Chapter 6

"Are you sure it'll be safe here?" Aria wrung her hands together, shooting a nervous glance toward the door.

Saige raised an eyebrow, shifting around the tangled necklaces in the bottom drawer of her jewelry box so Ali's bracelet was completely concealed. "It's a bracelet, not a bomb."

"What about Dani?" Emily asked, referring to Saige's thirteen-year-old sister. "Does she still snoop around in your room?"

"What? No," Saige said, but hurried to shut the door to her bedroom, just in case. "It'll be fine."

Hanna glanced over at Spencer, who was standing by the window and staring out of it with a blank expression. "Hey," she said loudly, smacking her on the shoulder. "Did someone flip the off switch on your brain or something?"

Spencer whirled around, her eyes bright and questioning. "You guys, was Ali…wearing that, the night she died?" she asked, nodding toward the jewelry box.

"She always wore it," Emily replied, a little tersely.

"She was," Saige confirmed, thinking back to the sleepover, which stood out so vividly in her memory. "I high-fived her after she pranked us and I remember seeing it on her wrist."

Aria folded her arms and furrowed her brow. "What does that…" She stopped short and drew in a breath. "Oh my God."

Emily shook her head hard. "No. It can't be."

It was Hanna who finally proclaimed what they were all thinking. "Did someone seriously take that off of Alison's body?"

For the second time in an hour, Saige felt distinctly like she was about to be sick. She hadn't even thought about how Alison's bracelet, the one she was buried in, ended up delivered to her in the Grille…only about who had sent it. She looked warily at the open drawer of the jewelry chest. "Um, on second thought, does anyone else want to take it?"

"This is crazy," Aria burst out. "How could someone have gotten that bracelet off of her after they found her body?"

"Unless someone took it before that," Spencer mused, staring off into space in the way she always did when her brain was running a mile a minute.

Saige bit her lip, digging her nails into her palm. As much as she hated to think about this…it did make sense. "Someone like A?"

"A was the one who led us to her body," Spencer said with a shrug, sitting down on the edge of Saige's bed. "So we know they must have had something to do with what happened to her."

"Okay, can we please stop talking about bodies?" Hanna groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead. "I just ate."

Emily frowned, sinking down into the chair at Saige's desk. "It really freaks me out that A knew where Ali's body was," she murmured.

"Should we really still be calling them A?" Aria said vehemently. "I mean, Jenna has to be behind this, right?"

"I don't know," Saige muttered, twisting her silver ring around her finger. "A has always kind of seemed like they can see everything."

"Yeah, and they also seem like they have a huge grudge against us!" Hanna exclaimed, throwing her arms out at her sides. "Who else would want to ruin our lives?"

"If A is Jenna, she's working with someone," Spencer said firmly. "Someone who can see."

Aria raised her eyebrows. "Toby?"

Emily shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know. He just joined my chem class. He doesn't seem like that bad of a guy."

Spencer gaped at her like she'd suddenly sprouted a second head. "You can't be serious, Em. Toby's a perv. He was peering in our window that night."

Saige's stomach turned over. She jumped to her feet. "You know what? My mom and Dani will be back from soccer soon. You guys should probably go."

Her four friends moved toward the door, glancing anxiously in the direction of the hidden bracelet. "We'll talk at lunch tomorrow," Spencer said.

Saige hurried to shut the door behind them, then collapsed on her bed, forcing herself to take deep breaths even as that horrible memory rushed back to her.

…

"I'm serious, Hanna was this close to asking Sean out at lunch today. You should have been there, she was just about to go up and talk to him, but then his friends came over and…" Saige trailed off and frowned, looking up from her phone. "Ali, are you even listening to me?"

Her best friend turned slowly away from her closet, where she'd been shifting absentmindedly through clothes for the past fifteen minutes. "Hmm?"

Saige sighed in exasperation, tossing her phone onto the bed and sitting up. "You've been like this all day. What's going on?" She glanced covertly at the closed bedroom door. "Does it have something to do with Ian?"

Ali laughed lightly, finally selecting a blue tank top and pulling it on over her head. "No. Sorry. I guess I'm just excited about tonight."

"Tonight?" Saige wrinkled her nose, even more confused. "You're all lost in thought because you're so pumped to go hang out and watch the fireworks at Emily's house?"

"What?" Ali asked, a bit of annoyance creeping into her voice as she brushed out her hair. "I can't be excited to hang out with my friends?"

This was the point where any of their other friends would have backed down and squeaked out an apology, but Saige stood up and crossed her arms with a disbelieving look. "Ali."

They stared at each other for a lingering moment. Ali's expression was set and defiant, but Saige didn't let up. She'd known Ali long enough to know that she never kept anything from her for long.

At last, Ali sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll tell you. But you have to swear not to tell the other girls."

Now it was Saige's turn to offer an eye roll of her own. "I can't believe you still think you even have to say that."

Ali settled reluctantly down on the bed and Saige scrambled to join her. "I have a plan," she announced, in the typical Ali way that Saige was so used to.

"What do you mean? A plan for what?"

"For tonight," Ali said, a gleam in her eye. "I finally thought of a way to get back at Toby and Jenna."

Saige felt a sinking feeling deep in her stomach. She recognized that look on Ali's face, and nothing good ever came of it. "Why would you do that?"

A dark cloud passed across Ali's face, momentarily dimming her joyful expression. "That slut's been trouble ever since she showed her face last Halloween," she muttered, staring straight ahead. "She needs to know who she's really messing with. And so does her loser brother."

"Wait." Saige shook her head, her unease growing. "This is all because Jenna didn't want to join our group and Toby wouldn't kiss you last year?"

For just a moment, Ali almost looked like she got Saige's point. But then her expression hardened again. "It's no big deal," she insisted, smiling reassuringly. "Just a harmless little prank. They'll never even know it was us."

"Us?" Saige cried, jumping to her feet. "What exactly is this plan, Ali?"

Her best friend hopped up as well. She strode over to the air vent, one of her favorite hiding places, and detached it from the wall. She reached in and pulled out the familiar wooden box. Saige watched nervously as she lifted something small and thin out of it. "What is that?"

"A stink bomb," Ali explained, grinning slyly. "Toby's about to get a nice surprise in his creepy little garage hideout." She snorted and shook her head in disgust. "What a freak."

Saige didn't really see how Jenna played into this, but she focused on the object in Ali's hand instead. She'd never seen a stink bomb before, but for some reason she hadn't imagined that it would look much like this. "I don't know about this, Ali. Maybe you should forget about Jenna and Toby and move on."

"Don't try and change my mind, Saige," Ali warned sharply, dropping the stink bomb into the top drawer of her desk. "It's happening, whether you like it or not."

Saige didn't doubt that, but she could feel her nerves growing. She couldn't just stand here and not try and stop her! "What about the others?" she asked desperately. "How are you going to get them to go along with this?"

Ali smirked, slinging her small chain link purse over her shoulder. "You'll see. Just play along."

Her heart racing, Saige raised her hand instinctively to her mouth, only to lower it when Ali shot her a look of exasperation. "I don't like this," she said finally, surprised at herself. As close as she and Ali were, she rarely questioned Ali's often poor decisions. She usually found it easier to just stay quiet and be there for her when things backfired. But this was different – this could be dangerous. "What if something goes wrong?"

"Oh my God," Ali groaned, in a tone that Saige wasn't used to hearing – at least not directed toward her. "You're not gonna wimp out on me, are you? I swear, nothing's going to go wrong. I've seen Jason and his stoner buddies throw these things around a million times. It'll stink up their stupid garage, that's it."

Saige still wasn't sure, but she could tell by the look of determination on Ali's face that arguing would be pointless. "I guess you're right," she mumbled uncertainly. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Of course I do," Ali said confidently, striding over to the door. "And you'd better not say a word to the others. Now come on. We're late."

Saige took in a deep breath and followed, walking right into the night that, up until that Labor Day, would become the worst of her life.

…

Saige jolted upright, realizing with a glance at the clock that she'd been lying on her bed, reliving that horrible memory for over half an hour.

She'd known. She'd known what Ali was planning. Of course, at the time she'd been convinced that it really was a stink bomb, that it really was a harmless prank. She'd had no way of knowing what was going to happen…and she was pretty sure Ali hadn't realized it, either.

But still. Her other friends had had only minutes to try and talk Ali out of such an insane idea. Saige had had hours. She could have stopped Ali so easily, could have grabbed that stupid firecracker away from her and insisted that if she really cared about her, about any of them, she wouldn't do something so dangerous.

But instead she'd just gone along with it. Like usual with it came to Ali.

Her phone was in her hand before she really even allowed herself to think it through. She pulled up a new group text to her four old friends.

I have to tell you guys something. Meet at our old place in half an hour.

…

Twenty-five minutes later, Saige bounced nervously on her heels, resting one hand on the slightly rotting wall of the old abandoned cabin. The six of them had spent hours in middle school laughing and snacking inside that dusty shack. It had been Ali who'd discovered it, naturally, and even though it was gross and musty and weathered from the rain, it was their special place, their own secret hideout.

But when five o'clock came, Saige was beginning to wonder if the others remembered the cabin as fondly as she did. None of them had seemed confused when they responded to her text, but they had spent a lot of time at other places. Maybe they didn't consider the cabin in the woods to be as important as she did.

She was just about to give up and head to the Kissing Rock – Emily in particular had always been partial to going there, for some reason – when the branches to her left began to rustle.

"Hello?" she called out, feeling a jolt of nerves even though she knew that was ridiculous. Emily and Spencer emerged from between the bushes, and she let out a breath.

The others were just a few minutes behind them. Aria arrived last, her hair hastily tied back and her lipstick a little smudged. Spencer gave her a bemused look as she pushed through the branches to join them. "What have you been up to in the last thirty minutes?"

"What?" Aria blinked, her eyes darting quickly back and forth between them. "Um, nothing, I was just taking a nap."

"Yeah, I could have used one of those myself," Hanna muttered, smoothing down the hem of the black dress she'd never taken off after the funeral. Saige watched her, suddenly realizing that she was still wearing hers, too. It felt like hours ago that they'd been sitting in those pews.

"So what's up?" Emily asked finally, turning to Saige and crossing her arms. "What couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

"Did you get another text from A?" Spencer asked, almost eagerly.

"No," Saige muttered, wringing her hands together. "I just need to tell you guys something, and I can't talk about it where other people might hear us."

She glanced up just in time to see worry flicker across her friends' faces. "Look, if this is about whatever A has on you," Aria said hastily, her brow furrowed, "we don't need – "

"It's not about A," Saige said, taking a deep breath. Telling them the truth about her role that Fourth of July had seemed like such a great idea when she'd sent the text – spill the details before A did it for her. But now that she was here, actually facing them, she felt all of the courage melt right out of her. "It's about…that night."

"The night Ali went missing?" Emily demanded, her face falling.

"No. The night of the Jenna Thing."

Spencer's eyebrows shot up. "You know something about that night that we don't?"

"No, you can't," Hanna blurted, waving furiously at a buzzing mosquito. "The six of us were together that whole night."

"No we weren't," Saige said quietly, resisting the urge to shut up and run. "Remember how me and Ali showed up at the same time? That wasn't a coincidence. We'd been hanging out beforehand."

"That's not surprising," Spencer said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, you and Ali used to hang out alone all the time," Aria added with a shrug.

"But this time was different," Saige went on, forcing out the words that she so desperately didn't want to speak. "Ali was different. It was almost like she wasn't really in the room with me. And when I finally asked her why she was so distracted…she told me."

Emily's forehead creased. Her face paled. "Told you what?" she asked in a wavering voice, though the other girls all exchanged looks of stunned comprehension.

Saige closed her eyes, leaning back slightly against a tree. It was now or nothing. This was the moment that her friends would either judge her…or understand. "She went over to…her jewelry box," she stumbled, deciding at the last moment to keep her knowledge of Ali's secret hiding spot to herself, "and she pulled something out of it. I – I thought it was a stink bomb, she told me it was a stink bomb…and she also told me what she was planning on doing with it."

"Whoa, wait." Aria held up her hands before Saige could go on. "You're saying you knew about the Jenna Thing before it even happened?"

"Yes, I mean – kind of." Saige gripped the hard bark of the tree, feeling like the world was about to spin out from under her. She had just gotten her old friends back. She couldn't bear it if they dumped her again over this. "She told me that it was a prank. She wanted to mess with them. I had no idea what was really going to happen, honestly."

"You knew for hours and you didn't try and stop her?" Spencer burst out, in a voice louder than Saige would have liked.

She shook her head frantically. "Of course I did! I begged her not to go through with it. But you guys knew Ali. Once she got an idea in her head, there was no stopping her."

"You must have misunderstood." Emily began to pace back and forth around the small clearing, running her hand along the side of the cabin. "Ali came up with the prank because she saw Toby spying on us. She never would have…" She trailed off, rubbing at her arms uncomfortably.

"I swear to you, this was planned," Saige insisted. "Jenna and Toby didn't seek out her approval and Ali didn't like that. It had nothing to do with him peeking in our window."

"Would Ali seriously do something like that just because Jenna wouldn't be her friend?" Hanna snorted, rolling her eyes.

"Maybe it was more than that," Spencer blurted, her face ashen. Saige's heart, which had just started to slow down as she realized that her friends weren't going to berate her for keeping such a big secret, began to thump hard again.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice high.

Now it was Spencer who looked as nervous as Saige had felt just moments before. "You're not the only one who was keeping a secret about that night," she muttered, staring at the ground.

"Are you kidding me?" Hanna cried. "Please don't tell me you knew Ali was going to throw that stupid firecracker, too."

Aria frowned, her mouth twisting in worry. "Spencer?"

"I didn't know," Spencer admitted, sighing. "But I did see her after the accident, once the fire engines arrived. She was threatening Toby. It sounded like she had something on him. Something more than peeking in our window."

"Which he didn't even do," Emily piped up quietly, still wearing a look of hurt and betrayal.

"Whatever it was, it must have been bad," Aria whispered, shooting a nervous glance into the woods surrounding them. "Toby spent a year in juvie. Whatever Ali had on him must have been something that would have gotten him in even more trouble."

Hanna turned to Saige, raising her eyebrows. "Do you know what it was?

Saige jumped, startled by the question. Her head was spinning so fast that it took her a moment to realize what she'd been asked. "No! I don't know anything about that. Why would I?"

"Well, it sure seems like Ali told you a lot more than she told us," Spencer said, shortly but not unkindly. "If anyone knows what she had on Toby, it would be you."

"Well, I don't," Saige almost snapped, rubbing her arms as the weight of Spencer's words sunk in. She and Ali had told each other everything. Saige knew so many things that the others didn't…things that she logically knew she should tell them but just couldn't bring herself to.

Would Ali have really kept something like this from her? A secret so big, so bad, that it would force Toby into taking the fall for arson? It didn't make any sense. Saige pictured Ali, and for the first time in over a year, the image in her head didn't seem quite so clear. Had she really known her best friend as well as she'd thought?

What else had Ali kept from her?

It was the sound of five cell phones simultaneously chiming that tore Saige out of her whirlwind of thoughts. A twig snapped in the distance, and everyone jumped. They exchanged scared yet tired looks as they pulled their phones out of their pockets and bags.

Five little liars, together again. But here's a tip: Next time, don't leave your valuables unguarded. – A

"What does this mean?" Emily asked shakily after Aria read the message aloud. "Did A break into one of our houses?"

"I just bought a new pair of Gucci sunglasses," Hanna moaned. "And I even paid for them," she added under her breath.

Spencer gave her a questioning look, but before she could ask, Saige gasped, staring down at the message and suddenly realizing its meaning. "Alison's bracelet."

Without pause, she tore into the woods, running full-speed toward her car. Her friends followed, and ten minutes later they were racing up the stairs to her bedroom.

Saige flung open the door and swept her gaze around the room. Everything looked normal and untouched, exactly as she'd left it half an hour ago. Even her jewelry box remained in its place on her dresser. She yanked open the bottom drawer to find the same tangled necklaces and bangles. Nothing was out of place.

Except one thing.

She pushed aside a few pairs of earrings and an old watch and gasped as her friends crowded in around her. Alison's bracelet was gone, and in its place was a small gold chain with an A shaped pendant dangling from it.

"It's gone," she breathed, clutching the necklace and holding it out.

"That's impossible." Spencer pushed her gently aside and leaned over the jewelry box, shifting through the drawer's contents and even taking a look at the rest of the box.

"A was in my room," Saige whispered, shuddering as a chill swept through her. She walked over to her window and pulled the curtains closed. "You guys, A broke into my house. What if my little sister had been home?"

"This doesn't make sense," Aria decided, shaking her head and taking the A necklace from Saige. She turned it over in her hand. "Why would A give that bracelet to us only to take it away?"

"Why wouldn't they?" Emily said helplessly. "We still don't even know what this person wants."

"Oh my God." Hanna was staring at something across the room, and Saige turned as she pointed with a shaking finger.

Written on the mirror attached to the closet door, in bright red lipstick that looked exactly like the shade Ali used to wear, was another message, as if in response to their questions.

My game, my rules.

...

Well...I can honestly say this was not my intention. I really, really did not mean for this chapter to take so long, and I'm so sorry to anyone who has been waiting patiently for an update. The start of a new semester really took time away from me and I really did not have much of an opportunity to write until recently. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed. Please continue to review and let me know what you think - it was your great feedback that got me to seek out the time to finish this one! Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to get up.