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IDENTITY CRISIS

Have you ever drea away from your school, your town, your ho over so how you look, what you like, who you are In a new place, you’d have no baggage Your past and future would be a blank canvas Of course, you’d also no longer be you, and that ht mess with your head And it would suck to have the people back ho so far as to, say, put your face on a milk carton Which is why it’s just a fantasy

But for one irl from Rosewood, it isn’t a fantasy It’s survival

And to her four eneht mean the end of their pretty little lives—forever

The first thing Alison DiLaurentis noticed when she woke up was how buttery-soft her sheets were Her down pilloas fluffy, and her blanket s in fros, and a bird chirped euphorically in the trees It was like she was sleeping in paradise

She sat up and stretched, then broke into a grin as it hit her again She was free

Score another win for Ali D

She picked up the remote and turned on the small television at the foot of the bed, which was already set to CNN The saain: Pretty Little Murderers Go to Trial Last year’s school pictures of Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Emily Fields, and Hanna Marin were splashed across the screen The reporters recounted the tantalizing tale of how the four girls had brutallylife in prison

Ali’s s out exactly as she’d planned

“Traces of Alison’s blood were found in an abandoned pool house in Ashland, Pennsylvania The police are working hard to find her body,” a reporter was saying “Investigators also found a journal of Alison’s, in the woods outside the pool house It details how the girls methodically captured and tortured her”

A short lasses popped onto the screen Seth Rubens, read the caption under his nairls “Not only did my clients not torture Alison,” he said, “they also had nothing to do with her murder The trial will prove—”

The newscast cut hi statements for their trial will start next Tuesday Stay here for full coverage”

Ali flopped back on the bed and wiggled her toes So far, so good Everyone bought that she was really dead, and everyone thought those bitches had killed her It had been a bold move, but she’d pulled it off She’d even done it mostly alone

It had been risky returning to Rosewood, Pennsylvania, after her last sche her sister’s old friends down had failed But it had pissed her off that things had gone so wrongagain After all, she’d plotted everything so meticulously: her boyfriend and accoirls’ lives the previous summer First he’d used his massive trust fund to fly to Jairls Then he’d bounced to Philly to target Spencer, to Iceland to ensnare Aria in an international incident, and back to Philly again to gather secrets about the other two When shit started to go down and the Liars spiraled out of control, Ali and Nick started rumors that the bitches had a suicide pact—and spread it to the press, to kids at school via Facebook, even to rando for Ali, Ali and Nick laid out clues to her whereabouts, luring theirls were supposed to die down there The cops were supposed to come after it was all over, when Ali and Nick had safely escaped, and think it was a group suicide

But that wasn’t how it had happened Soirls had been saved, and the cops had hauled Nick off to prison Ali had gotten away, but worry plagued her How long would Nick stick to the lie they’d agreed upon: that Ali had died in the fire in the Poconos a year ago and that he’d gone after Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna alone? Prison probably sucked, especially for a rich kid as used to sleeping on zillion-thread-count sheets and who’d had to shoplift a sound et because he needed white noise even when on the lam

After all that, druhts of lying low You have to get theht You have to finish this

And so she had First she penned a journal, a story so brilliantly crafted it probably would have received an A+ in AP English She twisted her relationship with Nick into soed into a e with no way of escape Nick killed my sister Nick killed Ian Nick set fire to Spencer’s woods Nick killed Jenna Cavanaugh It was all Nick’s idea, and he’d pulled Ali along for the ride

She wrote that Nick had barely cared for her after the Poconos fire and forced her to take part into kill her if she told anyone or tried to leave She wrote about clawing her way out of that baseet away from him Several entries talked about hoonderful it felt to be free—but how scary, too She wrote that she’d been hiding in a barn in Lih actually she’d been in the pool house at Nick’s parents’ vacation home in Ashlandwhich would play into the second part of her plan

She’d also written whole chapters about the Liars, creating a different picture of them than what the public assumed My sister’s dear old friends, she called the salt water on the diary to look like tears I hope they forgive me and understand that I wasn’t the one behind all this I’ve wanted to tell theo to the cops with her story, but she was afraid they wouldn’t believe her She wrote about wanting to anonymously turn in the journal, but she didn’t knoho to trust