Pretty Little Liars: Paying the Cost

Chapter 2 of my Pretty Little Liars story, enjoy :)

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Now onto the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pretty Little Liars or its characters.

Season 2: Episode 2

Two weeks had passed and things were a lot calmer now, the girls were all back at school, a few people stared at them and whispered about them. The girls ignored this however, Ali convincing them that it would be better if they did. However things soon changed, the girls began to notice that the atmosphere in the school was different, people whispering again, but about something different.

"What's going on?" Emily asked, confused.

Spencer shrugged. "I heard something about...about a new student."

That caught their attention and Alison mused. "A new student huh, I wonder, what can we expect this time?"

The others knew what she meant, after all, in Rosewood a new student always meant some sort of drama. Deciding to go and see they approached the front of the school where they spotted the dark car that had parked. As they watched, the two figures finished speaking and one of them, the one in the back seat, opened the door and stepped out. This was the new student and as the door closed and the car drove off, everybody was in awe of the student who had just arrived. It was clear she was in the same year as the girls, sixteen, and was relatively short being five foot four and a half in height with shoulder length hair dyed a startling blue colour with a cherry red streak in her right bangs. Her eyebrows were blonde however suggesting that was her natural hair colour. She had fair skin and green eyes with a notably voluptuous hourglass figure being notably busty, wearing a neon green T-shirt with a black skull on it, a pair of black jeans with black combat boots.

That was the first view everyone had of the new girl who, as word got around quickly, was revealed to be called Morgan Linwood. Her father was known to be Thomas Linwood, a new member of the Rosewood police department.

"So, what do you think of her?" Hanna asked casually.

Aria bit her lip. "She's pretty smart, certainly much more than her first impressions would indicate."

Spencer smirked at that. "Yeah, quite a few of people dismissing her as a weirdo right away from her appearance, including teachers, they got a nasty surprise with how smart she is."

They all couldn't help but laugh at that, always happy to see those kind of views challenged.

"What the, you can't-!" A boy's voice suddenly burst out.

They looked up to see a shocked boy glaring at none other than Morgan Linwood. She was quirking an eyebrow at him and a smirk formed on her face.

"Oh, I can't what?" She snarked.

He faltered at that and began mumbling.

She shook her head. "Listen jerk, you try flirting with me in a jerk manner again and I'll do worse than just shoot you down publicly, got it. Any girl has the right to refuse things like that, got it."

The boy nodded quickly and hurried away, clearly horrified at something, seemingly his own behaviour.

"Now that's what we need." Ali remarked. "If only more boys got the lesson that one did."

Emily shrugged. "Would've been nice."

Knowing what she meant and getting worried, the other girls quickly did their best to comfort her, knowing she was starting to think about Ben again. As they worried about Emily, they looked over at Morgan who was walking off to class, seemingly unperturbed by the boy who had flirted with her in an apparently questionable manner who she had sent running away.

XXXXX

Tall, broad shouldered with greying black hair and a matching beard and moustache, brown eyes and fair skin, that was Thomas Linwood, the newest addition to the Rosewood Police Department. He was watching with some amusement as the head of the department was currently engaged in something of an argument with another detective.

"This is my case, you can't just pull me off it and-"

"Wilden, you've had plenty of time and produced nothing." The captain said sharply. "So Detective Linwood, who has far more experience than you might think, especially in these kind of investigations is going to take over and you are going to do a you are told, understood."

"I…" Wilden tried to protest, but saw the look he was getting. "Yes sir."

He also spotted Thomas standing nearby, smiling casually and simply waiting. Wilden grunted and turned and walked out, heading to his desk. That was when Thomas entered the captain's office and stood before the desk.

"Alright Detective Linwood, here we go, this is all the fact and details we have on the case." The Captain said. "We're counting on you to try and sort this mess out, before another girl is killed."

"Yes sir, I'll take care of it." Thomas replied, taking the box with all the case notes and such.

With that he left and returned to his desk and began looking over the case files.

XXXXX

It had been a normal day at school, everything simply going normally, when, during one of their morning classes, an announcement came over the PA system.

"Emily Fields, please report to the Principal's office."

Emily looked up, startled, the rest of the class looked at her in shock, the teacher nodded and Emily quickly packed up all her stuff and left the classroom, confused and worried. She slowly approached the office, knocked and then entered. The Principal was there, shockingly so were her parents and a police officer, the officer was also a shock, due to being a very familiar face around town, a former graduate from Rosewood High School himself. He was young, roughly the same age as Alison's brother, with short dark brown hair, brown eyes, light skin and was rather tall.

"Garrett?" She queried in shock.

Garrett Reynolds smiled and nodded. "Hello Emily, yeah, I know this probably surprised you but this is me, from party boy to new cop in town."

The Principal cleared their throat and Garrett nodded, becoming serious. Emily was gestured into a chair between her parents. She sat down and looked between her parents, confused. They were both showing sympathetic and comforting expressions as Garrett opened his notebook and sighed.

"Right well, I'm sorry to have to bring this back up for you. I'm sure you thought you'd not have to worry about Ben again until the trial." He began.

That caught Emily's attention.

She was tense, but felt reassured by the presence of her parents, Wayne gently squeezing her shoulder while Pam took her hand comfortingly.

"Trial...he's going to try and defend himself in court?" She gasped.

Garrett shrugged. "It's likely, he's not exactly accepting any wrongdoing on his part. But the reason I needed to talk to you is...well, it seems Ben was incited to attack you."

"He what-?"

Garrett pulled a photo from his pocket and held it out to Emily.

"This is a screenshot we took from a message from Ben's phone." He explained. "You should see this for yourself."

Emily did so and her eyes widened, it was a screenshot of a message alright, a chain of messages which were indeed encouraging Ben to act, to attack Emily just as he had. The part that made Emily's eyes widen however was that the messages being sent to Ben were all signed the same way, A. She shakily handed the photo back and tried to keep her composure while her parents comforted her.

"I'm sorry, Emily." Garrett said gently. "I need to ask, any ideas who this...A might be?"

Emily shook her head. "No, sorry, I can't think of anyone."

Garrett looked at her strangely but nodded and made a few notes while Emily's parents comforted her. Shortly after convincing her parents and the Principal that she would be fine and could go back to class Emily was allowed to head off while Garrett spoke gently with her parents for a short while.

It was lunch time and Emily quickly joined the group.

"So, what happened, Em?" Spencer asked right away.

Emily shook her head. "Police wanting to talk to me, it was Garrett."

"Garrett, Garrett Reynolds?" Aria gasped.

Hanna was also wide-eyed. "Wait, he's a police officer now, whoa?"

"Yeah, he was asking me about what happened with Ben." Emily confirmed.

"I thought it was practically a given what happened." Alison queried.

Emily nodded. "Yeah but...he showed a series of messages Ben was receiving and sending before what he did. It was A guys, A incited Ben to attack me."

They froze, shocked at this and then Spencer realized.

"Wait, so the police know about A?"

"Not exactly." Emily confirmed. "I kinda played dumb about A."

They all seemed to consider and share looks at that, worried but still not sure any police involvement would be good right now, not with what A seemed to know about them and could reveal about them.

"Excuse me, what did you say?"

They all turned, interrupted in their thoughts by the sound of Mona's voice. They were amused to note it was once again an incident involving Morgan Linwood. She stood, arms crossed, raising an eyebrow at an angry looking Mona.

"I said I'm not interested in joining you little clique." Morgan remarked calmly. "You're not popular like you believe. You're just a bully and you other girls are deluded if you think being with her makes you popular, you're nothing but little minions to her."

That led to the whole group looking outraged and trying to protest, but Mona then cut in.

"You'll regret this, bitch." She snapped. "You think you're special, you're nothing but a freak, you-"

"And you're just a sad little girl who has the inability to grow up from her past." Morgan remarked calmly.

With that she turned and stalked away, leaving Mona frozen and red faced, her minions muttering while the other girls watched in amazement, once more impressed with Morgan.

XXXXX

Seated at his desk, going over all the evidence and files, Thomas was aware of the presence at the door of the his office and looked up. As he expected it was Wilden.

"So, happy you got such a big case for your first time here?" Wilden remarked with a sneer.

Thomas shook his head. "Five dead girls, the chance of more and you think anyone can be happy with that? Maybe that's why it was taken off you, because you're not taking it seriously enough?"

Wilden froze at that. "You...how dare you, like you could ever-"

"You have a family Wilden, a daughter of your own?" Thomas countered.

"No?"

"Well I do, and she's in the age range of the victims, she could be next." Thomas explained. "Which is why I am taking this seriously, seriously enough I plan to make this scumbag pay, I will do everything possible to drag him down and get him either behind bars or in the ground, either way suits me so long as he can't hurt another girl."

Wilden was taken aback by this, clearly not used to someone so thoroughly talking down to him and putting him in his place, what was more, it was clear Thomas Linwood was not someone to be pushed around. He then stood up and looked seriously at Wilden.

"Alright Wilden, time for you to make yourself useful." He said. "Take me to the crime scenes, I want to see them for myself."

Wilden was too stunned to argue and simply went to go and do just that.

XXXXX

Spencer smiled lightly as she headed home, remembering her time spent working with and talking with Tony.

'He's, he's really nice, we've been...have we really been getting closer, like that.' She wondered to herself. 'We nearly, we nearly kissed…'

It was still something of a surprise to her. But Spencer put the thought to the back of her mind for now. She had other things to take care of right now, namely at home. So once she arrived and let herself in and entered the living room only to stop in her tracks.

"Ah Spencer, hello."

Her eyes were wide at the sight of an unexpected person. A rather tall young man with short brown hair and blue eyes, fair skinned and dressed smartly, all far too familiar to her. She was face to face with a shockingly familiar face, Ian Thomas.

End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.