OVER 200 REVIEWS WHAT IS LIFE?! Wow, you all are MAGNIFICENT! THANK YOU! Also, I'd like to specifically thank ShadowsOnTheMoon for her rapid-fire reviewing, AND for being my 200th reviewer! I apologize for all of the people that I gave the feels to last chapter with all the Ezria ever, but it's to help the story move along, so it was indeed necessary! Plus, it's EZRIA! I had to!
Now, congratulations to everyone who got the references!
"She is five feet of insidious snark with a side ponytail and I just wanna grab it and I wanna yank it... really really hard!" 2x06 said by Spencer about Mona (shout out to Sgdp1261, Sarah, Lola, Titanium Wolf, LAs, Spoby, ShadowsOnTheMoon, Ava B, Bagilia, and Goldenheart11 for getting this one!)
"Are you really so sure about everything you're so sure about?" 4x01 said by Aria to Spencer (Shout out to Lola, Ava B, and ShadowsOnTheMoon for getting this one!)
Also, shout out AGAIN to ShadowsOnTheMoon (you are on fire, seriously), for suggesting that I use that quote about Mona in the first place. It was a grand idea!
Also, an apologetic shout out to Ava B because I somehow managed to miss her review in my reply last chapter, and I have no clue how that happened but I feel terrible :( I'll reply this time/all the times ever, I PROMISE!
Sgdp1261: That's Aria for you. She comes in handy in these situations! Haha, I'm on the shorter side like Aria (5'2 and proud bitches!), so I can't resist making fun of her height through other characters since I never get to do it to anyone else ;) and I agree with you on Toby. Such a disappointment. But I still like vintage Spoby/love writing for him in here. And you'll see where little miss Aria is gonna end up by following the passage!
erica: Yeah, turning books into rats would've been ineffective here. Plus, it's just more entertaining to shove Aria into small spaces!
Sarah: Well, it's a hard task, but you can't blame a girl for trying! And please, we all know that Spencer is Shaggy in the Scooby/Shaggy duo that IS Sparia. I should've had her tempt Aria with Scooby snacks to climb into the crawl space, haha. And you're right. If Hanna finds out, she's not gonna be a happy camper... Thanks for the lovely review once again!
Lola: You got both! Nice work :) and thanks!
TotalCowGirl: Thanks! :)
Titanium Wolf: Haha, I love that quote, so I just HAD to use it! Thanks! You're gonna LOVE Halloween :)
LAs: Haha, I guess they view Aria as expendable? She comes in handy for these things, though, she can't help it! Caleb is dying with worry and curiousity, but I will say this: he might be clued in a little bit more fairly soon ;)
Spoby: Yep, you got it!
Goldenheart11: I'm sorry, I'm just so annoyed with Toby right now on the show. He is NOT the sweet guy that he was in the first 2 seasons... and oh man, when Caleb leaves both of my OTPs will be crushed. Ezra's A, Caleb's gone, it's like this show WANTS me to curl up into a ball of feels and never unravel. Anyway, Caleb will be clued in soon. Just wait ;)
WideOpenSpacesGirl045: I try my hardest to bring on the drama! ;) and you just described all of my feelings toward Ezria. Like, going back and watching all of their best, cutest moments, and realizing that it's no longer cute because it's all a lie... UGH! So upsetting. My babies! And wow, I'm so happy you loved that convo! The four liars are basically a married couple (OT4, if you will), and Caleb is just trying his hardest to understand it/see where he fits into it all, haha. And no worries! Glad you're all settling in. If you don't mind me asking, what college?
elggup: Wow, thanks! And oh me, too. Ugh, how I miss the days when we didn't know it was all a lie ;( thank you so much, I'm gonna try to keep up the supposed winning streak!
ShadowsOnTheMoon: Welcome back! Don't worry about the late reviews, you made up for them in literally the best way possible :) I'm a fairly big Paily shipper as well, but I'm so confused because... MAYA! I think I like Paige as a character better because of how layered she is, meanwhile Maya didn't really have as much room to grow. She was just fearless from the start. But the two are totally tied for whom I like for Emily. And Ezra :( the feels are SO alive and SO well, I can't even. Indeed, the CoS has been kept a secret from their generation, but maybe that wasn't the best idea on the staff's part considering what is happening... and HAHA, the underestimation Mona is getting in this story is possibly my favorite part of writing it. Spencer is like "Guys, I'm telling you, she's gonna eat me!" and they're just like "Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Spence!" And you are absolutely right. I am going to play your heartstrings like a freakin' FIDDLE, so I suggest you get your fiddle tuned beforehand ;)
Bagilia: Tiny Aria comes in HANDY! She might hate it, but it is awfully convenient to the others, haha. INDEED! One more chapter to go, and you're gonna LOVE IT! I'm literally so excited for you to read it, and to see your reaction... you might pass out, just a fair warning. And YES, that cow piggy bank. I don't think I told you, but I have a stuffed cow that moos when you squeeze him! Not a piggy bank, but still a cow! And why must I be one step ahead of you? I don't know, maybe because I WROTE the damn thing? ;) Haha, all jokes aside, thank you for loving this chapter, and thank you for loving my nerdness and having that in common with your OWN nerdness B-)
Ava B: Again, SORRY! But yeah, I agree. I don't want them to do to Ezra what they did to Toby. That was SUCH a cop out and a waste of potential character development on both sides. And with the way Toby is acting right now toward Spencer, it's not even BELIEVABLE because it seems like he doesn't even care about her at all. And haha, Caleb might be reluctant about it, but in the end he's gonna give in because he cares about the girls an insane amount. Thanks again for your lovely reviews AND your compliment toward my insanely long and annoying A/Ns, haha.
PrettyWitchyVamp: Dude, understandable. I've been occupied with the same shenanigans (which kinda sucks since I start school soon and haven't even finished my summer reading...). Hahah, play with the cool kids. Absolutely! Although Caleb is one cool cat himself B-) And it's easy to forget how smart Caleb is, I guess, so they just talk like he's not even in the room, not carefully calculating and putting the puzzle pieces together by everything they're saying. And Spencer/everyone is the OPPOSITE of discreet. This show should be called "Pretty Nondiscreet Liars". And haha, I love how you're so afraid of sounding rude that you post another review to apologize and add the "please". Not only is that polite, but it gains ME another review! You're awesome on so many levels, thank you again for the kind words!
Alright, chapter time. Little bit shorter, but some stuff goes down, and I guarantee you that by the end of it, some eyebrows will be raised. Read carefully, and don't forget to REVIEW!
"Just keep crawling through until you see a way into the library," Spencer whispered up to Aria, who was already in the small tunnel entrance. "Then go the the Restricted Section, and just keep looking until you find something useful."
"How am I supposed to know if it's useful?" Aria whispered back.
"I don't know!" Spencer said irritably. "Just... look for something that says Chamber of Secrets on it or something!"
Aria huffed. She doubted it'd be that easy, but it wasn't like anything was going to change Spencer's mind. "Fine. Be back in a few."
"When you come back, we'll be waiting under the tunnel entrance for you; you can just shimmy your way down and we'll catch you," Spencer said.
Aria nodded as she started to crawl through the hole, using her arms to heave herself forward. The tunnel must've been built for house elves or pixies or something; she just barely fit. Nevertheless, she kept crawling through, keeping a lookout for an entry into the library in the meantime.
After around 5 minutes of straight crawling, Aria finally spotted something; at the end of the tunnel was a square opening with metal bars, looking somewhat like a cage. Aria smiled victoriously as she instinctively sat up, which caused her to hit her head with a thud against the ceiling to the tunnel.
Groaning inwardly in pain, she kept crawling toward the end, promising herself that one of these days she was going to step straight into an Enlargement Charm so her friends could stop using her to squeeze into small spaces. This wasn't the first time this had happened; even before all this mystery hunting and sneaking around started, she was always the one to crawl under the bed when someone dropped something under it, or behind a chair pressed against the wall, or if there was something that needed to be reached behind a chalkboard in a classroom, her small arms and hands were needed. It was just one of those moments where Aria wished she was just a little taller.
Once she reached the end, she tried tugging at the bars, only to have no luck; they wouldn't budge.
What's the spell? she thought to herself, tapping her nails against the metal flooring under her in deep thought. Oh yeah!
Struggling, she slid her hand further down into her robe pocket, searching for her wand. Finally, she had a firm grasp on it, and pulled it out to point it at the bars in front of her. "Reducto!"
At once, the bars shattered to pieces, making a great deal of noise. Aria winced, hoping against hope that it wouldn't draw any attention. Briefly scared, she counted to 20, and when no one came running into the room screeching and complaining about the noise, she figured it was safe to hop down and get started on her search.
"Lumos," Spencer whispered as she pointed her wand into the tunnel, illuminating the inside of it as she stood on the bricks, being careful not to slide off. Unfortunately, she didn't see any sign of a petite brunette crawling her way out, and that frustrated, and scared, her greatly.
"Where the hell is she?" Spencer boomed, leaping off of the protruding bricks and onto the ground as she started pacing around Emily to calm her own nerves, but to the point that she was making poor Emily dizzy. "It's been 10 minutes. Why would it take 10 minutes to find a couple of books?"
"Spencer, calm down," Emily said mellowly, trying to get a hold of Spencer to stop her from continually walking in circles, but Spencer just kept darting back and forth, too fast for Emily to get a firm hold on any of her limbs. "She's probably just looking for the right book, okay? What's the worst that could happen?"
"Um, she could get caught and expelled and I could get in trouble for letting it happen under my watch and lose my prefect privileges?" Spencer said pointedly, eyes bulging from her head as she made her point. "Trust me, Emily, I already lost Head Girl; I don't need something else for Melissa to hold over my head."
At the last sentence, Spencer's voice faltered slightly, and Emily got a good look at her. She looked so helpless and desperate; it was something she rarely saw on Spencer. Well, at least never helpless. Desperate, yes; Spencer was the definition of desperate, but in the best way possible. She always had to climb and struggle and push to get to the top because she needed the admiration so badly. She always had something to prove. Emily was an only child, so she couldn't understand this; she was just naturally competitive when it came to sports. But Spencer? Spencer was competitive because she actually needed to win.
"Spencer," Emily began comfortingly as Spencer stared up at the tunnel entrance. "You know, you don't need to compete with your sister. Once school is over, do you know how many opportunities are going to open up for you?"
"Not as many as the ones that opened up for her," Spencer muttered sadly as she looked away from the hole and started to walk toward the wall at the other end of the corridor.
"But why should that matter?"
"You don't know my family, Em," Spencer spat. "They're the ultimate image of Slytherin; ambitious, powerful, destined for greatness. And then they got stuck with me, and I'm nothing but a disappointment."
"You are not a disappointment!" Emily said frustratedly as she finally caught up to Spencer, pulling on her shoulder to fully spin her around so that she was facing her. "Spencer, you do realize that you're possibly the smartest person in this school, right?"
"Well, yeah, of course I've noticed," Spencer said casually, as if Emily had just asked her something as casual as if she'd noticed the particularly good weather outside. "But knowledge is useless unless you know how to execute it."
"Who says you don't know how to execute it?" Emily inquired. "With everything that's going on right now, I'm pretty sure without you we'd all be dead on the floor."
At this, Spencer let out a small giggle. She then bowed her head. "Don't joke about that, though," she said quietly. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost any of you guys."
"You won't," Emily said confidently. "We're in this together, remember?"
Spencer chewed on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, her head still bowed. Yeah, they were in this together. But that didn't mean Spencer would let them go down with her if she went down, too. If anything, she just wanted to make sure each of the girls were safe, so maybe it was time she put her family issues aside and focused even more intensely on the issues at hand.
Before either Spencer or Emily could say anything else, there was a giant flump heard from behind them, and both girls whipped around. On the floor, on her back and moaning in pain, was Aria, straddling to her chest a stack of books. "Really, guys?"
"Shit!" Spencer exclaimed as she ran over to Aria and helped her off the ground. "What happened?!"
"You said you'd be waiting on the bottom and to just slide down, so that's what I did!" Aria moaned, holding her hand to her forehead in agony. She had just plummeted about 8 feet.
"Dammit, I forgot," Spencer mumbled as she pulled Aria completely upright. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Aria mumbled as she staggered backwards, leaning against the wall as she tried to reorient herself. It wasn't working.
"Alright, just breathe for a minute, and show me what you have," Spencer said as she pried the books out of Aria's arms, but Aria clutched them further to her chest before Spencer could get a closer look.
"No!" she said firmly, suddenly regaining her composure. "I'll just show them to you tomorrow."
Spencer blinked, confused. Why not tonight? Emily stepped in. "Spencer, we're all exhausted, and I have a game tomorrow. Can we please just go up now?"
Spencer looked between Aria and Emily, both of whom looked like they wanted to pass out right on the pavement. Spencer sighed. It was pretty late at night. "Alright, let's go."
"Emily, do you need me to take you under the cloak back to the Gryffindor Tower?" Aria asked as she slowly propped herself off of the wall.
"I think I can manage," Emily said with a yawn as she started down the corridor, but not without a sideways glance at Spencer. "Remember what we talked about, okay?"
"Yeah, sure," Spencer said with a head nod as she turned back to Aria. "Sorry about your head."
"It's fine," Aria said tiredly as she looked down at the books in her hand. "We'll look in them tomorrow, and then we'll have everything figured out, okay?"
"Yeah, sounds good," Spencer agreed. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," Aria repeated as she parted ways from Spencer. But she watched as Spencer rounded the corner, making sure she was completely out of sight before she glanced down at the books in her hand, then back up at the tunnel entrance into the library. Feeling even more frightened than she had before, Aria held the books so closely to her body, that any closer would be considered Heimlich Maneuver, as she walked away, never taking her eyes off of the library in the process.
Side Note: I know there are some Spemily fans out there, so I threw some in for you. Any thoughts? Theories? Sound off! ALSO, for all you Haleb fans, next chapter is gonna be a BALL for all of you ;) you've been waiting patiently, and I am here to deliver. Review a BUNCH so that you can get your next chapter up sooner!
