Pants on Fire
The tunnel is pitch black and narrow. It’s smell is part wet dog, part musty basement, but there’s the faintest trace of Chanel No 5 still lingering in the air, and Emily’s flashlight beam is shining on definite drag marks through the dust.
“Why can’t it ever be a clean, well-lighted trail?” Aria grumbles, trying to step around a pile of damp leaves.
“Because ‘A’ wants to ruin our lives. And our shoes,” Emily answers.
“And our noses,” Ezra adds, as the tunnel widens a bit and a new smell reaches them, making Emily want to retch.
A few minutes later, they find themselves at a confluence of the Rosewood sewer system, with new tunnels branching off in three different directions.
“The drag marks stop here,” Emily observes, worriedly.
“They could have gone out,” Ezra suggests, pointing at a manhole cover above them. “Gotten into a car. They could be anywhere.”
“But if they were dragging her like dead weight, how would they get her up a ladder?” Aria asks. “I mean, even if you threw her over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes, I don’t think you could get up and out.”
“So we split up,” Emily suggests, tentatively. “And hope that ‘A’ doesn’t snatch us up one by one.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Ezra frowns.
“Like I do?” Emily snaps. “Do you not have a television? The lesbian always gets killed first!”
“Guys,” Aria says, standing between them. “Hanna, remember? Kidnapped?”
“We split up,” Ezra nods, although his voice is clipped, “Even though she’s probably miles away above ground by now.”
“You’re not helping,” Aria chides him.
“I don’t want to lose you, too,” he replies.
Emily’s glad that it’s dark enough that they won’t notice her rolling her eyes.
“Alright,” she says. “You figure it out. I’m taking the one on the left.”
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Hanna Marin groans as she feels a blast of cold water against her face. She opens her eyes and instinctively tries to move her hand to wipe her eyes. That’s when she feels the rope cutting into her wrists, the throbbing pain in her right temple. She’s nursing a head wound and tied to a chair. Of course. So much for the plan, she thinks.
A blue glove in a beige coat sleeve reaches around and roughly towels off her face. Hanna tries to turn her head to get a look at her captor, but she gets slapped hard across the cheek for her trouble. She tastes blood in her mouth, then feels a belt being tightened around her chest, the cuff and electrodes on her fingers and arm.
She follows the wires with her eyes, and sure enough, sees a polygraph machine in the corner. A video camera is set up nearby, and the blinking red light probably means it’s already recording. There’s a creepy looking doll on the floor in front of her, holding a cell phone. A computerized voice emanates from the speakers.
“What is your name?”
“Hanna Marin,” she swallows hard, tries to breathe evenly.
“Is your father Tom Marin?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in love with Caleb Rivers?”
“What does it matter to you?” Hanna asks, incredulous.
“Are you in love with Caleb Rivers?” The electronic voice repeats.
“I’m not going to sit here and talk about my love life with Siri!” Hanna complains. “Do you want to know about Charlotte or not?”
“Are you in love with Caleb Rivers?”
“No,” Hanna says. “Next question.”
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Aria is hurrying down the sewer tunnel, praying at every turn that she’s not going to be grabbed up by ‘A’ or trip over Hanna’s body. The acoustics in here are weird, she thinks, especially the way her footsteps echo. She stops to listen as her heart sinks to the pit of her stomach.
It’s not an echo. It’s another set of footsteps.
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Emily is thinking about her dad as she walks alone through the sewer. How he looked in uniform. How he would have laughed at her for shrieking at the sight of a racoon, told her it was probably more scared of her than she was of it.
Something shiny sparkles in the beam of her flashlight.
She bends down to pick it up. It’s Hanna’s engagement ring.
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“I left the hotel room,” Hanna says, trying to force her heart rate to be calm. Trying to think about beaches on the French Riviera, instead the shadowy figure behind her and whether or not she’s about to be killed. “Everyone else was still asleep.”
“I went to the church. Jordan was acting annoyed that I hadn’t set a date or picked a venue, and since my mom runs The Radley, I was thinking maybe a small ceremony there and a big reception at the hotel. But when I saw Charlotte there - I totally snapped. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt all of us. I wanted to kill her. I grabbed a candlestick and hit her from behind. Then I dragged her up the stairs and threw her off the bell tower to make it look like a suicide.” Hanna feels the tears in her eyes. It’s her command performance, and it’s probably not going to fool anyone.
“I erased the security footage. I asked Lucas to be my fake alibi. I didn’t tell anyone. The others - they didn’t know.”
Hanna wishes she’d done more than kiss Gabriel Holbrook. She wishes she’d gone to bed with him, made him tell her everything he knew about how to fool those fucking machines. She wishes her mom had married Pastor Ted, that he could have taught her how to pray loud enough that God would move the needle just enough, just a few centimeters, just enough to adjust the boundary lines between the truth and the lie that might save her friends. The silence lengthens as Hanna tries to steady her breathing, subtly test the ropes that have her arms bound to the chair.
“Liar,” the doll’s voice says. “Liar. Liar!”
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Aria runs as fast as she can down the tunnel. At the next corner, she catches sight of a ladder.
She turns off her flashlight and climbs up.
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Emily is running as silently as she can through the darkness. She’s turned off her flashlight so that her eyes can adjust. Whoever has Hanna, if they’re down here, she wants to see them before they see her.
She thinks about Hanna, all the times they’ve been in danger together. She remembers waking up outside the carbon monoxide barn, her head in Ali’s lap. She bites her lip and runs faster, as if she can outrun the memory of that kiss, as if saving Hanna will cancel out Ali being locked in the mental hospital.
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Hanna feels a syringe plunge into the side of her neck. She tries to headbutt her captor, but her range of motion is too limited. She still hasn’t seen more of them than the stupid blue hand.
A bright light shines directly into her eyes, blinding her, as she feels something sticky sliding across her forehead. Are they writing on her? A message for when the others find her body?
This, she thinks, is probably the part where they kill her. She’s starting to feel woozy already. Maybe they’ll harvest her organs. Her head feels really heavy, like a bowling ball, but her brain feels fizzy, like it’s made of champagne.
There’s a flash, as if the bastard is taking pictures of his handiwork. Hanna fights back a giggle at the thought of ‘A” having an Instagram account. She’s jolted back to reality when the electronic voice cuts through her floaty thoughts.
“Who attacked Charlotte DiLaurentis?”
“I…..did,” Hanna says, although it’s getting harder to make herself form the words. Hard to remember why she’s supposed to.
“Who attacked Charlotte?”
Hanna tries to shake her head to clear it.
“Who did it? Was it one of your friends?”
“Don’t know.” Part of Hanna’s brain is horrified, but also powerless to stop the words falling out of her mouth.
“Are you in love with Caleb Rivers?”
“Noooo.”
“Did anyone leave the hotel that night?”
Hanna tries her best to stay silent. Bites her tongue to remind herself not to answer. But it’s such hard work.
“Did anyone leave the hotel that night?”
“Yesssss,” Hanna nods, her eyes slack and unfocused.
“Who?”
Hanna spits blood on the floor instead of answering.
“Someone left. Was it Spencer?”
“No.”
“Was it Emily?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Was it Aria?”
This is a tough one, Hanna thinks.
“Ezra,” Hanna mumbles.
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“Ezra!” Aria shrieks, shining her flashlight directly into the eyes of her pursuer as he races around the corner.
“Aria?” he replies, confused.
“Why are you following me?” Aria hisses. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“My tunnel dead ended,” Ezra winces, his hand covering his face. “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
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Emily sees the faintest outline of light ahead, a glowing rectangle outlining a hidden door, probably. She approaches slowly, tries to calculate how long she was running, the general direction she’s been heading since they left the Lost Woods Resort. She sees a rusty wheelbarrow discarded a few feet from the door, knows this is it. This is where she’s going to find Hanna.
Dad, she thinks, if you’re up there - let Spencer figure it out, too.
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“Did Aria leave the hotel? To meet Ezra? Is that why you erased the security tape?”
“Yesssssss,” Hanna says, her head lolling on her chest, just as the door flies open and Emily Fields bursts into the room.
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Caleb is behind the wheel of Spencer’s car, his mouth tight and his eyes red. They’re driving away from the scene at the church, Toby having slipped Spencer out the side door the moment the paramedics arrived to tend to Lucas.
He has no idea where they’re going, but he’s heading in the general direction of the Lost Woods Resort. Maybe they can at least get rid of Mona, get everyone back to their own cars. Spencer can come up with a plan, he tells himself. Once they’re back at the barn, once it’s just the two of them, things will start making sense. She’ll know what to do.
At the moment, Spencer is in the backseat with Mona, studying the mannequin with Hanna’s face. Mona has the wig off, and is tracing a hand almost tenderly along the scalp line of the mask.
“It looks so real,” Spencer says, probing a cheek with her thumb and forefinger. “I really thought it was her.”
“I was sure it was,” Mona admits, running her fingers along an earlobe. “Until I felt the hand.” She shoots Caleb a look in the rearview mirror, sending him a signal that she’s being nice, not mentioning how he kissed the stupid thing without realizing it was fake.
Bullshit, Caleb thinks. There’s no such thing as nice when it comes to Mona. There’s only another Mona under the surface, saving it up for later, like a psychotic squirrel hoarding an arsenal of acorns and secrets.
“Stop it,” he says, his voice cold and a little raspy. “Stop manhandling her.”
Spencer looks up, the mannequin hand in her own. Her eyes are red, too, but she answers him in a kinder voice than he probably deserves, all things considered. “I know this is hard,” she says, her voice low and raw with emotion. “And I’m not going to tell you not to panic right now, because things are bad, Caleb. Really bad. But this - it’s not Hanna - it’s a clue, okay? We can figure it out. We always do.”
Caleb sees Spencer give him a watery smile in the mirror, sees the briefest smirk flit across Mona’s face, and swallows hard as he nods.
That’s when the phone pings.
And pings again.
From the pocket of the mannequins coat.
Spencer pulls it out carefully. It’s Hanna’s phone, the one they’d been tracking.
The first text is a picture of Hanna with a head wound, tied to a chair, looking dazed and squinting. The word LIAR is scrawled across her forehead in bright red lipstick. The second picture is the same as the first.
“Liar, Liar,” Mona muses. “They must know her story’s no good.”
The phone pings again, and Spencer clutches the mannequin hand so hard that the fingers snap off.
“PANTS ON FIRE” the third message taunts. It comes with a picture from the room at the Lost Woods Resort. A picture of Hanna and Caleb kissing.