Another short chapter. Sorry for that!

I do not take credit for PLL.

Sara Shepard and Freeform own.

All five of us are sitting in a circle on the floor of the inventory room, me sitting up against the wall with my leg stretched out doing what I need to do with the equipment. For the longest ten minutes ever it's quiet as they take turns looking at my phone, giving each other looks lost for words.

"Is this all A sent you." Spencer finally gets out.

I look over at her from the buckets of baseballs and softballs I'm filling up, she looks exhausted. "That I know of it is. I mean, I got a random message on Xbox one time that had the same vibe as this one, but there was no signature like that." They all look at each other. "But I'm guessing by your calmness of asking that this isn't the first time you've dealt with this person."

"No." Spencer says. "But we can't talk about that. No one knows."

"You have to give me more than that."

"It's really complicated." Emily says. She looks like she's on the verge of tears.

"Well what is not complicated is explaining to me how this happened." I reopen the picture of Aria and Fitz and stare at it again, trying not to cringe at the thought of them kissing. "Clearly this isn't the first time." I look to her.

Her face gets really pale. "No."

"Okay?"

"I've known him since I got back. We met the day before school started…in the pub at the edge of town."

"A bar?"

She nods.

"Obviously he didn't realize you were in high school because you were sitting in a bar."

"He didn't realize till…"

"The first day of school." I say as I remember the memory of them looking at each other as if in shock that day. "Dude..."

"Don't look at me like that okay. We tried to stop seeing each other but it didn't work."

"Clearly." I say, rolling my eyes a bit as I stuff my phone back into my pocket.

"Jessie, I don't need your attitude."

"Don't you?" She raises her eyebrows at me and I continue. "You kept giving me advice on talking to him, for closure. I bet that was more for the purpose of the fact that you guys are actually dating and you didn't want things to be awkward if you decided to tell me."

"No, Jessie. That is not what it was about. You did need closure, and you got that."

"Do you expect me to be able to look at him the same way after this? He was my teacher, the guy who saved me from the car accident. Now he's dating my best friend."

"Exactly. The guy who saved your life was your teacher. Now you guys talk like friends. I mean, you call him by his first name now. That shouldn't change just because you know about us."

"Ria, he's like six years older. You're sixteen!"

We go back and forth for awhile on arguing about this. No matter what I say she won't agree to stop seeing him. So I have no choice but to let it go. But what I don't let go is what else I want to know about this unknown person. At first they can't even bring themselves to say anything, they can barely even look at me. Eventually though it seems to just pour out of them, like it's been eating them up inside.

"This all started on the first day of school, I was the first one to get a text." Aria says."Then it became worse once Ali was found dead."

"This person threatened to spill our secrets if we didn't do as they said." Emily adds.

"Practically everything that has to do with us that has been weird was because of A." Hanna continues.

"A pushed Ian off the tower and made us seem like we were liars." Spencer says.

"So A killed him?" I ask.

"Ian left a suicide note saying he killed himself, he had a gun when we found him. He didn't die from being hung. That we know of, A had nothing to do with it." Spencer says.

By the end of the conversation my head is swimming with shock and not able to grasp everything they just told me. They don't have any clues on why this person has targeted them but they do think that A killed Alison, and that the same person framed Toby and Spencer too. A framed Noel for having test answers because he knew about Aria and Fitz, and apparently this person didn't want the fiasco getting out till A said so. It's so twisted I can't even believe it.

"You can't tell anyone though." Spencer says.

"You guys are completely out of your minds for not telling your parents or the cops."

"Every time we tried A did something to make it seem like we were lying or had something to do with Ali." Aria says.

"We even tried to block the number, but they started spilling secrets in other ways." Hanna says.

My eyes widen as I realize. "A made your parents split up." I look at Aria who nods. "This is insane."

"We know." They all say.

"So what now?" I say after a minute of quiet.

"We continue to figure this out, and you act like you don't know." Spencer says.

"No way, I want to help."

"Absolutely not." Aria says.

"Aria…"

"This is our mess." She says. "We are taking care of it. You live your life and do not get involved."

"But…"

"No." She says more stern this time. "How do you even think you're going to do anything with a broken ankle?"

I watch her for a few seconds, then give up. "Fine, but you have to tell me things when I ask about it. You can't keep lying to me." They all hesitate and I give them a look. "If I can't get involved physically than you have to promise you'll tell me."

They look at each other again, but this time nod.

"Okay. Now if I have to keep talking to Fitz then he's gonna have to know that I know."

She slowly nods. "Fine, but I swear to God, Jessie. If you give him the I'll kick your ass if you hurt her talk, I will kick your ass."

I smile and I see the girls do the same. "I won't give him the talk. I promise."

So now I know the truth of what's been going on with them since Alison's funeral. I can't decide if I'm happy I'm finally part of it, or scared that I asked. But at least I'm in this with them now. They may not be letting me help but at least if they need me I'll finally be able to be there for them.