ꗃ ﹕𝓓𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝓑𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝓜𝐄 . . . . . 𓈈 𓍢 ░
𝖯𝖱𝖤𝖳𝖳𝖸 𝖫𝖨𝖳𝖳𝖫𝖤 𝖫𝖨𝖠𝖱𝖲 ── ༅𓂃👜゛໒ ࣪˖˚

𝒊. 𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘, 𝖦𝖮𝖫𝖣𝖨𝖤 ‧₊˚📱✩
˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆
𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 ── 01𝗑03 ｡𖦹°‧
𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖱𝖤𝖳𝖴𝖱𝖭 𝖮𝖥 𝖳𝖮𝖡𝖸 𐙚𓏲⋆ ִֶָ ๋𓂃 ⋆ᡣ𐭩

▐ 𝖨𝖭 𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖶𝖮𝖮𝖣𝖲 𝖲𝖮𝖬𝖤𝖶𝖧𝖤𝖱𝖤

❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐎'𝐒 𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐀 was this again? ❞ Hanna asked as the five best friends track through the woods together, per request of Emily's mother.

"Emily's mom." Spencer answered, hand gripping Sadie's as the held onto each other so they wouldn't trip and fall over all of the tree veins in the ground.

"The shed was me. My mom just said we should do something for us." Emily led the girls through the woods.

"Well, couldn't we do something without mosquito's?" Hanna questioned.

"They're not mosquito's, they're gnats." Aria corrected the Marin girl.

"Whatever. They're small and annoying, and they're flying up my nose." Hannah complains.

"That's because they're attracted to your perfume." Sadie grinned, "And your hair products, and your lip gloss."

"So, what are you saying? I attract flies?"

Aria turns to look back at her, "Gnats."

"Why do I feel like this is the wrong way?" Emily asked, coming to a stop and looking around the wooded area.

"No, this is it." Spencer points to a tree, "I remember that tree. That's the half-way point. There's 136 steps left to the shed."

"Have you been out here since Alison?" Emily asks the Hastings girl.

"Me?" Spencer grips the strap of her bag, "No. No way."

"But you remember that tree?" Aria asked.

Sadie raised an eyebrow, "I remember that tree."

"Guys, it's not weird. I mean, we came out here in eight grade like every day." Hannah smiles, "Even after."

"I think this is totally the wrong place to do this." Spencer says, "Whatever you call it. Shrine."

"It's not a shrine." Emily denied. "It's just a place to remember Alison. What's wrong with that?"

"Doing it way out here makes it look like we have something to hide." Sadie crosses her arms over her chest, bringing a hand up to play with the necklace on her neck, "My brother is a cop, and a cop has been watching our every move. I can't look like I have something to hide . . . even though we have a lot to hide."

"You're worried what other people think?"

"Well, aren't you?" Spencer jumps in to defend Sadie from Emily. "Do you really want to give that creepy detective more reason to question us?"

Hanna begins to walk away from the group of girls she's been friends with for years.

"Hanna, why are you so quiet?"

"I'm trying to keep the bugs in my nose and out of my mouth." Hannah tells them, brushing some of her hair away from her eyes.

"You're allowed to have an opinion on this." Emily tells her.

"You want my opinion?" Hanna turns to face them, "I say we hold off and not remember her 'til we know for sure she's not still here." She shrugged.

"What?" The girls all asked her together.

"What are you talking about?" Questioned Aria.

"You think she's still alive?"

"Hanna, they found her body."

"Stop." Aria spoke, "I'm officially scare. Can we just not . . . ,"

"You know, you asked for my opinion." Hannah cuts her off, "I don't believe she's really gone."

"We went to her funeral!"

"Yeah, and when we left we all got a text from her."

"It wasn't her." Sadie denied, shaking her head. "Someone is messing with us. They have to be."

"How do you know? And what about all those nasty messages?" Hanna asked, "I mean, how does this "A" person know stuff only Ali knew?"

"Okay, this conversation is giving me a hive." Aria gestures to the small spot on her arm.

"That's a bite." Hannah rolls her eyes, "Mosquito."

"Spencer, have you gotten any more messages?" Emily asked.

"Haven't you?"

The five pause as they branch rustle in the distance, a branch snapping under the weight of what could've been a person walking in the woods with them.

"Awe, shit. I freaking hate this." Sadie whined, stomping her foot onto the ground beneath her shoes.

"What was that?" Emily asked as they look off in the direction the noise had come from, "Did you hear that?"

"Yes, I heard that. I'm standing right next to you."

"Hello? Is anybody out there?" Hanna causes out, hissing as Sadie slaps the back of her hand against the girl's arm.

"It's probably a rabbit."

"Hello?"

"Seriously? Stop calling out to it!" Sadie hissed at the only other blonde in the group.

"It's a rabbit, Hannah." Spencer tells them, "It's not gonna answer you."

"Can we just get to the shed?" Emily asked them.

More branches rustle.

"Okay, that's definitely not a rabbit." Sadie groaned, "Someone's out there."

"Let's turn around." Emily tells them just as their cellphones chime.

❛ ʜᴇᴀᴅꜱ ᴜᴩ, ʙꜰꜰ'ꜱ. ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴏᴩᴇɴ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ ᴏɴ
ʟɪᴀʀꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ɪ'ᴍ ʜᴜɴᴛɪɴɢ. . .❜
—— ᴀ

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐓 at the table in the kitchen, her laptop open in front of her with Jason on the other side of the screen. "I really hate math. It always kicks my ass, every single time."

Jason laughs, "When you finish, send it to me and I'll go over the answers. I'll send you the correct ones if they're wrong."

"What would I do without you?" She pouts just as Will comes in.

"Definitely fail math."

"Hey, Jason." Will leans down to look at the boy on the screen, "When are you coming back to Rosewood? I'm tired of her mopping around her about how much she misses you."

"She does, does she?" Jason raised an eyebrow to look back at his girlfriend.

"Stop, the both of you!" Sadie rolls her eyes as two of the three most important men in her life laughs. "I will talk to you later, I gotta get to school or I'm going to be late."

"Okay. Drive safe, I love you."

Sadie smiles softly at the boy on her computer screen, blowing him a kiss that be pretends to catch and put away in his pocket, "I love you."

"Gonna be another all-night shift at the hospital so you're here by yourself." Will tells her as Sadie gathers all of her things. "If you want, see if Ezra will stay here with you tonight."

"I think I'm okay here on my own."

"Just in case." Will sends her a look.

"Okay, I'll ask him." She says as she walks out of the kitchen, "Bye! Love you!"

"Love you!"

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

           ❝ 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 letting Party Sadie come out of retirement? ❞ Noel Kahn leaned against the locker next to Sadie's open one, a smirk on his face.

The blonde raised an eyebrow as she puts her books away into the locker, "Depends on what she's coming out of retirement for."

"Parents are out of town so I'm throwing a party at the cabin tomorrow night." Noel tells her, "But I can't have a party without my beer pong partner next to me."

"Noel, the only reason I every actually went to any of your parties is because I knew that Eric was going to be there." Sadie tells him with a teasing smile on her face.

"Yeah, yeah, I see the crush on my brother is still very much there." He laughed.

"No, definitely not. But back then, yes, it was. He was very nice to look at in my opinion." She grinned, the smile slowly leaving her face as the sound of Jenna's stick tapping on the floor surrounded the air.

Coming around the corner, the blind girl wasn't alone as she had her arm wrapped around her stepbrother's as he guided her down the hallway and towards her locker.

The feeling of guilt fills the Beaumont girl's chest as Toby locks eyes with her, the corners of his mouth tugging up in a smile before it disappears all together.

"Hey, Sades." Noel gently grips her elbow in his hand, "Are you okay?"

"What? Yeah, I'm fine." She shakes her head, sending him a smile as she starts to walk away, "I'll text you if I'm coming tomorrow night or not!"

"I'll hold you to it!"

"Hey." Sadie walks into Ezra's classroom, stopping at his deck. "Serious question."

"I might can come up with a serious answer." Ezra looks up at his best friend's little sister.

"Will is working late tonight, and I don't really want to be at the house alone." Sadie plays with the rings on her fingers, "So can you stay with me at the house? Or can I come stay at your apartment?"

Ezra chuckled, "My apartment isn't really the ideal place to hang out, so I'll come stay at casa de la Beaumont. Chinese for dinner?"

"No." She shakes her head, "I've had Chinese two nights in a row."

"Alright, pizza it is, kid."

"Thank you."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

           ❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐄 you doing? ❞ Spencer asked Aria as the girls stand in the hallway, "Is that a new phone?"

"Yeah, I'm checking my Kin." Aria answered her, "I'll just write on Hanna's wall from here."

"If she's not answering texts, what makes you think she's checking her Facebook?" Asked Emily.

"It's worth a try." Sadie shrugged.

"What's going on?" Hanna walked to them after coming out of the office.

"We've been trying to get ahold of you. What happened in there?"

"Nothing, just the same old stupid questions." Hannah opens her locker.

"You were in there for an hour, Hanna. What else did he ask?" Spencer questions the blonde.

Hanna closes her locker door and leans against it, "Nothing. He just took a couple calls, and I just sat there, waiting for him to shut up."

"Well, is he gonna question all of us alone now?" Aria asked him.

"Who knows? Look, let's do this at lunch, okay? I have to hit the ladies' before my next class."

"Is she being weird?" Spencer asked.

Sadie nods, "Yep, she's being weird."

"I'll see you guys at lunch."

"Bye."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆 out through the cabin of Noel Kahn, the boy and Sadie high fiving each other as the guy on the other end of the table drank the last cup.

"Drink up, boys!" Noel laughed, "Nobody can beat the unstoppable Sadie and Noel! Okay, who's next?"

Sadie takes a sip out of the beer bottle in her hand, grinning as two boys volunteer to go next.

"Hey, can I borrow her?" Aria asks Noel, tugging Sadie away before anyone could say anything, "Emily wanted us to meet outside."

"Bring her back when you're done!"

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

❝ 𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐋𝐄𝐃 Ben? ❞ Aria asks, "What was Toby even doing in the girls' locker room?"

"Why are you shocked? Toby's a perv." Spencer says, "We caught him peeping through the windows, watching us undress."

"Alison's the only one who saw him do that." Emily denied, "We never did."

Hanna walks over to the girls, "What's up?"

"Toby Cavanaugh got into a fight with Ben over Emily." Aria tells the other blonde.

"It wasn't over me. God. Look, he just . . . saved me."

"For what, himself?"

"Ewe."

"If we hadn't asked you about Ben, would you have told us about this?" Aria asked Emily.

"Toby is not a good guy, Emily." Spencer tells him, "He could be seriously dangerous."

"If he's such a bad guy, why'd he take the fall for us?" Emily asked.

"Is this another secret?" Aria questioned the girl, "Do you know something that we don't?"

"Guys, why don't we just, like chill, and talk about this somewhere else? When we're alone?" Hanna asked, trying to defuse the situation.

"I . . . don't even know what "just us" means anymore."

"Yeah, uh . . . let's talk about it tomorrow, okay? Are we still meeting up at the shed?" Hannah asked before she walked away from the group.

"Yeah. Yea, sure. Why not?"

"Where are you going?" Emily asked Aria.

"The gallery. I promised my mom.

"Have you checked out the photobooth they've got in there?" Maya asks Emily, coming up to the remaining three girls after Aria walked away.

"No. Show me the booth."

"And it was just two." Spencer sighed, turning to Sadie who was texting on her phone.

"Actually, it's just one. Ezra is asking me where I am. He's ordering pizza to my house before he comes over. I told him that I wouldn't be here long."

Spencer looks at her confused, "Ezra? Like English teacher Ezra? Mr. Fitz? Why is he at your house?"

"Because he's friends with Will. They went to college together." Sadie shrugged, "Will is working late, and with everything going on with 'A', I don't want to be on my own. He's staying with me tonight. I'll see you tomorrow."

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

           ❝ 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋, 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋, well. ❞ Sadie smirked as she comes into a stop in front of the Cavanaugh house where Toby was sitting on the front porch, "Look what the cat brought back."

Toby chuckled, "I'm not sure you said that right."

"Maybe not, but oh well." She sits next to him, "How have you been?"

"I could be better, but you know." He shrugged, "Thanks for checking up on me, you didn't have to."

"Toby, I told you the truth and you still took up for us." Sadie shakes her head, "I wanted to make sure you were okay. And you don't have to ever thank me for doing that."

"I need too, though."

She smiled just as her phone buzzes, "I got to get home, but if you need a place to stay besides here, you know that our spare room is always yours. You know, if you wanna get away from the wicked witch inside."

Toby chuckled, "Thank you."

"Like I said, no need to thank me."

Walking away from Toby, Sadie pulls her phone from her back pocket, hoping that it was just Ezra asking where she was, but was met with disappointment when she saw the message was from 'A'.

❛ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴋᴇᴇᴩ,
ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ɢᴜᴇꜱꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ'ꜱ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴋᴇꜱ
ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ʟɪᴀʀ ʀɪɢʜᴛ ɴᴇxᴛ
ᴛᴏ ᴅᴇᴀʀ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʟɪ ❜ —— ᴀ

˗ˏˋ 𖤐 ˎˊ˗

❝ 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 us across the street so she could have it out with Toby. ❞ Spencer tells the group of girls as they trekked back through the woods the next morning. "Ali had something on him."

"Besides being a total perv who peeped in our windows?" Hanna asked.

"Yeah, something way bigger, and she was threatening to tell everybody. That's why he took the fall for us."

"Why are you waiting until now to tell us?" Sadie crossed her arms over her chest.

"I don't know. Ali made me promise, and . . . I guess I was scared. I thought if we never talked about that night again, it would just go away." Spencer tells them.

"Well, it's not going away." Hanna says, "Not unless we toss our phones and join the Navy.

"Look, there's five of us and one freak sending messages. If we just talk to each other like this, I feel like it makes it easier to deal with everything." Emily tells her friends.

"I think Emily's right. There's way too many secrets." Aria says, "We shouldn't do this in the middle of nowhere. We should do it where we can see it every day."

"You mean, like, somewhere in school?"

Sadie rolls her eye sat Hanna, "She's suggesting that we talk about it in town."

"What Sadie said." Aria nodded, "We should ask if we can put a bench somewhere. Wait, and you know what? Whoever did this to her, if they're still in Rosewood, we should make them look at it every day, too."

"What, you hate the idea?" Spencer asked, noticing the look on Hanna's face.

"No. No, I just . . . ," Hanna sighed, "I had a rough night."

The branches rustle causing the girls to take off running through the woods towards where the noise was coming from.

"Look." Hanna spoke in a low tone.

The four girls look down at the ground below them where a purple bracelet laid on the ground.

"Is that yours?" Spencer looks towards Emily since she had been the only one to still have hers on her wrist.

"Alison's."