Paper Towns (A 5H Fanfic)

F o u r

Day 0: The after

The girls all met in the lobby of the hotel. They had been waiting for Camila for the past ten minutes. She wasn't answering any texts, any calls, any tweets, nothing.

"Someone should go check on her." Ally said suddenly. Her leg was bouncing up and down, a nervous habit of hers. "I'm gonna go check on her. I'm worried about her." she stood up but was stopped by Lauren.

"I'll go too. She told me she wasn't feeling well yesterday so maybe she's just sick." Lauren lied. She knew Camila wasn't physically sick. Mentally was another story. She didn't want Ally to go up there because Lauren was the only one of the girls who knew what was really up with Camila.

"Girls you gotta go now. It's just soundcheck anyway." the girls' tour manager, John said, stopping Ally and Lauren.

"What about Camila?" Dinah asked as she stood up from her chair.

"I'm sure she'll be fine by performance time. I'll stay back and check on her and let you guys know later." he said.

Lauren looked back towards the elevator as they were walking out the hotel doors. Camila usually went to everything she had to go to. She never just bailed like this, she knew how important she was to the group. Without her, half the songs didn't sound how they should. She lead the majority of the songs and without her, songs sounded bland and off.

At soundcheck not only was their vocals off with the missing fifth piece of Fifth Harmony but their dances were off too. Lauren was annoyed that things sounded off and looked off. She knew Camila would be up and ready for the performance but right now she was mad at the younger girl for making the girls all seem foolish in front of the fans as they soundchecked.

Dinah soundchecked Camila's mic and sang some of her parts but things still didn't feel right. Fans were confused, just as confused as the girls but they couldn't tell their fans that.

"Our friend Camila is feeling a little under the weather this morning." Dinah lied.

"She should be back for the performance in a few hours though." Normani explained.

"We love you guys. We'll see you in a few for show time!" Ally exclaimed.

The girls hopped off stage and headed towards the green room. A cop and their road manager stood before them.

"What's going on?" Ally asked, reaching for a bottle of water on the table.

"Sit down girls. We have something to tell you." John said. He motioned for the girls to take a seat.

The girls all sat, Lauren sat on the arm rest of Ally's chair and took a sip from Ally's water bottle but nearly spit it out when the cop started talking.

"We got into Camila's hotel room and she wasn't there. We tracked her phone and it was at a Mini Mart just a few blocks from here. We found just the phone. Not her. The cashier didn't see her at all. We think she dropped the phone." the cop explained.

"It's been an hour though. I'm sure she's fine. She probably went for a walk." Lauren chimed in, crinkling her eyebrows.

"That's what we thought to say too. But we found this." the cop pulled out a evidence bag and placed it on the table in front of the girls. It was Camila's silver bow neckless. She never took that neckless off. The bow was slightly covered in a red substance, blood. "This was found near a dumpster by the hotel. I don't think she went for a calm stroll through New York."

"So what are you saying? She's missing?" Normani asked.

"Technically we can't file a missing persons report until twenty four hours pass. She's part of a popular girl group and there are a lot of strange people out there. We have a few officers out looking around the city right now but by law, we can't file a report until the twenty four hours from the call are up." the cop grabbed the bag off the table and turned his attention to Normani. "But to answer your question, yes, we think she's missing. Kidnapped even."

Kidnapped? Camila? Why would she just leave her hotel room anyway? She had commitments with the group to do this morning. She wouldn't just get up and walk out only to be kidnapped. Would she?

"You girls are gonna have to do the performance and interview without her." John said.

Fear crept into each girl. Partially from Camila and partially from having to do a live national television broadcast  as a four piece. They'd done it before. Multiple times. Once without Camila even. But this was different. She wasn't just sick and in a hospital bed, safe, her location was unknown, her health was unknown, she was unknown.

*** *** ***

"I cannot sing that part." Lauren admitted. "It's too high for my range."

The girls had been trying to rearrange vocals for their three song set on GMA but things weren't that easy. Each of the five girls were so crucial to a solid performance and with one missing, one who leads the majority of the songs they were singing that morning, things were really off.

"I'll sing it. But you have to do her part in Boss." Ally said.

"How are we doing the choreography for Boss with her gone?" Dinah asked.

"Everything is catered to five so if we shift-" Lauren was cut off by Normani.

"Don't shift. It'll mess all of us up." Normani added.

"If we don't shift it'll look weird." Lauren said in annoyance.

"It looks weird with or without the shift Lauren." Normani fired back. "No matter how we arrange the vocals and shift the choreography it's going to look and sound off."

"Ok, just take a deep breath you two." Ally said, stepping in between the two girls. "We'll figure this out. We always do." Ally put a hand on both of the girls shoulders and rubbed them with her thumb. "Just take a breath, and we'll take a small break, then come back to this in a second ok."

There was now ten minutes until performance time. They looked like a mess, they were a mess, but they couldn't look like a mess on the show. No one cared if they felt like a mess or were a mess behind closed doors because that's how the industry worked. How you feel and how you look are two different things and the public only cares about how you look.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier." Normani said, pulling Lauren in for a hug.

"Don't be. I snapped at you too." Lauren confessed and returned the hug. "I just hope she's ok."

"Camila? Yeah, I worry about that girl when she's supervised by adults and I'm even more worried about her right now." Normani laughed. Where ever Camila went, a trail of awkward moments and bad luck followed closely behind her.

"Girls, you're on in five." John popped his head into the room. "Oh and Lauren," Lauren's head shot up and she looked over at him. "Smile. Fans were tweeting how you seemed unhappy. Actually listen to me this time ok." he said before slipping out the door.

Lauren rolled her eyes. She was the only one of the girls who never listened to their management when they told her to do or say something. She didn't want to be a product of the industry, she wanted to be herself. With Camila gone, the attention was drawn to her. Why? She didn't know. Fans adored Camila and her more than the other girls and with 'Camren' the fans would be eying Lauren's every move this morning. Every little thing she'd say, every little bit of her body language would be analyzed and knowing that was going to happen was just as bad as not knowing. Either way, she felt the need to justify herself and her actions because she knew people were going to make assumptions about her that morning. She felt like it was 2014 all over again. Attention; on her, hate;on her. Maybe this is why she was ok during this year, because all of the weight had been thrown on Camila. As awful as it sounded, she knew it was true. Lauren would speak out or get mad about people making assumptions about her or over analyzing her. Camila was hurt for a minute but after a few minutes was fine. Was. Lately, the hate started taking a toll on her. Was there even a solution to this?

A/N:
This was kind of a filler part not gonna lie. There were some real life references, hopefully you caught those. But the next part will be where stuff really starts to happen so get ready.