The Amateurs: Last Seen

by Sara Shepard

  Spencer runs her hand over her hair. “I can’t believe it,” she says shakily. “Ian?”

  “I know.”

  We share a look of bewilderment, and it feels like I’m making some headway. I’m about to tell her about the photo she found in the bathroom—that Ian probably wrote the A note, and that he’s dangerous. But before I can, I notice Spencer’s expression has shifted. Now she just looks disgusted with me.

  “Don’t make that face,” I say with a mock pout. “And anyway, we can still blame Melissa if you want. Or we can pin it on someone else. How about Andrew Campbell? Didn’t you always hate him?” Anything to get her to come over to my team.

  But Spencer is already shaking her head. “Mona, no,” she says. “There’s no way I want to be A with you. That’s just … nuts.”

  I press my lips together, trying to hide my anguish. I’ve been rejected plenty, but this one … well, it feels so personal. I thought I had Spencer all figured out. I thought she’d jump at the chance to be perfect. I thought she’d find the merit in being A.

  And also, that’s nuts? Is that what I am to her—some sort of nutjob? A freak, a loser? Someone she doesn’t want to associate with, someone whose back she’d never have? She never really wanted my friendship. This physically hurts, like an ice-pick stab to the heart.

  “Fine,” I say tightly. “Have it your way.”

  I shoot forward and wrap my hands around Spencer’s neck. It seems to surprise her, because this weird, choked sound escapes from her throat, and her eyes pop wide. Her skin is clammy, and I can feel the veins straining beneath my fingers. It feels otherworldly to be strangling her, this girl I’ve always admired. But she really deserves it. Now it’s all about how I can hurt her as badly as she just hurt me.

  Spencer’s door flies open, and she tumbles to the grass, momentarily free. I scramble after her as she runs toward the quarry’s edge and wrap my arms around her waist, bringing her down to the grass. Her body feels brittle as I climb on top of it. She kicks and claws at me, but I manage to press my hands around her neck. It feels so good.

  “I thought we were friends,” I growl.

  Spencer gawks at me, struggling to breathe. “I … guess … not,” she manages.

  Then I feel something explode on my chest—Spencer has kicked me with her sharp heel. The force of it knocks the breath out of me, and I loosen my grip on her neck. Suddenly, I’m tumbling backward, my body thudding on the grass and dirt. When I open my eyes, Spencer is running again.

  “No, bitch!” I scream, leaping up and sprinting after her. Spencer wheels around as I approach, bracing herself for my tackle. But then something goes wrong. Her arm reaches out, and she grabs one of my legs, which I haven’t anticipated. I feel myself start to slip. At the same time, Spencer hits my stomach hard, and … pushes.

  I’m thrust backward. My feet leave the ground. After a few milliseconds of air, I anticipate the thud back to earth … except it doesn’t come. It’s only then that I realize how close we’d been standing to the quarry’s edge. A scream wells up inside me, deep and black and disbelieving. The air around me feels without depth, and it’s ready to swallow me whole. No. It isn’t supposed to end this way. Spencer’s supposed to be the one hurtling into the abyss.

  And then the moment seems to freeze. I know I must be falling, but my brain tricks me into thinking that I’m hanging in midair. All sorts of images pass in front of my eyes. The visions have dimension to them, weight and smell and touch.

  I feel my mother’s arms as she wraps them around me after I’ve come in from being teased by Ali and the others.

  I smell the smoke from the firework Ali set off to blind Jenna. I feel the depth of Emily’s embarrassment the moment all her teammates see the photo of her and Maya kissing and the shame Aria felt when she first saw her father kissing Meredith.

  I tense uncomfortably as I rewitness Spencer’s mental unraveling when she thinks that she might be Ali’s killer.

  I taste the sweet-potato fries Hanna and I shared one of the very first days I became A.

  Hanna has no idea how ambivalent I felt that day—angry and determined but also guilty and full of regret. None of the girls do, and now they never will. They won’t know that in so many instances when I sent an A note, I considered what Jenna said earlier today: I think you’ve made your point. You should stop this.

  But then I think of Ali. I remember how she took pleasure in cutting me and her best friends down every single day. The universe really did us all a favor by getting rid of her. Ian Thomas deserves to go down for what he did, but I have no doubt she pushed him to his very limits. Ali made people do crazy, irrational things. Look what she did to me.

  The impact is sharp and swift and wrenching. I hear my own bones snap. There’s a blinding white flash as my head hits rock. Maybe I’m alive for a few more seconds, because I think I hear Spencer screaming at the top of the cliff. I close my eyes and try to go with it, praying that I’m not judged too harshly in the afterlife, whatever that might be. I try to imagine fluffy clouds, endless mojitos, and six-pack abs until the end of time. I picture a judge sitting at a bench above me, too. A woman judge, someone smart and insightful and sympathetic. I prepare to tell her how and why I died, and say that, yes, okay, I hurt these girls, but I’m not the real enemy here. A killer is on the loose, and he’s the one who should suffer.

  Do you think she’ll buy it? Do you think she’ll cut me some slack?

  I hope so. Because you know what? I still think the universe owes me. Big-time.

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

  HOT KEY BOOKS

  80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE

  www.hotkeybooks.com

  Copyright © Alloy Entertainment and Sara Shepard, 2018

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Sara Shepard to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 1 47140 732 1

  Hot Key Books is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre Ltd,

  part of Bonnier Books UK

  www.bonnierbooks.co.uk