Whispers in the Dark
- Chapter Nineteen – Unearthed
"You didn't even give your dad a heads up that Jason was going to be here?" Aria asked as she looked over to Cory who was walking in front of her setting plates down on the table while Aria followed her with silverware.
"No! I told him and Jason both that I had to be here early to help you decorate." Cory admitted, trying to not make eye contact as Aria asked, "Decorate?"
"It was the best excuse I had… if I came with my dad then I'd probably end up saying the wrong thing and if I showed up Jason my dad would flip."
"Maybe tonight won't be as bad as you're expecting." Aria said with a hopeful tone, but she was also nervous about Ezra being there.
"I'm freaking out, not only because of the Jason thing but have you seen the looks the Partha's keep shooting me? It's like if I get too close their gonna carry the stoner gene home to that baby or something." Cory sighed, and Aria gave her a sympathetic look.
Setting the last plate down, Cory checked her surroundings and whispered, "I don't think this night could get any worse."
"Um, did you forget about the fact that Ezra will be here any second?"
"No, of course not. It's just… the crazy thing is I honestly feel like my dad would be less upset if he found out I was having some secret affair with a teacher than when he finds out about me and Jason." Cory pointed out.
"Yeah?" Aria said with a small laugh, "Maybe we should swap parents then."
"I'm game." Cory laughed.
With that she adjusted one of the cloth mats under a place setting on the table and gasped when she turned around to see Ezra, with a dumbfounded expression on his face –clearly he'd over-heard most if not all of the conversation.
"Oh… my god, Ezra!" Aria exclaimed, when she realized the same thing.
"Uh…" Ezra breathed looking between the teenagers. He was under the impression that none of Aria's friends knew about them, which apparently wasn't the truth like she'd been insisting on.
"I… I can explain." Aria said in a hushed tone as she walked closer to him, trying to come up with some excuse.
"She didn't tell me..." Cory tried to cover for her as she gave, what she hoped was a confident smile and said, "I… figured it out. I'm really perceptive."
Aria gave her a look from the corner of her eye, and Ezra questioned, "But not perceptive enough to notice I've been standing here?"
"She's not going to say anything." Aria tried to assure him. She knew one day he'd have to find out all of her friends knew about them but that was a conversation she hadn't been ready to have quite yet.
"I swear." Cory nodded as she pointed a finger to her head and said, "It's like a vault up here… trust me, I have a lot of secrets under lock and key."
"That really doesn't make me feel any better." He admitted, his voice trailing off as Aria's mom walked into the dining room and said, "There you are…"
"Just finished setting the table." Cory smiled, pretending like things were fine and they hadn't just been having one of the most uncomfortable conversations of her entire life.
"Great." Ella smiled, before she walked into the kitchen and they heard Aria's dad, Byron call out, "Ezra."
"Byron, hey." He greeted back shaking his hand before presenting a glass bottle and saying, "A gift for the host."
Taking it from him, Byron read the label and said, "Whoa, this is some serious scotch."
"Well, it always works for me." Ezra said.
"Um, Byron? Help?" Ella's voice rang out from the kitchen and he excused himself from the room.
"I thought you said that scotch tastes like diet coke and iodine?" Aria questioned.
"Yes, until I asked the guy from the liquor store what your dad liked-" He started to explain when Cory's phone rang out from her jacket pocket.
"Oh, uh… I need to go take this." She lied not even glancing at the screen as she walked down the hallway next to the stairs to give them some privacy.
Leaning against the wall she looked at her phone to see it was a text from Jason letting her know he was on his way. Taking a deep breath she tried to calm down, she wasn't as worried about what was going to happen at the dinner party as she was about what would be said once she was home that night with her dad.
Chances were, her dad wasn't going to blow up in front of his friends and colleagues but she was sure a war was going to be happening in the Blackwell household that night and with any luck she might be able to talk him down from sending her off somewhere.
The chime of the doorbell sounded throughout the house and Cory knew that must be her dad since Jason was still on his way. As she walked out of the hallway she slowed to a stop nearly running into Aria's mom who looked at her and asked, "Cory, could you get the door please? I'm trying to make sure we actually have the dinner part of this dinner party."
"Sure." She smiled nodding.
Pulling open the door she greeted her father Austin, "Hey dad."
He greeted her back and once he was inside of the house he looked around before giving his daughter a questioning look as he asked, "What decorating were you doing?"
Biting down on the inside of her cheek, she ignored the question as she said, "Oh! The Partha's are in the living room… Aria's parents are in the kitchen."
With that she quickly turned and went back into the dining room, hoping he'd rather catch up with Elliot Partha who he'd met through his time giving lectures at Hollis College.
It was barely five minutes the doorbell rang and Cory rushed to get it, but Aria's mom had beat her to it.
She smiled as she saw Jason hand Ella a small, but beautiful bouquet of flowers. After thanking him for both the flowers and saying she was glad he could make it, Aria's mom asked Cory to show Jason to the living room while she went to put the flowers in water.
Once they were alone just inside of the door, Cory looked up at him and asked, "You sure you don't just wanna blow this dinner party off and go somewhere else?"
"I think we'd seem incredibly rude if we left… plus, then your dad would know something was up anyways." He said with a smile as he leaned down and kissed her. Trying to forget about the growing knot of tension in the pit of her stomach, she melted into the kiss and into the moment with him.
Finally pulling back she ran her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, before holding onto the back of his neck and saying, "Are we sure we're ready for this… I mean once we walk in there everyone will know and there's no going back."
"Well…" He breathed quietly, as he ran his hands down her sides and held onto her hips he raised an eyebrow and said, "For one, I don't want to go back… and two, there's other people around so I don't think he's going to make a scene, right?"
She nodded and stepped back away from him nodding to the left and explaining, "The living room is that way."
"Let's go then." Jason said extending a hand to her, which she took and laced their fingers together as she started for the living room.
With every step she took closer to the doorway of the room it felt like she was trying to walk through wet cement.
Reaching the doorway, she looked over at him smiling softly as he gave her hand a small squeeze.
Walking into the room she saw Elliot Partha was on his phone, she assumed with the baby sitter again considering he'd been calling in to check on the baby about every ten minutes since he got there.
His wife Nancy was sitting on the couch, watching her husband as she shook her head back and forth and sipped from her glass and tried to enjoy being away from the house for a little while.
Nodding to where Elliot was standing in the center of the room with his phone glued to his ear, Cory said, "That's Elliot Partha… he teaches at Hollis." Hearing the introduction he raised his hand and offered a polite wave to Jason who nodded back to him.
She continued to introduce him to Nancy Partha and then took a deep breath before looking over to where her dad was standing near the fire place as she slowly walked over and said, "And of course… you know my dad already."
Austin looked between them, his eyes dropping down to their connected hands as he slowly started to put everything together and he realized she'd been seeing Jason in secret and apparently felt the best time to tell him this was at a dinner party with his friends and colleagues.
"Dr. Blackwell." Jason politely greeted as he offered his free hand to her dad and made eye contact –clearly not backing down or feeling like he had anything to be guilty for.
"Cory… what's going on?" He asked, ignoring Jason for the time being.
Even though he wasn't outwardly expressing how angry he was she could see the tops of ears starting to turn red like they always did when she did something wrong and made him mad.
"Just introducing Jason to everyone." She innocently said with a tight smile; her grip tightened on Jason's hand and his eyebrows furrowed in pain as he looked over at her with a questioning look.
"Dinner is almost ready." Ella announced as she walked into the room with a smile and set a small tray of appetizers down on the coffee table.
Walking over to them she smiled at Cory's dad as she said, "Austin, I'm glad you could make it. It's really been too long since we've done this."
"It really has." He agreed, his voice had a tinge of strain to it as he fought to keep a friendly smile on his face.
Ella gave him a confused expression before she looked over at Cory and saw her and Jason's hands and she realized what was going on and why Cory had pleaded with her to uninvited Jason.
"Oh…" She breathed out her eyes widening, before she let out a weak laugh and said, "As you can see, we've got a slightly different crowd at this one."
"I noticed that." Austin nodded, but Ella didn't give him much time to talk as she said, "We have another new face this year, but you might have seen him around Hollis."
Right on cue Aria and Ezra walked into the living room and Austin said, "Ezra, it's good to see you again."
Walking behind Cory on her way out of the living room, Ella whispered, "Next time, give me a heads up…"
Looking over her shoulder Cory reasoned, "I said tonight might be interesting."
"Mhmm…" she hummed.
"Where's Mike?" Nancy questioned.
"He's running a little late, but he'll be here." Byron defended his son's absence, but he really had no idea where he was. He'd made it clear to Mike that this was important and he needed to be there, but clearly the message hadn't been relayed as clearly as he thought.
"He runs on his own clock." Ella laughed, "But you'll find out about that soon enough." She gave her husband a look from the corner of her eye, and he shook his head back and forth showing he didn't know where Mike was either.
There was some small talk between everyone in the room until Aria's cellphone rang and she pulled Cory from the room. Once they were up in her bedroom, Aria put the phone on speaker and Spencer launched into an explanation of how Toby had uncovered an old field hockey stick in the back of their yard.
"There was tape on the handle… it said Hastings on it." Spencer continued to explain and asked them if they remembered being at Alison's the day Spencer brought it over for their late friend.
~(Flashback)~
"Hey Cory." Alison said as she found her friend in the back yard of her house, giving her a knowing look she innocently said, "I didn't know you were coming over."
"Surprise." Cory replied, trying to hide the disappointment in her eyes. She'd been sneaking around the back of the house hoping to catch Jason and not be seen by anyone else.
"Unless… you're not here to see me?" Alison continued to push.
"Who else would I be here to see?" She tried to play it off, but her friend wasn't even allowing her a few minutes of pretending she wasn't sneaking around with Jason.
"My older, pathetic excuse of a brother." Alison accused as she smugly folded her arms over her chest.
"Don't Ali…" Cory pleaded, then rolled her eyes as she asked, "Why is it that you see some older guy and everyone thinks it's so cool… but when it's me it's a different story?"
"Because the guy I like isn't a loser… like Jason." Alison argued with her, knowing this was an argument she wasn't going to lose.
"He's not a loser, Ali. He's actually really cool and he's smart-" Cory tried to argue but didn't get much of a chance to say anything before she was cut off again.
"Smart? Sure… if you're wanting to know where to find all the drug dealers in Rosewood." She loudly said with a mocking laugh.
"You know Ali, I'm not the only one with secrets." Cory shot back at her and Alison's smile dropped as she questioned, "Meaning what?"
"You told me secrets are what keep up close, but I think you do it to try and control me… and my mom said that no one can hold power over me unless I let them." The brunette argued, her eyebrows raised and her face darkened from anger.
"Your mom?" Alison laughed, "I doubt your mom would be happy about you and Jason if someone told her. In fact, I think she'd be pretty pissed off… don't you?"
Cory swallowed hard, knowing she'd took things a step too far when she'd brought up the fact that Alison had her fair share of secrets she wanted to stay hidden too. But for the moment she was feeling braver than usual and wasn't in the mood to be walked over and pushed around.
"You want to tell people about me and Jason? Go ahead and do it… tell everyone, I don't care!" She yelled at her.
"We both know that isn't true."
"It is, in fact… I'll tell everyone myself. Isn't Spencer coming over today? I'll start with her." Cory stubbornly said.
Alison stared back at her with an angry expression, knowing that what her friend had said earlier was true. The secret she knew about them were what kept her in charge and in control, Cory knew more about her than the rest of their group of friends –which made her one person Alison wasn't willing to release her hold over.
"Come on, Cor. Don't be stupid… you don't want to do that."
"Why not?" she angrily asked, crossing her arms over her chest and showing every ounce of emotion she was feeling.
"No one else will understand and accept it like I do. I mean think about it, could you imagine the judgmental looks Spencer would be giving you? Not to mention the way people who don't even know you would think you're just some loser stoner for hanging around him." Alison said in a softer tone as she wrapped an arm around her friend in a half-hug and added, "I don't want that for you."
Cory's brows furrowed as she looked at her best friend; unable to tell if Alison was really looking out for her or just worried about one of her flock straying too far. Either way, Alison had a point –everyone knew Jason spent most of his time getting high. And even though Cory had just started to occasionally do drugs with him, she didn't want anyone finding out or just assuming she was a stoner too.
Hearing twigs snapping and footsteps, both girls looked over to see Spencer and Aria emerging from the path between the Hastings and DiLaurentis properties.
Aria smiled at them and Spencer greeted, "Hey, I didn't know you were here."
"Yeah." Alison said with a smile as she squeezed Cory's hand, "Cory's thinking about going out for the field hockey team too."
"No I'm not." She countered, shooting the blonde a look.
"Everything okay?" Aria questioned as she picked up a tennis ball from the ground and sat down on a wooden bench.
Looking around at her friends, Cory finally sighed and said, "Yeah, everything's fine. Her attention fell to Alison as she clarified, "We're fine."
"This is one of Melissa's old sticks." Spencer announced presenting a field hockey stick as she added, "It's one I've been using to practice with."
"It will do." Alison said as she took the stick and leaned down slightly to practice her stance for taking a shot, but Spencer quickly took the stick and showed her the right way of holding it.
The four friends talked and joked for a while amongst each other about how Alison was only interested in field hockey because she must have liked a guy who liked the sport.
"I thought you weren't thinking about field hockey?" Aria asked when Alison handed Cory the stick and she mimicked the stance her friend's had been practicing.
"I'm not really-" Her voice trailed off as she heard Jason's voice.
"Ali!" He called louder, just before quite literally stumbling upon the group of teenage friends who stopped laughing and talking with each other.
Cory watched him, knowing by the way he was walking he'd probably spent his morning drinking his breakfast and she frowned slightly. For the most part his drinking and even his drug use didn't bother her, but it seemed like he kept getting more absorbed in it and she wished when she was around him they'd do more than sit around and get high. But she was sure she'd never get as bad off as he was –she only drank and smoked pot occasionally and she was positive she could stop at any time. Or at least that's what she told herself.
Alison looked at her older bother and then over to Cory and groaned under her breath, the worst part of having her best friend and brother being involved was that every time Jason came around them, Cory paid more attention to him than anyone else.
"Hey Jason." Cory smiled as she turned to face him.
Eyeing her for a moment he nodded with a smile of his own as he said, "What's up?" Before turning to Alison and in a gruff voice explained, "Mom wants you."
"Why?" Alison sighed, stepping up beside Cory to face him.
"She didn't say why. Just go, okay? I got better things to do than hunt you down."
"Like what?"
But Alison didn't get an answer as her brother turned his attention to her best friend and asked, "What's that?" Nodding to the field hockey stick in her hand.
"Uh, I'm thinking about trying out for field hockey." Cory lied, contradicting what she'd told her friends moments before but she was always trying to make herself sound interesting to Jason.
Spencer and Aria exchanged confused looks and Alison dramatically rolled her eyes at them when Jason nodded along with what she said. She was sure it wouldn't matter what Cory said; Jason would just smile at her and look at her like she was the only other person on earth with him. And it was equally as bad to her that it didn't matter how stoned or sloppy drunk her brother got, her best friend still looked at him like he hung the moon and every single star in the sky.
"No, she's not." Alison cut in, shooting Cory a look as she argued, "That's for me." And pulled the stick from her friend's hand. But she'd barely held it for ten seconds when it was roughly pulled from her own hands by Jason as he tauntingly said, "Oh, yeah?
When she reached for it, he quickly moved it back out of her reach.
"That's mine!" Alison yelled, "Give it back, Jason…" Her voice trailed off in an open threat, which didn't help her situation at all as it only angered her brother more.
"Or what, Ali?"
She tried to reach for it again, but her brother moved it farther away from her grip and she opened her mouth to argue more but he brought it back and raised it up, swinging it forward like he was going to hit her with it.
"Be careful!" Spencer gasped.
He'd never planned on actually hurting her, but he stopped a lot faster when Cory fearlessly pushed Alison back and stood in the way acting as a human shield, she tried to look like she wasn't scared but he saw the slight look of fear in Cory's eyes –as if he'd actually ever hurt her.
Alison's heart thudded against her chest from fear and how fast everything had just escalated between them all, her gaze then went to Cory who'd pushed her back to safety. That was the kind of friendship they had, they'd fight and be at each other's throats sometimes but when it came down to it she knew her best friend would take a bullet for her.
Jason and Cory stared at each other in silence, with her still protectively standing in front of his younger sister.
Looking at the hockey stick in his hand, he tossed it up in the air and caught the other end before holding it back out to Cory with the handle towards her. He knew he'd never hurt her; but he didn't like the look on her face -like she wasn't entirely sure of that herself. Then again, she'd seen him drunk and angry several times so in a way he didn't blame her for looking at him like that.
She reached for the field hockey stick but before she grab it, Alison angrily jerked it from his hand and swung it at him –only she wasn't playing around like he'd been. She was mad enough she was actually going to hit Jason with it –which he knew and caught it before she could, looking over at Cory as she shouted, "Ali, stop it!"
The blonde tried to pull the stick back but her brother kept a tight hold on it as he smirked and said, "Too bad… you're not gonna get a second chance, Ali."
Finally conceding, she let go of the stick and stomped past him towards the house to find out what her mom wanted.
"We should probably get back to my house." Spencer spoke up, still shaken from what had happened. Aria nodded, "Yeah, order a pizza for lunch for something. Cory you coming?"
"I'm fine." She softly said, turning to give them a smile and sell it to them.
Once her friends were out of sight on the path between the properties. She slowly turned back to face Jason with a questioning look on her face, but he was already over what had just happened and asked, "Field hockey, huh?"
As she took the stick from him, she shrugged and asked, "Why'd you do that?"
"I was just kidding around." He excused his behavior but she wasn't having it as she shook her head back and forth.
"Well it wasn't funny." Cory said, looking down to the field hockey stick in her hand.
"You do realize I wasn't going to hit her, right? But she was going to hit me with it." He pointed out, watching her face closely as he spoke.
"I knew you weren't going to hurt her… but I don't think she knew that for sure." Cory defended her best friend.
Jason looked around them before saying, "Yeah? Well, from the look on your face, I'm not so sure you believed it either."
"I should find Ali." Cory breathed, as she started to walk past him but stopped when he gently grabbed onto her arm when she passed him.
"The way you jumped in front of her like that, you really think she'd do the same for you?" He questioned.
Shrugging she answered, "I don't know, maybe… why does it matter?"
"Because I heard you both talking earlier and I heard the things she said to you. You know all of that she's only trying to protect you crap is a lie, right?" The question sounded slightly more like an accusation and even though she'd been at the house to try and steal a few minutes alone with him, now that wasn't the case.
~(End of flashback)~
Cory raised her head and swallowed hard as she pulled her mind back to the present time and asked, "What about the hockey stick, Spencer?"
"Think about it… you don't bury old sports equipment. But you do bury murder weapons."
Aria and Cory exchanged looks at what their friend had said over the phone.
"Are you serious?" Aria asked, thinking that it was possible someone might have used it hit Alison the night she was killed.
"It was in Ali's room that summer, anybody could have used it against her." Spencer told them what she'd been thinking, knowing very well that Cory wasn't going to like the accusation but it needed to be said when she added, "Jason was in the house that summer."
"So was Ian." Aria pointed out, as she kept an eye on Cory.
"Yeah, but Jason-" Spencer started to say.
"Didn't kill her… Spence, he wasn't even going to hit her that day at the house. If you remember, she was the one who was actually going to clock him with it." Cory said.
"If you actually thought he wouldn't hurt her, why'd you jump between them?" Spencer asked and Aria didn't say anything but she was wondering the same thing.
"I know you care about him, Cory. But Jason is the one saying he can't remember a single minute from the night Ali went missing and I'm starting to think that's awfully convenient." Spencer said, her voice a little harsher than she'd mean for it to be but she really believed she was onto something and when she knew something she couldn't just let it go.
"This could be A playing with us again." Aria argued.
"Except we didn't find this. Someone else did and if my dad hadn't stopped Jason from building that fence no one ever would've found it." Spencer said.
"We need to get back to the dinner party." Cory loudly said, cutting off the end of her friend's sentence and making it clear she was getting really sick of them accusing Jason of killing Alison.
"Guys, wait! Think about what this means-" Spencer started to say, but Cory reached out and ended the call on Aria's phone.
Her friend stared at her with wide eyes and Cory shrugged, "Oops."
A/N - Thank you all for reading! ^_^ Don't forget to follow me on Tumblr for story related posts and to leave a review.
Thank you to Hanna West, RHatch89, xxxRena, SmellYourScentForMiles, Momsen-xxxx, Lucy Greenhill, Cassie-D1, xxXWolfsLullabyXxx, emison, BloomingBlueMoon85, Bailey, Best PLL Story, SpiceWolf24, Guest, Guest and gRaNgErRaNgEr93 for reviewing the last chapter.