I don't think I'm ever going to complain about period again. Thanks Echo.
Sorry!
I'll kill you.
Go to hell, Ollie.

*Celine*

What happened next was the thing I least expected.

I thought, maybe Oliver would hug his sister, ask for an explanation, even apologise, but I never expected this whole outburst.

«You see, Echo, that's your damn problem! You keep complaining that nobody cares and nobody tries to make you feel better, when that's what we all try to do for you! You keep wallowing in your self pity, when all you need to do is find one person, one, and talk it out. But no, you have to be the victim, don't you? You have to make the others feel guilty for what you make yourself feel! Stop blaming everything in mom, maybe she isn't the only one bringing you down. Maybe you are doing this to yourself. The world doesn't revolve around you.» he yelled at his sister.

«If that's what you really think, maybe you should just get that necklace on your own, leave me here and then break it, so you do yourself a favor and never see my face again!» Echo yelled back.

They kept going like this. The one giving the blame to the other and hating on each other.

«Should we interfere?» I asked Felix.

«Are you sure you want to get into the Waters Twins crossfire?» he replied.

«Fair point, but we can't stay here.»

«Yeah? Well, maybe, if you didn't keep interrupting them all those weeks they wouldn't have gotten to this point. Let them work it out.»

«Excuse me? I couldn't just leave them there and attract trouble. We were supposed to be helping them.» I reasoned.

«For now the only help they need is to be left alone and take care of the matter in their own. It's their own family trouble.»

«Don't forget that their family trouble caused ours.»

«Come in, it wasn't their fault. They might be trouble magnets, because it's not just Echo, Oliver has caused his fair share of trouble too, but it's not like they chose it.»

«I know... I just need someone to blame, you know?»

«If you need someone to blame, blame that Amon dude.» I flinched upon hearing his name. My cousin and Echo still had cuts and bruises from their last encounter with him. Which seems logical, since it was just a night ago.

«You're right...»

«Yeah, I know, I'm always right, but now I think it's time we interfered...» he said and pointed towards the twins.

Echo had smoke coming off her ears and was yelling at her brother things I couldn't clearly make out, to which he replied the same way.

«Hey! Stop it you two!» Felix told them as we ran towards their direction.

«No! He thinks I'm a monster, I'll show him how much of a monster I can be!» Echo yelled and we froze when she turned around and we saw her eyes. Her gray irises were gone and had been replaced with flamey ones. Literally.

Her irises had taken the shape and color of a live flame. It was terrifying.

Little flames were also flickering on her fingers, as if she was trying really hard not to lose control, even though she did want to burn the whole forest down; along with all our faces.

«Echo, calm down...» I said carefully. She wasn't being herself. «This isn't you.»

«What do you know about me?» she glared at me. Her palms lit up.

«Hey, look at me. Look at me! If you dare do anything stupid right now, you will regret it five minutes later, okay? And that's not a threat nor a warning, that's a fact. You can't stand hurting people and you know it, so take a deep breath and relax before you make a huge mistake.» I told her. Her eyes flickered back to normal for a second and her face softened, but she changed back immediately.

«Shut up!» she yelled and threw a fireball at me. I barely dodged.

The conversation was tiring her. Maybe if I tried a little bit more things would have worked out, but I was kind of interrupted...

Why do guys keep thinking that we can't do things ourselves, dammit?

Oliver started luring her around, which was my idea, to begin with. But he wasn't fast enough. I don't know what he was thinking, probably that Echo wouldn't hurt him or something, but that wasn't his sister. She would roast him, literally.

And as if things couldn't get any worse, Felix caught up on the plan too. What's it with dudes and not letting a girl save the day for a change?

«Echo, you have to fight this. Your powers shouldn't control you, you should be the one controlling them.»

«So now that you're afraid you start to accept me! You've always thought of me as a burden. You always wanted to hang out with other people other than me, but couldn't because I "couldn't be trusted to be left alone". I'm sick of all that! I'm sick of home, I'm sick of mom, I'm sick of your pretending you care all the time!» she yelled. She was scaring all of us more and more. Oliver's face made me want to cry. Shut up.

I could see that she wasn't being herself, but what she said- she meant all of that. Even if she didn't like that and would regret it later. What she said were her darkest thoughts. She most probably didn't even know she believed that until they came out of her mouth.

«You know what? I am sick of your being overdramatic. All you do is complain about your troubles without thinking what others are going through or how what you say or do will affect them! Get hold of yourself and stop acting like an oversized baby!» Oliver yelled back.

The events that followed are still hard to comprehend.

Echo threw a fireball at her brother, but Oliver being Oliver was too slow. She was going to hit him.

I don't know why I did it, but I jumped in front of him. The fireball hit me right in the stomach and I found myself lying on my back.

My vision was blurry. I found it really hard to breathe and I could feel my guts burning.

The others were around me, which made it harder for me. I wanted to yell «Get out of my face, you idiots!», but I couldn't even whisper.

I could hear Oliver yelling at Echo, who couldn't stop apologising. It looked like she was back to normal.

«She's barely breathing!» was the last thing I heard Felix say before I lost consciousness.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a motel room to Oliver, Echo and Felix yelling at each other. There was a burning pain in my stomach and I had a huge headache.

«Guys...» Echo said nudging the boys' arms when she saw me. They didn't respond because they were too busy arguing. «Guys, dammit! She's up!» Echo yelled louder than them. Their heads turned at lightning speed.

«Hey...» I muttered and tried to get up. The burning pain got stronger.

Just imagine being on your period and having cramps, only 10 times worse and burning.

«I wouldn't do that if I were you...» Felix told me.

«I got that...» I whispered. I couldn't speak any louder.

«You should rest.» Oliver suggested. His sister was unusually quiet and kept her head down the entire time.

«Echo? I know that wasn't you back there. You don't have to feel bad.» I told her. She didn't respond. «Where the hell are we?» I changed the subject.

«At the village closest to where you got- You know. Not the one we were before, the next one. You know what I mean.» Felix explained.

«You were never good with directions.»

«Nope.» he agreed.

«How long are we going to stay here?» I asked again.

«Until you get better. We all got jobs to keep the room and all.» Oliver replied.

«What kind of jobs?» I questioned.

«I'm working as a salesperson or something at the antiques shop around the corner, Oliver is a waiter at the coffee shop right opposite us and Echo is a cashier at the grocery store, which is next to the coffee shop. We decided it would be better if we didn't all work at the same place but stayed close too.» Felix elaborated. «Are you done with the interrogation?»

«Nope.» I said, much to their dismay. They all knew what I was going to ask. «Are we going to go to that ball?» they all hesitated.

«We still don't really know...» Oliver shrugged.

«I have to go, my shift starts in a couple minutes.» Echo said and rushed out of the room.

«You shouldn't be so hard on her.» I told her brother.

«She nearly killed you, okay? She keeps taking risks. She is reckless. She bloody killed our dad! How am I supposed to not be hard on her?»

«Don't you think she's had enough of it? Do you think she doesn't beat herself up at night about it? I don't think if you've noticed, but I'm a light sleeper and I can hear her cry herself to sleep every night. She didn't want me to tell you about her powers because she knew this was going to happen. So what? She lost control of her powers. It happens to the best of us, trust me, I know. I've been in her place, but my family trusted me, even when I didn't even trust myself. Why are you taking that away from your sister?» I ranted. Both Oliver and Felix (especially the former) were baffled. «That's what I thought. Now excuse me, as you said yourselves, I need some rest so shut up.» I told them and lied down.

I had brought up past memories that I wanted to forget. Everyone has their secrets, and nobody is a Saint. I had lost control and that cost a lot to people I care about.

Let's just say that Echo wasn't the only one that had taken the life of a close family member. And she wasn't the only one extremely guilty about it.

But that's a story for another time.

Seriously, I don't want to talk about it right now, even though I think you're going to find out pretty soon anyway.

Besides, wasn't just my  secret to tell and the twins deserved to know the truth. I can't blame Felix for giving Echo and Oliver a pep talk. They needed it.

The next day I woke up worse than before. My stomach burned even more and the burn seemed to have expanded.

«What the hell..?» I whispered when I took the bandage off to change it.

Last time I checked, the burn was just around my stomach, but that day it had expanded below my belly-button.

I decided that most stupid thing out of the things I could have decided.

You guessed it- I didn't tell the others about it, which was one of the biggest mistakes in the history of mistakes.

Oops...

A/N: Hey peeps! Long time no see (I think). This chapter took me the longest to write, as it took me more than a month and ended up being awful anyway. I know.

Sorry to disappoint. I think the next book will be better in general... Which brings us to the official announcement of the Sequel!!! Yay!!!

I hope the Sequel will be better, because right now I hate everything about this book. The endings have already been sorted out (Aka: I'm dead) so you should be worried. Again. I need to find a better quote.

So that's it for now, peeps. I gotta run! I hope you enjoy the rest of the book and the characters' happiness, because it won't really last for long. I can promise you that.

-Choco<3