Hobson's Choice
“And just like that, with a few strokes of a pen, they made me a ward of the state. Threw me in solitary confinement. Limited my visitors, my contact with the outside world! They stole all of my money! And when you were born, they hustled you away. They kept me drugged and sedated. I was living a half life, barely lucid. It went on for years.”
“Whenever I could string two thoughts together, they were always about how I could make them pay. All of them. Whoever they were. I didn’t know anything about you, that she’d returned you to Radley as casually as she’d take back a pair of shoes that pinched her feet. But when I found out, I knew I wanted vengeance for the both of us.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hanna interrupts. “You’re on a revenge mission against my father? I haven’t even seen my dad since he refused to pony up for college. If you want revenge against him, you need a different hostage, lady.”
“Didn’t you wonder where the Carissimi money came from?” Mary asks. “He was trying to make things right. Too bad for you, really. It proved how much he cares.”
“My mom was trying to be nice to you,” Emily says. “She wanted to be your friend. Or Jessica’s friend. She didn’t mean to get you locked in a psych ward for twenty years!”
“I was going to switch places with Jessica the next day,” Mary growls. “And it might have worked, if your mother wasn’t such an infernal busybody.” She smooths the front of her blouse. “Now come up here, Charlotte. We can kill them together.”
“No,” Alison says. “Charlotte, I don’t care who your parents are. You’re my sister. I love you! Don’t do this!”
Charlotte climbs the ladder to the control booth. “Do you know who tried to kill me?” she asks.
“I assume one of them,” Mary says. “I tried to find out who, but they wouldn’t crack. Which, if we kill them all, we’ll get the right one anyway.”
“Did you kill Dr. Rollins?” Mona asks.
“He’d outlived his usefulness,” Mary says, unrepentantly. “I have all the money he took from Carissimi. You have the cash from Lucas Gottesman and the Hastings girl. We can buy a private island. Have fabulous parties and expensive booze and no extradition treaties.”
Charlotte stands on the platform of the control booth with her mother.
“We could be a family,” Mary promises.
“No,” Alison calls out. “You have a family! Charlotte, you have me.”
“But for how long?” Mary asks. “Supposing Emily forgives you your many trespasses, are you all going to be sitting around the breakfast table, having your girlfriend ask her ex-stalker to please pass her the orange juice?”
Charlotte gets a dark look on her face.
“Why not?” Emily asks, suddenly. Alison whips her head around, her expression suddenly hopeful in spite of their circumstances.
“Alison is my family,” Emily tells her. “Charlotte is her sister. That - that makes Charlotte my family, too.”
“And mine,” Spencer adds. “Ali and I share a brother. Why not a sister, too?”
“They’re teasing you,” Mary says, disapprovingly. “We should go ahead and kill them already.”
“It’s not a joke,” Hanna replies. She gestures towards the other Liars. “That’s how this works. Whatever our parents did, however badly they fucked things up - we’re not them. We didn’t choose the families we were born into. But everything we went through in high school - a lot of which, okay, you put us through - we chose each other. Every single day.”
“She’s right,” Aria says. “And I mean, even if you weren’t already related to me - Hanna and I, apparently we have kind of a soft spot for our ex-stalkers.”
“Please,” Mona mutters, slightly offended. “I am way hotter than Fitz.”
“Ah-he-hem,” Mary says, clearing her throat dramatically. “If you girls could stop the chattering for a few seconds, we’re deciding how much longer you have to live over here. Now, Charlotte, honey - just push the green button and we’ll get to watch them suffer horribly! What do you think? Pretty good for our first mother-daughter day!”
“Don’t listen to her,” Alison implores. “She’s manipulating you!”
“She lies,” Mary says, dismissively. “They’re all liars.”
The shadowy figure reaches the area directly underneath the control booth, and puts a gloved hand on the a giant metal power lever.
“Do it,” Mary goads her daughter. “You’re nothing to them. They look at you and they see a criminal. A freak.”
Charlotte’s hand moves so fast it’s practically a blur. It skims right over the green button and smacks Mary Drake hard across the face. She staggers backward, off balance, then loses her footing and topples off the platform, falling at least fifteen feet before she lands with a heavy thud on the concrete floor.
“Finally,” Melissa Hastings sighs, flipping off the power. The electronic locks of the room doors spring open. “A girl could starve to death listening to all this back story.”
Charlotte climbs down the ladder as the Liars hurry out of their plexiglass chambers. “Is she dead?”
“If we’re lucky,” Melissa says, matter-of-factly.
“They never called me a freak,” Charlotte says, shaking her head as she watches the blood pool beneath Mary Drake’s head.
“I know, I know,” Melissa says, putting an arm around Charlotte’s shoulder and steering her away from the body. “If they were any more open minded, their brains would fall out. If they haven’t already.”
The others make their way over, Alison wrapping her arms around Charlotte in an enthusiastic hug. “You saved us!”
“From like, six bizarre and elaborate death traps!” Hanna adds, grinning.
Charlotte frowns. “Why are you doing that with your face?”
Hanna pats her cheeks. “What’s wrong?” She turns to Mona. “Oh god, I always knew this side of my face was fatter than the other!”
“No,” Charlotte clarifies. “Why are you smiling like that? I’m not holding you to that whole we’re a family thing, okay? People say lots of things when they think they’re about to die.”
“I didn’t say it because I was about to die,” Emily says. “Besides, I sabotaged the muffler. I wasn’t about to die, I was just locked in.”
“Me too,” Spencer agrees. “I disarmed that bomb in about five seconds. It was so easy, I was insulted.”
Charlotte’s face twitches, and a tear trickles down slowly from her right eye. Emily hugs her with one arm, the wrapping her other arm around Alison. Hanna follows suit, nuzzling Mona’s neck fondly as she pulls her into the group hug that Spencer and Aria are joining from the other side.
“Yeah, yeah,” Melissa says impatiently. “They all meant it. How many times do I have to tell you? They’re really terrible liars.” She gestures towards the door. “Are we going to stand here holding hands and singing Kumbaya all night? Or can we get tacos now?”
“Tacos!” Hanna says, brightly. “And maybe ice cream?”
Mona nods, kissing Hanna gently on the corner of her mouth. “Almost dying burns TONS of calories.”
They walk out into the cool night air and head for Spencer’s SUV.
“Sorry about the pig’s blood,” Melissa tells her. “I had to improvise.”
“You’re paying to have it detailed,” Spencer says as she surveys the damage.
“Don’t look at me,” Melissa protests. “Charlotte has all of my money! I’m a pauper. One of you needs to buy me dinner.”
“I’ve got you,” Charlotte says as she walks around to the driver’s side and unlocks the door.
“Look out!” Emily yells, half a second before a hooded figure bursts out of the car with a butcher knife raised and pounces directly at Charlotte.