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Chapter 19

Jason followed what I told him to do, and he stayed the night at the hospital, talking to me whenever I woke up. The last time I fell asleep, sometime around four in the morning, he kissed me goodnight, and when I woke up it was my dad sitting next to me and he told me he didn't know what time Jason left.

Once I left the hospital, we kept finding trails to A, that led to dead ends, first the red coat, then the doll hospital, but none of them got us any closer to our stalker. It was starting to feel like searching for A and Ali's killer was not something to be done at the same time, and with Garett in custody after Jenna giving back the fifth page of Ali's autopsy report, we were focusing on A. We just didn't have anywhere to look, but A was getting bored of their own game.

"A wants to play hide & seek," Emily says, all of us opening an invitation sent by A to a masquerade ball.

"Be there when the clock strikes midnight," I read the note in my invitation. Spencer gets up and walks towards the window, staring out at the barn where her sister, our top suspect, was staying.

"Hide & seek was my favorite game with Melissa, you wanna know why?" Spencer says, then turns around and smirks at us. "Because I always won."

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"Who are you going to take to the ball?" Spencer asks me on the ride home, Emily and Hannah are asleep in the back, none of us having gotten any sleep last night.

"No one, if this ball is A's way at playing with us I don't want anyone I care about there."

"So you didn't tell Jason about the dance?" She asks, sounding a bit nervous.

"I haven't talked to him since the night at the hospital, that's what we agreed on." Spencer watches the road, ignoring me watching her. "What'd you do, Spencer?" I ask.

"He was just really upset about not being able to see you, and we try to keep in touch despite my parents, and I told him you were having a rough time and-"

"You shouldn't be talking to him either. A hasn't said anything about you being his brother so they don't know yet. If they find out that's more reason to go after him," I explain to her, knowing she understands this too.

"I told him about the ball, not the A part, but the masquerade part. He said he wasn't going to risk it for your sake, but I think if you talk to him-"

"I don't want him there, Spencer," I shoot her idea down, feeling like Toby's absences and my close proximity with her half brother has made her too much of a romantic. "If A is going to be messing with us the whole night, I want him far away from there."

"I understand."

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The four of us walk down the steps, Spencer in a yellow dress and black mask, Emily in a blue dress and blue mask, and Hannah in a white dress and gold mask. I was wearing a red dress, and black mask that started to lace once it went past my cheek bones. Everyone in the room was wearing masks, some only covering their cheekbones, other half their faces and some the whole faces.

"This is a perfect place for A to hide," I whisper, looking at all of the masks below us as we descend into the party, anyone from the town and our past could be here tonight.

"Where was Melissa when you left?" Hannah asks Spencer.

"Curled up on the couch in her pajamas."

"We have three hours to find out who A is, before A finds us," Emily says.

"We all still agree, right?" I say as we enter the crowd. "No matter what happens at midnight, we stick together and we are not giving up that phone."