“Ali!” Emily screamed, spinning around, a pulse throbbing hard and fast in her brain. “I know you’re near! And I know what you did to Jordan! I know it was you!”
But she received no answer. The same as always—Ali was always ripping something away from them, and there was never, ever a way to truly get it back. How much had Emily lost since this ordeal began? How much had Ali ruined? How could one person continue to get away with this? How could such a sick, black, despicable soul continue to persevere?
It felt like there was a huge buildup of pressure inside her. She let out a keening wail and stumbled down the stairs, her vision blurred. First she darted toward the drawer in the makeshift kitchen, pulling it out. It felt satisfying to throw it to the floor and hit it with the baseball bat. She pulled at the cabinet next, grunting as she ripped it off its flimsy hinges.
She used the bat to smash a vase in the kitchen. Then she hacked away at the wooden railing. She yanked the only set of curtains off the walls, tossed them on the ground, and stomped on them.
There wasn’t much to trash, but she destroyed all she could. When she was finished, she stood in the center of the room, breathing hard. Sweat ran down her face. There was dirt under her fingernails and blood from the broken glass on her arms and legs. She could feel splinters in her hands. She looked around, still sensing Ali was close. “How did you do it?” she whispered to the ceiling. “Why did you do this to me?”
It was a stupid question to ask, because Emily already knew the answer. Sobs rippled through her body. “I will never love you!” she shrieked to the empty room. “Never, ever! And I will kill you! You will pay for this!”
The words rang out through the room, too true but also too raw. The bat slipped from her sweaty fingers. All at once, Emily felt horrified by what she’d said. It was what she wanted . . . and she knew she was capable. But she couldn’t believe she’d turned into this person.
Then she looked around the decimated room with fresh eyes. What had she done? Her friends would see the remains of this during their surveillance shifts. They’d think it was a lead . . . and Emily would have to tell them the truth. What if the Maxwells or a Realtor checked in on the place? What if they found this?
She jumped to her feet, wiped her bloody hands on her jeans, and quickly gathered up all the cabinets and drawers and put them back on their hinges as best she could. Then she used her hands to sweep the glass into a pile. You’re a terrible person, you’re a terrible person, she thought, the words like punches. How could she say she was going to kill someone? How had Ali driven her to this? All at once, she wondered if Ali had succeeded in her master plan. She had twisted Emily into a lunatic. She had changed her from the sweet, sensitive, cautious girl she once was into someone exactly like her.
By mid-afternoon, she’d cleaned up entirely, and she emerged from the house sweaty, bloody, and exhausted. She scuttled to her car and threw herself into the seat, barely noticing all the blood she was getting on the steering wheel. She stared blankly through the windshield, for a moment not having any idea where she was going to go. She felt drained, used up, finished. She felt ready to wave the white flag.
“I surrender, Ali,” she said in monotone as she drove down the steep hill to the main road. “You win.”
And that was a terrible thing to say aloud, too.
21
I’LL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND. . . .
“And that’s why we’re not friends anymore, Hanna Marin,” Hanna said harshly, eyeing Hailey under the hot set lights. Her Naomi Zeigler wig tickled her scalp, but she resisted scratching it. “Because you’re crazy. And you’re a liar. And there’s only so much a girl can take.”
Instead of Hailey looking shocked, as the script dictated, she stared glassily at the wall, almost asleep. A beat too late, she snapped to attention. “But, Naomi,” she whined. “You don’t, like, know the whole story.”
“Cut!” Hank bellowed. “The lighting is all wrong.”
The bell rang. Everyone snapped out of character, and Hailey fell gratefully into a raffia couch. “Oh my God,” she murmured, slinging a hand over her eyes. “I feel like death.”
“Late night?” Hanna asked cautiously. Hailey did look exhausted. Despite hours in hair and makeup, her hair was limp and her face was sallow and puffy. And even when she smiled, she seemed pissed off, like she was ready to lose it.
“Yeah, but super fun.” Hailey pulled her hand away from her eyes and peered at Hanna. “I was going to invite you, too, but you never texted me back.”