Whispers in the Dark

- Chapter Twenty-Five – In Pieces

Cory's heart started to race in her chest as she pulled down the private road leading to the lake house her dad owned. A few hours earlier she'd gotten a text from A telling her to go to the lake house, which she assumed was a follow up text to one earlier telling her do as she was told or her secrets would come out.

On the upside A had promised to tell her who else had been tailing her, then again it seemed nothing involving A ever really had an upside.

Her mind was flooded with fear and worry as she neared the house, having no idea what would be in store for her when she got there. At times it seemed like A was just some cowardly enemy that hid behind the anonymity that a blocked number provided them, but this was also the same person who'd mowed Hanna over with a car when she got close to the truth.

When Cory pulled to a stop by several other cars in the large gravel driveway she wasn't sure if she should be relieved there were other people there or terrified to know what was waiting on her when she got inside.

Slowly she opened her car door and stepped out, feeling the gravel shift and crunch under her boots as she checked her phone for further instruction from A, but she didn't have any new messages.

Her forehead lined with confusion as she neared the door and she could hear loud music coming from inside the lake house, along with voices and laughing. It sounded like a party, which a year ago she would have loved but she was a different person now –or so she kept telling herself.

Lowering her head she turned and headed back towards her car, feeling like she couldn't get away from there fast enough. She had no idea what A had planned for her or what secrets they'd spill if she didn't follow through with the instructions given, but during her time in rehab she'd been told over and over that she needed to not put herself in triggering situations. In places or around people who would be toxic to her healing process and a party seemed to be the most toxic situation of them all.

When her phone went off with a text message, she gasped and nearly jumped. Slowly she raised her phone to where she could see it and pinned her eyes shut after reading the message from a blocked number; 'Leaving so soon? What happened to you being the life of the party? -A'

When she opened her eyes she spun around and checked her surroundings. A was there, possibly lurking in the shadows or even hiding in plain sight –either way her masked enemy was there.

Pulling a deep breath Cory tried to psych herself up for what she needed to do. She needed to go into the party, avoid alcohol and any drugs that could be there. Keep sober, alert and focused on her surroundings.

Once she was inside of the house, she looked around with a pained expression. She'd only been back in the house a few times after her brother died and not at all since her mom went missing. In fact one of the last good memories she had of her family as a whole; was when all four of them had taken a long weekend trip to the lake house.

"Hey Cory!"

Recognizing the voice she turned around to see Noel headed towards her with a bottle of beer in his hand.

"Hey…" she greeted back, looking around the steady growing crowd to see what other familiar faces were there. Some people she recognized from her school, along with some people around Jason's age she used to see at his parties, but there were also a lot of people there she didn't recognize at all.

"I thought you were done with the party scene?" Noel asked with a laugh as he took another drink from his bottle and referenced an earlier conversation they'd had at the fashion show.

"Yeah… so did I." She breathed, trying to not focus too much on the scent of alcohol in the air and how it felt like it was making her entire body ache and her mouth go dry.

Shrugging he started to walk away until she stopped him and asked, "Do you know who's throwing this party?"

Looking back at her with a confused expression, he said, "You are… this place still belongs to your family, right?"

"Yeah…" she let out a nervous laugh before continuing her line of questioning, "I just meant, uh… how did you find out about this party?"

Laughing he questioned, "How much have you had to drink already?"

"Nothing, why?"

Shaking his head, he pulled his phone from his pocket and showed her a text invitation to the party.

"I never sent that." Cory defended.

Finishing the last of his drink, Noel spotted some of his friends and said, "See you later." as he cut through the crowd to get another drink and meet up with them.

Making a mad dash to the downstairs bathroom, she rushed inside and shut the door behind her. Everything had been too much for her lately, she'd started having panic attacks again, learned that her best friend had been buried alive, and now most of the time she felt like Jason on the verge of saying he was done with her and all her secrets and lies.

She had to be there, more than knowing who A was, she needed to know who else had been after her. Who'd been so enraged that they'd slashed all four of Jason's tires, someone who'd been following her around in a car and had even tried to abduct her. A knew who this person was, somehow A seemed to know everything which mean that for Cory to get the information she was going to have play A's game but that didn't necessarily meant she'd have to face this alone.

Taking her phone out she thought about which one of her friends to call. She didn't want to involve Jason in this and calling him would only lead to him having more questions she couldn't or wouldn't answer. She still wasn't speaking to Spencer after all of her repeated accusations against Jason and it seemed like all of her other friends sided with Spencer on the matter.

Pulling in a deep breath she realized she was on her own for the night to deal with A's torment. It was obvious she'd been sent there to have her past rubbed in her face for whatever twisted game she was being forced to play.

Leaving wasn't an option, it was bad enough having one person after her and her friends but what scared her more was the other threat –the one who'd tried to abduct her from a parking lot and the one she was pretty sure broke into her house and went through her room, not to mention the car that had been tailing her and all of the calls with only breathing on the end of the line.

No, she couldn't turn tail and run. She knew she needed to face the night and A's plans for her so she'd know who else was after her –but in doing so she felt like she was making a deal with the devil. Maybe it was a necessary evil or maybe she was just being foolish, she wasn't entirely sure which and with the way she'd been feeling the past few days; she wasn't so sure she cared.

Just as she opened the door and stepped back out into the party that seemed to have even more people than was there a few minutes before, her phone buzzed in her hand and she held her breath, wondering what A had in store for her now.

The text was only a picture of a cabinet from the kitchen in the lake house. Making her way through the crowd, she could feel the bass of the music thudding in her chest along with her hastened heartbeat pressing against her ribcage.

When she reached the kitchen, the room was mostly empty apart from a couple in the far corner standing really close talking about something she couldn't hear over the music. After opening several cabinets she started to feel like she'd been sent on a wild goose chase until she opened the top cabinet closest to the refrigerator and inside was a full bottle of bourbon with a single glass beside it.

Her forehead lined as she slowly reached out with a shaky hand and pulled the bottle from the cabinet, rubbing her fingers over the label as her breath caught in her throat. Whiskey or bourbon had never been her favorite drink but back when all she wanted to do was drown her sorrows it certainty did its job.

Turning the bottle over in her hand she saw a note taped to the back, 'Consider this a late welcome home present. XO –A'

With a sour feeling rising in her stomach she set the bottle down with a clank on the counter, the longer she stared at the bottle the more the music and sounds from the party faded away until she'd all but forgotten where she was.

She'd never considered herself an alcoholic, after all she'd mainly used liquor in combination with prescription pain pills or whatever else she could get her hands on at the time, but considering her past she knew the dangers of even taking a single drink. It could send her spiraling back into the person she used to be; back to the version of herself she'd left in the past –exactly where it should be.

Her phone screen lit up and buzzed against the counter where she'd laid it down, with the sick feeling in her stomach growing she picked up the phone and saw it was a text with a picture attachment. Her eyes widened as she realized the picture was of Emily's bloodwork where it showed high levels of HGH in her bloodstream, the accompanying text read, 'There was a time when you'd do anything for me. Your choice… save yourself or Emily.'

Cory's phone fell back to the counter as it slid from her fingertips. She hated how A tried to make some of their messages sound like they were coming straight from Alison, what was worse was most of the time when she read the messages she could hear it being said in Alison's voice inside her head, as if her friend were tormenting her from the grave.

The text was the truth, she'd have done anything for her late friend and most days she'd do anything for the rest of the group too, but there had to be limits to what she'd risk. Especially now, her road to recovery had been rocky and turbulent at best and as much as she hated the thought of Emily's test results going viral, she hated the thought of reverting back to her old self even worse.

When A threatened to start spilling secrets, Cory had thought all of those secrets would be her own. She really hadn't considered that A would be threatening her with secrets that could lead to her friend's downfalls.

If she chose to not give in, to not take a drink then she might as well hand Emily's results over to any college that was interested in her, herself.

Was protecting her friend worth the risk to her own wellbeing?

No, there had to be line she wouldn't cross. Situations that she wouldn't let herself get involved in again and taking the risk of ingesting any drug –even alcohol was one of those lines she couldn't cross, not for anyone.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, lost in her own head before her phone rang causing her to jump as she picked it up and looked at the screen to see it was Emily calling her. Cory's eyes drifted past her phone to the untouched bottle still sitting out on the counter.

"Hello?" she asked, bringing the phone to her ear and plugging up her other ear with a finger to cut back on the noise from the party.

"Cory?" Emily asked, pressing her own phone tighter against her ear to hear her friend's voice over the background noise on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, it's me."

Emily peeked back around the corner into the kitchen of Hanna's house where Samara and her friends were still sitting at the table, playing cards, snacking and waiting for her to come back.

"Where are you?" Emily asked.

"I'm…." Cory's voice trailed off as she sighed and admitted, "I'm at a party."

"What?" Her friend gasped, "Cory-"

"Yeah, I know… this is the last place I should be. Did you need something?" She cut her off as she spoke.

"I… I think A is here, watching the house… watching me."

Cory's eyebrows lowered in confusion as she looked over her shoulder. Their enemy had to be there at the party with her, not watching currently watching someone else. "No, Em…I don't think so."

As Emily made her way up the stairs in the house and into Hanna's room, which she was still sharing with her, Emily walked over to the window and looked out as she explained, "Someone is here watching us. I got a text from A telling me give my number to Samara's friend Zoey… if I don't then my lab results go viral."

Turning around, Cory leaned against the counter as she slowly slid down to the floor. Pulling her knees up, she dropped her head back with a hard thud against the wooden cabinet door as she pulled in a deep breath.

"What am I supposed to do?" Emily asked in a helpless tone as she sat down on the side of her bed and rubbed her forehead with her free hand, "We can't just play cards forever, at some point they're going to have to leave."

"Okay." Cory breathed, her face scrunching as she asked, "Is Samara really that important to you?"

Cory already knew the answer to her own question. Emily didn't do anything with half of her heart, but it was the ultimate question. What was more important to her friend; her relationship with Samara or keeping her test results a secret?

"What kind of question is that?" Emily retorted, "Of course she's important to me, but…"

The phone fell silent from both ends as Cory waited on her friend to sort her own thoughts and feelings out. Finally Emily pulled in a deep breath and said, "But, if those results get out. I'm completely screwed. I'll never get to swim on a team again, there goes any shot a scholarship… which means there goes my shot at getting into a good college and I can't let that happen."

"Sounds like you've made your choice then." Cory spoke so softly that her voice was barely audible over the background noise.

Closing her eyes, Emily pulled in a breath, already haunted by the choice she was going to be forced make. Slowly she opened her eyes as the sounds of a party were still playing loudly in her ear, "What are you doing at a party?"

"It's a long story…" She skated around the truth of it being because of A, she wanted to conceal that bit of information for as long as she could, considering she was struggling with her own decision.

"Look, I know things have been rocky between you and Spencer-" Her sentence came to an abrupt stop before taking some of the blame as she continued, "Between you and all of us… but listen, it doesn't matter if we agree on Jason, what matters is that at the end of day we're still your best friends and Cory, drinking or anything else isn't going to solve that. You shouldn't be a party… especially not by yourself."

"It's not that simple."

"It is that simple. We're here for you, I'm here for you no matter what. You told me yourself you avoid parties because they're triggering for you. Do you need me to come get you? I can leave right now."

Cory weakly smiled with some tears burning at her eyes as she cleared her throat and said, "No, I don't need you to come get me. I've got my dad's for the car for the night, I'm okay."

Hearing Samara calling to her from downstairs that it was her turn for the card game, Emily asked, "Are you sure you don't need me to come get you?"

Standing back up, Cory's eyes focused back on the bottle on the counter, then up to the single glass remaining in the cabinet.

Picking up the clear glass, she ran her thumb over the smooth, cool surface and pulled in a burdened breath as she said, "No, I don't need you to come and get me… I know what I have to do."

Thinking her friend meant that she knew she needed to get herself out of the party and the situation she was in, Emily smiled as she nodded and said, "Okay, I need to get back to the game but call me later tonight or tomorrow."

Tucking her phone back into her pocket, she reached out with a still trembling hand and picked the bottle back up and opened it. The fear in her friend's voice over not being able to swim on a team again was heavily weighing on her mind on as she poured herself a drink.

She wanted to hate A for putting herself in this situation, pitting her against one of her best friends but in truth she really only hated herself for how badly she wanted that drink, for how much she felt like her old self in those moments.

On the surface it was easy enough for her to put the blame on someone else, but deep down she knew it was her own decisions that had her standing in that exact spot now, staring into a glass half full of her own choice of poison.

Emily had a future, despite everything they'd all been through Cory believed to the core that her friend was going to make something out of herself, get out of Rosewood and have a happy life far away from the troubled spot all five of them currently stood in –but the same couldn't be said for herself.

She'd learned a long time ago that she couldn't outrun her demons, no matter how fast she ran, or how far away she managed to get, they always caught up with her and she was sure they always would.

Holding the glass farther up in front of her face she wondered what A expected, was just one drink going to stop them from making Emily's blood panels viral or did they expect her to drink more than once glass?

With a bitter taste tickling the tip of her tongue, she knew it didn't matter what the terms of the agreement were to be –either way she wasn't going to stop at one drink, she never did.

Setting the glass back down on the counter, she picked up the bottle and raised it to her lips before closing her eyes and tilting her head back bringing the bottle with her.

The familiar taste saturated her mouth, followed by the burn as she swallowed the liquid down. As she lowered the bottle from her mouth, she blew out a long breath trying to ease the burn at the back of her throat as she could feel the warmth from the alcohol on her stomach and the sweet oak notes danced on her tongue before the bitter aftertaste made her lips curl.

~()~

It was a few hours later that she stumbled outside of the house, her mouth hung open as she panted for a breath of the cold night air after being inside the stuffy house and dancing until her feet hurt so bad she'd ditched her shoes somewhere between the kitchen and the back door.

There had always been a point she reached during a night of drinking when the buzz wore off and despite still be liquored up the thoughts and memories she worked so hard to avoid started to seep in and sent her spiraling down into a state of misery –that always seemed to last even after the hangover wore off.

Her bare feet slowly, but clumsily moved across the wooden dock and her eyes struggled to focus on the glimmering reflection of the moon and the stars on the water's surface.

Taking a long drink from the bottle still clutched in her hand, she stared down into the dark water for a haunted minute before she dropped the bottle in, almost mesmerized when the bottle collided with the surface and scattered the glimmering reflections –causing a ripple effect that spread far from where the bottle had resurfaced and had since been slowly sinking.

~()~

"Cory?" Jason questioned, as he slowly walked towards the soaking wet teenager who sat completely still at the edge of the dock, with her cellphone beside her lit up on the now damp wood.

Coming to a stop, he stared at her back for a moment before he looked back over his shoulder to the party that was dying out in the lake house behind them. The cold air had an eerie feel to it as it blew across the water's surface and he had the unwavering feeling that they weren't alone outside.

"Cory…" He said, stepping closer and pushing every similar scenario he'd seen played out in horror movies from his mind, like the ones where someone ignores their name being called until they finally turn around and don't have a face.

Hearing footsteps behind him he whirled around to see Mona heading towards them, he'd met the teenager weeks ago when he'd been on a date with Cory at the local movie theater.

"Hey." She greeted, looking up to see Jason as she explained, "I just went to get her a towel, but all I could find was some blankets."

Pausing for a moment she looked at Cory who was still staring vacantly out to the water, facing away from them before she said, "I guess you've probably got it from here?"

"Yeah." He nodded taking the blanket and observing that Mona's clothes from the waist down were also wet and she was shaking in the night air before he questioned, "What happened?"

With a shrug Mona said, "I found her phone inside and went looking for her… she was in the water. She won't talk… other than she wouldn't let me call any of her friends for her, but she didn't protest when I offered to call you for her." Seeing the expression on his face, her voice moved up a few octaves as she said in a hopeful voice, "Maybe she just fell in?"

"Maybe." He breathed in disbelief as he shook his head.

"Thank you." He called after her as Mona turned to walk back towards the house.

"Yeah… I just –I hope she's okay." The teenager softly replied.

Unfolding the blanket halfway, Jason walked closer and knelt down beside Cory as he draped the blanket around her, noticing her unnaturally pale skin and bluish tinted lips.

Her body trembled from the cold night air along with her wet clothes and hair. As he leaned forward to get a better look at her face he saw how vacant the look in her eyes was.

"Hey…" He breathed, pulling the blanket around her tighter and rubbing his hands up and down her arms, he didn't have the whole story yet or even fully understand what was going on. What he did know was that he needed to get her inside where she could start warming and into some dry clothes, "Let's get you back inside, okay?"

Even with the scent of the lake water in her hair as she turned to face him, he could smell alcohol and her appearance was disheveled to say the least. He also had a pretty good feeling that the dark make-up smeared around her eyes and down her cheeks wasn't just a result of being the in the water.

"It always feels like this." She whispered in a sad, weak voice. Leaving him confused for a moment before she looked back towards the house and continued, "Everyone is inside… safe and warm and I'm always just out here alone and cold."

"It's always like this." She repeated, her words were slurred and voice unsteady as she spoke.

"Come on." He said, as he tried to get her to stand up with him but she shrugged out of his grip and shook her head back and forth as she manage to whisper, "She should have just left me in the water."

"Don't say that." He argued, giving up for the time being on getting her back in the house for the time being and sat down beside her.

He was both mad at her and disappointed in equal measure, but he was also mad at himself for not realizing just how bad things had gotten for her. He felt like he should have seen the signs that she was close to breaking sobriety, that he should have done something to stop and help her.

"I'm sorry." Her voice cracked as she spoke and raised a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes, "I tried, you know? I wanted to fix everything… but there's just too much broken and I can't. I just can't."

His jaw tensed, but he stayed quiet. A part of him afraid he'd say something he'd regret if he opened his mouth and the other part didn't have a clue what to say in the first place.

"You don't have to stay." She finally breathed, rubbing her hands over her face and smearing her make up even worse than it already was.

With raised eyebrows he asked, "You really think I'd leave?"

"I think…" Her voice trailed off as she closed her eyes, feeling sick to her stomach and dizzy in her head, "I think there is too much of me." She slurred, "I'm in too many pieces and I don't think I can ever be put back together."

"I feel like a… like a hurricane, you know?"

His eyebrows lowered as he listened to her drunken rambles, as painful as it was for him to hear –he also felt like this was the most honest she'd been with him.

"I just keep going and going and going… just destroying everything and everyone around me."

He knew she probably wasn't going to hear what he was saying, but he still tried to assure her, "No, you don't. Cory, you haven't destroyed anything."

A few tears slid down her cheeks as she looked away from him and up towards the sky, her eyes stopping on the moon as she said, "I destroyed everything. I think they know… I think she knew and she couldn't stand to live under the same roof as me for another second."

"Your mom?" He questioned.

"I don't think she disappeared, I think she ran away… and I don't blame her. If I could run away from me, I would too."

"I don't believe that, not for a second. Cory, I think if your mom was able to reach you –that she would have."

"Stop." She breathed shaking her head back and forth repeating it again in a louder tone.

"Stop what?" Jason asked.

"Just stop it. Stop having an answer for everything, stop being so understanding… just stop believing in me –I'll ruin it."

"What do you want me to do?" He argued, his own voice raised, "Yell at you? Tell you how bad you screwed up?"

"Yell, scream… something!" Pushing the blanket off her shoulders she stood on unsteady legs as she ran her fingers through her wet hair and helplessly breathed out, "Anything… just do something because I can't, okay? I'm just, I can't get away from here and I just want it stop. I need it to stop, I need it all to just… to just stop."

Now on his own feet he watched her as she roughly tugged at her hair before holding onto her head as tears ran down her cheeks. He'd seen her bad off before, but he'd never seen her look as broken as she did in this moments. Taking a step closer to her he asked the question he already feared the answer to, "Cory, why were you in the lake?"

Running her hands down her face, her nails left read lines across her skin as she just barely, audibly mouthed, "The moon."

"Why were you in the water?" He repeated.

"I was looking at the moon and I was thinking about my mom. She could be out there somewhere looking at the same moon and for a minute I wondered if she could be staring at the same moon thinking about me –and then it just hit me, that I don't want her to be. Because if she is then it really means I'm so screwed up that my own mother didn't want me."

His mouth hung open as he stared back at her, his own eyes stinging as the full gravity of what she was saying sunk in and he understood this was far more than her just falling off the wagon and being a miserably sad, haunted drunk.

These were the scars of everything she'd been through busting open and she was losing the fight against her demons.

"I just… I couldn't breathe." She cried, her body shaking as she wrapped her arms around herself and trembled only now it wasn't from the cold air and damp clothes. "I couldn't catch my breath –all the air was gone and chest hurt so, so bad and I deserved it, I deserved to hurt but I just wanted it all to end. My little brother-"

"Is gone, I know… but that isn't your fault." Jason cut her off, not able to stomach anymore of what she was saying to him.

"It is my fault!" She yelled back over him, gasping for air as she screamed, "I killed him. He was a little kid and he's gone… he's dead, and it's my fault. I killed him, Jason."

Pulling in a shallow breath that burnt her lungs and didn't provide her with the oxygen she needed, she repeated, "I killed my little brother."

"What are you talking about?" His own voice had a tinge of weakness in it as he spoke to her.

"I was so messed up." Cory admitted with an ever-present stream of tears running down her cheeks, "I was supposed to be babysitting him but I'd just started taking different pills and mixing them with alcohol and I got myself so messed up that when I got home… I didn't even realize he'd gotten into the pool and closed the pool cover. I just, I stood there with my hand on the button and it killed him."

Wrapping her arms even tighter around herself, her fingertips dug into her sides as she sobbed, "How could I not have seen him?"

Jason's mouth hung open as his mind raced to understand what she was telling him. He'd known she had always blamed herself for what happened, but he had no idea that guilt ran so deep because she'd actually played a part in his death –a part much bigger than just not keeping an eye on him.

His own eyes burned as he watched her continue to fall apart in front of him. Along with her admission of guilt, she'd said something else that had shaken him to the core; that she just wanted it all to stop.

Something had clearly set her off on a self-destructive path. He'd been especially worried about her since she'd started having panic attacks again but he hadn't thought whatever was haunting her was bad enough that she'd try to take her own life.

It didn't even matter how she'd wound up in the water –whether she'd fell in or jumped. What mattered to him was that Cory hadn't tried to get out, it mattered that she didn't care what happened to herself so much that someone else had pull her to safety and now he was left haunted with the realization that if things had turned out any differently that night he could have lost her.

A/N - Hey guys thank you all so much reading!

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update, for those of you who follow my on Tumblr (if you're not already, you can follow me at sagelondyn .tumblr .com) you may already know, but for anyone who isn't aware due to severe storm damage and flooding in my area -I was without internet access for over a month.

I'm glad to be back and getting back into the swing of things and thank you for sticking with me and I really hope you all liked the chapter.