Sara Shepard - Wicked

“I’m so sorry,” Xavier said softly. “I can’t even imagine what this must be like.”

Aria bit her lip, hugging one of the couch’s chenille throw pillows to her chest.

Xavier scratched his head. “I gotta say, I was really surprised when they announced Ian Thomas was their suspect. It seems like that kid had it all.”

Aria bristled. So what if Ian was a groomed, well-mannered rich kid? It didn’t make him a saint.

“Well, he did ,” Aria snapped. “End of story.”

Xavier nodded sheepishly. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. Goes to show that you don’t really know anything about anyone, huh?”

“You can say that again,” Aria groaned.

Xavier took a long sip from his water bottle. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Aria stared blankly across the room. Her mother still hadn’t taken down any of the family photos with Byron in them, including Aria’s favorite, one of all four of them standing on the edge of the Gullfoss waterfall in Iceland. They’d walked all the way out to the slippery edge of the cliff above the waterfall.

“You could beam me back to Iceland,” Aria said wistfully. “Because, unlike you and my brother, I loved it there. Puny horses and all.”

Xavier smirked. His eyes twinkled. “Actually, I have a secret for you. I really like Iceland too. I said that stuff to get on Mike’s good side.”

Aria’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe it!” She smacked him with her pillow. “You’re such a kiss-ass!”

Xavier grabbed the pillow on his side of the couch and held it menacingly over his head. “A kiss-ass, huh? You’d better take that back!”

“Okay, okay.” Aria giggled, raising a finger. “Truce.”

“It’s too late for that,” Xavier cackled.

He lowered down to his knees, his face close. Too close. And all of a sudden, his lips were pressed to hers.

It took Aria a few stunned seconds to realize what was going on. Her eyes bulged. Xavier held her shoulders, his hands digging into her skin. Aria let out a small squeak and wrenched her head away. “What the hell?” she gasped.

Xavier shot back. For a moment, Aria was too baffled to move. Then she shot up as fast as she could.

“Aria…” Xavier’s face crumpled. “Wait. I’m…”

She couldn’t answer. Her knees buckled out from under her, and she nearly twisted her ankle as she climbed off the couch. “Aria!” Xavier called again.

But Aria kept going. As she reached the top of the stairs, her Treo, which was sitting on the desk in her bedroom, started to chime. One new text message, the screen taunted.

Gasping, she pounced on it and opened it up. The text was one simple word: Gotcha!

And, as usual, it was punctuated with a crisp, concise letter A.

The flyer was pinned above the bike rack for everyone to see. Time Capsule Starts Tomorrow, it said in big black letters. Get ready!

The final bell of the day rang. Spencer noticed Aria sitting on the stone wall, scribbling. Hanna stood next to Scott Chin, her cheeks round and puffy. Emily was whispering to some other swimmers, Mona Vanderwaal was unlocking her scooter, and Toby Cavanaugh was crouched under a distant tree, shoving a stick into a small pile of dirt.

Ali pushed through the crowd and snatched down the flyer. “Jason’s hiding one of the pieces. And he’s going to tell me where it is.”

Everyone cheered. Ali pranced through the throng of kids and gave Spencer a high five. Which was startling—Ali had never paid attention to Spencer before, even though they lived next to each other.

But today, it appeared they were friends. Ali bumped Spencer’s hip. “Aren’t you excited for me?”

“Uh, sure,” Spencer stammered.

Ali narrowed her eyes. “You’re not going to try and steal it, are you?”

Spencer shook her head. “No! Absolutely not!”

“Yeah, she is,” said a voice behind them. A second, older Ali stood on the sidewalk. She was a little taller and her face was a little thinner. A blue string bracelet was tied around her wrist—the very bracelet Ali had made for them after The Jenna Thing—and she wore a pale blue American Apparel T-shirt and a rolled-up-at-the-waist hockey kilt. It was the same outfit Ali had worn to the end-of-seventh-grade sleepover in Spencer’s barn.

“She’s totally going to try and steal it from you,” the second Ali confirmed, giving Younger Ali a sidelong glance. “But she doesn’t. Someone else does.”

Younger Ali narrowed her eyes. “ Right. Someone’s going to have to kill me to get my flag.”

The crowd of Rosewood Day students parted, and Ian slipped through. He opened his mouth, an evil look on his face. If that’s what it takes, he was about to tell Ali. But when he breathed in to speak, he made a fire engine sound instead, shrill and piercingly loud.

Both Alis covered their ears. Younger Ali took a step back.

Older Ali put her hands on her hips, kicking Younger Ali with the side of her foot. “What’s wrong with you? Go flirt with him. He’s gorgeous.”

“No,” Younger Ali said.

“Yes,” Older Ali insisted. They were fighting as bitterly as Spencer and Melissa did.

Older Ali rolled her eyes and faced Spencer. “You shouldn’t have thrown it away, Spencer. Everything you needed was there. All the answers.”

“Thrown… what away?” Spencer asked, confused.

Younger Ali and Older Ali exchanged a glance. A frightened look washed over Younger Ali’s face, like she suddenly understood what Older Ali was talking about. “It,” Younger Ali said. “That was a huge mistake, Spencer. And it’s almost too late.”

“What do you mean?” Spencer cried. “What is it ? And why am I almost too late?”

“You’re going to have to fix this,” Younger Ali and Older Ali said in unison, their voices identical now. They joined hands and fused back into one Ali. “It’s up to you, Spencer. You shouldn’t have thrown it away.”

Ian’s siren grew louder and louder. A gust of wind kicked up, blowing the Time Capsule flyer right out of Ali’s hands. It hung in the air for a moment, then blew straight for Spencer, smacking her square in the face hard, feeling more like a rock than a piece of paper. Get ready! it said, right in front of Spencer’s eyes.

Spencer shot up in bed, sweat drenching her neck. Ali’s vanilla body cream tickled her nose, but she wasn’t in the Rosewood Day commons anymore—she was in her spotless, silent bedroom. The sun streamed through the window. Her dogs were racing around the front yard, filthy from the dirty slush. It was Friday, the first day of Ian’s trial.

“Spencer?” Melissa’s face swam into view. She hovered over Spencer’s bed, her blunt-cut blond hair hanging down over her face, the strings of her blue-and-white striped hoodie almost grazing Spencer’s nose. “Are you okay?”

Spencer shut her eyes and remembered last night. How Ian had materialized on the porch, smoking that cigarette, saying all of those crazy, terrifying things. And then that note: If Poor Little Miss Perfect were to suddenly vanish, would anyone even care? As much as she wanted to, Spencer had been too afraid to tell anyone about it. Calling Wilden and telling him that Ian had broken his house arrest would probably have gotten him thrown back in jail, but Spencer was afraid that as soon as she told Wilden, something awful would happen to her—or to someone else. After what had happened to Mona, she couldn’t bear to have any more blood on her hands.

Spencer swallowed hard, facing her sister. “I’m going to testify against Ian. I know you don’t want him to go to prison, but I’m going to have to tell the truth on the witness stand about what I saw.”