Sara Shepard - Perfect

She walked to her door, but the handle wouldn’t turn. Her heart started to pound. “Hello?” she called tentatively. “Is someone there? I’m locked in.”

No one answered.

Spencer felt her pulse start to speed up. Something felt really, really wrong. Part of the night surged back to her. The Scrabble game. LIAR SJH. A sending Melissa the Golden Orchid essay. And…and then what? She cupped her hands over the crown of her head, as if trying to jostle the memory free. And then what?

All at once, she couldn’t control her breathing. She started to hyperventilate, sinking to her knees on the ivory carpet. Calm down, she told herself, curling into a ball and trying to breathe easily in and out. But it felt like her lungs were filled with Styrofoam peanuts. She felt like she was drowning. “Help!” she cried weakly.

“Spencer?” Her father’s voice emerged from the other side of the door. “What’s going on?”

Spencer jumped up and ran to the door. “Daddy? I’m locked in! Let me out!”

“Spencer, you’re in there for your own good. You scared us.”

“Scared you?” Spencer asked. “H-how?” She stared at her reflection in the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. Yes, it was still her. She hadn’t woken up in someone else’s life.

“We’ve taken Melissa to the hospital,” her father said.

Spencer suddenly lost equilibrium. Melissa? Hospital? Why? She shut her eyes and saw a flash of Melissa falling away from her, down the stairs. Or was that Ali falling? Spencer’s hands shook. She couldn’t remember . “Is Melissa all right?”

“We hope so. Stay there,” her father said from outside the door, sounding wary. Perhaps he was afraid of her—perhaps that was why he wasn’t coming in.

She sat on her bed, stunned, for a long time. How could she not have remembered this? How could she not remember hurting Melissa? What if she did lots of horrible things and, in the next second, erased them?

Ali’s murderer is right in front of you, A had said. Just when Spencer was looking in the mirror. Could it be?

Her cell phone, which was sitting on her desk, began to ring. Spencer stood up slowly and looked at the screen on her Sidekick. Hanna.

Spencer opened her phone. She pressed her ear to the receiver.

“Spencer?” Hanna jumped right in. “I know something. You have to meet me.”

Spencer’s stomach tightened and her mind whirled. Ali’s killer is right in front of you. She killed Ali. She didn’t kill Ali. It was like pulling petals off a flower: he loves me, he loves me not . Perhaps she could meet Hanna and…and what? Confess?

No. It couldn’t be true. Ali had turned up in a hole in her backyard…not on the path against the stone wall. Spencer couldn’t have carried Ali to her backyard. She wasn’t strong enough, right? She wanted to tell someone about this. Hanna. And Emily. Aria, too. They would tell her she was crazy, that she couldn’t have killed Ali.

“Okay,” Spencer croaked. “Where?”

“At the Rosewood Day Elementary swings. Our place. Get there as fast as you can.”

Spencer looked around. She could hoist up her window and shimmy down the face of her house—it would be practically as easy as climbing the rock wall at her gym.

“All right,” she whispered. “I’ll be right there.”

Hanna’s hands were shaking so badly, she could barely drive. The road to the Rosewood Day Elementary School swings seemed darker and spookier than usual. She swerved, thinking she saw something darting out in front of her car, but when she glanced in her rearview mirror, there was nothing. Barely any cars passed her going the other direction, but all of a sudden, as she was cresting a hill not far from Rosewood Day, a car pulled out behind her. Its headlights felt hot against the back of Hanna’s head.

Calm down, she thought. It’s not following you.

Her brain whirled. She knew who A was. But…how? How was it possible that A knew so much about Hanna…things A couldn’t possibly know? Perhaps the text had been a mistake. Perhaps A had gotten hold of someone else’s cell phone to throw Hanna off the trail.

Hanna was too shocked to think about it carefully. The only thought that cycled in a continuous loop in her brain was: This makes no sense. This makes no sense.

She glanced in her rearview mirror. The car was still there . She took a deep breath and eyed her phone, considering calling someone. Officer Wilden? Would he come down here on such short notice? He was a cop—he’d have to. She reached for her phone, when the car behind her flashed its brights. Should she pull over? Should she stop?

Hanna’s finger was poised over her cell, ready to dial 911. And then, suddenly, the car veered around Hanna and passed her on the left. It was a nondescript car—maybe a Toyota—and Hanna couldn’t see the driver inside. The car moved back into her lane, then sped off into the distance. Within seconds, its taillights vanished.

The Rosewood Day Elementary playground’s parking lot was wide and deep, separated by a bunch of little landscaped islands, which were full of nearly bare trees, spiny grass, and piles of crisp leaves that gave off that signature leaf-pile smell. Beyond the lot were the jungle gym and climbing dome. They were illuminated by a single fluorescent light, which made them look like skeletons. Hanna slid into a space at the southeast corner of the lot—it was the closest to the park information booth and a police call box. Just being near something that said Police made her feel better. The others weren’t here yet, so she watched the entrance for any cars.

It was nearly 3 A.M. Hanna shivered in Lucas’s sweatshirt. She felt goose bumps form on her bare legs. She’d read once that at 3 A.M., people were in their deepest stages of REM sleep—it was the closest they would come every day to being dead. Which meant that right now, she couldn’t rely on too many of Rosewood’s inhabitants to help her. They were all corpses. And it was so quiet, she could hear the car’s engine winding down and her slow, please-stay-calm breathing. Hanna opened her car door and stood outside it on the yellow line that marked her parking space. It was like her magic circle. Inside it, she was safe.

They’ll be here soon, she told herself. In a few minutes, this would all be over. Not that Hanna had any idea what was going to happen . She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.

A light appeared at the school’s entrance and Hanna’s heart lifted. An SUV’s headlights slid across the trees and turned slowly into the parking lot. Hanna squinted. Was that them? “Hello?” she called softly.

The SUV hugged the north end of the parking lot, passing the high school art building and the student lot and the hockey fields. Hanna started waving her arms. It had to be Emily and Aria. But the car’s windows were tinted.

“Hello?” she yelled again. She got no answer. Then she saw another car turn into the lot and drive slowly toward her. Aria’s head was hanging out the passenger window. Sweet, refreshing relief flooded Hanna’s body. She waved and started toward them. First she walked, then she jogged. Then sprinted.

She was in the middle of the lot when Aria called, “Hanna, look out!” Hanna turned her head to the left and her mouth fell open, at first not understanding. The SUV was headed straight for her.

The tires squealed. She smelled burnt rubber. Hanna froze, not sure what to do. “Wait!” she heard herself say, staring into the SUV’s tinted window. The car kept coming, faster and faster. Move, she told her limbs, but they seemed hardened and dried out, like cacti.