𝑭𝑶𝑹𝑬𝑽𝑬𝑹 𝑾𝑰𝑵𝑻𝑬𝑹//𝑵𝑯//

𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒚

Tahlia Grey

25th of July, 2015

I sat behind the drum set on the stage, going over the songs before the show starts.

Ellie and Kara were next to me, guitar straps over their shoulders like they were about to play.

"Tahlia come here," Ellie says, waving me over.

I stood up from the drum set, walking to the other side of the stage and standing infront of them.
"Yeah?"

"Have you noticed Niall acting weird today?" Ellie asked and I shook my head.

"I haven't seen any of the band today." I say.

"Cameron isn't here either. I asked Kaitlyn about it and she said she doesn't know anything. Also that bandage on Cameron's arm weirds me out- it just appeared randomly." Kara said, occasionally pausing to tune her guitar.

I simply nodded along, not really interested in the conversation until Ellie directly acknowledged me.
"You said a while back that you had a girlfriend back home. What's she like?"

"Oh, yeah. Her name's Amelia and she's a fan of the band so that's kind of why I'm here." I say, watching crew members running about getting things ready for the show.

"Was she not allowed to come on tour with you?" Kara asked and I shook my head. "That's weird. Cameron's here yet doesn't do anything."

"No, Kathy invited Cameron because she wants to be a stylist like Beth is so she let her join tour." I say.

"She hasn't been speaking to her mum for the past couple days though. I don't think Beth has even noticed that Cameron is missing-" Kara got interrupted by Caroline walking over to tell us that they were going to start letting people in soon so we need to be off the stage.

Backstage was as busy as it usually is, but what from I could overhear, the boys were missing and no one was able to find them. Me and the rest of the band stepped out of the way, going along with our regular preshow routine as if the boys were there.

Kathy did end up finding them behind a car a while later, standing in what she called a "suspicious circle".

They got the boys back, microphones and other technical equipment fitted at you could already hear the roar of the crowd. The band and I got ourselves ready, lights starting to dim and the black curtain started to go up.

The boys were at their mic stands, Niall with his guitar but you could tell something wasn't right.

To anyone in the audience's perspective, he was doing perfectly fine. But being on stage behind him you could tell he was entirely out of it. Where I was, the drum kit, was center stage so I was able to partially see his side and see that he was messing up notes on the guitar- which was not like him.

I ignored it, focusing on the drums instead until it got to the part of the show where they all ran down the platform, and now it was probably visible to audience members that something wasn't right.

It got to the end of the show and backstage were four boys I didn't recognise, one with brightly coloured hair. Once the band were off stage they curtly acknowledged the mystery men and basically dragged them out of the venue.

It left quite a few of us with questions, especially Kathy who was muttering to herself as she left.