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Chapter 61

"He said that Charles was his imaginary friend?"

"Yeah, that's what he told me," Spencer insists, looking around at all of us. I'm perched on the edge of the chair that Hanna is sitting in, and we exchange a glance.

"Well, you didn't believe him, did you?" I demand, because I'm the only one here who is hearing this for the first time. Part of me is a little annoyed that this is the first they've told me. But most of me is just glad that at least they're bothering to tell me anything at all.

Spencer rolls her eyes. "Of course not. But I don't think that Jason lied. I think Mr. DiLaurentis lied to Jason."

I shake my head, more confused than ever. "What does Mr. DiLaurentis have to do with Charles?"

"Charlie," Hanna interjects, and Spencer gives her a look.

"Apparently one day he told Jason that Charlie had to go away. Jason was never allowed to talk about him again."

"Yeah, so there has to be more to the story, right?" Aria says eagerly. "Nothing about that makes sense."

I sigh and rest my chin in my hand, disappointed. When Spencer sent me a text telling me to come to her house, I was sure that they were going to have some big revelation to tell me. But we're not much closer than we were before this.

"So that's it?" I ask, fingering the strap of my purse, which is laying on the ground beside me. "That's all you had to tell me?"

They all exchange an uneasy look and I sit up, suddenly alarmed. "What?"

"We went to see Dr. Sullivan today," Emily explains, her brow furrowed in worry. "For help."

"Did you tell her?" I demand, not even irritated that they didn't invite me along. "About Charles?"

"We were about to," Hanna bursts out in frustration. "And then 'A' sent us a video."

I feel my heart rate increase. "What? What was the video of?" But I'm not even sure that I want to know.

Emily closes her eyes and takes a breath, but it's Aria who answers. " 'A' was in Emily's house. He was holding a knife up to Sara."

I gasp, going momentarily numb. Whoa. I know that "A" has been violent before – hello, he knocked me out about five times in the dollhouse – but actually wielding a knife at someone? I suddenly feel like this whole situation is spiraling out of control.

"Charles knew that we were in Sullivan's office," Spencer goes on, her voice low. "He threatened to hurt Sara if we told her anything."

"Is she okay?" I ask in alarm. I haven't spoken much to Sara Harvey – and not at all since we've been out of the hospital – but she's been staying at Emily's house for the past few days, and I know that her home situation is pretty sucky. I feel bad for her – at least I had a nice house and family to come back to, but Sara has nothing.

"She's fine," Emily says quickly, her cheeks reddening. I bite my lip and look away. Emily's not falling for Sara, is she? "But we wanted to warn you so you don't make the same mistake that we did."

Fiddling with my hands, I think about all they've told me. One thought keeps bouncing back into my head. "Did you tell Jason?" I ask Spencer. "That you think his dad lied to him about Charlie?"

"No." She shakes her head, and I notice for the first time how red her eyes look. It reminds me of how she looked back in the fall, back when she was convinced that Ezra was "A" and staying up all night, hopped up on pills, to prove it. I wonder now if she's having the same problem. "We haven't told Jason or Alison."

I frown down at my lap. "I feel bad for him. This whole thing has just been the past year of our lives. But we're basically ripping apart his whole childhood."

Hanna raises an eyebrow at me. She doesn't look like she's slept much, either. "Since when do you care so much about Jason?"

"He really helped me one night," I blurt out before I can stop myself. I resist the urge to clap my hand over my mouth. I haven't let myself think about that night in a long time, and I always told myself that I would never tell a soul.

But they're all staring at me, obviously intrigued, so I shrug and go on, as vaguely as possible, "I…um, I went to a party at Sean's house the summer that everything…happened. I had a few drinks and he found me on the sidewalk and drove me home."

Emily smiles, but she looks a little dubious. "Don't you live, like, three blocks away from Sean's house?"

"Lightweight," Hanna giggles, whacking me on the arm.

This would be the perfect opportunity for me to end this conversation, now that everyone's in good spirits, but for some reason, the words spill out. "I wasn't just drunk, you guys. I was having a panic attack."

"Why?" Spencer and Aria say at once.

I take a deep breath, but for some reason, I'm not afraid to tell them. It was so long ago that it almost feels like it happened to a different person. And in a way, I guess it did, compared to everything I've been through since then. "Ian was at the party. He cornered me in a bedroom."

Aria's mouth falls open. Spencer looks sick to her stomach. "He tried to…"

"Yes," I say quickly before she can get the word out. I don't think I can handle her saying it out loud. "I got away and ran halfway down the block, but then everything started spinning and I had to sit down. Jason was driving by and found me squatting there. If it wasn't for him…I don't know what I would have done."

"Why didn't you tell us this?" Spencer demands, though she doesn't sound angry. "Back when we thought that Ian killed Alison?"

I shrug weakly, remembering that conversation in the bathroom, so long ago. "We weren't…" I trail off, the word "friends" stuck in my throat. Can I really consider these girls my friends now? It doesn't feel right, so I start over. "I didn't know you guys that well then. It's even hard for me to talk about now."

Hanna puts her arm around me, smiling, even though her eyes are sad. "You could have told me," she says quietly. "You were like family back then."

I laugh a little. "Well, my actual family doesn't know, so…"

Spencer shakes her head, looking incredulous. "Wow. I was on the 'A' team at the same time that you were, and even I didn't know."

"Trust me," I mutter, pushing my hair out of my face. "I made sure that secret stayed in the dark."

"Everyone has secrets," Hanna says, her voice changing from concerned to determined. "And we're going to find out Mr. D's."

…

It's late that night, but for the first time, I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about Charles, picturing the little blond-haired boy in that video. What could have happened to him to make him such a twisted psychopath? And who is he?

I'm curled up on the couch in the living room, watching the news on low, because I don't want to wake my dad. But when Andrew Campbell's face fills the screen, I bolt upright and grab the remote, turning up the volume.

"Eighteen-year-old Andrew Campbell, the primary suspect in the kidnapping investigation of seven teenage girls, was officially released from his jail hold earlier this evening. Though police found connections between the site where the girls were held to the Campbell family apple farm, hard evidence could not be found to tie Campbell to the abduction."

I mute the volume again and stare at the screen. Was it because of my interrogation that the police released Andrew? Was it because I couldn't identify him as the person tormenting us in that dungeon?

My stomach sinks. What if he really did do it? I may have just helped "A" go free again. I pick up my phone, half expecting a taunting text. When it's thankfully silent, I send off a quick text to Mona: Cops just released Andrew. Back to square one.

A moment later my phone chimes, but the message isn't from my sister. It's a message from Spencer, with a photo attached. I open the picture first. It's of Alison's mother with the baby and those two little boys, and looks to be from the same day that video was taken. The boy in the middle is circled in red.

I open the text. Mr. D told Ali the truth. Charles is her brother. He was sent to Radley.

My phone nearly falls out of my hand. I guess I should have expected this, I mean, what other explanation could there have been? And it only makes sense that the boy who grew up to become "A" spent his childhood in a sanitarium.

My hands are shaking so badly that it takes a few minutes to type out a response. He's the one who's been doing all of this to us?

It feels like hours before Spencer writes back, but in reality, the text comes only minutes later. It can't be…Charles is dead.

...

So Viola's oldest secret is out. Next, Mona returns to Rosewood, and Viola finds herself wrapped up in the drama with Lesli Stone. Please leave a review and tell me what you think!