The Crystal 2 - Jones M (ebook reader macos .txt) 📗

Brothers on your T-T-Twitter a-c-c-ccount," the woman sobbed out.

"NO! THE OTHER THING!" Emery said after slapping the woman.

"She slept with Harry!" the woman quickly yelled.

Emery and Liam gasped in shock.

"She what?" Liam asked, feeling angry himself.

"It was after Emery was arrested. Bianca wanted to see if she could get Harry to be her secret boyfriend, so she slept with him. But Harry never felt comfortable with Bianca cheating on Zane. He had her swear not to tell Zane."

"And how did you find that out?" Liam asked.

"I overheard a call between Harry and Bianca. I wanted to have something on her in case she decided to throw me under the bus."

"Wow. How many things did happen in Australia?" Emery asked the woman in interest. Liam was not sure he wanted to find out more.

So far, he found out that Emery had almost been raped and that Bianca cheated on Zane. What could have been worse than what he had found out?

"Bianca also paid me to dress as Emery."

At first, Liam was confused. This did not stop Emery from urging the girl to keep speaking.

"I have no idea how, but she got the clothes Emery wore on that same day. Bianca also gave me a red wig. She paid me a huge sum that she sent through Tom."

Liam had earlier found out that Tom wasn't innocent. What surprised him was that the woman knew him.

"Bianca had talked to Tom about the plan. She had taken your phone and installed an app that could be hidden without you ever finding it."

The girl swallowed as she faced Liam. "It was a tracking device. I had my laptop with me, and I was using it to track you in the comfort of my car."

At the mention of a car, Liam tensed. He had a feeling that he knew where the story was heading, but that did not mean he was ready to hear it.

"I was driving around as I watched you. I waited for you to be in a secluded area. It was then that I found you were about to cross a road on a deserted street, and I took that as my opportunity."

The criminal gulped before adding, "That's when I hit you with the car."

Liam remained still as he let the words of the woman be processed in his head. 

It couldn't be. It just could not be. 

Emery had to be the bad guy, and the woman she was torturing had to be innocent. He could not handle it if Emery was innocent. It would change everything he ever thought about her.

"No, you couldn't! This has to be a mistake. Emery dragged you here so that--"

"Tell him something that I wouldn't have known," the crystal cut him off, her angry look turning unreadable.

"I tried to kill your girlfriend once."

Which girlfriend? Liam thought. He had a few, but there was one who left him wondering what had happened. 

Her name was Melinda. He started dating her months before the guys and he met Emery in the Starbucks café. He thought they were going great, but after a month, she stopped calling him.

Liam sat still as he let the information the woman told sink in.

"What?"

"Melinda had found out about Bianca stealing from your band and she was going to tell you and the rest. Bianca could not risk losing you guys, and so she hired me for the job."

"WHAT?" Liam asked with rage.

"I had stabbed her as she was walking across a street at night, and I did tell her what Bianca wanted me to tell her: I warned her not to go to you ever again. Then she ended your relationship, much to Bianca's wishes."

"Did you kill her?" Liam asked the intruder, his form tensing in anger.

"No. She survived, and she kept quiet about what I did."

Liam remained quiet. Things were not how they seemed to be, and he had no idea of how to take it all in.

He felt awful as he slowly processed he had been wrong all along. 

His girlfriend... Liam could not believe it. There was nothing that could change what he had been told. Bianca was evil. She had been pretending in front of him and his friends all along. She had been using them, and that fact alone made him boil with rage.

He didn't even feel sorry for the woman in front of him. She deserved the torture that Emery had handed to her.

Emery...

Everything had changed at that moment. Everything Liam believed to be facts had been changed. Emery was right.

She had been right all along.

It was not the erwiches who had tried to kill her. She had not tried to murder him, and she had not been insulting the boys on Twitter. 

It was not her. It had never been her.

It was all Bianca.

Liam still couldn't believe it. 

The girl had been with him and his bandmates, all sweet with dazzling smiles when she was truly evil. It had all been an act. Liam could not believe he fell for her bait. He couldn't believe his bandmates and him did. He began thinking of Zane.

Poor Zane. He had no idea that his girlfriend was a criminal.

Liam felt sad for Zane, and he also felt betrayed. He couldn't believe the woman had been playing everyone all along. And Emery--

Something horrible clicked inside Liam's head.

If Emery was innocent, then that meant... Oh no...

"The police will be here any second to escort you to their station," Emery said as she turned to her camera. Liam shot up when he noticed it. She clicked on some things then turned to the once-again sobbing woman.

"You better tell them everything you told us. You know what I can do to you. You shouldn't even think about trying to escape. You wouldn't make it three feet before I kill you myself."  

Much to Liam's surprise, the blonde laughed.

"They won't arrest me. They will arrest you! I mean, look at what you've done to me! How will you explain this to the police?" the woman stated with a smirk.

Emery turned to face Liam.

"Liam," that was all she said, and he understood. Liam placed his hands on the woman's. The woman gasped at the contact. Soon, Liam felt his power flowing out of him as he started to heal the woman's hands.

He released them, and Emery reveled in the shocked look the woman gave her. Emery let go of the ropes that were around the woman and Liam's torsos. She quickly teleported them away from the scene along with the chairs and the table.

"Wh-what? H-how?" the woman stuttered in the seconds that it took the police to enter the room. She was still in shock as she was being escorted out of the room.

Some people around the hotel hallway peeked through their suite doors to see what the commotion was about. The blonde sobbed in disbelief as the police escorted her out.

"What happened?" Logan asked, startling Liam who had been standing around the scene. He turned to face him, also noticing that Ethan and Harry had also woken up. 

He didn't reply at first, turning his attention briefly to Emery.

She was leaning against her door with no emotion as she stared at the sobbing woman being escorted out of the hotel.

"I don't know," Liam decided to lie. He planned to tell everyone what had really happened later.

His thoughts ran wild as he thought about his former girlfriend, Melinda. Also, a portion of his mind focused on Emery. 

He had no idea of how to approach her anymore. Everything he had felt sure about the girl had all been a lie.

And to think that she had been arrested for a crime that she didn't commit...

Liam wanted to yell at the unfairness of it all. Hadn't he just come from being on Emery's good graces? She had forgiven him and the rest for the bullying they had done to her in high school. Now...

Liam wasn't sure of what to do. He wasn't in high school anymore. He did not know how to fix the mess he and the rest had brought onto Emery. 

As he stared at her, he realized the poor girl had suffered. He felt like such an idiot. 

His mind also went back to the arguments he had with her. He hated himself more at the moment for ever insulting her, and so he swiftly turned to head to his suite.

"Liam?" Logan called out.

"It's been a long night. Let's talk tomorrow," he said, not turning his head to face his friend.

The door closed behind him, and Logan, Ethan and Harry stared at it in confusion.

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

Zane's P.O.V

"In other news, police officers were seen escorting a handcuffed woman towards a police vehicle outside a hotel in Phoenix earlier this morning. The woman, Charlotte Carpetstine, was arrested for trying to murder Emery Davis in her own hotel suite in the said hotel. 

Apparently, this was the second attempt by the woman. She had confessed and confirmed that she was the one who stabbed Emery Davis eight months ago in a London hotel suite. She also confessed to the attempted murder of Liam Gray where she dressed up as Emery Davis to make it look like she did it.

A series of other murders are still being investigated. What surprised many people is the fact that the woman mentioned Bianca Levone, Zane Marsh's current girlfriend, in a statement given to the police. The woman says that Bianca paid her to do all these things and was also involved Tom Acker in stealing from bank accounts. Currently, the police are looking for more evidence, and an investigation on Bianca is being carried out.

Is it true that Bianca did all these things? Was the arrested woman lying?--"

A day had passed since the incident that occurred in the hotel in Phoenix. Everyone who was on the tour bus remained quiet as we tried to process the news. 

I knew something else must have happened because Liam had been silent on the subject. I guessed he was in a state of shock. The news rendered everyone speechless, even Emery who I expected to show an emotion when she heard that my girlfriend might be going to jail.

I was worried about Bianca, especially with the way things were turning bad for her. I loved my girlfriend, and I did not want her to be imprisoned for false accusations.

I looked at Emery, but she would not meet my eyes.

"Emery, what did you do?" Harry asked. Emery remained quiet, staring at something on her side while ignoring him.

"She told us the truth," Liam muttered loud enough for everyone to hear. "Emery has been innocent all along. She never did all the crimes we thought she did. The hacker, the attempted murder, the rape--"

"Shut up, Liam!" Emery screamed at him. She was suddenly angry as tears threatened to leave her eyes. I was surprised because it was the most emotion I had seen from her in the past few days.

"How am I suppose to live, Emery? How am I supposed to go on with the knowledge that two guys tried to rape you!"

"WHAT?" almost everyone said in disbelief as we all stood to face her.

Emery ignored our reactions, shrugging her shoulders in nonchalance. "So?"

"So what?" Selena asked in disbelief. "Why are you treating this like a joke?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because of I told you, you would think I was lying; you wouldn't have believed me."

"I