Crushed

“Aria, just stay still!” Noel pleaded. “Just listen to me!”

Aria wrenched around to look him in the eye. A memory suddenly flooded her mind: a time at Noel’s house when he’d flopped on top of her, yelling, “Steam roll!” and they’d both laughed until there were tears in their eyes. But he’d loved Ali the whole time.

When he accompanied Aria to all those cooking classes, dutifully making sauces and chopping vegetables, he’d loved Ali, too. When they first had sex, which had been so tender and sweet and important that Aria could barely imagine it now. The whole time, Ali, Ali, Ali.

He’d helped almost kill them.

Noel’s body was heavy on top of her, and Aria gasped for a breath. “Where is that bitch?” she bellowed. “Tell me where she is so I can kill her!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Noel said.

“You do, and you know it!” Aria shrieked, flailing her arms and legs. “Just admit you love her! Just admit you know where she is!”

Noel let up for just a moment, resting on his elbows. His head twisted away, shrouded in darkness. “I loved her.”

Aria scrambled out from under him and stared into his eyes. “And is she alive?”

Noel looked pained. “Aria . . .”

“Is she alive?”

A brisk wind made the gate bang. Cars honked on the streets. Far up in the sky, a jet’s headlight blinked. Noel turned away. “I don’t know,” he said quietly in a tone that indicated otherwise.

It was as good as an admission. Fury flooded Aria’s veins. She leapt to her feet and headed for the gate, stumbling over the haphazard gravestones, the hem of her dress filthy from the mud. Strong hands wrapped around her waist, and she fell again, then felt the crush of Noel’s body on top of her. Noel breathed hotly into her ear.

Aria screamed and tried to get out from under him, but Noel was too heavy. “Stop acting so crazy so I can explain everything,” he begged.

“I hate you,” Aria wheezed, Noel’s weight crushing her lungs. “I will never, ever listen to you again.”

“Damn it, Aria,” Noel said, holding Aria steady beneath him. He sounded feral and dangerous. Aria swiped at him some more, but without oxygen, her limbs started to tingle. A desperate wail escaped from between her lips. She was going to die. The boy she thought loved her was going to be her murderer.

Whack.

Noel screamed in pain and rolled off Aria. Aria staggered to her feet and scurried behind a gravestone, unsure of what had just happened. As she gulped in breaths, several figures swam into view. Spencer stood next to Noel, the prom scepter raised over her head. Emily and Hanna loomed behind her, their eyes wide.

Emily spotted Aria and ran to her, hugging her tight. “Are you okay?”

Aria tried to nod, but her gaze was still on Noel. Spencer raised the scepter to hit him again, but he jumped to his feet and moved away. “Don’t you dare run!” she warned.

“What the hell?” Noel’s voice cracked. “You people are insane!”

He wove through the gravestones toward the entrance. Spencer tried to chase him, but her dress prevented her from moving too fast. She stopped a few paces past a row of gravestones and blinked in the darkness. Noel was gone.

Then Spencer ran to Aria. “Oh my God. Did he hurt you?”

She was staring in horror at Aria’s cheek. It was wet—Aria hadn’t even realized. When she pulled her hand away, she saw blood. Tears flooded down her face. “I’m sorry, guys,” she blurted. “There were things I knew about Noel, things I didn’t tell you. I should have. And now it’s too late.”

Hanna hugged Aria tight. “Don’t say that. It’s okay.”

“I just didn’t want it to be him!” Aria sobbed. “I wanted it to be anyone but him.”

“We know.” Spencer ran her hands through Aria’s hair. “We wanted it to be anyone but him, too.”

“But at least you’re safe now,” Emily whispered. “At least he didn’t hurt you for real.”

Aria sniffed and nodded, then looked into the dark distance where Noel had disappeared. She wasn’t sure if what Emily said was quite true. Noel had hurt her for real.

He had broken her heart into a thousand pieces.

31

Forgiveness Has a Price

Spencer walked in the woods behind her house. Dusk had fallen, and prickly branches and split logs littered the forest floor. A stream rushed in the distance, and birds called from the trees. All of a sudden, the night grew darker than it had been even a few seconds before. Something howled close by. Then she heard a low, growling sound, then the crunch of footsteps.

A figure emerged from the trees, pushing back the stray branches. It was a blond girl with a heart-shaped face and glittering blue eyes—Ali.

Spencer gasped. Ali’s face was blistered with burns. She walked with a limp, and her right arm hung lifelessly by her side. She smiled at Spencer nastily. “I thought I might find you here.”

“Stay away,” Spencer warned, shielding her face and taking a big step backward.

Ali chuckled. “But haven’t you been looking for me? You were close, you know. Closer than I ever thought you’d get.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “But you didn’t find me!”

“H-how did you know I was looking for you?” Spencer demanded.

Ali rolled her eyes. “I know about everything. He tells me everything. He’s my lifeline.”

“Noel, you mean.” Spencer backed up so that her spine was pressed against a tree trunk. “We know everything, too. We know Noel’s been working with you.”

A proud smile spread across Ali’s lips. “Spencer, you’re so cute. Such a little Sherlock Holmes.”

“Are we right?” Spencer demanded.

“Sorry.” Ali shook her head. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Actually, that’s a good idea anyway.”

She lunged for Spencer and covered her like a net. Spencer screamed and sank to the mucky ground. Ali’s nails dug into Spencer’s flesh. She touched her shoulder with her charred hand. “Open your eyes,” she demanded in Spencer’s ear. “Open your eyes so you can see what I’m doing to you.”

Spencer opened her eyes with a gasp. Suddenly, she wasn’t in the woods anymore, but in a sleeping bag on the floor of her den. Emily leaned over her, touching the exact spot on Spencer’s shoulder where Ali’s hand had been moments before.

“Wake up,” Emily urged. “You’re having a dream.”

Spencer sat up and tried to catch her breath. Emily rested on her haunches. “Were you dreaming about Ali?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Spencer whispered.

“I could tell,” Emily said.

Aria and Hanna wriggled out of their sleeping bags. The clock on the cable box read 7:46 AM. Their prom dresses lay in a pile in the corner, shed haphazardly when they’d arrived here late last night after rescuing Aria. Shoes and bags were in a jumble near the door.

Aria lunged for her phone and winced when she saw the screen. “No messages or texts from the Kahns,” she croaked. Last night, she’d called Mrs. Kahn to ask her to call her if Noel showed up at home—she said he’d left prom without her, making it sound like a drunken evening instead of a scary almost-murder in the cemetery.

Hanna hugged her knees. “I guess that means he isn’t back. I doubt his family is trying to cover for him or anything. They probably don’t know a thing.”

“We need to tell the cops, guys,” Emily urged. “Noel tried to kill Aria last night in the graveyard before running off. They should know he’s dangerous.”

“And risk Noel retaliating by telling on us?” Spencer said. “Or worse—the truth? Aria’s still got that painting at her house . . . and Fuji knows about it. And we’re still connected to Tabitha. It’s too risky.”

Aria raked her fingers through her messy, hair-spray-sticky hair. “So you think it was Noel who told Fuji about the painting?”

Emily pulled a quilt around her shoulders. “I think so.”

“Why wouldn’t he just admit it was me, though? Why would he say it was one of us . . . and make Fuji threaten to search all our houses?”

“Because he’s A,” Spencer said. “It’s just another way to torture us.”

“This whole thing feels like a ticking time bomb,” Hanna said in a hushed voice. “After he left the cemetery, I bet Noel went to strategize with Ali about what to do. Maybe the best thing to do is to go to Fuji and come clean about everything before he gets to her first. Or what if he and Ali plan to hurt us? That note said we were next.”

“I say we nail Noel to the wall this minute,” Spencer said. “We have enough proof, from what Aria told us and from all our evidence, that he had something to do with all of Ali’s diabolical schemes—and now that he assaulted Aria, we have something to bring him in on.”

Hanna nodded. “The cops can do the rest of the forensic work to link him to the murders. I agree—we need to end this.”

There was a pained sound to her left. Aria covered her eyes with her hands. The girls exchanged a sympathetic look.

“Aria,” Emily said softly, shuffling over to her.

Hanna slung her arm around Aria’s shoulders. “It sucks, doesn’t it? It happened to me, too, remember? With Mona?”

“I just don’t want it to be true,” Aria sobbed. “I keep thinking he’s going to turn up and explain all of this to us in a way that makes sense.”

“I didn’t want to believe it was Mona, either,” Hanna said softly. “But Noel admitted he loved Ali. He knew about the switch for so long . . . and he never said a word. You shouldn’t feel sorry for him. You should feel angry.”

Aria nodded. “I know I should, but . . .” She gazed around at them, her eyes wet and red. “Can we give it a day? If I can’t track down Noel by then, we’ll tell Fuji everything.”

Spencer shut her eyes. “What if Fuji decides to search your house? Then what?”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” Aria said shakily.

Spencer leaned back on her palms. Hanna picked at a hangnail on her thumb. Emily gazed nervously out the window.

“How about six hours?” Spencer said. “So by”—she checked her watch—“two PM, if we don’t hear from Noel, we’re going to have to do something.”

Aria’s jaw trembled. “That’s no time at all!”

“If he’s innocent, he’ll reach out, don’t you think?” Spencer said.

“But . . .” Aria looked back and forth. Then she smoothed the tassels on the end of the afghan. “Okay,” she said. “Six hours.”

The girls stood and gathered up their belongings. After some coffee and toasted bagels, they headed out the door. Just as Hanna, Aria, and Emily pulled away, a black Jeep stopped at the curb. Spencer peered out the window, surprised someone was visiting that early. It was a guy she didn’t recognize.