After what seemed like days of spinning through the stars, Hanna suddenly found herself thrust into the light again. Once more, she was sitting on Ali's back porch. Once more, she could feel herself busting out of her American Apparel T-shirt and Seven jeans.
"We get to have our sleepover in Melissa's barn!" Spencer was saying.
"Nice." Ali grinned. Hanna recoiled. Maybe she was stuck revisiting this day over and over again, sort of like that guy in that old movie Groundhog Day. Maybe Hanna would have to keep reliving this one day until she got it right and convinced Ali that she was in grave danger. But…the last time Hanna had been in this memory, Ali had loomed close by, telling Hanna that she was okay. But she wasn't okay. Nothing was okay.
"Ali," Hanna urged. "What do you mean, you're okay?"
Ali wasn't paying attention. She watched Melissa as she strode through the Hastingses' bordering yard, her graduation gown slung over her arm. "Hey, Melissa!" Ali cooed. "Excited to go to Prague?"
"Who cares about her?" Hanna shouted. "Answer my question!"
"Is Hanna…talking?" a far-off voice gasped. Hanna cocked her head. That didn't sound like any of her old friends.
Across the yard, Melissa put her hand on her hip. "Of course I'm excited."
"Is Ian going?" Ali asked.
Hanna grabbed the sides of Ali's face. "Ian doesn't matter," she said forcefully. "Just listen to me, Ali!"
"Who's Ian?" The far-off voice sounded like it was coming from the other end of a very long tunnel. Mona Vanderwaal's voice. Hanna looked around Ali's backyard, but didn't see Mona anywhere.
Ali turned to Hanna, heaving an exasperated sigh. "Give it a rest, Hanna."
"But you're in danger," Hanna sputtered.
"Things aren't always what they seem," Ali whispered.
"What do you mean?" Hanna urged desperately. When she reached out for Ali, her hand went right through Ali's arm, like Ali was just an image projected onto a screen.
"What does who mean?" Mona's voice called.
Hanna's eyes popped open. A bright, painful light practically blinded her. She was lying on her back on an uncomfortable mattress. Several figures stood around her—Mona, Lucas Beattie, her mother, and her father.
Her father? Hanna tried to frown, but her face muscles were in excruciating pain.
"Hanna." Mona's chin wobbled. "Oh my God. You're…awake."
"Are you okay, honey?" her mother asked. "Can you talk?"
Hanna glanced down at her arms. At least they were thin and not ham hocks. Then, she saw the IV tube sticking out of the crook in her elbow and the clunky cast on her arm. "What's going on?" she croaked, looking around. The scene in front of her eyes seemed staged. Where she'd just been—on Ali's back porch, with her old best friends—seemed far more real. "Where's Ali?" she asked.
Hanna's parents exchanged uneasy looks. "Ali's dead," Hanna's mother said quietly.
"Go easy on her." A white-haired, hawk-nosed man in a white coat swept around a curtain to the foot of Hanna's bed. "Hanna? My name's Dr. Geist. How do you feel?"
"Where the hell am I?" Hanna demanded, her voice rising with panic.
Hanna's father took her hand. "You had an accident. We were really worried."
Hanna looked fitfully at the faces around her, then at the various contraptions that fed into different parts of her body. In addition to the IV drip, there was a machine that measured her heartbeat and a tube that sent oxygen into her nose. Her body felt hot, then cold, and her skin prickled with fear and confusion. "Accident?" she whispered.
"A car hit you," Hanna's mother said. "At Rosewood Day. Can you remember?"
Her hospital sheets felt sticky, like someone had drizzled nacho cheese all over them. Hanna searched her memory, but nothing about an accident was there. The last thing she remembered, before sitting in Ali's backyard, was receiving the champagne-colored Zac Posen dress for Mona's birthday party. That had been Friday night, the day before Mona's celebration. Hanna turned to Mona, who looked both distraught and relieved. Her eyes had huge, kind of ugly purple circles under them, too, as if she hadn't slept in days. "I didn't miss your party, did I?"
Lucas made a sniffling noise. Mona's shoulders tensed. "No…"
"The accident happened afterward," Lucas said. "You don't remember?"
Hanna tried to pull the oxygen tube out of her nose—no one looked attractive with someone dangling from a nostril—and found that it had been taped down. She closed her eyes and grappled for something, anything, to explain all this. But the only thing she saw was Ali's face looming over her and whispering something before dissipating into black nothingness.
"No," Hanna whispered. "I don't remember any of that at all."