Vicious

To Henry

If you want a happy ending,

that depends, of course,

on where you stop your story.

—ORSON WELLES

Have you ever dreamed about starting a new life? Running away from your school, your town, your home, even your family and friends, and starting over somewhere else. Changing how you look, what you like, who you
are.
In a new place, you'd have no baggage. Your past and future would be a blank canvas. Of course, you'd also no longer be
you
, and that might mess with your head. And it would suck to have the people back home
worry
about you, going so far as to, say, put your face on a milk carton. Which is why it's just a fantasy.

But for one manipulative girl from Rosewood, it isn't a fantasy. It's survival.

And to her four enemies, it might mean the end of their pretty little lives—
forever.

The first thing Alison DiLaurentis noticed when she woke up was how buttery-soft her sheets were. Her down pillow was fluffy, and her blanket smelled like fresh fabric softener. A band of sun streaming in from the window warmed her legs, and a bird chirped euphorically in the trees. It was like she was sleeping in paradise.

She sat up and stretched, then broke into a grin as it hit her again. She was
free.

Score another win for Ali D
.

She picked up the remote and turned on the small television at the foot of the bed, which was already set to CNN. The same story she'd been following last night was on the news again:
Pretty Little Murderers Go to Trial.
Last year's school pictures of Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Emily Fields, and Hanna Marin were splashed across the screen. The reporters recounted the tantalizing tale of how the four girls had brutally murdered Alison DiLaurentis and were now on trial, facing life in prison.

Ali's smile broadened. This was playing out exactly as she'd planned.

“Traces of Alison's blood were found in an abandoned pool house in Ashland, Pennsylvania. The police are working hard to find her body,” a reporter was saying. “Investigators also found a journal of Alison's, in the woods outside the pool house. It details how the girls methodically captured and tortured her.”

A short man with curly gray hair and wire-framed glasses popped onto the screen.
Seth Rubens
, read the caption under his name.
Defense Attorney.
He was the lawyer representing the girls. “Not only did my clients not torture Alison,” he said, “they also had nothing to do with her murder. The trial will prove—”

The newscast cut him off mid-sentence. “Opening statements for their trial will start next Tuesday. Stay here for full coverage.”

Ali flopped back on the bed and wiggled her toes. So far, so good. Everyone bought that she was really dead, and everyone thought those bitches had killed her. It had been a bold move, but she'd pulled it off. She'd even done it mostly alone.

It had been risky returning to Rosewood, Pennsylvania, after her last scheme to bring her sister's old friends down had failed. But it had pissed her off that things had gone so wrong . . .
again.
After all, she'd plotted everything so meticulously: her boyfriend and accomplice, Nicholas, had painstakingly infiltrated the girls' lives the previous summer. First he'd used his massive trust fund to fly to Jamaica and set up an elaborate hoax for all the girls. Then he'd bounced to Philly to target Spencer, to Iceland to ensnare Aria in an international incident, and back to Philly again to gather secrets about the other two. When shit started to go down and the Liars spiraled out of control, Ali and Nick started rumors that the bitches had a suicide pact—and spread it to the press, to kids at school via Facebook, even to random people around Rosewood. Knowing the girls were looking for Ali, Ali and Nick laid out clues to her whereabouts, luring them to the basement of a ramshackle building in Rosewood. The girls were supposed to die down there. The cops were supposed to come after it was all over, when Ali and Nick had safely escaped, and think it was a group suicide.

But that wasn't how it had happened. Somehow, the girls had been saved, and the cops had hauled Nick off to prison. Ali had gotten away, but worry plagued her. How long would Nick stick to the lie they'd agreed upon: that Ali had died in the fire in the Poconos a year ago and that he'd gone after Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna alone? Prison probably sucked, especially for a rich kid who was used to sleeping on zillion-thread-count sheets and who'd had to shoplift a sound machine from Target because he needed white noise even when on the lam.

After all that, drums still beat in Ali's head, overpowering all thoughts of lying low.
You have to get them
, she thought.
You have to finish this.

And so she had. First she penned a journal, a story so brilliantly crafted it probably would have received an A+ in AP English. She twisted her relationship with Nick into something sordid and abusive, poor little sick Ali dragged into a murderous rampage with no way of escape.
Nick killed my sister. Nick killed Ian. Nick set fire to Spencer's woods. Nick killed Jenna Cavanaugh.
It was all Nick's idea, and he'd pulled Ali along for the ride.

She wrote that Nick had barely cared for her after the Poconos fire and forced her to take part in
more
nefarious activities, threatening to kill her if she told anyone or tried to leave. She wrote about clawing her way out of that basement to get away from him. Several entries talked about how wonderful it felt to be free—but how scary, too. She wrote that she'd been hiding in a barn in Limerick, Pennsylvania, though actually she'd been in the pool house at Nick's parents' vacation home in Ashland . . . which would play into the second part of her plan.

She'd also written whole chapters about the Liars, creating a different picture of them than what the public assumed.
My sister's dear old friends
, she called them, splattering salt water on the diary to look like tears.
I hope they forgive me and understand that I wasn't the one behind all this. I've wanted to tell them so many times.
Ali wrote that she wanted to go to the cops with her story, but she was afraid they wouldn't believe her. She wrote about wanting to anonymously turn in the journal, but she didn't know who to trust.

As her coup de grâce, she detailed how the Liars had tracked her down, finding her in the barn and tying her up. She begged them to listen to her side of the story, but the Liars threw her in Spencer's trunk and dragged her away—although, really, she hadn't been dragged anywhere, and was still at the pool house, waiting for them to find her.
Writing this with my hands tied up
, Ali had penned, actually tying her hands together so her handwriting was properly sloppy. And:
This journal is my only friend.
And:
I've tried to tell them the truth again and again, but they just won't listen. They're crazy. All of them. I know they're going to kill me. I'm never getting out of here alive.
Her last entry was two choppy sentences:
I think today is going to be the day. I'm so scared.

It was kismet: The date of the last entry jibed almost perfectly with when the Liars really
did
find the pool house. Ali knew they'd come—she'd planted that receipt in the pocket of the hoodie she let Emily tear off her for that very reason. To sufficiently hook them, she made sure the place smelled overpoweringly of the vanilla soap she used. She knew they'd come inside the pool house and touch everything, leaving their fingerprints everywhere. They fell for every one of Ali's tricks as though she had them under a spell. Sure, there were a few surprises—like the cameras they set up in the trees—but even those she made work to her advantage, especially when Emily had her colossal freak-out on-screen. The prosecution team would log that into evidence.

Now, Ali sat down at the laptop propped up on a small desk in the corner and opened a website. A huge banner saying
Hang the Liars!
splashed across the top of the page.
We Are Your Ali Cats, Ali!
Letting out a little coo of happiness, she leaned forward and kissed the screen. The Ali Cats, a special fan club that had started last year, were completely devoted to
her.
They had been the sweetest surprise in all of this. Ali loved them, her special helpers, her extra credit. Some of them were dedicated enough to risk
everything
for her. She wished she could write to them and thank each one of them.

After reading a few posts from Ali Cats all over the country, clamoring for the Liars to go to prison for the rest of their lives, Ali shut the laptop and moved to the closet. All her new clothes—mostly white or pale-colored shirts, shorts, and skirts in several sizes larger than she was used to—hung in a neat row. The stuff
totally
wasn't her . . . but that was the price she had to pay. As she slid the hangers from one side of the rod to the next, she felt a small, nagging twinge inside her. This latest escape
had
come at a bit of a price. She'd had to get rid of a few of the Ali Cats—but that was necessary. And then there was Nick. She'd had a few dreams of him escaping from prison, finding her, and demanding to know how she could have blamed him for everything. But betraying him was necessary, too.

A knock sounded at the door. Ali whipped around, her heart pounding hard. “It's just me,” came a voice. “Are you up?”

Ali's heart slowed down. “Uh, yeah,” she said.

“I was just about to go out and get some breakfast. You want anything? Pancakes, maybe, like yesterday? An omelet?”

Ali thought a moment. “Both,” she decided. “
And
some bacon,” she added. “And grapefruit juice, if you can find some.”

A shadow flickered under the door. “Okay,” came the voice. “Be back soon.”

Ali listened as the footsteps grew softer. She turned back to her closet and pulled on a white T-shirt and a long, white, gauzy skirt, which was beyond hideous but fit her expanding hips. She glanced at herself in the mirror and almost didn't recognize the girl looking back, a larger, unwieldy creature with mousy-brown hair and blotchy, messed-up skin. It was only a temporary situation, though—soon enough, she would go back to being beautiful. This was who she needed to be right now: someone
other
than herself. A nobody. A nothing. A ghost, which made it even more appropriate that most of her new clothes were white.

Outside, a car swished past. A boat horn honked. As Ali thought of her imminent breakfast, all the wary twinges faded away. How unbelievably luxurious that deciding what she would eat was her one and only concern! All that other stuff? She didn't feel shitty about it at all. Only the strong survive, after all. And soon enough, she'd have a new life. A
better
one than what she'd had in a long, long time.

And those four bitches would have no life at all.