Spencer’s eyes flashed. “No.” The door slammed as she marched out.
Silence followed. Hanna ran her hands down the length of her face, her heart drumming fast. She turned back to Aria, whose face was pale. “What the hell was that?”
Aria riffled the pages of the horoscope book. She shifted uncomfortably. “That was too far, Han,” she said sternly. “We’re all hurting.” Then she hurried out the door behind Spencer.
“Hey!” Hanna shrieked, but Aria was already gone. What the hell had just happened?
Then she looked around, her skin prickling. To her horror, quite a few people from the church were peering out the doorway, right at her, as if they’d heard every word.
Hanna spun around and walked the opposite way down the hall, away from the door Spencer and Aria had gone through. She came to a hallway full of conference rooms and sank down on the wall until her butt hit the cold linoleum floor. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. It was strange to feel both angry and numb at the same time, but that was the only way to describe it.
After a while, she heard footsteps. Mike stood over her. “Han,” he said, crouching down.
Hanna stared up at him. She’d been in such a fog she hadn’t even realized he’d come today.
“Hey,” Mike said gently, taking her hands. “Are you okay? Why did you guys leave the church? What happened?”
Hanna swallowed hard, then gazed in the direction in which her friends had run. “Oh, just two of the few remaining good things in my life crumbling away,” she said in a choked voice, realizing as she said it that it was utterly true.
8
ESCAPE ARTIST
Aria barely noticed that she’d crushed a few flowers in the beds as she stamped out of the church. Nor did she pause to appreciate the crisp, blue sky, the meandering bumblebees, or how her stiff suede heels were rubbing against her ankles. All she wanted was to catch Spencer and try to talk some sense into her.
That argument . . . why today, of all days? Emotions were way too raw to fight. They needed to stick together—the trial started tomorrow.
Aria peered into the parking lot and saw Spencer storming toward a row of cars. “Spence!” she called out. “Hey!”
Spencer glanced at Aria over her shoulder, then picked up her pace. “I don’t want to talk.”
Aria ran to her and caught her arm. “We’re all upset. This is . . . horrible, Spence. It’s totally not fair that Mrs. Fields feels that way about us.” She waved her hand toward the parking lot. “I’m half in the mood to smash all the windows of her car! And you almost died, too, and I respect how traumatic that was. But we have to—”
“You know, maybe Emily’s mom is right,” Spencer interrupted. “Maybe we are poisoning influences on each other. Maybe we need some space.”
Aria felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. “Don’t push us away,” she begged. “It’s not us you’re mad at. All of this is just messing with your head.”
“With good reason!” Spencer’s eyes were wide. “Emily’s dead, Aria. She couldn’t take it, so she killed herself. Maybe we all should take our lives—it’s probably the best choice.”
Aria gasped. “How could you say that? You don’t know for sure that we’re going to prison!”
Spencer chuckled sarcastically. “Haven’t you listened to the sixty lawyers we’ve already talked to? They all think we’re going down. And I’m sorry, but if it wasn’t for Emily pushing us to look for Ali, if it wasn’t for us being so scared to cross Emily because she seemed so fragile, she might still be here! And we might not be in the amount of trouble we’re in!”
“So, what, now this is all Emily’s fault? But Spence—”
Spencer cut her off. “Leave me alone, okay?” She turned and ran between the cars.
Aria knew better than to follow, but she felt hurt and confused. She looked at the church again. She should go back inside—her family was still in there. But what she really wanted, she realized, was to drive somewhere. Get away from this place, this loss. And even though she wasn’t sure why, this place reminded her of Ali. All of Rosewood reminded her of Ali, really—she was everywhere. And this fight, their issues with one another—that seemed like another one of Ali’s master plans. Instead of banding together against Ali, they’d turned on one another, growing weak, growing angry, losing everything. That was what Ali wanted, right? For them to lose everything? As Ali would say, Score another win for Ali D.