Free Ali's Pretty Little Lies by Sara Shepard Page B

Iris. The roommate marched to the door and stood guard in front of it, her skinny arms crossed over her chest.
    Ali’s heart started to pound. She glanced at the door Iris was guarding. “Mom’s going to look for me soon.”
    “Oh, this won’t take long,” “Courtney” simpered, moving closer.
    Ali flinched. All kinds of horrible scenarios flashed through her mind. She saw her sister pouncing on her in bed when they were seven years old, forcing her to do whatever she asked. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry . She pictured her sister pushing her into a closet and binding her wrists with a bungee cord. She remembered her snapping the head off her precious doll, the only thing her grandmother had given her. And then she saw herself snap, tackling her sister to the ground, her sister’s eyes full of glee as she screamed for help. Her twin had set her up again and again and again.
    “I just want to tell you something, okay?” Ali’s sister stood so close to Ali that Ali could see the pores on her cheeks, the sparkly sweep of eye shadow on her lids. “I know what you’ve been doing. And pretty soon, you’re going down.”
    It felt like she’d just run a cold spike through Ali’s chest. “Please don’t lock me up again,” she blurted, twisting away from her sister’s face. Then she gasped, realizing what she’d just admitted. After the switch, she’d vowed never, ever to reveal what had happened to anyone, not even the girl whose identity she stole.
    “Courtney” smiled nastily, catching what she’d said, too. She reached down and grabbed Ali’s finger, touching the silver ring with the curly A in the center. “Your time is running out, Ali ,” she sneered, dropping Ali’s finger once more and brushing past her toward the exit. “Say your good-byes.”

9
ALL FALL DOWN
    “Looking good, Alison!” Mark Hadley, an eighth grader, called as Ali passed him on the track later that afternoon.
    “Can I run with you?” Brian Diaz shouted next.
    Ali shot a brilliant smile to them over her shoulder, but she didn’t stop. The red lines on the track blurred beneath her. She pumped her arms hard, cycled her legs, and whizzed past the bleachers, trying to clear her thoughts. This was her fifth lap, and she had decided to run as long as it took to get the memory of what had just happened at the hospital out of her mind. There was only one problem: The image of her sister’s sneering face was branded in her mind.
    She’d considered telling her parents what her sister had said to her in the bathroom, but she’d decided against it. Mrs. DiLaurentis would ask the real Ali for the truth. Even though the real Ali had claimed I’m Alison , I’m Alison again and again, what if the Preserve kept surveillance tapes? Ali had blatantly said Please don’t lock me up again. Had she sealed her doom? And what if her sister was watching her when she got to go off campus? Did she really have a chaperone? How strict was the Preserve, anyway?
    There had only been one other time she’d been alone with her sister since she’d become Ali. It had been early in sixth grade, not long after the switch happened—her sister had come home for a weekend. Apparently, the girl everyone thought was Courtney was having a hard time transitioning to the Preserve; the doctors thought some time away might do her some good.
    Ali had stressed about the visit to no end. They’d all be prisoners in the house while her sister was home—her parents were still keeping things a secret—and she didn’t know how to explain to her friends why she was staying away from them all weekend. She couldn’t say they’d gone out of town—Spencer would see their car in the driveway and the lights snapping on and off inside the house. In the end, she said she was sick and really contagious.
    But the stress didn’t end there. As soon as her sister entered the house, Ali watched her like a hawk. She’d even slept in the den to make sure her sister didn’t