Stella's POV
"Oh shit, Stella, did you ever get your clothes back?" Oli asked, once the bus had pulled away from the Vegas venue. Oli had handed me my clothes himself, because I had asked him to put them in the dryer at the venue for me. At the time he said yes, which was suspicious in itself, but now I knew why. His intention was to throw me under the bus in front of Ava, Peter and Louis.
And Leo, who was also in the room, completely unphased by the mention of the clothes he had completely soaked in the shower.
"Yes, Oli, thank you." I growled. Ava looked suspicious but didn't say anything. Peter and Louis were playing Mario Kart together, so they were in a whole other universe.
"Were they dry?" Oli asked.
"Dry? Why were your clothes wet Stella?" Leo asked, before Ava could.
Well fuck.
How was I supposed to respond to that?
He knew he had me in this fucked up place where he could gaslight the fuck out of me and make me look crazier than I already looked.
"Assassin casualties." I sighed.
"Sister they were dripping wet and Assassin was yesterday. Try again." Oli replied. There was no plausible lie for how all my stage clothes got that soaking wet seemingly out of nowhere. What was Oli doing? What did he think happened to them? Did he suspect Leo?
"I'm going to bed." I decided, getting up. They all just let me go without a fight. That was their whole thing right? Don't rock the boat so I don't end up throwing a tantrum. When I got to my bunk I took a deep breath. I couldn't rock the boat either. I couldn't keep ruining things. I had to keep my shit together. And I had to come up with a lie.
//
Ava's POV
"What happened to Stella's clothes?" I asked Oli, as soon as the door shut to the bunk tunnel.
"I don't know. She came to me before the show started and asked if there was a dryer for her clothes. When I came to help her bring it to the laundry room her entire wardrobe rack was empty and all her clothes were in a garbage bag absolutely fucking soaked." Oli explained.
"So that's why she absolutely had to go shopping before the show. Makes sense." I nodded.
"Do you guys think she did that to her clothes?" Leo asked.
"Why would she do that to her own clothes?" Louis wondered.
"I don't know, I'm kind of surprised she didn't blame it on me. After Assassin last night she said she was going to get me back for beating her, maybe she ruined her clothes so she could say that I did it." Leo explained.
"Then why didn't she?" Louis asked.
"Honestly, it kind of seems like something Stella would do though." I said. One time in 2nd grade she snuck a pair of scissors from the supply cabinet and cut her own hair, then planted the scissors and the hair at some girl's desk and then went crying to the teacher about her hair being chopped off. At that time she still wasn't speaking much, so all she had to do was point at the girl's desk and sister got sent to the principal's office for cutting Stella's hair. Stella told me later that the girl had stolen her sparkly pink pencil and Stella didn't know of any other way to get it back than to get the girl out of the room. Anyone else would've just asked for it back. I would've thrown a whole tantrum. But Baby Stella was sneaky. In high school Flash used to steal her homework, so girly would literally sneak into the teacher's workroom and make an extra copy of the homework just so she could get all the answers wrong on one and feed it to Flash. It took Flash way too long to figure out why he kept getting Fs, but when he did he came up to Stella in the school cafeteria and dumped a carton of milk on her head for tricking him. I got suspended for 3 days just for kicking him in the shin for that.
