To say she was beautiful would have been an understatement.

A chocolate waterfall that hid her back all the way down to the perfect curve. The rosiest cheeks which would even make a tomato blush.

She looked like... me.

I stepped into a shimmering lake a single stride. My legs suddenly gave into a weight I hadn't known I'd been carrying, sending my body splashing onto the water.

All of a sudden, it seemed like I'd seen something that I liked. I reached over to grab at- him- and got hauled out of the water.

It felt like I'd made a choice. Him or the water. I chose him.

Except it wasn't me.

It was mom.

My eyes fluttered open to stare at metal bars closely aligned together. I tried to shake the image of mom with mermaid's feet. The emotion on her face looked too real for a dream.

It wasn't until I heard Sebastian's murmurs rising from a corner behind me that I broke out of my trance. We were in prison. I shifted my vision to clearly see the faces of three attractive people.

"He abandoned me in the apartment..."

It sounded like Sebastian was informing the others about his past life but quietened down as he heard me shifting my body towards them.

"You're awake!" Tyson exclaimed, scrambling toward me.

Sebastian fumbled with his hair and continued mumbling, "They struck us with sleeping darts."

I glanced down at my body. My legs were shining the same bright neon as my arms. Judging by the number of body parts that hadn't been affected, I had 7 hours.

Suddenly I noticed that my fingers were trembling violently followed by twitches of my face.

Tyson's eyes grew wide as I dropped instantly in his arms. "What the heck is happening to her?!"

By then, Sebastian had sprinted to hold my head in his large hands. "Talk to me, Burn- say something, anything, goddammit Auburn Archer!"

I faced into his palm and visions began flooding into my brain. My arms reached to his shirt and I hauled my body up vigorously to rub my nose against his.

I fiercely sobbed into his face, "What the hell am I, Sebastian?"

"What are you talking about?!" Eleanor screamed, sliding next to Tyson.

A wet, sticky liquid pressed against my lips. "Your nose is bleeding, Burn-"

More images crashed into my head. I cried even harder. "No- no, I've got to tell you something!"

Sebastian slid an arm around my waist and pulled me in, rubbing my head with his head. "Use your words, Burn-"

"I'm Apex," I breathed out.

A flash of colours invaded my head that I'd been trying to push out. Voices.

Did she just say Apex? No, no she must've gotten it wrong. It can't be. She looks beautiful- no don't think about that.

Wait are those-

I have to protect her. Apex? There is no way Burn could be-

I pushed Sebastian harder than anything away from me. Those were personal. I shouldn't be hearing that.

I turned away from the group as they stared at me like a bewildered animal. I rubbed the blood away with my thumb and stared at the stain for a few seconds.

Suddenly, a shadow towered over me from the other side of the metal bars. "Now that all of you have woken and we're in a much more civilised environment, may I tell you something, Seb?"

I hissed at the voice and kept my eyes lowered as Sebastian's voice replayed in my head over and over again.

"Don't call me that-"

"Burn and I kissed in our time together."

Silence stabbed through the air and I heard the most discomforting words I'd ever heard. "I don't believe a word that comes outta' your damn mouth."

"Ask her yourself," I could practically hear the smile forming on his lips.

"He's telling the truth."

"No," his words came.

The words helplessly tumbled off my tongue. "Sebastian, I didn't know who he was and-"

Raven clapped. "What she also doesn't know is that she doesn't regret a moment of it-"

"Don't you dare come in this-" Tyson roared, punching through the metal bars but missing Raven completely as he dodged.

"And what makes you think you can?" Sebastian hissed at Tyson.

"I don't think you guys spend an awful amount of time together more than we did either," Tyson defended.

Eleanor grabbed me by the arm, pulling me to my feet. I can't think clearly. Why does it bother Ash so much-

I snatched my arm free, staring at the hurt in her face. "Don't you guys dare put this on Burn! She isn't at fault here-"

I shouldn't be doing this. This is wrong. I don't want to hear their thoughts. Their minds are their personal spaces and I shouldn't have the right to invade that.

Someone had driven a knife between my eyes and hauled it out. Or at least that's what it felt like. All of a sudden, my head crashed into the floor and the last thing I saw was the expression on Raven's face crashing along with it.

It was mom again. She had toes. Human.

Dad smiled at her before he took her hand in his. Then they ran. Through the stars and all of space.

Suddenly mom collapsed beneath a sunny auburn tree, falling onto her belly. She cried and cried.

At that, dad smiled. Bad dad, I thought.

Mom sobbed once more and whispered into her belly, "Your going to be my Auburn. Auburn Archer."

"I like the ring of that."

This time I woke up, staring into a pair of the prettiest, deepest- Raven's eyes. "Don't stare at me while I'm asleep, creep."

The prison was dark and everyone seemed to be asleep. His eyes glowed in the dark, growing serious. "A boy that's never seen happiness, but suddenly a gem drops in, what did I expect?"

"Excuse me?"

"Burn, they're going to murder you. I could save you."

"And why would you help me?"

"Because I really like you! There's something about you!"

My stomach did a backflip and I was ashamed to say that I felt my cheeks blush. Suddenly, an intelligent idea came to me. If I could just do what I did earlier again-

"I don't care, Raven-" I reached through the bars to stroke Raven's skin. The voices began flowing in.

Why couldn't she just see that I like her more than my idiot brother-

I had to dive deeper to see valuable information. I pushed in further to open barriers of his mind, suddenly unleashing a series of flashbacks.

There were two young boys with golden mops on their heads. We rolled on the mud and smiled and played soccer. Suddenly I was navigating through the building we were in. There were two exits on either side of the building. Both which were locked with the eye prints of three people; Raven's mother and two oagles.

The scene changed to walking up to the prison and watching a figure curled up near the wall for minutes- me. It instantly showed the teenager versions of the two boys- Sebastian and Raven. I was pulled into a room with his mother. She slapped him across the face. Another slap came his way. He was crying by now.

"Mother, please stop!"

"How many times do I have to tell you to not get close to your brother?"

"But I love him!"

"We had a deal. You kill your dad. Take the blame and I might as well spare that rotten kid."

I didn't want to watch anymore. We'd had it all wrong. Raven was only trying to protect his younger brother. I tried to snatch my brain out of his but I couldn't.

A sharp intake of his breath pulled me out finally. Not a second had passed since I touched his skin.

"Okay, well you make your choices," his voice came sternly.

"No, wait-" But I chose better since I couldn't tell him just how I'd managed to find out his secret.

He looked at me, hurt piercing through his eyes. "My mother took the stars away because she thought that they're false representations of ugly rocks and so that I'd recognise a fake person when I see one."

"That's messed up," I heard myself manage to say.

"Guards!" Raven screamed, startling the others awake.

"Bring all these rascals to the courtroom," he snarled, "for her trial."

I couldn't bring myself to look at this boy and then the inspirational one that I'd seen in the eyes of his younger brother. They hauled us out with massive canes and led us through the mazes of walls. I counted every left and right turn.

A plain grey door labelled 'Port Lios', granted us into a courtroom that was similar to the ones back on earth. Our political trial has modified for the humans' comfort, an announcement came.

Humans?

I thought that I was the only human in the room, I thought as my eyes landed on two people in the witness stand. My body parts froze and nails began digging their holes into my palm.

"Burn!" The two lashed out saying but were stopped by the invisible barrier around the podium.

Suddenly I found myself taking long strides to the place where the two most important people in my life stood- mom and dad.