Matters of the Heart

Chapter 35: Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Chapter 35:

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

"Ali is...de...sh..." The voice came through broken and garbled at first, her words cutting out.

"What?" Hanna glanced down at her phone, a look of bewilderment on her face. "Hold on. I can't hear you."

She walked out of Ali's room, Aria trailing her. Spencer was right behind them. They were getting ready to leave Ali's house. They'd searched and hadn't found a trace of her.

"Say that again, Mona?" Hanna asked.

"I said Ali is in some deep sh..." The phone cut out again, but after a few seconds the reception cleared and Hanna could hear her perfectly. "...but whatever she's doing she's in some serious trouble."

"What do you mean she's in trouble?" Hanna put the phone on speaker so Aria and Spencer could hear.

"After you told me she went AWOL I hacked in to her phone to see if I could find her. The last location shown is at the hospital..."

"So? Why does that mean she's in trouble?" Aria questioned.

"Oh, man, did she hit someone?" Hanna questioned. "Is she being arrested?"

"No, I was able to extract the last couple of texts from before she went dark." Mona paused, a crackle in the line giving way to a sigh, "A was taunting her about Emily's death, sending her pictures and telling her things that made it seem like they have Emily's..." Mona cringed, feeling bile in her mouth just thinking about mentioning it, "...body."

She was pissed that Emily hadn't made it. Emily had convinced her that everything was okay. Emily had her believing that everything would be fine. She'd even quipped about letting Mona be the first to know if she died again.

"The last message was an address. It's way out in the country, about 45 minutes or so. If she went there after Emily she very well may have just walked into a trap."

"Okay, well, Ali's not an idiot. She's not going to walk into an obvious A trap." Hanna frowned.

"She has before," Mona replied, "And she's grieving..." She quickly changed the subject so as not to remind them that she'd set her fair share of traps for their friend in the past.

"Yeah, but grieving or not, she wouldn't be dumb enough to completely abandon her senses," Hanna argued.

"We're talking about Ali here." Spencer reminded Hanna. "She would do anything for Emily." She knew Mona was right.

There was a beat of silence.

"Crap. She's in trouble." The realization hit Hanna. She felt like retching. She couldn't lose two friends today. She just couldn't. "Text me the address."

"Why? So you can walk into the trap, too?" Mona's tone was soft and worried.

"We can't just stand by and let what happened to Emily happen to her, too." Hanna swallowed a knot in her throat.

"Mona's right." It was almost painful for Spencer to say aloud. She could practically hear the satisfied grin radiating from Mona's end of the phone. It irritated her. "This is way over our heads."

"So, what do we do?" Aria questioned.

"Mona, did you break any other laws besides hacking her phone to get this information?" Spencer asked.

"Why?"

"Because I need you to go to the police with what you've got." She hated to even consider it, but at this point they needed Tanner.