We find out a few things in this chapter! Please read and review, thanks for everybody that has so far.
Spencer sighed as she ended the call, tossing her cell phone onto the bed of the tiny motel room. Toby, who was playing with Adrianne at the foot of the bed, looked up at her.
"What did Aria say?"
"Well she's freaking out," Spencer replied shortly, flopping backwards onto the mattress. "Talking about driving all the way back up to New York, or telling us to come and stay with her in Savannah. Both would put her right in the line of fire, of course."
"But at least all the girls know to stay safe now, right?" Toby crawled up the bed and wrapped him arms around her, planting a kiss onto her forehead. She leant into him, burying her face into his shoulder.
"But how do we keep our girl safe?" she whispered, her voice cracking. They'd driven Toby's truck nearly a whole days drive out of New York City before they'd reached what they hoped was a well-hidden motel. Adrianne, who was usually bouncing off the wall after sitting still for half an hour, had been worryingly subdued all day. Spencer was scared that even if the three of them managed to escape this mystery physically unscathed, that the psychological effect would continue to haunt her daughter.
Toby shifted slightly, his hands rubbing up and down her back reassuringly. "We find out what's going on," he murmured softly into her ear, planting a kiss on her ear lobe. "And we stop it."
"I'm so sorry," she muttered. "I'm so sorry for getting you into all this Ali crap again."
"I'd rather it this way than you cutting me out like last time. You don't need to go through anything on your own anymore, babe." Spencer smiled, stretching up to kiss him sweetly.
"I don't deserve you, Toby Cavanaugh." Shaking his head, he brushed his fingers lazily along her side, revelling at the curve of her hip. After a few moments of peaceful silence, Spencer spoke. "Ali said that Jason had something. Something either incriminating or precious to 'them', I guess. That's why they're after us. And when Jason died, I took some NAT videos from his room." Toby shifted himself so he was opposite her, his face so close to hers he could count her freckles if he wished.
"So they've got them now," he murmured softly, toying with a strand of her hair. "Either that or they burnt." She shook her head.
"I've got it in my bag." She leant forward, extracting first her laptop, then the disc and finally a can of red bull. Cracking it open and taking a generous swig, she sat up straight in the bed, letting the machine whir awake. "I'm gonna comb through it tonight. If I can figure out why these people don't want anybody to see the footage, then maybe I can figure out who 'these people' are."
"And when do you plan on sleeping?" he quipped, a hint of concern behind his light tone.
"In a double bed, in New York when I'm not on the run with my three year old," she replied levelly. "Can you try and get Ady to sleep?"
"I don't want to sleep," Adrianne piped up, suddenly appearing on the bed and crawling between her parents. "What if the room catches fire and I'm asleep and we can't run?" Spencer hesitated, trying to form the correct, reassuring response. Instead, Toby was the one that gathered their daughter into his arms.
"There won't be any fire tonight, darling. And anyway, Mommy is insisting on staying awake all night so she'll always know when it's time to run."
"I packed your pyjamas, Adrianne. So you and Dad can get all ready for bed while I do work." Crossing over to the other side of the tiny motel room and sitting with her back against the door. Slipping the disc into the drive and plugging her headphones in, Spencer pressed the play button. Her heart sank at the time stamp of over seven hours.
Half an hour later and she was yet to watch anything she hadn't before. After enduring the painful recording of Jenna and Toby, she'd been treated to endless shots of her and her friends trying on clothes, sitting in the brew and sneaking out of school at lunch. During this time, she'd been half aware on Toby changing Ady into her pyjamas and tucking her into the bed. He was now reciting a bedtime story to her, and the girl was gently dropping into sleep.
Spencer jumped at the sound of her own voice blaring in her ears. It was a video, obviously shot at a distance but zoomed in close into her own bedroom window. "I've never had a safe place to land. But now I feel like I do. So I want you to stay." She sighed, rubbing her eyes. Hadn't the NAT club dissolved by the time Toby and her had started dating? In all the time the girls had spent trawling through these clips they'd never come across anything as recent. So did that mean Ian or Garret had been filming her moments before the former's death? Or was it somebody else?
The next two and a half hours of film was composed of various snippets of Rosewood residents seemingly going about their day to day life. It seemed to be in fairly chronological order, with a heavy focus on Spencer and her friends. She grew more and more uneasy as the memories she was reliving extended way beyond both Ian and Garrett's deaths. A further three energy drinks was the only way she managed to keep awake. Both Toby and Adrianne were asleep now, their soft sighs making the bed seem ever the more appealing.
"This conversation is over, Melissa." The camera showed a wide shot of the DiLaurentis yard. It was twilight, and the two figures marching across the grass were unmistakably Jessica DiLaurentis and Melissa Hastings.
"Except, no its not because you're still going to the police accusing my sister of killing Alison when we both know that to be shit!" the older Hastings replied angrily. Alison's mother stopped and spun round.
"Are you sure? Because I have the Rosewood PD wrapped around my little finger. They won't take much convincing and soon, your baby sister will be staring at the inside of a police cell for 25 years to life." Spencer could feel her heart in her mouth as she watched the exchange becoming angrier and angrier. As Jessica turned to leave, Melissa grabbed her arm, spinning her around. The older woman smirked a little breathlessly. "I always told Alison never to turn her back on a Hastings. I guess she didn't listen."
"Cut the crap, Mrs D. Alison's alive and you know it." With an inhumane screech, Jessica flew at the older Hastings daughter, pushing her onto the floor and pouncing on her. Melissa screamed, struggling beneath Jessica before managing to flip her over so she was flat on her back in the dirt. In an instant, Melissa had the advantage, kneeling on the blonde's chest and pressing her fingers against the woman's throat. Spencer felt tears prickling at her eyes as she watched her former best friend's mother struggle, her legs twitching, before falling still.
Melissa stepped off the body shakily. "Mrs DiLaurentis?" She knelt down, touching the woman's shoulder. "Jessica? Oh God…" The next thing she knew, the shot changed and Spencer was watching Aria making out with Ezra Fitz in the back of a car.
She paused the video with her trembling hands, and leaned against the door as hot tears burned down her cheeks. Her sister was a murderer, and this time it wasn't an accident. Did that mean Melissa had been amongst the group that had set fire to their home and had attacked Alison? Was it her idea to target her family? She suddenly felt the weight of her exhaustion bearing down of her, and she slipped out of her clothes and into Toby's discarded shirt, crawling into bed with her daughter and partner. "I'm so sorry, baby," she whispered into her sleeping daughter's ear. She knew Toby would want her to wake him up and explain everything she'd found out, but all she could do was sleep. She didn't have it in her to reveal what she'd just witnessed, to admit to him how naïve she continued to be about what her sister was really like.
Instead, she rolled over and closed her eyes.
III
Toby awoke to streams of watery sunlight bleeding through the broken blinds of the motel room. Stretching his arm out, he could feel the familiar shape of Spencer slumbering peacefully beside him, and for a moment could imagine they were back at home before this had all begun. Any moment now, she'd be planting kisses along his neck and Adrianne would come running into the room to wake them up.
Adrianne.
Toby's eyes snapped open, a growing feeling of dread crawling across his skin. "Ady?" The three year old was no longer lying between her parents, and didn't seem to be anywhere in the room. Tearing into the small en suite bathroom and finding it empty, he began throwing open the doors of the cupboard in desperation. "Adrianne!" Spencer was stirring awake now.
"W-what's going on?"
"She's gone Spencer!" he was panicking now, his breaths short and shallow. He threw open the front door and ran out onto the scrub of grass. "Adrianne!" Spencer flew past him and began hammering on the doors of the row of rooms, screaming for her daughter. There was nobody around- that was the very reason they'd chosen this place to spend the night. Now, however it seemed a curse as there was nobody to help them. Her hands throbbed in protest as she smashed them against the hard wood of the doors, but she ignored the pain. She spun to face Toby, her hair whipping against her cheek.
"What the hell do we do?"
Ooh cliffhanger! Please review if you enjoyed it J