Whispers in the Dark
- Chapter Three – Bad Kids
"Did you guys sleep at all?" Hanna asked as they all sat around a table outside of the school.
"No, I just tossed and turned." Emily sighed.
"She tossed and I turned." Spencer corrected, causing Cory to laugh as she nudged Aria beside her and said, "Sounds like us."
"No it doesn't, you were the one doing all of the tossing and turning, I seriously about pushed you out of the bed." She argued, rubbing her tired eyes.
Hanna had stayed at her own house to make sure her mom didn't go into the basement, but no one else really wanted to be alone after possibly finding the weapon that Ian had used to knock Alison out. So Emily had stayed at spencer's and Cory stayed with Aria.
"I just can't wait for him to be carted out of here. Just knowing that he's in this building right now, thinking he could get away with it…" Hanna started to say, but Emily cut in as she shivered, "Her blood in the trophy case…"
"It makes me sick." Cory agreed.
Aria looked up, her eyes widening as she saw the police at the school along with the officer they'd handed the trophy over to. "Guys!" She exclaimed motioning towards the police.
"Oh my god, they're going to drag him out in front of the whole school!" Spencer guessed, but it was clear her assumption was wrong when the detective walked over to them.
"Ladies." He greeted, surveying them with a scrutinizing eye, "Which one of you found the trophy?"
When no one answered, he continued, "Who's, uh, Spencer Hastings?"
She raised her hand in response.
"So, was this a group effort or are you four just along for the ride?"
"What do you mean? We gave you evidence in-" Cory started to say, but he cut her off.
"I mean, you should've done a little research, there was no golf tournament at Hilton Head on that date."
"What about the blood?" Emily asked, feeling the last of her hope starting to slip away.
"It's not human blood… comes from a rat."
"No, but then why would there-" Hanna tried to ask, but it was becoming increasingly clear that he didn't want to listen to any of them as the officer cut her off, "Let's save our questions for the precinct. Follow me."
The school courtyard was buzzing with whispers and loud stares as they were led away from the table by police. It didn't make any sense, they'd handed over what they honestly thought was evidence in Ali's murder, and now they were the ones being treated like criminals.
Once they reached where the police patrol cars were parked all of their phones went off in unison, meaning one thing –A was behind this.
'Rat' me out. Your blood's next. –A
"A planted that trophy…" Hanna breathed.
"We should have known." Aria agreed, as she slid her phone back into her pocket and looked around at her friends. "
"Guys…" Aria breathed as she started to think back to the night they'd snuck into the frat party where Ian was she asked, "Where was Alison that night? At the party where the girl fell… where was Alison?"
"She wasn't with us…" Spencer said looking to Aria.
"She wasn't with us, either." Hanna remembered looking to Emily.
"She wasn't with me either." Cory admitted, causing spencer to scoff as she said, "You got so drunk that night, I doubt you can remember anything clearly."
"What are you getting at?" She asked, ignoring her friend's comment.
"I'm saying maybe it wasn't Ian who pushed that girl. Maybe… maybe that drunk girl was just in Alison's way." Aria admitted, hoping they'd hear her out before they started to discredit her theory.
"Why would she even do that?" Emily whispered, not able to believe it.
"Because that frat party wasn't a random pick. She took us there because she wanted to see, Ian." Spencer guessed, "Maybe she really was stalking him…"
"So what, you believe Ian now and don't think he killed her?" Hanna questioned, starting to feel like she was getting whiplash from how fast their theories kept changing.
"I didn't say that, I think he killed her… but there is still a lot we don't know about that night." Spencer reasoned.
"I don't know, I mean… I don't necessarily think Ali was stalking him, but I'm also not entirely convinced that he's the one who killed her." Cory finally admitted, looking between her friends.
"What changed?" Emily asked.
"The other morning at my house… Ian made that comment about how you guys used to be friends, what's that about?" Spencer pushed.
Cory looked around and sighed, "I guess we kind of were… we sort of hung out with the same crowd sometimes... I've always thought he was kind of weird… he always had that video camera glued to his hand and that freaked me out. But there's a pretty big jump from creep to killer."
"Why don't I remember you hanging out with him?" Hanna questioned with a confused look on her face.
"Because I didn't tell you guys, okay? It was when I started drinking all the time and started to hang out with some of the stoners…" She admitted, trying to ignore the slightly judgmental looks they were giving her as Spencer pointed out, "And you never once thought it might he useful to tell us that sort of information?"
"Well, I…" she started to argue but Spencer's face changed as she said, "Wait a minute… Just before Alison started talking about how she was seeing an older guy, she kept hinting that you were into someone older too, was that Ian?"
"No!" Cory quickly answered, but still wasn't ready to open up to them about her past with Jason so she sighed and rolled her eyes, "It was another guy Ian's age, like I said… we sort of hung with the same crowd at times."
"Guys think about it…" Aria began to say, "What if Ali thought Jenna was in her way of Ian too and she threw that firecracker on purpose, knowing that Jenna would be in the garage?"
"She really played all of us." Emily quietly whispered.
"She had all of us fooled, until now." Hanna nodded in agreement.
"I just don't get it, Cor. We had so many phone conversations about Ian and even after you moved back and you never once mentioned that you knew him. Did you know something was going on between him and Ali too?" Spencer asked, like a dog with a bone she wasn't willing to give it up. She felt like she was onto something.
When Cory remained silent she gasped, "Oh my god! You did, didn't you?"
"No, not for sure…" She defended.
"But you suspected it and you never said anything?" Aria asked, seeming a little hurt.
"Guys…"
"Her and Ali were always together… she spent more time with her than we did." Spencer remembered.
"God, I used to be so jealous of you guys." Hanna remembered, thinking of how many times she'd tried to call Alison or Cory and they'd be together, when none of the other group was invited.
"So what?" Cory defensively asked, "You think just because Ali played games that –that's what I'm doing now? Because that's not it at all… you guys aren't' the only one she did that to. She played me too."
"We can't do this right now." Aria pointed out, nodding to where Ian was standing just outside of the school watching them with a smug smile. She continued, "We need to stay strong and stick together… we're strongest when we're all on the same side."
They nodded, knowing that whether Ian killed Alison or not, he was onto the fact that they at least thought he was guilty and were actively trying to prove it. Which made him a common enemy they all shared.
As the friends were loaded into two police cars and driven towards the station, Cory thought back to the night of the party and for the first time really started to wonder if maybe Alison had pushed that girl down the stairs. It was a possibility that it wasn't an accident.
Closing her eyes she tried to remember back to that night after she'd started drinking, hoping she'd remember something she'd missed before –but she couldn't. Truth was, after she'd started drinking the rest of the night was a blur. She'd woke up the next morning in her own bed with Alison beside her and the rest of their group scattered around her bedroom, she didn't even remember how she got there.
Her mouth felt dry as cotton and her hands balled into fists at her sides repeatedly as she thought of how bad things used to get when she started drinking. She wasn't always like that, in fact she'd never really drank until she started hanging around with Jason.
~(Flashback)~
Cory sighed as Alison's phone went to voicemail again. Sighing she opened the front door to her friend's house thinking that maybe Alison had overslept or something since it was a Saturday.
She did a quick search of the downstairs before heading upstairs thinking how strange it was, Alison never slept this late before. Weekend's were their time to go out and have fun, sometimes they didn't even sleep until Sunday night.
"Ali?" Cory questioned as she gently knocked on the door to her best friend's room and walked inside, but her friend was still nowhere to be found.
She was about to just leave and go back home but paused in the hallway when she heard music coming from Jason's room.
Taking a deep breath she walked over and knocked on his closed door, she tried to tell herself it was only because she was wondering if he knew where Alison was. But secretly she was also just wanting to see him, it had been a few days since their encounter on the stairs when she'd given him her number so she could be invited to his next party.
A moment she'd played over and over in her head since it happened, her first real attempt at flirting and it seemed to have turned out okay because she was pretty sure he was returning her advances. He was a few years older than her, but everyone always told her she acted older than her age. So maybe if she could show him that, he'd really be interested in her. After all, it seemed like all of his friends had gone onto college and Alison said he never did anything but stay in his room, drink and get high. So he was apparently not really acting his age.
Her eyes widened at that thought and she wondered what she was even doing there at his bedroom door. He was a complete loser, or at least that's what Alison said all of the time. And with his bad habits she knew she shouldn't be interested in him… but she couldn't help it.
Changing her mind she turned around and started to leave, but just as she did the door to the bedroom opened and she had no choice but to turn back around and face him.
He stared at her for a moment, almost laughing at the shocked expression on her face.
Leaning against the door frame, he crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows as he said, "Wow, you're really persistent about that party invite, huh?"
Laughing she smiled at him and he smiled back, her stomach erupted in flutters and she thought of how none of Alison's others friends got a smile like that from him.
"No, uh… I was just wondering if you knew where Ali was." She admitted.
"I heard her leave about an hour ago." He admitted, as he turned around and walked back into his room leaving the door open as Cory looked down to the threshold and wondered if she should follow him or not. She wasn't allowed to have boys in her room and she was sure that rule from her parents extended to her not going into their room's either –especially not a friend's older brother. But they'd never have to know…
Without a second thought she walked into his room and looked around, he'd already graduated high school, but his room looked like a teenagers room. There were some dirty clothes on the floor beside his bed and a cluttered desk the only other furniture he had was a large TV with several game consoles on the floor in front of it and a worn looking recliner facing it.
Rock band posters lined the walls and there was an ever growing pyramid sculpture of beer cans on the floor next to the chair, which almost all toppled over when he dropped back into his seat and watched her as she nervously looked around before slowly taking a seat on the very edge of his bed and looking at him. Her hazel eyes wide as she stuttered out, "Do you know where she went?"
Finishing off the last of his current can of beer, he shrugged, "I heard other voices… probably out with friends."
Swallowing hard she watched as he stacked the can on top of another one and she cleared her throat, "Oh, uh… we had plans today."
Looking down she smoothed the edges of her skirt out and breathed, "I guess she forgot."
He didn't hear her but he did see how upset she looked. "You alright?"
Looking up at him she shrugged, "Do you ever just feel like you don't belong sometimes?"
"No." He answered, then continued, "My dad's already left for work and my mom's downstairs right now getting ready for work. They've got everything figured out, even Ali seems to have everything together most of the time. Everyone I went to school with has moved away for college, they really only come back for the parties-"
She laughed at realizing he'd been sarcastic, it was sounding like he was feeling just as out of place as she was lately.
"You're mom already left, by the way… it's almost noon."
"What…" He breathed feeling his pockets until he located his phone and leaned his head back with a sigh at himself, he'd only woken up a few hours before then and thought it was early morning.
"Can I ask you something?" Cory questioned, not able to pull her eyes off of him.
He looked over at her and nodded.
"How come you didn't go on to college with your friends? What do you want to do?" She questioned, for her she'd always grown up thinking college came immediately after high school and there wasn't really a question as to whether she'd go or not.
"I don't know." He shrugged, he watched her for a few moments before he asked, "What about you?"
"College, right after high school." She answered without thinking.
"Hmm…" He hummed.
"What?"
"Is that what you want or is that what your parents told you was going to happen?"
She started to answer but then stopped and thought for a moment before she shrugged, "Kind of both I guess…"
"See that's the problem in a place like Rosewood. Everyone is always so caught up in what everyone else thinks about them. There's no room for error, our parents pretty much plan our entire lives our and we're just expected to go along with it." He watched her intently as he spoke, and she thought that for someone who spend most of their time stoned –he was actually really smart and could even be called wise.
What he said was the truth, they lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone else's business and her entire life all she'd heard from her parents was that in a town like theirs, there was no room for accidents. Because long after you messed up and forgot about it, your neighbors never would and they'd be right there to remind you at every turn.
"It's exhausting isn't it?" He breathed as he stood up and walked over to his dresser, glancing over his shoulder he continued, "Having to pretend you're perfect around the clock."
"It's more than exhausting." She admitted, smiling as she thought of how being around him was the first time as long as she could remember that she wasn't feeling judged. Even around her friend's she always felt like they were either judging her or trying to compete with her.
"How do you get past it?" Cory questioned, wondering if he had any sound advice to go along with his theories and empathy.
"This helps." He said as he turned around and she saw he had a bottle of alcohol in his hand. Her eyes widened, she'd never really drank much before and she wasn't sure if he was just taking the bottle out to casually drink or if he expected her to drink with him.
She rubbed her sweaty palms on her skirt and tried to not show how nervous she was.
Walking back over he sat down beside her and said, "Honestly, Rosewood and the people in it are never going to change… so you either have to comform, or get used to them talking about you."
"Or drown your sorrows?" She joked, hoping her laugh sounded confident and not like she was manic.
He looked at her and laughed along as he took a drink from the bottle and said, "Hey, each to their own... right?"
"Yeah, I guess so." She nodded, not feeling as nervous anymore.
She wasn't sure what it was about him, but she just felt at ease in his presence which was pretty surprising, considering her every time he smiled at her, if felt like her knees turned to rubber and her heart threatened to burst right out of her rib cage.
Her eyes widened as he held out the bottle he'd been drinking from to her and shook it lightly to show he was offering her a drink.
"Oh no thanks I don't…" Her voice trailed off as she considered it was just one drink, it wasn't like taking one drink was going to change everything and they were alone in the house. No one was going to tell her parents or look down on her for it. He was treating her like an adult and to be honest, was actually probably one of the nicest people she'd ever met and could have an actual conversation with.
Before she could change her mind, she quickly grabbed the bottle and took a big drink from it before pushing it back into his hands and causing him to start laughing a she leaned over slightly and choked out, "Oh my god… is it supposed to burn like that?"
Finally getting a breath she sat up, her face wrinkled from the taste of the alcohol still lingering on her tongue and now there was a warm feeling in her stomach where it had settled.
"Maybe you shouldn't have tried to drink half the bottle to begin with." He laughed, and despite the burning sensation still in her throat she smiled at him.
It was over an hour later, that she finally realized what time it was and she certainly didn't want to run into Alison while trying to leave the house, or worse end up running into Mr. or Mrs. DiLaurentis. He walked her to the front door in a comfortable silence; they'd spent the hour just talking. Thinking back she couldn't really remember what they'd even talked about, just that being with him and not being judged for anything felt like a safe place.
One they reached the front door and stepped out onto the porch, she practically felt like she was floating. A small part of that was probably the alcohol she'd consumed, but most of it stemmed from just being around him.
"I think I was wrong about you." He admitted as they stood on the porch with the door to his house open behind him as he said, "you're a lot different than I thought you were."
"In a good way or a bad way?" she questioned, nervously.
He smiled at seeing her worried expression. "A good way… you're just different than everyone else in Rosewood. Maybe I was even wrong about my parties not really being your scene."
His words hung in the air as her lips curved up into a wide, uncontrollable smile. As impossible as it had seemed in the beginning, they were pretty much friends now and he was so much easier to get along with than his sister.
She'd gone to the house looking forward to spending a day with Alison, but left feeling relieved that Alison had stood her up and almost ecstatic with the time she'd got to spend with Jason because of it.
Remembering back to their last conversation about his party, she looked at him and asked, "You never got the chance to tell me what I'd get when I win the bet and actually show up."
It was unclear whether she was actually getting super confident around him or if the was the liquid courage she'd consumed, but either way her move paid off as he stepped closer to her and their eyes locked.
Leaning down he gently grabbed onto her chin and tilted her face up to him as he leaned down and captured her lips in a kiss that made time feel like it was standing still. She leaned up farther, deepening the kiss and softly smiled against his lips as the formerly bitter notes from the taste of the alcohol actually tasted sweet in his mouth.
She left the DiLaurentis house that day flying home on her own personal cloud nine feeling. He'd kissed her, he'd actually kissed her and it was absolutely amazing.
~(End of flashback)~
It had been a couple days since they'd been questioned by police even though no further action had been taken, it was abundantly clear that their plan was backfiring more and more each day.
Cory's dad had been shooting her disappointed looks ever since they'd left the station, and had muttered under his breath several times that if he'd known moving back to Rosewood was going to cause them this much of a scene they'd have moved somewhere else.
Spencer's parents thought she was unstable and no one in her family believed Ian was capable of murdering Alison or thought he'd done anything wrong. Caleb hadn't been able to crack the code and get into Jenna's phone yet so all they really had to go on was the number '214' that spencer had deciphered from a paper brail scratching toby had provided her with.
So far their best lead there was that it could possibly be a room Jenna had at the Edgewood Motor Court.
They'd been almost entirely honest with the police about what they knew when it came to Ian, but the police didn't' believe them. They all but flat out said they thought the girls were crying wolf, only in their case the wolf was living in Spencer's backyard and all of her friends were worried for her.
Just as Cory had sat down to dinner with her dad for the first time all week her phone started to buzz on the table next to her plate of lasagna and she cringed –a normal reaction when it seemed like A could be sending her another threat.
But she breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was from Spencer, that was until she opened it and saw that it read; S.O.S.
A code they'd been using for years to alert everyone to drop what they were doing and meet up.
"Can't you unglue your phone from your hand? Just long enough to eat dinner with your father?" Austin sighed.
Scooting her chair away from the table she apologized, "I'm sorry, dad. But I have to go…"
"It's late-" He started to argue, but she cut him off. "It's important, I'm sorry."
With a loud, disappointed sigh he dropped his fork to the plate with a loud clank as he said,. "Cory, I didn't want to say anything… you've been doing so good since you got out of rehab. But we're back in Rosewood now and if people see you coming and going at all hours of the night, they're going to start talking and with your past-"
She turned and looked at him as she pulled her jacket on and shrugged, "Then let them talk dad. Our town and the people in it are never going to change, they're never going to stop judging. I can't do anything about that, but what I can do is not let them get to me."
Without another word she rushed out of the house and started her journey to spencer's by cutting through neighbors yards and managing to set off about every security light she passed until she met up with Hanna, Emily and Aria.
"Did she send anything else?" Aria asked her friends as they watched the police cars outside of Spencer's house.
"Just the S.O.S." Hanna admitted.
"Same here." Cory agreed.
"What is going on in there…" Emily breathed, as she hoped their friend was alright.
Their phones went off in unison and they all held their breath with the hope that it would be a text from Spencer filling them in on what was happening. But it wasn't.
A mutual degree of shock shook the group of friends as they read what the text said:
"Breaking news, bitches. Spencer Hastings now a person of interest… in my death. –A"
A/N- ^_^ Did you all like the chapter? I really hope so. Also if anyone is interested, the link to my Tumblr account is up on my profile and I've also made a mix on 8tracks to go along with this story, the link is also on my profile. ^_^
I want to take a moment to thank everyone to has added this story to your favorites and/or subscribed to updated alerts. It means so much!
And I owe some extra special thank yous and long distance hugs to xxXWolfsLullabyXxx, SmellYourScentForMiles, Heartless-Princess33, Lucy Greenhill, xxxRena, Pluv143000, Momsen-xxx, RHatch89, DancingDorisDay, InYourNightmares, HermioneandMarcus, and the 2 guests who reviewed the last chapter.