Ali suddenly had the same trapped, teetering feeling she’d felt at the beginning of sixth grade, when her twin was home for the weekend. Her mother had come upstairs, dragged Ali from her bedroom, and said, Get out of your sister’s room, Courtney. It’s time to go.
Now Emily met Ali’s gaze. She stared at the plank in her hands as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there. Tears ran down her cheeks. But instead of shutting the door tight, instead of propping the plank diagonally across the outside of the door so Ali couldn’t escape, as Ali thought she would, Emily flung the plank onto the porch. It landed out of view with a heavy thunk. After one more ambiguous glance at Ali, she took off.
Leaving the door wide open behind her.
Ali limped toward the door, but as she tumbled over the threshold, there was another thunderous boom. What felt like two hot, heavy hands shoved her from behind, and she went flying again. A horrible stench of burning skin and hair singed her nostrils. Her leg exploded with pain. Her skin sizzled. She could hear herself screaming, but she couldn’t stop. But then, all of a sudden, it was like someone hit a switch: The pain just . . . vanished. She floated outside her body, up, up, up over the inferno and into the trees.
She could see everything. The parked car. Roofs of the nearby houses. And under a huge tree in the front yard, those stupid bitches. Spencer wailed. Aria doubled over with coughs. Hanna patted her hair like it was on fire. Melissa was a limp pile on the ground. And Emily looked worriedly at the door through which they’d all escaped, a concerned expression on her face, before covering her eyes with her hands.
Then another figure shot out from deep in the woods. Ali’s gaze moved to him, and her heart lifted. He ran right toward where she’d landed and dropped to his knees next to her body. “Ali,” he said, suddenly so close to her ear. “Ali. Wake up. You have to wake up.”
The invisible tether extending her into the sky snapped tight, and instantly she was back inside her body. The pain returned immediately. Her charred skin throbbed. Her leg pulsated with her heartbeat. But no matter how hard she screamed, she couldn’t make a sound.
“Please,” he begged, shaking her harder. “Please open your eyes.”
She tried as best she could, wanting to see the boy she’d loved for so long. She wanted to say his name, but her head felt too fuzzy, her throat too ruined. She managed to muster a moan.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said emphatically, as if he was trying to convince himself. “We just have to . . .” Then he gasped. Sirens sounded down the hill. “Shit,” he whispered.
Ali managed to open her eyes at the sound. “Shit,” she echoed weakly. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. They were supposed to be far away by now.
He tugged her arm. “We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”
“No.” It took all of Ali’s strength to whisper. She was in so much pain, she was afraid she might throw up.
“You have to.” He tried to help her up, but she just crumpled. “It’s not far.”
Ali looked at her useless legs. Even wiggling a toe hurt. “I can’t!”
His eyes met hers. “Everything is in place. You just have to take a couple of steps.”
The sirens grew closer. Ali’s head lolled to the grass. Letting out a frustrated moan, he hefted her over his shoulder, fireman-style, and carried her through the woods. They jostled and bounced. Twigs scraped Ali’s face. Leaves fluttered against her singed arms.
With all her remaining strength, she twisted around and stared through the trees. Those bitches were still huddled together, the lights from the ambulances flashing against their features. It didn’t look like they needed medical attention at all. They didn’t have any broken bones. They hadn’t sustained any burns. But they were the ones who were supposed to suffer. Not her.
She let out a furious shriek. It wasn’t fair.
The boy she’d loved forever followed her gaze, then patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll get them,” he growled in her ear as he carried her to safety. “I promise. We’ll make them pay.”
Ali knew he meant every word. And right then, she made the vow to herself, too: Together, they were going to get Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily if it was the last thing they did. No matter who they took down. No matter who they had to kill to do it.
This time, they were going to do it right.
1
MORE ANSWERS, MORE QUESTIONS
“Hey.” A voice floated over Aria Montgomery’s head. “Aria. Hey.”
Aria opened her eyes. One of her best friends, Hanna Marin, sat on the coffee table across from her, staring at a steaming cup of coffee in Aria’s hands. Aria had been so out of it, she couldn’t even remember getting coffee before she’d dozed off.
“You were about to spill that in your lap.” Hanna took the coffee from her. “The last thing we need is for you to land in the hospital, too.”
Hospital. Of course. Aria looked around. She was at the Jefferson Intensive Care Unit, in a crowded waiting room on Monday morning. On the walls were winter forest watercolors. A flat-screen TV blared a morning talk show in the corner. Two of her other friends, Emily Fields and Spencer Hastings, were sitting on a loveseat next to her, wrinkled copies of Us Weekly and Glamour and paper cups of coffee in their hands. Noel Kahn’s parents sat across the room, blearily staring at sections from The Philadelphia Inquirer. A horseshoe-shaped nurse’s desk stood in the middle of the room, and a woman behind it talked on the phone. Three doctors in blue scrubs rushed down the hall, surgical masks dangling around their necks.