A/N: I hate to be a bearer of bad news, but in light of recent events on PLL and the fact that I cannot write an A oriented PLL fic without sound assistance from PLL, the next chapter (chapter 21) will be the last chapter of Read Into My Soul. Do not fear, the ending will be good and make sense. As I've said previously, the ending of this story was sound no matter where it was going to be put. I was planning the ending of the story from the beginning, because I knew that I might not be able to keep going after a certain point. I'm sorry I have to do this, but you will still like the ending :) Anyway, we have two chapters left!
Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!
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I was walking out of the school to meet Ali, when suddenly Sydney, who I hadn't talked to since the previous week, approached me. "Hey, Emily! Did someone tell you yet?"
"Tell me what?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing over her shoulder at where I saw Ali, waiting for me.
"Your new position!" Sydney exclaimed, grinning. "On the team!"
"I can't get back on the team, Sydney, my shoulder—" I argued, not really wanting to talk about the reason that I couldn't swim anymore, but she shook her head to stop my arguing.
"No, as assistant coach!" she exclaimed, still grinning.
"What?" I asked, probably not sounding as near as excited as she would have expected me to.
"The whole team voted, and you just have to go talk to the head of the athletics department to get it finalized!" Sydney explained. "Aren't you excited?"
I forced a wide smile. It was nice to have some excitement from someone about something, but honestly, it was hard to think about doing anything but dealing with the police and A and helping my friends. And my girlfriend. "That sounds really awesome, Sydney," I told her, nodding and glancing over her shoulder. Alison had, by now, noticed my and was looking over at me expectantly.
"That's it?" Sydney asked, looking disappointed that I didn't seem excited.
"No, that's really great," I told her, smiling again. "I will definitely talk to the head of the department tomorrow, I promise."
Sydney was smiling again. "Great! Okay, well, I have somewhere to be, so I'll catch you tomorrow?"
"Sure," I agreed, nodding. Then we both sidestepped each other and I headed over to Ali. "Hey," I greeted as soon as I was next to her, "sorry."
"What were you two talking about?" she wondered, taking my hand as we started into the parking lot.
"She got the team to vote on me being assistant coach. I just have to talk to the coach about it and I can get the position," I told her, smiling.
"Em! That's amazing!" Ali exclaimed. "You have to take it."
I grinned, now a lot more excited since I was talking about it with Ali instead of Sydney. "I will. I'll have to go in early some days and stay after school some days, though, so you might have to… stay over at some of the other girls' places." I frowned at her.
Her expression fell only a little bit. "Okay." She looked like she was about to say something else, but then my phone rang, and I huffed as I glanced at the caller ID.
"It's Spencer," I told Alison, and then I answered the call. "What's up?"
"Just letting you know that I'm on Melissa's tail right now," Spencer told me. "I was leaving school and I saw her talking to Mona. They must've thought that they were hidden enough, but I saw them. Anyway, now I'm following her. If she's going some place to do Mona's bidding, I'll find out."
"Okay," I said, nodding. "Text us if there's something important."
"Kay," Spencer said, and then she hung up.
Just as I was about to say something to Alison, my phone rang yet again. Ali smirked. "You're just oh so popular today. I'm going to have to compete for your time."
I gave her an apologetic smile and looked down at my phone again. It was Aria, so I quickly answered. "What's up?"
"Can you come over?" Aria asked, her voice sounding shaky. "My mom took me home earlier— things are messed up right now. Apparently, over the weekend, she caught Zach hitting on some girl. They were supposed to get married in like a week!"
"Oh my gosh," I said, raising my eyebrows. Alison gave me a questioning look, and I held up my pointer finger.
"Yeah. She tried to come to school today but after lunch she just felt so horrible and she took a couple of sick days and I came home to take care of her. Now she's asleep in her room and I just don't really want to be alone," Aria ranted.
"Yeah, we'll come over," I agreed. "What about Ezra, though?"
"He's busy," Aria answered. "Thank you."
"No problem," I said. "We'll be there in a few." I hung up, and Ali snatched my phone. I raised my eyebrow at her. "What're you doing?"
"If we're going to hang with Aria, I'm going to at least get you for all of the car ride there," Ali declared, dropping my phone in her purse. I felt a smile appear on my face and we got into my car. "So what happened to Aria?"
"Her mom found Zach—her fiancée—hitting on some girl. I guess they called off the wedding and Aria was home helping her mom, but now her mom is asleep and she said she just doesn't want to be alone," I explained, pulling out of the school parking lot and starting to drive toward Aria's neighborhood.
"Aria's mom has had to go through some crazy shit," Ali commented, sighing, and I nodded in agreement. "Hey, can I tell you something random?"
"Go ahead," I agreed.
"So, I'm not sure if this was ever cleared up, but Mona was never working for me," Alison stated. "Whatever 'Redcoat' she was working for… that was A."
"I guess it's never been assured to us, but we all sort of assumed that I guess," I told Ali, shrugging. "We didn't think that you'd be working with Mona to torment us."
"Actually, you all did consider it at some points," Ali corrected, and I shrugged.
"We had no idea about what had happened to you that night," I reminded her, and she just shrugged, giving me a half smile.
She took my hand in her own—the one that wasn't on the wheel—as I drove us the rest of the way to Aria's. It made me feel calm and relaxed, and I liked that she had that effect on me.
We got to Aria's and I parked my car in her driveway before we went to the door. Aria opened it almost as soon as Ali knocked, and I assumed that she had probably been pacing back and forth in front of the door, waiting for us. "Hey," Ali and I said simultaneously to Aria, who forced a smile.
"Hey. I'm sorry, I'm just really like frazzled right now," Aria apologized, stepping away from the door. Ali and I stepped inside and I closed the door behind us. "My mom didn't tell me anything about what happened with her and Zach until today when I dropped into her classroom during her off period. She was practically falling apart."
Alison frowned. "I'm really sorry, Aria. About Zach."
"I'll be fine, but I'm totally worried about my mom. She thinks that it has to do with her age, and she's thinking as if there's no more chances for her," Aria muttered, shaking her head. "I just can't believe that he would do that to her."
"He doesn't deserve someone like your mom if he's that horrible," Ali insisted, and I nodded in agreement.
"Thanks, guys, for coming. I probably would've drove myself to the point where I was like raging," Aria muttered, shaking her head. "I probably would've gone to the Brew and trashed the place."
Alison's eyebrows shot up. "Without my help? Wow, you've changed," she teased. Aria let out a weak laugh.
"Do you guys want some food or something? We have some cookies and things that were supposed to be for the rehearsal party… I don't think my mom even wants to look at them. Actually, I'm afraid to see what she'll do if she does look at them," Aria admitted, shrugging.
"I could use a cookie," I decided, and we followed Aria into the kitchen.
We tried to change the topic to something less depressing, and something not as dramatic as the police or A. Ali decided to use the topic of me possibly becoming the assistant swim coach, and Aria got all excited like Ali had before. She even assured Ali that she could always come hang out at her place whenever I had practice. Alison seemed to appreciate that.
We were about to head upstairs when my phone suddenly rung from Ali's purse. I had forgotten she had it.
She pulled it out and rolled her eyes, passing it to me. "Spencer, again."
"Maybe she saw Melissa doing something important," I suggested, and then I answered it and put the call on speaker. "What's up, Spence?"
"Okay, so Melissa was just going to the store, which is totally unimportant. But you won't believe what I saw when I drove a little past the store."
"What?" the three of us demanded in sync.
"Okay, so I was a little far away, but I saw Jenna going into an eye doctor place," Spencer announced.
"So?" Ali asked. "Do we even know if she can see or not?"
"Supposedly not, but that's not the weird part," Spencer said, shrugging off the question of whether or not Jenna's eyes were functioning properly. "There was another girl with her. Another Jenna."
"That's it, she's finally gone insane," Alison said, clapping her hands down onto the counter.
"No, I'm serious! I only saw their side profiles. Their hair is identical, they were wearing the same glasses!" Spencer exclaimed. "Almost the same outfit, too!"
"And what, you think Jenna is the first person to be successfully cloned?" Aria demanded.
"Look, I don't know. Can one of you guys come down here? I'll send you the address," Spencer said.
"Why do you need someone down there with you?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.
"I need to make sure I catch them! Plus, I don't want to fight against two Jennas!" Spencer exclaimed.
"Well one of them is blind, so it wouldn't be much of a problem," Ali pointed out.
"Could they both be blind?" Aria wondered, glancing at the two of us.
"Seriously, I don't know when they're coming out! One of you get your ass over here!" Spencer demanded.
"I'll go," I announced.
"Hey, if you're going, I'm going," Alison decided. "I'm the reason Jenna hates us anyway."
"I don't want to leave my mom," Aria said, her forehead wrinkling with concern. Ali and I froze, and then Aria shook her head. "I'll leave her a note, and she already has food in the fridge. She'll probably sleep the whole time anyway."
"Great! I'll send you all the address," Spencer said, and then she hung up.
"I swear, if she really did go crazy and it's Jenna with some random person that looks nothing like her…" Ali rolled her eyes, and I playfully rolled mine at her. Aria scribbled out a note for her mom and then left it on the counter.
We decided to take my car, and we immediately headed to the address that Spencer was at.
"There's her car," Aria said, pointing it out. We parallel parked on the other side of the eye doctor place that Spencer wasn't on. That way, whenever Jenna and this mysterious second Jenna came out of the building, we could get her either way she went from there.
Spencer called Ali, who put her on speaker and set up her phone so that we could all hear and talk to Spencer. "They've been in there a little while, so hopefully they'll be out soon."
It was just a few seconds after that that I saw Jenna walking out of the eye doctor place. I braced myself for this second Jenna, but I saw a person that I recognized appear.
"There!" Spencer exclaimed.
Suddenly feeling something like rage build up in me, I opened the car door. "What are you doing, Emily?" Alison asked, but I just closed the door behind me. Sydney had said to me that she didn't know who Jenna was, and now she was suddenly her best friend? What the hell was this.
"Sydney?" I called out, and if Sydney hadn't been wearing those creepy sunglasses, I probably would've seen her eyes widen. She and Jenna froze.
"Oh, hello, Emily," Jenna called out.
"What the hell, Sydney? I thought you didn't know Jenna?" I demanded.
Sydney opened her mouth as if to say something, but Jenna interrupted. "Amazing how you think you know someone, but you don't, huh?" I glared at her, even though she wouldn't be able to see me. I was about to say something to Sydney, but Jenna started to pull her away. "C'mon Syd."
I watched them walk off as Spencer, Aria and Alison rushed over to me. "What the hell?" Ali asked. "Isn't that the girl who got you that swim team assistant coach thing?"
"Yep," I answered, shaking my head. "Come on. I'm done with this."
Yeah...
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