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.