.
She calculated the possibilities of grabbing the shadow in the race, of jumping on the shadow and landing on its human body and then what? She had never done anything like this. What if the shadow hit back, what if the shadow did have a knife, or a gun, or a mysterious weapon that would take her down and finally kill her? But she had to jump on the shadow. This wasn't just a race to see she was faster than A. She had to be smarter, and also stronger, and better in every way.
The shadow looked back to check the distance and then turned on the forest, leaving the path.
Emily followed, jumping over a trunk and landing on a mash of autumn leaves. She looked down at the soil and saw her dress rolling up her thighs, but she had no time to fix her appearance. The shadow ran ahead, its figure hiding for an instant behind a tree, then reappearing again against the foliage, moonlight scarce now, leaving Emily again in the dark.
She ran like hell.
Her left sneaker hit a hidden rock and her balance suffered from it, her body wavering a little.
A had entered the forest to gain an advantage, knowing Emily would get to it in the flat.
But Emily was still better.
Maybe even smarter.
She could hear now the shadow's loud breaths and anxious strides on the leaves.
The sound guiding her, she turned on a tree, jumped over a mountain of leaves someone had piled up and caught a glimpse of the shadow flying parallel behind a bush.
It was so close now. So close that every sound stopped, and she didn't hear anything other than her own heart drumming in her ears, telling her she was so close now, so close.
So close.
Only her heart.
She jumped again, trying her luck over another bush in a move too bold because she fell on the ground and bit the dust, the blanket of leaves not so warm and soft as it looked when her feet were using it to propel her drive, thin branches scratching her face and her arms on the flying fall. Instead of sinking in it like she would sink in the mud or in the water, her body rocked hard against the soil and her hand sent a shock of pain from the blow.
She cried out in pain.
Something stood in the way that had caused her to fall.
Instinctively she kicked her leg against it, twisting her body to use her left hand at the form. The form was black, it was the shadow, and her nails clawed on its blackness and grabbed a piece of solid material in her hands, drawing it to her body to make it fall too, but the form kicked her in the leg and then in the chest and she lost her breathing for an instant.
Still the shadow fell, her hands grabbing the black fabric desperately.
She had A.
A had been caught.
A was this small little form kicking its legs and its hands against her. Just one body.
One against one.
The bell tower where Spencer almost died. The car that hit Hanna. The hands around her neck when she got that massage.
Dr. Sullivan's wounded head.
Alison in the forest.
Now it was her who was holding a grip over A.
A silver, metallic shining stole her sight and she felt an intense surge of pain in her right leg and her hands let go of the form for a moment, twisting to grab her damaged leg. The form took the opportunity and fought to stand up, stepping on her already hurt hand and making her cry out in pain again.
She saw the shining shine again and the glimpse made her hide her head behind her arms, curling up like a child, suddenly terrified the shining meant A was holding the much dreaded knife. Body to body, without a weapon she was going to be dead.
Was she ready to die for it again?
When was she going to learn?
It was too late already, too late, but it was so close.
She curled up completely, expecting to be stabbed, but when she didn't feel anything she heard the sound again, A's sneakers sprinting again, making the leaves and the sticks creak on its escape. Once more she followed her instincts and she tried to get up, but the shadow had already disappeared behind other trees, her advantage already lost. She couldn't see anything anymore, she couldn't hear anything anymore, and her leg was hurting now more than her hand. She had a look at it, afraid of what she was going to see. Her stockings were ripped in every way but a trail of blood stained and softly slid over her right thigh. She touched it with her fingers but the cut didn't seem to go deep on her skin, so she started to sit up trying to avoid using her left hand, which was also bleeding because, apparently, she had fallen on a stone that had wounded her palm.
She touched her forehead, which was exploding now in sudden, overwhelming throbs.
More blood.
What the hell had happened?
Standing up, she tried to breathe and think fast.
Where was she now? Was there any chance A was coming back?
She didn't think so.
A had the chance to stab her – or to use whatever weapon A had used against her when they were both struggling on the ground, arms and legs and feet and hands – and it didn't do it, it just used it to disentangle itself from Emily's grip and run.
A wasn't coming back.
She had to get a hold of the girls now. She didn't know exactly where she was, and the girls…
She tried walking. Yes, she could walk. She was fine. Her feet and legs were working.
Her hand touched the phone in the pocket of her jacket. When she retrieved it she had twenty-seven calls from Spencer, Hanna and Aria.
She pushed the call button on Spencer's last call.
Instantly, Spencer's voice sounded metallic and harsh in the silent night.
"Em", she heard Spencer catching her breath, half anxious, half relieved. "Em, where are you?"
She was also breathing so hard, almost as if she'd been running too.
"I'm in the forest", Emily answered, and her voice sounded so thick and hoarse and weird in her ears, she thought there was another person talking, not her. "Where are you?"
She could hear the girls talking in the background.
"Where do you think I am?" Spencer sounded annoyed now, but it was the kind of crazy annoyance she got when things didn't go her way. "In the greenhouse, where you told us you'd be. We're all here." Emily heard Hanna saying something to Spencer. "Where are you? Tell me where you are and we'll go get you."
"In the forest, Spencer."
"Where in the forest?"
She could hear the desperation and the goat-like craziness in her voice now.
"I don't know."
"Are you hurt?"
"No." Well, not really. "I just don't really know how to go back."
"Where did you…?"
She heard Spencer's voice growing distant, the sign of an interruption, and then Hanna's voice sounded in the phone.
"Can you scream so we know where you are and we can all go there kill you?"
Aria's voice sounded in the back. "Han, it's not the right time to joke now."
"I'm not joking", Hanna defended herself.
"Can you please find out where she is?" Spencer's voice screeched. "Or gimme the phone back."
"I…" Emily tried to say, but she didn't know who was now on the other end. "Spencer."
"It's Hanna, and I'm gonna kill you if you don't scream right now so we know where you are."
Emily didn't really know if yelling was a good idea. What if A came back?
"I can't scream. What if A comes back for me?"
"Are you hurt?"
Now she could hear also Hanna's desperation.
"No, not that much, but…"
"Fuck", she heard Spencer yell in the background.
"What?"
That was probably Aria again.
"She's fucking hurt", Spencer screeched again. "She's fucking hurt!"
"I'm not hurt", Emily tried to assure Hanna.
"Can you walk?", Hanna asked.
"Yeah."
"Well, move your ass, I'm gonna be the one who screams so you can hear me."
"No, don't scream, Han, what if A…"
"Emily, we need to find you."
She turned around, trying to remember the direction she had followed. The bush over which she jumped before she fell, or before she got trapped in A's ambush. She probably wasn't that far from the path, because it had all happened so quickly.
"Emily, just scream, okay?" This was Spencer again. "We need to get to where you are. In what direction did you walk?"
She took a step towards the bush.
"I think I can trace…" The moonlight shone again in the sky and something reflected the light between the leaves under the bush. "Fuck."
"What? Is something wrong?"
Panic in Spencer's voice.
"There's something here."
"Emily, just give me a fucking sign."
She bent down. Was it the knife?
"Emily…"
It wasn't the knife.
It was the phone.
A's phone.
It had fallen during the fight.
"Spencer."
"What's wrong?"
"I need to get out of here", she blurted out, her voice thicker and more hoarse now with the excitement. "I got A's phone."
She grabbed it with her other hand, the one that was bleeding, and started running in the direction she thought she had followed to get here.
"Let me go get you." Spencer seemed overanxious only about hearing her finally move, not about what she had said about the phone. "Are you in the path already? Did you go south?"
She could also hear her run.
"Did you hear what I just said?", Emily asked, catching her breath. "I have A's phone."
"A's phone", Spencer repeated almost as if she didn't really understand a word. "Are you badly hurt, Em?"
"No."
It took her a couple of minutes to make out the path she had left to chase after A.
"I'm in the path."
"I don't see you."
She climbed up on the path, leaving behind the blanket of leaves, the bushes and the trunks.
The trail of blood was drying up on her thigh. Her short dress had completely rolled up and was sort of ripped too. What a waste.
She had A's phone.
One battle.
Just one battle.
The forms of the girls appeared in the distance, Spencer's long arrow running towards her first, followed by Aria's tiny, speedballing form and by Hanna's blonde screams.
She walked towards them, feeling suddenly exhausted.
Their arms wrapped around her body, Spencer inspecting the blood on her head and her hand and her thigh, Aria holding her by the waist to help her walk.
Someone took the phone from her hand.
"It's A's phone", she warned, not really wanting to give it up, "I got it."
It was Hanna. She was looking at it in amazement.
"A's phone. It's cracked."
The screen was cracked.
"It's A's fucking phone, Han", Emily almost screamed, "it's not cracked."
"What if A calls us?", Hanna asked. Then she looked at Emily's dress and smeared make-up. "Why are you dressed like this? Did you have a date with A so you could make a pretty corpse, Emily?"
Emily rolled her eyes, but stole a glance at Spencer, who was silently holding her hand.
"I'll tell you guys in the car, can we just get out of here?"
"Not if you don't explain why you got into a catfight with A, Em."
"This is not a tattoo, Han", Emily exasperatedly pointed at her thigh, "this is blood on my skin, okay? This wasn't a catfight. I was actually cut, I was..."
"Don't you think we know?", Hanna screamed back. "We are looking at you here, Em, you look like you fucking came from the war in a sexy dress. We were fucking going crazy over there when we didn't see you and we saw the HGH thing with the message saying you were going to die and..."
So she had probably dropped the HGH photocopy in the greenhouse before running after A, and they had found it there.
"Guys", Aria pleaded, trying to impose some reason, "let's go."
"Aren't you mad at her?", Hanna glared at Aria.
"Well, of course, yeah", Aria explained, shooting an apologetic glance to Emily, "but I'm just glad we got her and now we really do need to leave this place. And she got A's phone."
Emily sent a grateful look to Aria, who seemed to be her only ally right now.
"And she almost died getting it!"
"A's not gonna call now", Spencer abruptly deadpanned, her voice flat and cold, "so we need to get out."
"Aren't you gonna finish A's job?", Hanna asked Spencer. "Can I do it for you?"
Spencer didn't reply. She just let go of Emily's hand and approached Hanna, taking the phone from her.
"Spencer, Em's right", Aria tried to advise the others, "we need to get out in case A comes back for the phone."
Aria figured the voice of reason would somehow make it to Spencer's still too-shocked-and-scared brain.
"Thanks, Aria", Emily said aloud now, missing Spencer's hand in hers. "We can't be here if A comes back. We need to figure out what to do with the phone."
The glance Spencer shot Emily was a mixture between hurt and icy cold.
"We first need to figure out what to do with your wounds", she sharply replied, all accusing eyes.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
"Spencer." Emily walked towards where Hanna and Spencer were standing with the phone. "We have the phone. We have A."
Spencer didn't say a word in response.
But then she looked at the phone in her hand and Emily could see this tiny glint of excitement in Spencer's eyes. This tiny, shiny glint, hidden behind the hurt and the ice and the deep anguish she'd endured tonight – again.
A clue.
A clue against A.
The first one in months. The most important one they ever got.
Spencer looked up, briefly returning Emily's gaze before grabbing Hanna's hand to drag her away. They all headed towards the cars that were parked in the road, exhausted, cold silence overtaking their walk back to town, back to life.
A/N: So this was my poor attempt at an action scene as well as my take on badass-Emily. I'm sorry I couldn't include Hanna hitting A with her car, that was so good. Anyway, if you wanna see a really good action scene you can check chapter 8 of "The Duplicate" by elmopll, it's Emily running after A too, and I tried not to re-read it so I wouldn't consciously plagiarize it ;)
I wanna say BIG THANKS for your wonderful and very funny reviews last chapter. I see flirty Emily's a winner LOL
sieamberc: :))) The Nemo comment made me laugh so hard! I totally agree: Nemo / Shark. I really enjoy writing Emily's changes, how she deals with her insecurities and how she's becoming stronger and confident thanks to them too. But, yes, Spencer... You'll have to wait for next chapter, even for the next chapters to see whatever's gonna happen in this department... ;) But did you see you were right in your previous insights? It was Emily who faced off to A...
TieMeDownToYourSoul: :))) Thanks! And I'm sorry for the late update!
LaughLoveLiveXx: I totally agree A's more of a girl-bitch, and I did try to include that insight in this chapter ;) I try to be as bitchy as I can when writing A. So, in regards to A, I'm not sure this chapter was entirely satisfying, but I did want Emily to surprise A, to make A weaker so A would finally stop being this mythic figure and started being seen as an actual person. And I wanted Emily to do that, because the confrontation A-Emily is part of this fic. And I wonder if it's not also an important part of the show.
Waves of Rage: Emily should spend lots of time in the show picking up girls!
x-sugarfree-x: LOL! I agree she might have enjoyed it a little too much, but you saw she was only after the phone number and she fled away as soon as she got it, so she's still good!
elmopll: Yeah, I wonder too why Emily hasn't thought of Mona yet... ;) As for Spencer... we'll see, we'll see.
snakeyninja: Don't worry, we're gonna see plenty of drama and it's gonna be bitchy at some point... but it's not gonna come in one single chapter.
IxHeartxGlee: It was really interesting to write Emily flirting so outrageously with someone who wasn't Spencer. I felt almost guilty about it!
Mona: :))) We'll see more of Spencer's reaction next. But I think you guys got a hint she's not that happy...
socrplayr44: Exactly! There comes a consequence when taking a risk; and Emily has to learn to take it. She wants to... but we'll see how it goes for her.
Maxi-Luca: Oh, as I told you, big drama is coming... slowly though. And yeah, I actually liked Claire a lot while I was writing her. But she's not coming back, I think LOL Maybe I should write a parallel fic for Paige and her xDDD And, yes, I love how the PLL crew are gaying Emily up! With the clothes and the pictures of girls she always keeps in her phone... funny!