Sara Shepard - Wanted

Everyone rushed to the center of the room and held one another. Emily shivered uncontrollably. She could feel someone’s heart beating against hers. “It’ll be okay,” Spencer repeated over and over in Melissa’s ear. “We need to find a way out of here.”

“There is no way!” Melissa’s eyes were full of tears. “Don’t you see?”

“Wait a minute.” Aria leaped to her feet. She looked around the room quizzically, her forehead furrowed. “I think this is the room with the passage that leads to the kitchen.”

“What are you talking about?” Hanna asked.

“Don’t you remember?” Aria cried. “We hid in here to scare Jason.”

Aria marched to the dresser and shoved it out of the way. To Emily’s astonishment, there was the small door, about the height of a golden retriever. Aria pulled the latch and kicked it open, revealing a dark tunnel. Melissa gasped.

“Come on,” Spencer urged, sinking to her hands and knees and squeezing through the tiny door. She dragged her sister through after her. Aria went next, then Hanna. Emily’s stomach jumped. The tunnel smelled like Ian’s rotting body.

“Emily!” Spencer’s echoing voice sounded very far away. “Hurry!”

Emily took a deep breath, folded her shoulders, and crawled inside. The tunnel was about ten feet long and let out in a small, closet-size room that looked as though it had been closed up for years. There were piles of dust and tons of dead bugs in the corners and a big water stain on the ceiling. Aria tried the knob to the far door that led to the rickety wooden staircase, but it didn’t budge. “It’s jammed,” she whispered.

“It can’t be,” Spencer insisted. She threw her shoulder against it in desperation. Emily, Aria, and Hanna joined in. Finally, the wood splintered, then gave way. Emily let out a relieved sound that was a mix between a sigh and a wail.

They scampered down the stairs and opened a third door. The heat rushed at them, stinging their eyes and skin. The room was filled with even thicker plumes of smoke. Emily fumbled around the kitchen island, trying to get her bearings. She staggered in the direction of the front door. A shadow moved to her left, in and out of the noxious fog. Someone was hammering the windows shut so there was no chance of getting out.

Emily froze when she saw the blond hair, the heart-shaped face, the kissable lips. Ali.

Ali wheeled around and stared at Emily as if she’d seen a ghost. The hammer fell clumsily to the floor. Her eyes were slate gray and cold, her mouth misshaped into a half smirk. A sob rose in Emily’s chest. All of a sudden, she knew that this girl had written that note…and that everything in it was true. Her heart broke into a million pieces.

Ali turned and raced for the door just as Emily shot forward, grabbing Ali by the arm and spinning her around. Ali’s mouth made a startled O . Emily held her roughly by the shoulders, her grip strong.

“How could you do this?” Emily demanded.

Ali tried to wrench free. Her eyes seethed with loathing. “I already told you,” she rasped. “You bitches ruined my life.” It didn’t even sound like her voice.

“But…I loved you,” Emily squeaked, her eyes filling with tears.

Ali let out a perverse giggle. “You are such a loser, Emily.”

It felt like she’d driven a long skewer straight through Emily’s heart. She squeezed Ali’s shoulders hard, wanting her to know how much it hurt. How can you say that? she was about to scream. How can you hate us so much?

But then a giant boom filled the air, momentarily blinding her. There was a bright white light and a rush of heat. Emily covered her head and eyes as the force of the explosion lifted her off the ground. She felt a snap , then a crash . She landed hard on her shoulder, her teeth clanging together.

The world was white for a moment. Calm. Empty. When Emily opened her eyes again, the sound and heat and pain rushed back in. She was lying near the front door, a pool of blood by her mouth. Desperate, she fumbled for the doorknob. It burned to the touch, but it turned. She crawled to the porch and then to the lawn, sprawling on the cold, wet grass.

When Emily opened her eyes again, someone was coughing next to her. Spencer and her sister were collapsed on the grass nearby. Aria was by the big chestnut tree, crumpled on her side. Hanna was near the driveway, slowly pushing herself to a sitting position.

Emily gazed back at the big house. Smoke billowed from every crack. Flames leaped from the roof. A shadow passed in front of the living room window. And then there was a thunderous cracking sound, and the whole house exploded.

Emily shrieked, covered her eyes, and curled into a ball. Just count to a hundred, she told herself. Just pretend you’re swimming laps. Just keep your eyes shut until this is over. The air felt hot and dirty, and the sound was louder than a thousand airplanes taking off. A couple of sparks rained down onto Emily’s shoulders, hot snaps against her skin.

The explosions continued for a few long seconds more. When they subsided, Emily parted her fingers and peered out from beneath her hands. The house was nothing but a giant mountain of fire.

“Ali,” she whispered, but the word was immediately swallowed up as the chimney crashed to the ground. Ali was still inside.

Spencer lay coughing on the lawn a safe distance away from the house, Melissa out cold next to her. The structure burned steadily, an inferno of yellow and orange. Every so often, a mini explosion spit sparks high into the sky. The upstairs level, where they’d recently been imprisoned, was nothing but a brittle, blazing carcass.

The other girls crawled over to them. “Is everyone okay?” Spencer shouted. Emily nodded. Hanna coughed out a yes. Aria had her face in her hands, but weakly said she was fine. A sharp wind whipped around their faces. It was heavy with the odor of charred wood and dead bodies.

“I can’t get that letter out of my head,” Emily said in a monotone, shivering in her thin sweater. “Ali was so angry at her sister for switching places and sending her away she killed her.”

“Yep,” Spencer said, shifting her weight on the bumpy ground.

“Ian had nothing to do with it. Billy didn’t, either. Ali just needed to pin it on someone. And then she was going to kill us.” It was like Emily needed to say all of this out loud to convince herself that it had really happened.

“It was Courtney who talked to us when we tried to steal her Time Capsule flag. It was the only way to make her parents think she was the sane twin…” Aria said in equal disbelief, wiping soot from her face. “And Courtney picked us at the charity drive because she had to—she couldn’t be friends with Naomi and Riley anymore. She didn’t know them—she only knew us.”

“Naomi and Riley told me Ali ditched them for no reason at all,” Hanna sighed.

Spencer hugged her knees. Another spark rose high in the air. A terrified squirrel skittered down a nearby tree and took off across the lawn. “When Ian came to my porch, he said he was on the verge of figuring out a crazy secret that would turn Rosewood upside-down. He must have known that Courtney had been home that weekend.”

“And Ali must have known we’d think Jason or Wilden set that fire,” Hanna wailed. “Except the fire didn’t go as planned—she got hurt. So she called Wilden, and he whisked her away, thinking she was following her parents’ orders to stay hidden. But really, she left to make us look crazier.”

“And I guess Ali put those pictures on Billy’s laptop,” Spencer continued, wincing as something else inside the house popped and crackled. She checked on Melissa, who held her face in her hands, quietly sobbing. “She was also the one who’d called the cops and tipped them off, saying Billy killed Jenna.”