The Crystal 2 by Jones M (reading cloud ebooks .txt) 📕

"Emery wasn't going to turn evil," Erick stated in shock. "The erwiches had sent me the dream. And now..."

Now...

Erick wasn't feeling so sure. He felt a bit lightheaded by the sudden change of information he felt certain of.

"FUCK!" Selena cussed out loud as she tugged at her hair, staring helplessly around the room.

"We were wrong," Erick said. His heart thudded as a mixture of emotions coursed through his veins: anger, hate, regret and sadness.

"But what about the things she did?" Selena asked. "What about the hacker?"

"Emery wasn't going to turn evil. I can't believe I have been wrong all this time. What she said about the hacker must have been true," Erick replied as he stared at Selena. Emery's cousin had tears in her eyes. "The hacker might not be as innocent as we think."

"Hitting Liam with a car?" Selena asked, trying to hold on to what she believed of Emery, but it was useless. "If we were wrong about her, then that means..."

"We might have ruined everything," Erick finished. He could not believe what he had heard himself say.

The dream had forced him to end his friendship with Emery. It had caused a rift between the two, and he was not certain on how he could fix it.

He had made a huge mistake.

"We were wrong. Emery was right. Emery was innocent," it changed everything. Erick's thoughts replayed how he had been mean to the crystal, and he was hating himself.

Then his mind went back to what his mother had told him when Emery was in prison. At the moment, he hated that she was right.

"Emery said she had evidence that Bianca was evil," Selena stated after a few seconds of silence.

"Do you know where it is?" Erick questioned.

"No. Now I wish I didn't say I didn't want to see her proof."

'What?' Erick thought as he turned to face Selena.

"Let me get this straight. She said she had evidence, and you didn't even bother to check it?" he asked in anger.

"Don't yell at me!" Selena shouted. "We all thought she was lying. But now that we know the dream you had was a lie, which you should have checked if it was in the first place--"

"I didn't know, okay? It slipped my mind!"

"How can it just slip your mind? Huh? Do you know what you have done? Do you know what we have just done?"

It was hard for the two of them to process everything.

"Because of you, I might as well have just ruined the relationship I had with Emery! She was the only family I have left, and I abandoned her. I let her suffer all this time!"

Selena silently cried.

"But what if we are wrong?"

"How can we be wrong about this, Erick? This changes everything!"

Selena wiped the tears that had escaped her eyes, sighing as she looked up at him.

"We should just look for the evidence and see it for ourselves."

The king nodded in agreement.

"Okay," he said.

"But then I doubt it will change anything," Selena said as she walked towards the exit of the room. Erick was left with his thoughts.

He still hoped he was right about Emery. If what she had been saying about Bianca was true, he would not know what to do with himself. 

It would be the biggest mistake he would have ever made, and he would have no idea on how to fix it. 

***********************************************************************************************

Emery's P.O.V

The tour resumed after the weekend had passed. The next destination was Phoenix. Everyone was excited to go there. 

As the bus continued its journey to the city, I avoided any interaction with Selena and the boys. I had been silent since I had boarded the bus, sticking to my laptop and my thoughts.

Bianca had gone away, saying something about a family emergency.

As if. I had a feeling she was planning something.

"Emery, would you like something to eat?" Logan asked with raised eyebrows. The tour bus had stopped near a restaurant, and I was busy with my laptop. I had ignored Logan and the rest, continuing with editing the song I had typed on my laptop.

I thought it would be fun to try writing my own song, but I found out it was a lot of work. It had taken me months to get most of the elements of the song right. Another thing I learned as a witch was that I could use magic to come up with the background music. I just needed a title and I needed words that made it lyrical.

"Emery?" Logan called out to me, not taking the hint. Then he had the nerve to walk towards me and sit beside me.

"Do you want anything to eat?" he asked beside me. I raised my head and turned to face him, giving him a very fierce glare.

It looked like he wasn't going anywhere, and so I was forced to speak.

"No, I'm good. It's not like you want to hang out with a murderer," I emphasized with sarcasm, shifting my focus back to my laptop.

"What are you working on?" he asked as if we were longtime friends. Like I had not forgotten what he and the rest said to me on the previous Friday. I glared again.

"Logan, get away from me!" I yelled at him. "I was ignoring you on purpose if you didn't notice."

"Geez, you try to do one good thing..." Logan trailed off as he stood up. I stood up as well.

"Good? You guys mocked me with my evidence on the last concert, and you abandoned me!"

"What?" Logan was confused.

"You forgot me you idiot! You and your friends left on the tour bus, ignoring the fact that I was not in it. So forgive me if I'm not being nice to you."

"You weren't in the tour bus?" Logan said in shock.

Wow. They really had forgotten me.

"Look," I said with a defeated sigh, "Why are you trying to talk to me after what you and your friends told me on Friday? I listened to every word you said, and I am trying to do you a favor here. I am done trying to defend myself to the lot of you. It's obvious you wouldn't listen because you'll keep believing the shit that Bianca spews. I just want to be done with this tour. That way I wouldn't have to see you ever again."

"Emery--"

I ignored him as I sat back down on the seat beside me and continued typing on my laptop.

"Hey, Logan!" Liam greeted as he and the others entered the bus. I trained my eyes on the device in front of me, not even feeling the itch to look at him.

Then two erwiches teleported into the bus.

Finally!

I had been itching for an erwich to attack in the last two weeks. I needed to vent out my frustration with the guys. 

Moreover, I had made a plan with the help of the Queen.

In an instant, I blew up the first one with a fireball. It screamed, distinguishing in the air and leaving soot as the residue.

Then I went along with my plan. I needed the remaining evil witch to survive so that he could deliver a message—a message that his kind would love to hear.

I grasped the other erwich's hand. It screamed as I went to punch him.

Zane's P.O.V

Emery's went to beat up the erwich. I had remained frozen in shock at the unexpected attack.

The past two weeks had been peaceful. I thought that the erwiches had been scared to attack because Emery was with the guys and me.

Turned out I was wrong.

Anyway, I was glad Bianca was not around to see what was happening. She would have definitely been frightened by what I was seeing.

Emery was raising her clenched fist, going to punch the erwich. Then something unexpected happened.

I witnessed as Emery gasped, her skin quickly turning into an irregular dark color. Her eyes also darkened, revealing a black color that frightened me.

"Emery!" Selena yelled at her cousin in horror. Emery swiftly turned to face her. Emery gasped again before turning to her normal form. She looked shocked for a moment. The erwich was not moving. It stared at all of us for a second before it quickly disappeared.

"Emery, are you okay?" Selena called out in worry, not moving towards her.

Emery rolled her eyes at her cousin.

"If you really care to know, I'm fine. I did that on purpose."

"Why?" Liam asked with furrowed eyebrows. "You gave us a heart attack. It looked as if--"

My eyes widened, clearing my throat as a signal to stop Liam. Liam realized the mistake he almost made, stopping himself from speaking further.

"As if what, Liam? As if I may turn into an evil witch, just like Eva, and kill everyone in Crystalia? As if I may make whatever Erick had dreamt about me to become real?"

Everyone in the bus tensed in shock. Emery's face was unreadable as she looked at all of us.

"Selena, have you told them that the dream is fake?"

"WHAT?" the rest of us bellowed in shock. Emery chose that as her sign to walk away from us, moving further in the bus.

"I was going to tell you later," Selena answered as her expression turned into fury. "Erick had made the mistake of not checking if the dream was a true prophecy. We did a spell to check if the dream was a true vision of what would happen in the future, but it wasn't. We realized that it was sent by the erwiches."

Selena looked sad, not liking what she was telling us. She turned to face Emery, but she was not looking at any one of us. She was typing on her laptop.

"How could it be fake? Could Emery interfere--"

"She couldn't," Selena replied. "No one can. The erwiches sent the dream to make it look like Emery would become an evil crystal. But the question I don't understand is: why? What would they have to gain from that?"

I sat down on the nearest seat with my eyebrows furrowed. 

What Selena had said changed everything I thought I knew about Emery. If the dream was a fake, then Emery was not going to turn evil. 

The fights she had been having in the past two weeks were not signs that she was turning. She was just defending herself.

A bad feeling started to take over my emotions.

Erick's dream had also been the main influence on how I treated Emery. Now that we all knew it was a fake, could it be that we were wrong about her? Could it also mean that she was right about my girlfriend?

Logan's P.O.V

"Are you going to explain to us how you found out the dream was a fake?" I asked.

My bandmates, Selena, Emery and I were still on the tour bus. It was minutes after the erwich attack that we converged in the kitchen to continue the conversation. We had entered the area to talk privately without Emery hearing us. 

I was glad Bianca was not around because I knew she would have freaked out if she had seen the erwiches. Once was enough, especially since she kept interrupting everyone with her frightened screams. It was a good thing that she got used to it and accepted the fact we were all witches.

"I found out last Saturday," Selena began. "Erick and I were talking about the whole hacker incident..."

Selena continued to fill us in on what had happened during the weekend. My jaw dropped in shock. I couldn't