Vicious (23 page)

The four blank cinder-block walls gave Alison a lot of time to think. Hours upon hours—she had no sense of time—days upon days, months upon months. Who knew how long she'd been in here? Her psychiatrist wouldn't tell her, almost like it was above her level of privileges to know. Her psychiatrist barely told her anything, actually, except to push a Dixie cup full of pills to her and watch as she swallowed them down. The pills did little to help her sleep or even buoy her mood. But they didn't cut through her scheming mind, either, so Ali dutifully took them. She wanted to be the perfect patient. She wanted them to fall in love with her like everyone else.

The psych ward in the prison sucked, but another year of this, maybe two, and she'd be moved to a different psych ward outside a prison. She'd done her research. She knew what the protocol was. And in a basic mental hospital—well, she would practically have free rein. She'd lived long enough inside The Preserve to know how to work the system. All she had to do was hold on for a little bit longer. Endure the pills, deal with the leather straps that sometimes tied her down, get over the freaky moaning in the middle of the night. Get lost in her head, thinking of the way she was going to change things next time.

She thought about everything that had gone wrong. Enlisting Nick. Choosing the wrong Ali Cats. Relying on her mother. Not checking and double-checking every detail. Next time, she would be smarter.
Flawless
, in fact. She'd find different Ali Cats. Snag a better Nick. Become a perfect Ali. She had already lost all the weight she'd put on to conceal her identity. Here in prison, she had better doctors, and they'd treated her burns more properly than Nick's nurse had, and her skin was looking better, too. She'd gotten a fake tooth to replace the one she'd pulled out. She was on her way to being Ali D again—the brilliant, beautiful,
perfect
Ali D. The girl who could make anyone do anything. Including scheme for her. Kill for her.

Carry out her every wish.

She measured her days by mealtimes and pill times and lights-out, but she knew this wouldn't be forever.
Soon enough
, said a voice in her head as she envisioned Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna.
Soon enough, I'm coming to get you all.

So this really and truly is the end of the PLL saga, and I'm beyond grateful that I have been able to live and move within Rosewood for nine lovely years. I owe this to the brilliance of the people at Alloy Entertainment, including Les Morgenstein, Josh Bank, Sara Shandler, Lanie Davis, Katie McGee, Kristin Marang, Heather David, Romy Golan, and Stephanie Abrams. You guys have been invaluable to work with all these years, and I hope the fun doesn't end!

Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins, past and present, who championed Pretty Little Liars and made it a success. Much gratitude to Jen Klonsky, Kari Sutherland, and Alice Jerman for your keen insights. Thanks also to all of the dedicated PLL readers, tweeters, blog writers, and fans—I love you all. Love to my parents and Michael for your constant support. Kisses to Ali, the original A, and Caron—I had so much fun at the PLL season finale event in March. Thanks to Gennaro Monaco for the great new website and Theo Guliadis at Alloy for diligently and enthusiastically tweeting the PLL episodes (and posting awesome content!). Huge hugs to Kristian, naturally, and love to little Henry—when this series began, I couldn't imagine you, but now that you're here I can't imagine life without you.

Photo by Austin Hodges

SARA SHEPARD
is the author of two
New York Times
bestselling series, Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game, as well as the Perfectionists series. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Brooklyn College. Sara's Pretty Little Liars novels were inspired by her upbringing in Philadelphia's Main Line.

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MODEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALI SMITH

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DOLL PHOTOGRAPHY BY HOWARD HUANG

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS #16: VICIOUS
. Copyright © 2014 by Alloy Entertainment and Sara Shepard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014946654

ISBN 978-0-06-228704-5

EPub Edition © October 2014 ISBN 9780062287069

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