Sara Shepard - Heartless

“I’m not getting worked up!” Hanna roared, her voice echoing off the walls.

Felicia backed off, her eyes round. A tense ripple swept through the other girls. Megan coughed, “ Psycho, ” into her hand. Pinpricks danced across Hanna’s skin.

Dr. Felicia returned to her chair and riffled her notebook pages. “Well. Let’s move on.” She turned a page in her notebook. “Uh . . . Gina. Have you spoken to your mom this week? How did that go?”

But as Dr. Felicia asked the other girls about how their weeks had been, Hanna’s mind wouldn’t quiet down. It was like there was a tiny splinter in her brain that desperately needed to be dislodged. When she shut her eyes, she was in the Rosewood Day parking lot again, Mona’s car barreling toward her. No, she shouted to herself. She couldn’t go down this path, not here, not ever again. She forced her eyes open. The fun noodles in the corner blurred and wobbled. The girls’ faces warped and stretched, like she was looking at them through a fun house mirror.

Unable to stand it any longer, Hanna pointed a shaking finger at Tara. “You have to tell me how you know about Mona.”

Silence fell. Tara’s pimply brow crinkled. “Excuse me?”

“Did A tell you about her?” Hanna asked.

Tara shook her head slowly. “A who?”

Dr. Felicia stood up, crossed the room, and touched Hanna’s arm. “You seem confused, honey. Maybe you should go back to your room and rest.”

But Hanna didn’t move. Tara matched her stare for a while, then rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I have no idea who Mona is. I thought your bitchy best friend was Alison.”

Hanna’s throat shunted closed. She sank back into her seat.

Iris perked up. “Alison? Isn’t that the girl whose flag you have? Why is she an ex -best friend?”

Hanna barely heard her. She stared at Tara. “How do you know about Alison?” she whispered.

Begrudgingly, Tara reached into her grubby canvas bag. “From this.” She tossed a copy of People Hanna had never seen before across the room. It skidded to a stop next to Hanna’s chair. “I was going to tell you about this before GT. But you were too cool to talk to me.”

Hanna snatched the magazine and opened to a marked page. Splashed out across the spread was the headline A Week of Secrets and Lies. Beneath it was a picture of Hanna, Spencer, Aria, and Emily, running from the fire in the woods. The caption said The Pretty Little Liars, followed by each of their names.

“Oh my God,” Hanna whispered.

Then she noticed a box and a graph in the bottom right-hand corner. DID THE PRETTY LITTLE LIARS KILL ALISON DILAURENTIS? They’d surveyed a hundred people in Times Square. Almost the whole pie—92 percent—was purple for yes.

“I love your nickname, by the way,” Tara simpered, crossing her legs. “Pretty Little Liars. So cute.”

Everyone crowded around Hanna’s chair to read. She felt powerless to stop them. Ruby gasped. A patient named Julie clucked her tongue. And Iris—well, Iris looked horrified and disgusted. Everyone’s opinions about Hanna were changing instantaneously. From now on, she would be that girl. The psycho everyone thought killed her best friend four years ago.

Dr. Felicia snatched the magazine from Hanna’s lap. “Where did you get this?” she scolded Tara. “You know magazines aren’t allowed.”

Tara cowered, shy and sheepish now that she was in trouble. “Iris always brags that she gets early editions of the magazine snuck in,” she mumbled, peeling away the wrapping on her water bottle. “I just wanted to see a copy for myself.”

Iris rose to her feet, almost knocking over a chrome floor lamp next to her. She strode over to Tara. “I had that issue in my bedroom, you bitch! I hadn’t even read it yet! You went through my stuff!”

“Iris.” Dr. Felicia clapped her hands, trying to regain control. A nurse peered through the little side pane in the GT door, probably trying to decide whether or not she should come to Dr. Felicia’s aid. “Iris, you know your room is locked. No patient can get in.”

“It wasn’t in her bedroom,” Tara cried. She pointed toward the hall. “It was on the window seat near the lobby.”

“That’s impossible!” Iris screamed, whirling around and facing Dr. Felicia again. Her eyes yo-yoed from the magazine in Dr. Felicia’s fist to Hanna’s stricken face. “And you. You tried to come off as so cool, Hanna. But you’re just as messed up as everyone else in here.”

“Pretty Little Liar,” a girl across the room teased.

A huge lump formed in Hanna’s throat. Now all eyes were on her again. She wanted to get up and run out of the room, but it felt like her butt was stitched into the seat. “I’m not a liar,” she said in a small voice.

Iris snorted, looking Hanna up and down disdainfully, as if Hanna had suddenly sprouted a rash of zits all over her face and arms. “Whatever.”

“Girls, stop!” Dr. Felicia pulled Iris by her sleeve. “And, Iris and Tara, you both broke the rules and you’re both in trouble.” She shoved People into her back pocket, then pulled Tara to her feet, grabbed Iris’s arm, and marched both girls out the door. Before they left, Tara turned around and shot Hanna a smirk.

“Iris,” Hanna pleaded to Iris’s receding back, “it’s not what you think!”

Iris turned in the doorway, staring at Hanna blankly, as if she were a stranger. “Sorry, but I don’t talk to freaks.” And then she whirled around and followed Felicia down the hall, leaving Hanna behind.

A big Greyhound huffed in the parking lot of the Lancaster bus station, its final destination, Philadelphia, emblazoned above the windshield. Emily tentatively climbed aboard, breathing in the smell of new upholstery and heavy-duty bathroom cleaner. Even though she’d only spent a few days with Lucy and her family, the bus seemed jarringly modern, almost monstrous.

Emily had barely said a word to Lucy after Lucy admitted that Wilden had been her dead sister’s old boyfriend. Lucy had repeatedly asked Emily what was wrong, but Emily said she was fine—just tired. What could she say? I know your sister’s old boyfriend. I think he really might have killed Leah. There’s a hole in the back of someone’s yard where he might have dumped her.

Her brain had been on warp speed ever since, circling memory after memory of that horrible time. The day after Ali vanished, after their talk with Mrs. DiLaurentis, Emily and her friends went in opposite directions. Emily had passed right by the big hole where they’d eventually find the body.

The workers, she remembered, had been filling the hole with concrete that very day. All their cars were along the curb next to the DiLaurentises’ lawn. There was one at the end that she’d studied for a second or two, wondering where she’d seen it before. It was an old black sedan, like something out of a sixties or seventies movie. It was the same car that screeched up to the Rosewood Day Lower School curb the day Ali bragged to everyone that she was going to find a piece of the Time Capsule flag. After his fight with Ian, Jason DiLaurentis had yanked open the passenger door to that car and slumped inside. It was the same car that chugged outside the DiLaurentis house the day Emily and the others tried to steal Ali’s flag. And here it was in her memory again, looming at the DiLaurentises’ house the day the concrete covered up that body for three long years. That car belonged to Darren Wilden.

The bus pulled away a few minutes later, the green fields of Lancaster disappearing behind them. There were only four other passengers, so Emily had a row to herself. Spying an outlet near her feet, she leaned down, plugged in her cell phone, and switched it on. The screen glowed with life.