Pretty Little Liars #15: Toxic (2 page)

“She’s out of The Preserve,” Ali said, leaping to her feet. “She’ll do anything for me. Get in touch with her. Tell her it’s all expenses paid. Make it out like it’s a fun little holiday. Will you?”

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay.” He gave her a warning look. “But you have to promise that after Jamaica, we move on to the Bahamas. Or maybe Fiji. We disappear . . .
for real
.”

“Of course.” Ali drew him into her arms. “
Thank
you. You’re the best boyfriend ever.”

Nick kissed the tip of her nose. Then he scowled and clamped a hand around her wrists. “After Jamaica, you’re going to be my prisoner,” he said in a deep, grumbling voice. “I won’t have to share you with anyone. No family. No friends. You’ll be my captive . . .
forever
.”

“I’m at your mercy,” Ali said in a fake, high-pitched drawl. But inside, she laughed. As
if
Nick would ever control her.

Ali
was
at Nick’s mercy, though—it was his money and cunning know-how that got the tickets and fake passports to Jamaica. But she also knew Nick would stick by her if Jamaica didn’t go according to plan. And when things
did
go wrong and they had to regroup, lay the groundwork for framing the girls, and get them on even
bigger
secrets than ones they’d ever kept, he helped every step of the way. When she and Nick had to return to Rosewood instead of escaping to other Caribbean islands and plant Nick in key roles in each of the girls’ lives to orchestrate their downfalls, he’d done it so willingly and devotedly. Ali put Nick through trial after trial, positioning him as a drug dealer, a bartender, even dragging him to Iceland and forcing him to woo Aria and steal a painting. And Nick—sweet, sensitive, borderline-personality Nick—complied again and again, so dutiful, so loving. Her perfect little soldier.

We’ll leave after they’re in jail
, Ali convinced him. And then, later:
We’ll leave after they die. And if they don’t die, well, we’ll both go down together.

But even that was a white lie. Deep down, Ali had been laying another set of tracks, a just-in-case plan Nick didn’t know about. It started with that letter he’d written to the girls for her, and it ended with the video of him killing Tabitha alone. There were other things, too. Things she’d done when Nick wasn’t looking, using pliers and wincing in pain, using a leaky pen and her imagination. Last-ditch-effort things, only in play if she was pushed to her most desperate limits.

The only thing that mattered was that those bitches died.

Only then would she be done.

1

HANNA’S BIG BREAK

On a warm Monday morning in mid-June, Hanna Marin walked into Poole’s, an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor in downtown Rosewood. The inside hadn’t changed since Hanna had been here last—the same penny candy under the glass, black-and-white checkerboard floor, wrought-iron stools and tables, and long, marbled counter. The owners even offered the same flavors of ice cream, including the Phillies Fundae, a sundae in honor of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. Just breathing in the heavenly scent of homemade waffle cones and cookies-and-cream ice cream made Hanna’s empty stomach growl.

Her old friends Aria Montgomery, Spencer Hastings, and Emily Fields were in a back booth underneath a large poster of a 1950s-styled girl daintily eating a banana split. It had been two weeks since Hanna had seen them, but she and the others had received a note from Emily asking if they could talk today. It was pretty obvious what Emily wanted to talk about. Hanna wasn’t sure, though, if she was ready.

“Hey, Han.” Spencer slid over to make room. The others said hi, too.

Hanna threw her leather satchel on the seat and sat down. For a moment, silence hung over them. Spencer sipped a cup of the parlor’s famous fresh-brewed coffee, her blond hair falling in her face. Aria picked at a bowl of sherbet. Emily peeled off a wrapper of a Charleston Chew.

“So,” Hanna finally said, “what’s
new
?”

Everyone chuckled awkwardly. Hanna hoped
nothing
was new with them. The last few months had been a whirlwind of activity—and hell. First, a diabolical text-messager who called herself A had returned, tormenting each of them with their secrets. After all
that
, A had framed them in the murder of Tabitha Clark, a girl they’d gotten in an altercation with while in Jamaica on spring break of their junior year. The police had false evidence showing all four of them beating Tabitha to death.

It was clear who was behind it: Alison DiLaurentis, their old best friend’s twin sister. Two weeks ago, the girls traced Ali to an old, abandoned house in Rosewood. But Ali and her boyfriend, Nick Maxwell, had trapped the girls in the basement and pumped in noxious, suffocating gas. The police had saved everyone just in time, and Nick had been arrested.

But Ali? She’d slipped away, unseen. Without a trace.

Aria looked at Spencer. “Did you have a good vacation?”

Spencer shrugged. Her family had gone to their house in Longboat Key, Florida, for two weeks, and she’d just gotten back. “I beat Amelia at tennis.” She looked at Hanna. “How was Cabo with your mom?”

“Not too bad,” Hanna murmured. Unexpectedly, her mom had swooped in after Hanna was released from the hospital and announced that the two of them were going to Mexico. “And I’m not bringing work,” Ashley Marin had even added—a huge shocker, as her mom practically conducted conference calls in the shower. They’d spent the week tanning, drinking virgin margaritas, and rating hot surfers. It’d been actually kind of . . .
fun
.

Aria pouted. “I’m jealous you guys got to go somewhere. I was stuck here all this time.”

Emily raised a finger. “I was stuck here, too. Thinking about Ali.” She lowered her eyes.

Hanna shuddered at Ali’s name . . . but it was inevitable. They were bound to get around to her soon enough.

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” Emily admitted. “How was there
no
trace of her in that house?” Forensic teams had swept the crime scene after pulling the girls and Nick out, and though they had found tons of
pictures
of Ali—Nick had set it up like an Ali shrine—they didn’t uncover a single fingerprint. The cops were back to thinking Ali had died in the Poconos.

“Well, we know what we saw,” Hanna mumbled, that night still haunting her. Ali had looked so . . .
crazed
. She’d raised a gun to Emily’s head. The gun had gone off . . . but the next thing Hanna remembered, Hanna and the others were lying in hospital beds. Alive. What had happened in between?

Aria cleared her throat. “Has anyone heard how Iris is doing?”

All the girls shook their heads. Iris Taylor had been Ali’s roommate at The Preserve, though she’d recently spent some time with Emily, giving her clues about what Ali had been like and who she’d been involved with. After helping Emily, Iris had been kidnapped by Nick and Ali, and the FBI had found her half-dead in the woods. Iris was recuperating now at a local hospital.

“What about this?” Emily said, pushing that day’s edition of the
Philadelphia Sentinel
to the middle of the table. Nick, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, stared out from the front page.
MAXWELL CLAIMS HE WORKED ALONE
, read the headline.

“He’s on trial for killing Tabitha,” Emily paraphrased. “And get this: Police found a late-model Acura sedan parked in the woods behind that shack. Nick’s fingerprints were all over it.”

Spencer’s eyes lit up. “There was an Acura keychain at my stepfather’s model home after it was trashed. That explains
that
, anyway.”

Hanna pulled the paper toward her. “What does Nick say about Ali?”

“He’s insisting that Ali died in the fire in the Poconos,” Emily said. “And he denies that Ali had anything to do with killing Tabitha, or stalking us, or being there that night in that house.”

“So he’s taking the blame for everything?” Hanna made a face. “What crazy person would do that?”

“Well, he
was
a patient at The Preserve,” Spencer reminded her. “Maybe he’s under Ali’s spell.”

Aria rolled her eyes. “How could
anyone
be under her spell?”

An uncomfortable look crossed Spencer’s face. She brought out her cell phone and placed it in the center of the table. “Nick’s not the only one.”

Hanna looked at the screen.
THE ALI CATS
, said a banner at the top.
A WEBSITE DEDICATED TO THE SUPPORT OF ALISON DILAURENTIS. ALISON IS A STRONG, DETERMINED, MISUNDERSTOOD YOUNG WOMAN, AND WE HOPE THAT SOMEDAY THE WORLD WILL KNOW THE TRUE HER. HEAR US ROAR, ALI
!

Aria’s eyes widened. “What
is
this?”

“A fan club,” Spencer explained hoarsely. “I found it about a week ago. I was
hoping
it would go away, though.”

“‘A strong, determined, misunderstood young woman’?” Emily made a face. “And ‘someday the world will know the true her’? Do they think she’s alive?”

Spencer shook her head. “It seems like more of an in-memory-of thing. There are posts about parties where everyone dresses like Ali and—get this—
reenacts
the Poconos fire scene. Except they have Ali get out alive. Some of them write fan fiction about what Ali did next. They’re actually
selling
it on Amazon.”

Hanna shuddered. “That’s gross.”

Aria folded her paper napkin into smaller and smaller triangles. “Maybe we should contact one of them. Maybe they
do
know something.”

Spencer sniffed. “I tried that. But they all go by code names. And anyway, why do you think they’d tell us?”

“These people could be
dangerous
,” Emily said worriedly. Aria looked at the newspaper again. “I wish we could get Nick to admit he’s lying.”

“How?” Hanna folded her hands. “It’s not like we can go to the prison and just force it out of him.”

“Maybe there’s a way to trick him into confessing,” Emily suggested. “Or—”

“
Or
we could let this go,” Spencer interrupted.

Everyone fell silent. Hanna gawked. “Are you serious?” Spencer had always been at the front of the let’s-find-Ali crusade. She’d suggested they have a situation room to try to figure out who Ali’s helper was. She hadn’t wanted to drop the idea of sniffing Ali out even after the girls were arrested.

Spencer fiddled with her silver Tiffany keychain. “This has ruined almost two years of our lives. I’m just . . . done, you know? And I haven’t received any new A notes. Have you guys?”

Emily muttered no; so did Aria. Hanna reluctantly shook her head, too. She kept expecting a new note to ping into her in-box, though. “That doesn’t mean we should give up,” she said weakly. “Ali’s
out there
.”

“But how useful is Ali without Nick by her side?” Spencer pressed. “She’s probably hanging by a thread.”

“An Ali Cat might help her,” Emily reminded.

“I suppose that’s true.” Spencer turned her phone over in her hands. “But they sound like crackpots, don’t they?” She balled up her napkin. “It sucks that Ali’s walking free. It sucks that Nick took all the blame, but hey, if he wants to rot in jail, that’s his choice. But
we
need to live our lives.” She looked at Hanna. “Speaking of which. Doesn’t summer school start today?”

Hanna nodded. Rosewood Day had dropped her and the others after they were charged with murder, but now the girls were allowed to graduate if they completed their course requirements. The Fashion Institute of Technology, the college that had accepted her, even said it would hold a place for her in the fall as long as her final grades were acceptable. The other girls had been given similar offers—except for Aria, who had chosen to take a gap year. “I have history in a half hour.” She looked at the others. “When do you guys start?”

“I have to repeat chemistry, but it starts tomorrow,” Emily answered.

“All I have to do is submit my AP Art portfolio and take my finals,” Aria said. “Most of my classes wound down before we were kicked out of school.”

“Same,” Spencer said. Then she stood. “Well, come on, Han. You shouldn’t be late.”

The other girls stood, too, giving one another tight hugs. They exited into the bright day, promising to call one another later. And then, just like that, the meeting was over, and Hanna was alone on the street. She wasn’t sure what to think about everything they’d discussed. As much as she wanted to take Spencer up on just letting Ali go, it was terrifying to think Ali was out there . . . roaming free. Plotting. Scheming.

A high-pitched screech of a semitruck sounded from around the corner. Laughter echoed from an alleyway. Suddenly, goose bumps rose on Hanna’s arms, and she got that old, nagging feeling that someone was watching.

There’s no one here
, she told herself determinedly.

She shaded her eyes and started the few blocks to Rosewood Day Prep, a sprawling compound of stone and brick buildings that had once belonged to a railroad baron. It was amazing how different the place looked now that it was summer. The regal blue-and-white Rosewood Day flag, complete with the Rosewood Day crest, was absent from the flagpole. The marble fountain in front of the gym was dry. The swings and the climbing dome on the Lower School’s playground weren’t full of screaming little kids, and no ubiquitous yellow school buses lined the curbs.

Hanna pushed open the main door to the Upper School. The halls were deserted, and the floors looked like they hadn’t been swept since the regular school year let out. Every poster advertising class elections, upcoming dances, or charity drives had been removed from the walls, leaving behind faded spots of painted concrete. No between-classes classical music blared from the PA system. Some of the lockers were wide open and empty like dark, gaping caves. Hanna pressed one door lightly; it squeaked spookily on its hinges.

A shadow shifted at the end of the hall, and Hanna froze. Then a deep laugh spiraled from another direction. She turned just in time to see a figure slipping, ghostlike, up the stairs. Her heart began to pound.
Stay calm
.
You are being paranoid.

She tiptoed to the history wing and peered into her classroom. The air smelled like sweat, and only the back rows were occupied. A boy wearing a dingy Phillies cap traced a pattern into the wooden desk with the pointy end of a key. A girl with dreadlocks was facedown, snoring. A kid in the corner with vacant eyes was reading what looked like
Playboy.