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

"Shocking truths were revealed today in the middle of a concert where the Ordinary Brothers were performing this afternoon in Los Angeles. Emery Davis, the cousin of Selena, was found interrupting the concert and later revealing all the crimes she was framed for."

A shaky video was then shown of Emery speaking about how Bianca hired a hitman to kill her. Everyone in the room was silent as we stared at the TV. I was shocked by the news. 

How could Emery expose that in public? It did not seem like her.

"Emery Davis also revealed a video that had Bianca confessing to all the crimes she had committed, and she was immediately arrested in the middle of the concert."

My eyes bulged out of their sockets. Bianca was arrested?

I felt joyful for a moment. Despite the way it had been done, Bianca was arrested. I felt joyful for a moment, happy that there would be no more trouble, but the next words the reporter said immediately turned my mood. 

"The next thing that happened left everyone more shocked. Emery unapologetically revealed that Harry Parker and Zane Marsh were her bullies in high school. She also revealed that they were the ones who had physically abused last night, explaining the whole incident that had involved her suite. What she said was backed up by the video evidence that she streamed on the concert."

"WHAT?" we all screamed in disbelief and shock. I could have sworn I felt the blood leaving my body once I processed the news.

"Zane and Harry were also arrested, and this has caused an uproar in the Ordinary Brothers' fandom. There is no doubt about the truth of Emery's statements, but how will this affect the remaining band members? How will the future be for the band that had been unexpectedly split up? For this coverage, I'm..."

"They did it?" Selena asked, seeming shocked by the news. Then her expression turned into one of anger. "They had almost killed my cousin?"

"How can we be sure that it's not fake?" Justin asked, and I turned to glare at him, wanting to punch the crap out of him.

"JUSTIN! Do you hear yourself?" Selena asked in disbelief. "Emery had videos to prove what she said."

There was a moment of silence as we all digested the information we had received. We knew about Bianca, and there was no denying it being true. But the thing that involved Zane, Harry and Emery...

"What do we do now?" Justin asked.

Third Person's P.O.V

Emery teleported to the large mass of land where Eva's castle once existed. She looked around, noticing the green vegetation around her and the forest that led up to Crystalia's mountains.

She frowned, then she remembered what she had done to the erwiches. She was momentarily mad at herself for doing so. 

With a shake of her head, Emery summoned her powers. The wind moved around her, whipping her hair and clothes towards its direction. The ground below her crumbled with loud sounds as it disintegrated to form sand. 

The sand was soon moving around her in the wind, rising high towards the sky.

Emery levitated from the ground, spreading the sand sideways. The movement stopped with the sand parting in different directions. She watched in determination as they formed the brick walls of the castle she had pictured in her mind. Emery flew higher in the air, observing how the castle was being formed.

Five minutes later, the sand particles disappeared, and the new castle was formed. Unlike the previous one, the new one had three floors, and the walls had golden brown bricks. Emery used her powers to make the gray conical roofs for the four castle towers. She then smiled at her finished design.

She moved to walk into the castle as she started thinking of her next move. She planned to go after the people who had betrayed her right before she would destroy the city of Crystalia and everyone in it.

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Harry's P.O.V

"Hello. How can I direct your call?"

I had been in a state of shock in the past hour. I could not believe what had just occurred. I could not believe that it had happened to me. More so, I couldn't believe that it happened in front of many people.

Zane, Bianca and I had been arrested in front of the OBers. 

I recalled in self-hatred the moment the police had cuffed Zane and me before they escorted us to the police cruiser. At that moment, I tried so hard not to look at the disappointed fans. Some had been insulting us as we were being led to the police cruiser. 

I was silent as Zane kept shouting apologies to Emery that she couldn't hear or chose not to listen, not caring about the people who saw. He later kept quiet when we were shoved inside the cruiser. 

It was then that I broke down in tears.

We were soon taken to a police station of some sort. Bianca was also present, and she had been locked in a cell with other females while Zane and I were stuck in a different one with other guys. Some of us were waiting to be deported to prison, and that included Zane and me. 

Not surprisingly, the guys we were sharing the cell with were looking at us in disbelief.

I understood them. I mean, who expected two people in a boyband to be in jail? Our clean images were ruined in less than an hour, and everyone was probably talking trash about us. 

I was honestly surprised that Emery had exposed what we had done to her. I knew I should have seen it coming when she was done exposing Bianca. I couldn't be mad at her, especially since I thought Zane and I had killed her.

We even left her bleeding in her suite. She could have been alive, and we did nothing.

Just like when we had bullied her so much in high school.

My eyes welled with tears at the memory. We had escaped the police then, but we couldn't at the moment. We had messed up so much, and we were going to pay the price. There was no way we could get out of this one.

My mind drifted to what my fans were thinking. I was sad because I knew they could not look at me anymore or stand me after knowing what Zane and I did to Emery. 

I wanted to cry again about the mess we were in.

"We messed up," Zane said with a groggy voice. At the moment, he had his hands over his face. His form was hunched, and it looked like he was trying to hide his tears. I stretched my arm and patted him on his back in comfort.

There was nothing I could say. Zane was right about us messing up. The only thing I could do was replay the memory of the concert. 

Things had not been great for Zane and me ever since we had abused Emery. We were worried about whether she was dead or alive, and so we could hardly get any sleep on the previous night. 

It came to a point that we had to chant a spell to put us to sleep. 

Seeing Emery in our concert was both relieving and frightening at the same time. Things had gone downhill for Zane and me, and it wasn't even an hour when the concert was ruined.

I pondered over what the rest of my bandmates were thinking about Zane and me. They must have been hating our guts. 

I believed we deserved it. Sure, I would love to apologize to them if they gave me a chance. However, I doubted that would happen soon. Zane and I had either ruined the band's image or broken it. We could have been losing millions of fans at the moment. I knew my bandmates were mad about that, but I knew they were more mad about what Zane and I did to Emery.

I was furious with Zane and myself. Emery had tried to warn us about Bianca, but we did not listen. We refused to listen because the Bianca we knew was a loving person. If it weren't for our stubbornness, we would have found out about Bianca way before Emery exposed her awful nature in a concert. 

But then, signs were there. The thing about Tom Acker, the woman who had almost killed Emery twice, the missing amounts of cash in our bank accounts... they were all there. We could have found out about her long ago.

But then, why were we so ignorant of them? Was it because we had fallen too deep in the mask that Bianca had portrayed in front of us?

Was it because we loved her?

I was angry with her and myself. Once Emery had shown everyone the video about Bianca confessing the crimes she had done, I was livid. Because of Bianca, I had not realized the kind of suffering Emery had endured, the kind of suffering the guys and I had made her go through. It made me see her in a different light, and that made me feel awful.

Poor Zane. I knew he was taking everything much harder than I was because he had been in love with Bianca. I knew that what he found out was hard for him. I wondered how it felt like to love someone who you later found out was a criminal... and then I stopped wondering altogether. 

I was glad I was not Zane, especially since he was silently crying beside me.

I wanted to laugh at how stupid we were. I could not wrap my head around why we had both decided to beat up Emery. 

Just to teach her a lesson...

We could have freaking killed her!

The realization brought chills to my form, and I wanted to cry over it. I never thought I would hate myself as much as then. My bandmates and I made a pact not to bully anyone to show Emery that we were truly sorry and that we were not those idiots from high school. 

However, that pact went out the roof when I punched her in the head.

I winced at the memory of the events, hating myself even more for being the cause of the pain she faced. I wished I could rewind time and stop myself from beating her because every time I closed my eyes, I could still hear her screams. I could still hear the begging. I could see myself punching and kicking her over and over again. I could even see myself drawing on her stomach with the glass shards that had been a result of a broken glass table.

It was horrible, and I was amazed by the strength that Emery possessed.

For a moment, I thought we broke her.

Maybe Zane and I deserved to go to jail for what we did to her. No, it was certain. We deserved it for what we did to Emery. I never wanted to go out of the prison because there was no way the world would look at me the same way. In fact, I knew how the world was currently reacting.

Harry Parker and Zane Marsh abused a girl last night.

That would be what the media would kinda say, wouldn't it? I knew the paparazzi were currently excited about what Emery had revealed. I also knew that rumors would be started about me abusing my previous girlfriends. Probably some old 'girlfriend' of mine would say that we 'dated' and I used to hit her away from the cameras.

I sighed.

I did not want to have to answer the questions the paparazzi were dying to ask. I was embarrassed enough and disappointed with myself. Going to jail seemed better than having my thoughts confirmed on how the media was speculating about Zane and me.

A tap on the cell door interrupted my thoughts. I perked my head up to see a police officer staring at me.

"Someone's here to see you two," he said as he opened the door. He entered the small cell, grabbed Zane and me before taking us out of the cell. He led us past other noisy working officers until