They returned to the blankets. Emily stared into the darkness, her mind frantic and alert. The hours crept past. Every noise, every tiny click, sent her into a panic. She felt herself drifting off every once in a while, jumping back to consciousness after only minutes of sleep. The final time, when she awoke, the smell of vanilla hung heavily in the room. A figure stood over her. Emily blinked hard. Ali’s blond hair hung in knotted tendrils down her chest. Her eyes were hollow, her posture stooped.
Emily sat up hurriedly, her heart leaping into her throat. She’d been anticipating this, but it was still horrifying. “Please,” she said, scuttling backward. She glanced at her friends. Astonishingly, they were all still sleeping. “Please don’t hurt us.”
Ali tilted her head and offered Emily a smile. “Oh, Em. I didn’t hurt you. You hurt me.”
“What?” Emily whispered. She looked at her friends, but still none of them stirred. “What do you mean?”
Ali’s smile didn’t waver. “You’ll see.” Then she climbed over the chair Emily had pushed in front of the garage door and slipped through. A faint giggle trailed behind her. She slammed the door loudly with a bang.
Emily shot up and looked around. Pale light streamed through the windows. The room no longer smelled like vanilla. She ran her hands along the back of her sweaty neck. Had she dreamed that?
There was another bang, but this time it was her father opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen. Hanna stirred next to Emily. Aria rolled onto her side. Spencer shot up, her eyes wide. “What time is it?” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“It’s morning,” Emily said groggily, staring at the empty room again. Ali had seemed so real. “And nothing happened.”
Everyone looked at one another, blinking hard. Nothing happened. It was actually more shocking than Ali breaking in.
“Maybe they got her,” Spencer whispered.
Aria’s mouth dropped open. “Maybe this is over.”
“Maybe,” Emily said shakily. But she couldn’t stop thinking of what Ali—or dream-Ali—had said. I didn’t hurt you. You hurt me.
It meant something. Emily just didn’t know what.
32
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Hanna had never been so tired in her life. Staying up last night, one eye on the door, certain Ali was going to burst through at any moment, was more exhausting than any all-nighter she’d ever pulled. Worse than the night when they’d thought they’d accidentally blinded Jenna Cavanaugh with a firework. Worse than the night of Mona’s death, when she’d lain awake all night, wondering how her best friend could have been A. Worse than the night they’d seen Ian Thomas’s dead body—Hanna couldn’t get the sight or the smell out of her mind. Today, her limbs felt like she’d run back-to-back marathons. It took everything in her to drive home, change her clothes, and make her early call-time for her new role as Hanna Marin.
There were knots in her stomach as she drove to the set. Why was she even doing this? She got to be Hanna, but the victory had come at too high a cost—she’d lost Hailey and Mike, and who knew how many other people on the set would hate her, too, seeing her only as a backstabbing, overly ambitious bitch? Plus, she looked like hell today, and she certainly wasn’t up to performing—Hank was probably going to fire her on the spot. Should she quit and save him the trouble?
She pulled to a red traffic light and looked at her phone. A local news feed for Ashland was on her screen, but there was still nothing on the police investigation at the pool house. But that had to be a good thing, right? She and the others had talked about it before they left Emily’s this morning. News that Alison DiLaurentis was still alive—and had killed someone else—was a huge deal. An FBI screwup, actually. Of course the cops would keep the press at bay for as long as they could until their PR people figured out how to positively spin things.
The light turned green, and she rolled through it and made the turn to the set. The parking lot was mostly empty, and as she drove past the soundstages, she peeked into the alley where BreAk a leg, Hanna had been written on the ground in chalk.
She found a spot right in front of her trailer. Sighing, she got out of the car and started toward the steps, trying to figure out how she was going to tell Hank she didn’t want the job after all. Then she noticed someone standing on the steps already, blocking her way in.
Hailey.
Hanna’s heart dropped. Hailey looked tired and frazzled, her dark hair in a messy knot on her head and her makeup a little smudged. When she regarded Hanna, her eyes were narrowed and her lips were taut. Hanna wished she could whirl around and pretend she hadn’t seen her. She so couldn’t do a confrontation right now.
But Hailey was right there, staring at her. After a moment, she nodded at Hanna in greeting. “So my agent sent me dailies for the film yesterday,” she began. “I got to see my performance as Hanna Marin up close and personal.”
“Oh,” Hanna said uncertainly, wondering where this conversation was going.
“And I was awful.”