The Company You Keep
Toby is driving fast, taking corners so quickly that the Liars are being thrown around haphazardly in the back of the van.
“We’ll be there soon,” Spencer tells Aria, subtly working the pen knife back and forth across her plastic zip cuffs.
“Will we, though?” Emily asks, with a glance out the back window at the darkened road. “They must be taking some kind of short cut.”
Toby lowers the divider screen and glances at them in the rearview mirror. “No plotting back there.”
“We’re your friends,” Emily tells him. “You know we didn’t do this.”
Toby turns to face them one hand on the wheel. His face is cold and angry, his lower lip protruding in a stony sulk. “You’ve gotten away with worse. And I’m not your friend.”
“What are you talking about?” Aria asks, baffled as Spencer cuts through the zip ties enough for her to wiggle her wrists free. Spencer passes her the pen knife and Aria tries her hand at using it to pick the lock on Spencer’s handcuffs.
Spencer looks at him, dumbfounded. “Toby,” she says, in a shaky voice. “You asked me to marry you. You wanted us to get back together.”
“I wanted to keep an eye on you. I wanted to know how much you knew.”
He hits a switch on the dashboard, disabling the GPS on the police van and picks up the radio.
“Mayday,” he calls out. “Prisoners in custody are trying to take control of the vehicle. GPS has been tampered with. Our position is four clicks northwest of -”
Alison locks eyes with Spencer. They’re heading due south. He’s not taking them to the police station.
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“What are they doing?” Hanna wonders, clutching the roll bar of Barry Maple’s police cruiser.
Mona pushes the pedal to the floor, the speedometer creeping past 100 as she drives with the headlights off, desperately trying to keep the careening van in sight.
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“Where are you taking us?” Spencer asks, her voice low and deadly.
“You never ask the right questions,” Toby replies. “It doesn’t matter where! A place where you’ll get what’s coming to you. That’s all that matters.”
“Why?” Alison asks, quietly. “Because of Jenna?”
His face twists at the sound of her voice. “Because your manipulative whore of a mother covered up my mom’s murder! Because you all walked around town acting so superior to everyone else. Like you were the only ones who mattered.”
“That’s not fair,” Emily protests.
Toby shrugs. “You are the company you keep,” he tells her.
“You mattered,” Spencer says, her voice on the edge of a sob. “I loved you! For years! You can’t tell me it didn’t mean anything!”
“It was the best way to hurt you,” he says, his voice sending a chill down Spencer’s spine. “I wanted to bring you bitches down. Love makes you stupid, Spencer. You should have realized that by now.”
“No,” Spencer says, firmly in denial. “No.”
“Did you love me when you were making out with Dean?” Toby asks. “Or Melissa’s flatmate? Or that little runt with the spray paint? Did you think I didn’t know? That I never heard the rumors? Half the school thought you were sleeping with Aria!”
“What?” Aria squeaks. “I mean, we weren’t!”
Spencer shakes her head. “None of that had anything to do with how I felt about you. We were having a rough time -”
“Save your excuses,” he says, with a savage edge to his voice. “Did you love me when you had the abortion? Without even telling me? Don’t pretend you care about anyone but yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” Spencer cries. “Have you actually lost your mind?”
“I followed you. You went to Planned Parenthood the day after you took the test!”
“I went there to get a new prescription for birth control!” Spencer protests.
“Why should I believe you? You’ve been lying to everyone for years. It’s what you do.”
“This is insane,” Spencer tells him, trying to muster all the conviction in her voice that she can. “This isn’t real.”
“And you think you’re so smart,” he chides. “Did you think I was too stupid to be on the A-team for real? I was the A-team. But you couldn’t stop thinking of me as a helpless little puppy.”
“No one thought you were a puppy!” Emily tells him.
“The visitor logs,” Spencer says suddenly. “You didn’t take them because you needed them for evidence, did you?”
“Look who just caught up!” he chuckles. “No, I took them because my name was in there.”
“Why were you visiting her,” Alison asks angrily.
“Keeping an eye on what she was telling people,” Toby shrugs. “Checking to make sure she hadn’t figured out certain parts of the big picture.”
“Careful,” Lorenzo cautions. “Don’t gloat until the deed is done.”
“What was in it for you?” Alison asks him.
“Woman, keep quiet,” Lorenzo says, a macho grin spreading across his face.
“Is it Mary Drake?” Spencer asks, pointedly. “Is she who you’re working for?”
“Of course,” Toby nods. “She was in Radley. She was friends with my mother. She told me everything. How much she loved me. How she missed me every minute. How much she wanted to come home. Until Bethany pushed her off that roof and Jessica swooped in with the suicide story.”
“Oh my god,” Spencer realizes. “You’re serious. You’re really working for her.”
The van is slowing as they approach a set of massive wrought iron gates, rusty from disuse.
“I told you, Spence. You never see what’s right in front of you.”
Out of nowhere, a police cruiser hurtles into view and shoots by them. Mona Vanderwaal twists the wheel, sending the cruiser into a high speed skid right in front of them, slamming the front of the van with the reinforced prisoner door on the side of her vehicle.
There’s a loud crash and the sound of tearing metal, the gunpowder smell as the airbags explode. And then Hanna is using a crowbar to bust open the back of the van and they’re rushing out into the chilly night air as Mona disarms Toby and Lorenzo, both of whom are unconscious in the front seat.
Aria is limping a little and Spencer looks completely shell shocked, but everyone is more or less alright. Spencer is immobile, staring at Toby as if she’s never seen him before. She’s squinting as though trying to glimpse the outline of a familiar building through a thick fog. Mona snaps her out of her daze by grabbing Toby’s keys and unlocking her handcuffs.
“That was amazing,” Emily says, feverently.
“Seriously,” Alison agrees. “Best rescue ever.”
It’s then that she feels the sharp blade pressing against her neck. Mary Drake stands behind Alison and Emily, the spitting image of Jessica DiLaurentis, holding two lethal looking knives at their throats.