"Ali," Em whispered softly, "you're not saying anything." The brunette waited for more words to spill from Alison's mouth.

Alison shook her head as if to shake away the trance she was in, "I'm sorry, I just, I don't know how to start."

"Just...um, close your eyes and think of anything; like something you feel like you can hold on to and start there, fill it in as you go."

Alison took another deep breath and then an idea came to her, "I've got it."

She stood walked a few steps ahead and crouched down to pick a dusty book off of the floor.

"Dickens?"

"Yeah," Ali smiled and sat down, "so I'm changing a word, but there is a quote I remember that I think...fits, to say the least."

Emily simply smiled, encouraging Alison to go on. She sensed the heaviness of the situation, that Alison was hurt before and it changed her and it was taking a lot in her to open up now to a practical stranger. Emily felt incredibly important in that moment, that she was able to make someone probably so scarred open up old wounds again.

And this time when Alison spoke, her eyes were closed:

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what my heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."

Emily knew a lot about Great Expectations, so she definitely recognized the quote. She sat staring over what she could make of Alison's facial features from the dying light of the flashlight and she smiled sadly, her heart felt heavy in her chest, filled with sympathy for the blonde, making it harder to look away once Alison opened her eyes again.

"Emily I grew up in California, it's always sunny where I lived but my whole life all I've remembered was pain and deceit and something dark in the people around me. Chapter one isn't really a chapter so much as a summarization of me, who I am and why. Since I was young, my mother taught me to be ruthless, how to tell a lie and how to keep one a secret, how to manipulate them to get what I want even if that meant hurting someone else. I learned how to use people's secrets against them and make them fear me. That was my life, and I didn't question it, I was afraid to, but I know I didn't want it. I didn't want to become her, but I was good at being bad, and I hardly got hurt so I felt safe behind my bitterness.

"My mom was all I had really. She worked from home and didn't really pay any attention to my older brother Jason, as soon as he turned 18 he left and no one stopped him, he didn't even tell me goodbye. And I tried not to be like my mom, but she told me I was all she had, she needed me to stay sane. She played me, gave me the pathetic story about how no one wants her company, even my dad. He was a politician and was always working; I hardly even remember what that man looks like. I was young, I loved my mother, so of course I did what she asked me to, I was who she wanted me to be, I thought I was being a good daughter, not realizing I was turning into a rotten person for it.

"Still, I had dreams, I had a plan. When I turned 18, I wanted to move out, go to college somewhere far where fall looked like fall and it got cold enough to stay in some winter nights bundled into a blanket with a good book and even better company. That turned out to be all it started as...just a dream.

"My parents didn't let me apply to a college any more than 50 miles away and who was I to go against that, I was young, I didn't have a job, no money and no plan B, so I stayed in town and I went to a local community college. I started studying English and Education. When I turned 20 I had saved up enough to leave and go to an actual university in Michigan but again, my parents had other plans.

"My dad was trying to run for mayor and one of his biggest supporters who also happened to have one of the deepest wallets in town was the city's police department director and his wife was a CEO for . Before I decide to leave, he got invited to a dinner at this fancy bar, and my dad knew if he was going to get any financial support for his campaign, he would have to go to it. We were all invited as a family, so I thought it would be nice to go out with my parents for once before I left."

Emily sat, completely captivated by the blonde before her, everything about the way she told her story made Emily feel closer to her and although Alison had said her past was dark, Emily could see a bright soul; only it was trapped in her past.

"So we all got dressed up and met the Richards family that night. Little did I know, that was when my nightmare would start." Alison closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, dampening her nerves before she continued.

"So I went and it was nice, no, who am I kidding, it was boring as hell. I excuse myself and sat at the bar, just the talk about politics and campaign tactics, it was too much for me to sit and nod and smile like I knew what the hell was going on, much less give a damn.

"I was only 20, underage still, so I just sat at the bar for a while, staring at the ridiculously expensive counter and the buttoned up men and snobby women and I waited for the dinner to end. It wasn't until someone actually approached me to offer me a drink that I started getting some attention from the older single men in suits and ugly ties. I hated it but I made the choice to just turn them all down until it was over.

"That's when Michael came in. I didn't see him at first but he was a force to be reckoned with, when he walked in, you could almost feel his energy, he commanded the space around him and I was no different. He was tall, somewhat handsome I guess and he seen me looking at him. That was the first mistake I wish I didn't make. When he looked at me, he smiled this half-crooked smile and walked straight towards me."

Emily knitted her brows and watched the way Ali would run the palms of her hands methodically over the fabric of her pants, pressing the heel of her palms into her thighs when she was done. She did that over and over, it was like a calming mechanism and Emily felt herself draw anger towards this Michael person.

"He came and sat right next to me, ordered two different drinks and insisted that I have a drink with him. I wanted to say no, but he wouldn't talk it. Michael never takes no for an answer," Alison reflected and felt a cold shiver run down her spine, "so I agreed, I drank with him and he started talking, about everything. I thought he was charming. All we exchanged were first names and stories about our past and plans about of futures. He thought it was ridiculous to leave California, he said that all I'd ever need was right in front of me."

Em caught on the double meaning and she questioned if hearing this was the best idea.

"Alison, if you don't want to talk about it, you don't," Emily offered sweetly but Alison rejected.

"Don't be foolish Emily, I can't stop now. You want to know what happened next?" Alison paused, although it was a rhetorical question.

"Emily, he left after hours of just talking about whatever, I let him know me, my name, where I was from, who my parents were and what they did, I told him my plan all after just a few drinks. I thought it was fun, I was passing the time, it wouldn't cost me anything. But nothing is free Emily, and by the end of the night, I knew nothing about him, except he was ambitious, confident, charming and he made me laugh, and I liked that."

Alison tilted her head back in a mocking laugh, "I didn't even see him great his parents, who just so happened to be there, on the way in or out. But my plan was still set: I wanted to leave the next week to Michigan. Only I didn't. The next day, my dad gets a phone call from Mr. Richards. He wanted to donate over a million dollars towards the campaign for my dad's running for office. Great news, right?

"No," she answered herself, "not for everyone because like all deals that sound too good to be true, it was. There was a catch, there always is, and it was me. I was the catch. Turns out the older man I met the night before was Michael Richards, the son to my dad's biggest would-be supporter. Well, where's the twist, why is that bad?

"In order for my dad to get his hands on that money, I had to stay in town, seems like Michael was keen on seeing me again and he told his daddy just how to do that. I was flattered but Michael was just one man, I barely knew him. I tried to leave but my parents...they wouldn't let me. My dad promised I could leave once the election was over. I pushed off going to a real university for him, I was convinced I would only miss one semester.

"Of course I was bitter, I hated Michael for it, he was 26 and I was only 20, he could have had anyone else in there...but his family had power and I knew if they wanted to ruin mine, they would. I had to protect the little family I did have, no matter how sad and pathetic and cruel they were. I made that sacrifice...I didn't know that 6 years later I would have paid more than just one semester at Michigan State."

Emily couldn't meet Alison's face but her voice wasn't as paralyzed, "what happened next?"

"It sounds cliché, I know, but I fell for him. I was so used to being treated like garbage and a puppet that I mistook his possessiveness about me for love. I thought him buying me things was to show that I was worth it, but no, he was just burying me in gifts so I wouldn't dig my way out...and I was shallow enough to fall for it. I thought I was free finally, but I was thrown under someone else's control."

"What about when the election was over?"

"I couldn't leave, Michael told me he loved me, I could be his wife one day, I didn't need to leave to be happy. And damn it, I believed him, I let him be my first Emily," Alison couldn't hide the single tear that slid down her face. "I let him be there for me, I let him think and make decisions because it was easier if I didn't have to. My parents were ecstatic, they started treating me like an actual daughter and I thought it would never get anywhere better: the grass was greener on my side. I didn't have a reason to leave."

"Alison," Emily played with the pockets of her pants, "how did you get in here?"

Alison swallowed and rubbed her hands against her pants again, taking a few deep breaths to compose herself, something that Emily noticed she had to do a lot.

"I took a part-time job waiting tables and volunteering at the elementary school as a tutor. Michael, well, he decided to join the task force, he trained and he told me he was going to run everything one day, that we'd be set for life once he made it to the top, his dad would make sure of it. Only thing was, he couldn't pass his tests, he had a history with smoking and his health wasn't where it should've been. Of course that didn't stop him. With the convenient help of his father and 2 and a half years later he was in the running for becoming the director of the OCPD.

"His arrogance must've got to him because after that, something in him changed. I thought maybe he was just stressed you know, but then he turned mean, and he stopped coming home on time...to the place he bought us. He clothes started to small like cheap bars and someone else's perfume. I was in denial because he had been so good to me. But I wasn't happy anymore, I started to realize that I had plans once too. I remembered I wanted more than just making Michael look good, being there when it was most convenient for him.

"The first time I tried to leave, I asked my parents for some money for a plane ticket, they laughed in my face and they thought I was losing my mind. My mother's exact words were: you're never going to find anyone better, don't ruin your life by going after some childish dream. My dream was childish. I even told Michael I was getting tired but he begged me to stay, he said he's change, it was just how busy he was at work and all the pressure his dad was putting on him.

"I should've seen his lies in those beady little eyes of his, but he promised he would get better, he used that word again, he said he loved me. And when I asked about the late nights at bars, he looked me in the eyes and said my skin was the only one he ever touched." Alison's jaw clenched and angry tears of betrayal flooded her eyes, just a blink of an eye from spilling over onto her pale skin.

"I let him in again Emily, I was naïve and I trusted him...that was until I found phone in his pants one night that I was doing the laundry. Maybe it was wrong of me to do it, but I looked through his phone," Alison's voice hitched in her throat and she tilted her head back, making sure she wouldn't let herself cry over him anymore, "and I found a number he was calling frequently late at night and I knew I couldn't ignore it anymore. But how could I bring this up to his face? Maybe the number wasn't enough. What I did next is the reason I'm here."

x-x-x-x

"Caleb Rivers," a man's voice spoke softly through muffled speakers and Caleb looked up. He had little memory of what had happened, but waking up with bright lights shining in his face wasn't ideal to the incessant throbbing he had all over his face and head.

"Ugh," he groaned, trying to move but wincing once he felt some cold metal cutting through the skin of his wrists. He twisted his wrists and the cold metal was soon met with his warm blood. He was cuffed to a chair and that was all he knew.

"Why, Mr. Rivers I've had fun learning all about you, watching your, what? Soon to be wife right? That's probably my favorite part, robbing you of what could be, just like me, and I'd love to see her happy, she's a beautiful woman, but you see, she isn't playing by my rules, so I think I'm going to have to make sure she listens. After all, she's my revenge on you...an eye for an eye, if you will."

Caleb's body tensed painfully upon hearing whoever held him captive threaten Hanna, the unknown voice continuing to echo in his head.

"Leaveheralone," It came out strained and muffled into one word.

"I' m sorry, I think the gag you're choking on might be a little tight. Wait one moment."

Caleb turned his head around, trying to see passed the blinding white lights, but he couldn't; all he could do was sit in what he assumed was a room with broken speakers and white lights and pray that whoever was coming was done torturing him. His muscles ached everywhere, he was hungry, thirsty and cold.

He forgot about that when a door behind him opened and it creaked loudly, slamming just as loudly shut. The sound of big heavy boots were getting closer until he felt a rough hand grab his hair and yank his head back painfully.

"Oh c'mon Caleb, why don't you smile for Hanna? She's gonna love this."

It was the last thing he heard before the red blinking light of a camera was turned on and hard fist came down across his jaw again, and once again, the lights were out.

x-x-x-x

"What did you do Ali?"

"I pretended I never found his phone when he asked for it," Ali laughed at the memory although nothing she said was really that amusing, "I wanted to do my own snooping, I heard there was a way to see old deleted messages and track where phone numbers were from, but I didn't know how to do any of that, I didn't know how to find someone like that. Anyways, I was close to this woman at the dinner, she was in an abusive relationship before and she told me she could tell I was getting tired with Michael. I tried to deny it but she pushed me, and I was tried, I was so tired of pleasing him and my parents and pretending I was truly happy."

Emily closed her own eyes recalling the years she spent lying to her parents, forcing herself to think her feelings for girls was wrong like they believed, going along with all their beliefs just to make them happy. She was miserable and could only imagine doing in it a relationship where she was potentially too afraid to leave.

Alison's voice wavered but Emily couldn't deny the strength she heard, "I knew I could trust her so I told her everything, her name was Abigail Reyes, and she said her younger brother was a security guard at some tech company."

"Reyes?" Emily didn't mean to say it out loud, but she started to make the connection, if there was to be made, "Reyes, as in-,"

Ali nodded, "as in Officer Joshua Reyes, yes."

"Alison you know him personally?"

"Emily, he helped me escape."

Emily knitted her brows and didn't want to reveal she had been somewhat spying, but she couldn't refrain, "the other day, you were in some closet with a guard, talking about-,"

"Yes Emily, that was him."

Em huffed and sat back in her chair, "holy crap."

Alison sighed, "yeah, I know."

"If you're both from California, what are you both doing here?"

"Josh is a nice guy, when I met him he was more than willing to help me. He said he even knew Michael, met him just a few months ago."

"Small world isn't it?"

Ali nodded, "too small. Reyes was also trying to become a cop and he thought Michael was an asshole he just didn't know how much. I don't know how and why he decided to help me, but Josh said he had met a new guy in the building, he was in charge of writing software and was in charge of the security measures the company needed, they flew him all the way from somewhere out east, close to here I think and apparently he helped Reyes crack into his ex-girlfriend's phone and see that she had been stealing money from him for a whole year. He promised he would talk to this guy for me."

Emily didn't want to jump to any conclusions too soon but that sounded awful familiar to her.

"Alison, did this guy help you?"

"Yeah, he was amazing, I gave him Michael's phone and he was able to uncover old messages, emails, pictures even," Ali said with disgust, "he gave me everything I needed to finally pack my shit and leave, only Michael didn't believe it was enough."

"What do you mean?"

It took Alison the longest to go over what happened that night but she did, not daring to address the tears she shed or the ones that Emily had either, she hated it, wished she could erase it from her memory but she couldn't.

"Alison, is that the reason?"

"For what?"

Em felt like she was walking on eggshells, "the reason you have the nightmares? It's him right?"

Alison didn't have to say anything, her silence was answer enough.

"Nightmare, memory, bad dream, reality...they're all the same for me in the end Emily."

"It doesn't have to be that way Alison."

"But it is, and the one time I thought I could wake up from it, landed me here. That next morning, he acted like the night before never happened, he sat in the living room and told me to make him breakfast. And I did, I figured after that he would shower and I could get away. I wanted to leave the night before and just drive around to clear my head. The plan was to meet Josh in the morning and he would take to the airport. And I almost did it too.

"Except I forgot that Michael had my phone, and I didn't realize how late it was already. So Josh texted me. Michael read it out loud, 'Alison,'," Ali started, mocking his deep voice the best he could, "you're friend JR wants to know, 'hey are you on your way? Flight leaves soon.' Hmm that's funny, you didn't mention you were going anywhere.' I tried to lie and say it was probably sent to the wrong person. As good of a liar my mother had made me, I couldn't even lie to save my life.

"So he came to the kitchen and grabbed me by the shoulders hard, he shook me, waiting. I couldn't make the words come out so he raised his fist again..."

Emily closed her eyes, pain in her heart weighing her down, she felt little and ignorant, she would never have guessed that this was Alison's story, that the confidence she showed everyone around her was fragile and built as a defense mechanism, nothing more.

"I couldn't take it Emily, I didn't want to hurt again, so I," she choked on her words and Emily could see the shaking in her hands. When she reached to calm the blonde, the contact made Alison jump, startling them both.

"I grabbed the knife on the counter just to make him back away. It worked at first, but he's big Emily, stronger than me, and it happened so fast." She was getting hysterical and Emily wasn't sure what she should do. It pained her seeing Alison relive this.

"Alison, you could've spared telling me everything, I don't know that I can sit here and watch you do this to yourself, I had no idea that-,"

"That what? That it would be like this for me? What did you think?"

"I didn't think anything at all. I just wanted to understand you."

"This the only way how Emily! I don't know how else to act around you if I don't. I don't want it to be my excuse but at least you can stop looking at me like I'm the Sunday crossword puzzle."

"I don't look at you like that."

"You do, and I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about it, for Christ's sake we've barely met but I can't stop thinking about you and hoping that somehow, someway, you're supposed to fix it."

"Fix what? I'm nobody Alison."

"Fix me. Fix me. Fix me." Ali rocked herself back and forth running her hands on her legs again as he eyes glazed over and she closed her eyes, "make it stop, please make it stop!" The last outburst was loud and Emily had to remind herself where they were.

"Shhh, shhh, it's okay," Emily quickly scooted herself over and wrapped her arm across the blonde's shoulders.

"You're not broken Alison."

"Yes I am, my soul, my heart, it's been shattered, I don't know how to feel anything anymore."

"Feel this." Em reached her free hand across her own body and covered both of the trembling ones in hers, "it's not ideal where we are, but you're safe."

"I'm never safe, not while he's alive."

"Alison, you're far from California, I doubt he-,"

"I stabbed him!" Alison practically shouted, "I stabbed him with the knife and I ran," Alison was sobbing, her voice shaking as much as her body was, tears staining the fabric covering Emily's chest.

"There was so much blood Emily, so much blood. He pinned me to the floor and he hands around my neck again, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get him off me. I seen the knife and I- I didn't think, I was just scared, I didn't want to hurt him."

"Shh, it's okay, I know you didn't, you did what you had to do to get out of there." Em brushed her hand through Alison long golden hair and sighed, how the hell did she end up here, like this, with Alison, why was it all happening, and why did it seem like it was far from being over?

"Josh was at my door before I left, we both thought I had killed Michael, I couldn't call the cops because he was the cops, they wouldn't believe Michael was hurting me and it was just an act of self defense. SO I life him there, and I can't lie, I was relieved, I thought it was finally over. It wasn't though, he didn't die, he made it to a hospital and after that he had my face plastered on the news for attempted murder. He made it seem like I was crazy, that out of nowhere I attacked him, and I fled with another man."

"And they finally caught you?"

"Not exactly, for the first year I stayed in Colorado. I don't know why, but Josh came with me, he had family there, he said he needed something more to do with his life, like maybe he could find a way to do something for us both. So I stayed in his family's house with him, under the radar, I hardly ever left the house, I got rid of my credit cards, I started to go by the name Sasha, and that became my life."

"Why didn't you go to Michigan?"

"Michael new my plan, it would've been too obvious to go there, I had to wait. I didn't wait long though, when I turned 25 the next year, Josh had finished training and was a Colorado state police officer, top notch man in blue and I couldn't ask him to leave but I was scared to go anywhere without him. That's when he told me he loved me, after all we lived with each other for 2 years."

Em bit her lip softly, "did you love him back?"

"Yes, of course and I still do, but not in the way he wanted. I was afraid to tell him, afraid he would do the same thing Michael did; I started to cry when he told me and I realized he knew why and after that he didn't say anything about it again. We moved to Michigan and I finally started my old plan and I enrolled in school."

"Alison, why didn't you tell your parents what happened when you were on the run?"

"Are you kidding me, the first time I thought I could tell them, they said I was crazy, when I left, they went on the news calling me deranged, they took his side. But they were still my parents, so I did call...two years had passed and I thought maybe they would've been worried about their only daughter.

"They must've had their phone bugged my Michael himself because the next week, I was out buying books for class and I spotted one of Michael's partners, Oscar, he was following me. I knew then that Michael would never stop, he had to have me. But I didn't know why it was Oscar and not him following me."

"I called Joshua and when I got to our apartment he already had a plan, I acted like I didn't know Oscar was following me and when he busted through our apartment door, we were already down the ladder outside the window, we slashed his tired and made a run for it. We drove all night and most of the day, we stopped when we almost wrapped our car around a tree. When I woke up in the car, we were just outside of some creepy town called Ravenswood."

"Alison, that's not far from here."

"So I was told."

"Josh drove a few towns over and got a job with the Rosewood police at this jail, and I stayed locked away in the motel we stayed at. I was too afraid to leave."

"So then how'd you get here? How'd you get arrested?"

"That was my fault, I got a phone call last year, it was him, he said Happy 26th Birthday, I'll see you soon."

"You mean?"

"Yes, he was here Emily, he found me at the motel, I don't know how, but when I seen his car pull into the parking lot and him rushing to the front office went out the bathroom window and took his car all the way to the police station, I told them I was being chased but when they took my name and information, a hit came up and my file was pulled, I was arrested on the spot for attempted murder and of course they called California to say I was in custody. I didn't even get a fair trial, the police had all they needed. Michael won."

"How long?"

"My lawyer said I could be out in 8 years but usually the sentence is 10 years, I'll be out when I'm 36, I'll be an adult with nothing accomplished except falling for a monster."

"10 years? Alison, you didn't do anything wrong, it was self defense."

"That's not the way anyone else sees it."

"But it's the truth."

"Last time I checked, telling the truth didn't get me anywhere."

"It will this time, it'll get you out."

"Don't be a fool Emily."

"Alison, thank you."

"For what?"

"Telling me this."

"Thank you too, for listening, you and Josh are the only ones that know."

"Alison, I -,"

"We should get back, we've been here too long."

Alison removed herself from Emily's touch and began to move towards the door in the floor, which was the ceiling from the library.

"Wait," Em whisper-yelled, "Ali I have to ask one more question."

"Emily, I'm tired, we can talk more tomor-,"

"The guy you found that helped you, the one Reyes met at his old job, what was his name?"

Ali didn't know why Emily would want to know that.

"Why?"

"Alison, please, I won't be able to sleep unless I make sure I'm not being crazy here, just tell me his name."

x-x-x-x