Sara Shepard - Wicked

He tilted away from her, one hand curled over the edge of the side table. Emily gritted her teeth, annoyed. She looked around the room and saw Hanna and Aria standing next to an enormous abstract painting of a bunch of intersecting circles. Aria was fidgeting nervously with a white stole around her shoulders, and Hanna was running her hands through her hair again and again like she had lice. Emily strode up to them as fast as she could. “Have you seen Spencer?”

Aria shook her head, seeming distracted. Hanna looked just as dazed. “Nope,” she answered in a monotone.

“Wilden can’t find her,” Emily urged. “He checked the house a bunch of times, but she’s gone. And Spencer never told him about Ian, either.”

Hanna wrinkled her nose, her eyes beginning to get wide. “That’s weird.”

“Spencer’s got to be in the house somewhere. She wouldn’t just leave.” Aria stood on her tiptoes, looking around.

Emily glanced back at Wilden. He paused from his phone call, taking a big sip from his water glass. Then he laid the glass on the table and spoke into the mouthpiece again. “No,” he barked, rather forcefully.

She faced the others again, wringing her sweaty palms together. “You guys…do you think there’s any possibility that this new A could be someone else? Like… not Ian?” she sounded out.

Hanna stiffened. “No.”

“It has to be Ian,” Aria said. “It makes perfect sense.”

Emily stared at Wilden’s rigid back. “Wilden just told me they searched Ian’s house but couldn’t find a cell phone or a computer or anything. He doesn’t think Ian’s behind it.”

“But who else could it possibly be?” Aria squeaked. “Who else would want to do this to us? Who else knows where we are and what we’re doing?”

“Yeah, A is apparently from Rosewood,” Hanna blurted out.

Emily shifted her weight, rocking back and forth on the plushy woven rug. “How do you know that?”

Hanna ran her hands along her bare collarbone, staring blankly toward the big picture window in the Hastingses’ living room. “So I got a note or two. I didn’t know they were real at the time. One of them said A grew up in Rosewood, just like we did.”

Emily’s heart thrummed fast. “Did your notes say anything else ?”

Hanna squirmed, as if Emily were plunging a needle into her arm. “Just this dumb stuff about my stepsister. Nothing important.”

Emily fiddled with the silver fish-shaped pendant around her neck, her forehead prickling with sweat. What if A wasn’t Ian…but not a copycat, either? When Emily had found out that Mona was the first A, she’d been completely caught off guard. Sure, Ali and the others had been nasty to Mona, but they’d been nasty to a lot of people. People Emily couldn’t even remember. What if someone else—someone close—was just as mad at them as Mona had been? What if it was someone in this very room?

She swept her eyes around the grand living room. Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe emerged from the library, glaring at them. Melissa Hastings cut her eyes away, the corners of her mouth turning down. Scott Chin silently aimed his camera right at Emily, Aria, and Hanna. And Phi Templeton, Mona’s old, yo-yo-obsessed best friend, paused on her way to the library to glance over her shoulder, coolly meeting Emily’s eye.

And then a memory from Ian’s arraignment struck Emily forcefully. They’d been coming out of the courthouse after Ian had been sent to prison without bail, so happy because they thought everything was over. But then Emily had seen a figure in one of the limos parked at the courthouse curb. The eyes in the window had seemed so familiar…but Emily had forced herself to believe they were just a figment of her imagination.

Just thinking about it made a chill run up her spine. What if we have no idea who A is? What if nothing is what it seems?

Emily’s phone began to ring. Then Aria’s. And then Hanna’s.

“Oh my God,” Hanna breathed.

Emily canvassed the room. No one was looking in their direction anymore. And no one was holding a phone.

There was nothing she could do but pull out her Nokia. Her friends watched nervously. “One new text,” Emily whispered.

Hanna and Aria crowded around her. Emily pressed Read.

You all told, and now one of you has to pay the price. Wanna know where your old BFF is? Look out the back window. It might just be the last time you see her….

—A

The room began to spin. A horrible, cloying smell of a sickly, floral perfume filled the air. Emily gazed around at her friends, her mouth bone-dry.

“The last time we see her… ever ?” Hanna repeated, blinking rapidly.

“It can’t…” Emily’s head felt stuffed with cotton balls. “Spencer can’t…”

They ran into the kitchen and peered out the back window, toward the Hastingses’ barn. The yard was empty.

“We need Wilden,” Hanna demanded. She ran back to where he’d last been standing, but there was no one there. Only Wilden’s drained water glass remained, abandoned on the highly polished side table.

Emily’s cell phone lit up again. Another text had come in. They all gathered around to look.

Go now. Alone. Or I make good on my promise.

—A

Hanna, Aria, and Emily slipped out the back door into the cold, wet backyard. The porch was bathed in warm, orangish light, but once Hanna stepped beyond it, she couldn’t see a few feet in front of her face. Off in the distance, she heard a small, muffled noise. The hair on Hanna’s arms stood on end. Emily let out a whimper.

“This way,” Hanna whispered, pointing in the direction of the barn. She and the others started to run. Hopefully they weren’t too late.

The ground was slippery and a bit soft, and Hanna’s strappy, high-heeled shoes kept sinking into the dirt. Her friends breathed hard beside her. “I don’t understand how this could have happened,” Emily whispered, her voice thick with tears. “How could Spencer have let Ian—or whoever A is—lure her out here alone? Why would she be so stupid?”

“ Shhhh . Whoever it is will hear us,” Aria hissed.

It took mere seconds to cross the vast yard to the barn. The hole where Ian had dumped Ali’s body was to their right, the reflective police tape glowing in the blackness. The woods were beyond, a small opening between two trees like an ominous gateway. Hanna shivered.

Aria rolled back her shoulders and plunged into the woods first, her hands out in front of her for guidance. Emily followed, and Hanna brought up the rear. Damp leaves rubbed against their bare ankles. Sharp, jagged branches brushed against the girls’ arms, instantly drawing blood. Emily stumbled over the uneven ground, crying out. When Hanna looked up, she couldn’t see the sky. The leaves had made a canopy over their heads, trapping them.

They heard another whimper. Aria stopped and cocked her head to the right. “That way,” she whispered, pointing. Her pale arm glowed in the darkness. She pulled up the hem of her dress and started to run. Hanna followed, her body throbbing with terror. Branches continued to assault her bare skin. A giant, spiny bush pressed against her side. She didn’t even realize she’d tripped over something until her knees hit the ground hard. Her head smacked against the dirt. Something in her right arm snapped. White-hot pain shot through her. She tried not to cry out, clenching her teeth together and wincing in agony.

“Hanna.” Aria’s footsteps stopped. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…fine.” Hanna’s eyes were still squeezed closed, but the pain had begun to subside. She tried moving her arm. It felt okay, just stiff.