The Voice

That’s pretty much how Sunday went. Sunday, unfortunately, very quickly turned to Monday. Monday was crazy hectic with rehearsals and final preparations for the show that night, so of course, I was freaking. We all were. Still, we were definitely prepared for this crazy two hour night. That’s what these next two shows were—two hours long. In order for sixteen people to perform in one night, it had to be that way.

I still wasn’t pumped about the order of things. They kept the stage rehearsal order in a sense. They took each name from the people performing each day and placed them in the order that they were in during rehearsals. Too complicated for me, but either way, I was the last performer after Brinley.

Goody.

I wasn’t feeling too well, all things considered.

When rehearsing with Niall, his band mates, and the cameras, I was freaking out and messing up a lot. It really worried Niall, to the point when I ran through it last time, he just sat down on the chair in here and looked at me, eyebrows raised.

The camera crews finished up with me and disappeared, leaving us alone while Niall began massaging his temples. “Evie . . . .”

“I got it,” I groaned. “I suck. Might as well start packing now.”

I was surprised when someone came behind me and smacked the back of my head. It didn’t hurt, but it surprised me. When I looked to see who it was, I saw Harry frowning at me.

I scowled at him and rubbed the back of my head anyways because I think it was supposed to hurt. “I was being sarcastic. Really, I’m gonna go upstairs and dance until my legs wanna fall off.”

Liam jumped up, his eyes wide. “That’s a wonderful idea, Ev. Niall, get everyone together and have a dance party to relax yourselves. Everyone’s freaking out and tense. Maybe they just need to have some fun.”

Niall’s eyebrows rose as he looked at me. “Get your iPod?”

“Let’s mix it up,” I disagreed. “Let’s use someone else’s. Kiley has a pretty great dance playlist, too.”

“Well, tell everyone to hurry and get ready for tonight,” he said. “Tell them to hurry because we’re meeting thirty minutes before we leave to have a team discussion.”

“Will do,” I said, and I gave him a teeny smile. “I’ll do better.”

He sighed and leaned back against the chair, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since the cameras left. “I really hope so, Evie. If you’re ever one of the people who have to fight to stay in . . . I don’t know if it’s right for me to pick you.”

“Unless she just absolutely murders everyone,” Louis disagreed. “If it’s close, you may have to consider not picking her, but if she destroys everyone, like she’s completely capable of doing, you’d be stupid to not pick her.”

I made a face. “I’ll just try to never let that happen. I’ll go tell everyone and be on my way.”

“Wait, Ev!” Harry exclaimed as I headed for the door. Of course that stopped me, and when I looked back at him, his eyes were wide. “You have to win!”

My eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

“We have to tour with the winner,” he reminded me. “If it’s Brinley . . . .” His eyes were even wider now. “Please just beat her out? Don’t let her win.”

“I don’t plan on it,” I assured him, but that did spark something inside of me.

A tour with One Direction . . . it would be the perfect time for Niall and me to fall in love and get together. Not to mention, I’d get to spend tons of time with all of them. Crazy as they may be, they were a lot of fun, and it was so easy to be who I had become around them.

The most important part was, however, that Niall and I could easily become Niall and I on a tour.

Niall saw the way my eyes were sparkling. “What is it?”

“Just thinking,” I murmured, and I slowly started walking away. “I’ll go get everyone. We have an hour until the dance party, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. You can go do whatever you plan to do.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Should I be worried?”

“About what?” I snorted.

“Oh, gee, I don’t know,” he muttered. “It’s not like you’re singing a Cher Lloyd song or anything.”

“I still don’t get what you’re saying,” I insisted, giving him a truly innocent smile. “Give me a hint?”

Zayn leaned over to whisper in my ear. “He wants to know if you’re planning a more provocative outfit.”

I knew my cheeks were on fire, but I shook my head quickly. “I don’t really know why you’d have to worry about that anyways . . . but no. Nothing to worry about.”

Zayn’s eyebrows furrowed. “Really, Ev? You can’t tell me you don’t at all think you’re attractive, despite all the guys here swooning over you. You could seduce Noah if you wanted, despite his feelings for Madi. Something about you is just . . . almost literally irresistible, like literally no one that I’ve ever met before.”

For whatever reason, hearing this made something else click in my mind, something completely unrelated to any of them.

I continued slowly backing away, eyebrows furrowed. Niall noticed and tried to question it, but I quickly hurried out and up to my room. I didn’t even respond to Zayn’s statement because I had a theory that I needed to ask someone about.

He immediately picked up his phone. “Hey, pumpkin! I know you’re nervous about tonight, but you’ll do fine.”

I took a deep breath. “Dad, this is unrelated to this. It’s about me. Is it possible that the enhancements have somehow made people unable to resist me? Like, they find me attractive or awesome . . . do you get what I’m saying?”

He laughed. “Ev, I know it may come as a surprise to you, but you’re a beautiful girl with an even more beautiful personality. That’s what happens when the world sees that.”

“But I’m serious,” I insisted. “The way it was just put to me was that something about me is just almost literally irresistible, like no one they’ve ever met before.”

“By your love or someone else?” he asked, and I could tell there was a smile on his face by the way his voice sounded. “Speaking of which, I wanna know his name so I can watch for him on the show. Please tell me?”

“No can do, Daddy,” I laughed. “Anyways, it was someone else, someone who actually has a girlfriend and doesn’t think of me that way.”

“I mean, I guess it’s possible, but I don’t think that’s what’s causing it all,” he disagreed. “You can’t even be sure the enhancements did this to you. It’s just you, Ev. Accept that and know Max and I are here at the house cheering for you. If you get to the next round, we’ll do whatever we can to get there.”

Now, that’s now nine reasons to at least advance to the next round.

Can’t forget that I needed to do the best I could for not only myself, Dad, and Max, but also Ella. For Niall.

I took a deep breath and let out a quiet squeak of excitement. “Okay! I will! I’ve gotta get ready, but I’ll do just that, Dad! I love you so much.”

He laughed. “I love you to, Ev. Good luck, princess.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said. “Tell Max I love him.”

“Will do,” he promised. “Bye, Ev.”

“Bye, Dad.”

I was a bit startled when someone came knocking on my door, just as I put my phone down on my dresser. Honestly, it could’ve been anyone, so when I opened it to find Brinley, I didn’t let that surprise me.

Her eyes were narrowed. “You think that just because you’re Irish, you can weasel your way into the One Direction friend group?”

I snorted. “Irish has nothing to do with it, lass. It’s all about personality, which you seem to be lacking. At least a good one.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know you’re trying to win this so you can go on tour with them and win Niall over. You suck at hiding the fact that you are pathetically in love with him.”

I shrugged. “What’s not to love? Maybe I don’t hide it, but I don’t have to. You don’t hide the fact that you’re a whore just trying to sleep with all five of them, so why should I hide my true feelings?”

“It’s just pathetic that you actually think he’ll share them with you, ever,” she said, and the way she ignored me just went to further prove my point from earlier. She was beyond immature. “You’re hopelessly in love with a guy who’s never gonna love you back.”

“Maybe I am!” I exclaimed, and I hated how frustrated her stupidity and immaturity made me all of the sudden. That was exactly what she wanted, and I wasn’t fighting it. “And maybe I’ll never see him again after Wednesday night. I don’t know. What I do know is that I love Niall, and I think he’s a great person. He’s taught me a lot, and I’m gonna do whatever I can to use that and beat you.”

She snorted. “You? Beat me?”

I shrugged. “It’s possible. Anything’s possible.”

“You have a better chance of Niall falling in love with you,” she laughed, and her lips curled into a smirk. “Maybe he’ll never love me either, but at least I’m not stupid enough to actually fall for him. Even still, that’s more likely than you beating me. I’m gonna win this thing. I heard everyone at rehearsals on stage. I’ve got this.”

“That’s gonna be your downfall,” I informed her. “You’re underestimating everyone and overestimating yourself. You’re not perfect either. And it’s not stupid to fall in love with someone. I’ve experienced genuine love, something I don’t know if you’re even capable of feeling. Yeah, I love him, and you’re right. He’ll probably never love me back. That’s okay with me. Now get out. We have a meeting thirty minutes before we load up to head to the stage, so I have to get ready.”

“And you just failed to mention that to everyone?” she all but yelled in my face. “Are you that set on winning?”

“I didn’t say I had to win,” I reminded her. “I’m just gonna beat you. And, not that it’s any of your business, but I called my dad rather quickly before the show. I was about to go tell everyone. So, move and let me do that.”

She just groaned and rushed out into her room, probably to get ready herself. While I took a moment to bask in the awesomeness of how pissed I made her, I was surprised to find Niall standing at the top of the stairs, his eyes shining while a smile played at the corners of his lips.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What is it?”

“Something that was said,” he murmured, and my eyes widened in horror. “I mean, people have been saying it, but it’s been loosely, like a phrase used to describe just attraction to each other. But you said it yourself.”

“I . . . .” But I didn’t know what to say, so I just swallowed and waited to see what he had.

He looked at all of the doors and then down the stairs. While I furrowed my eyebrows at him, he very quickly rushed into my room, pulling me along behind him. Before I could even start to protest, his lips were on mine melting all disapproval away in an instant.

I’m pretty sure I melted into a pile of goop right about then, especially as his arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me tightly against him. So, I just went with it and began spicing it up a bit, too. Fingers knotted in his hair, grip tight as possible without hurting him, I slid my tongue into his slightly parted lips.

I knew dark was close, and I knew that this kind of kissing could lead to changing him into someone like me, but he wanted this. He wanted to be like me, and he was just as into this as I was.

Well, he was until night came, which like I said, I knew was close. I didn’t realize, however, that it would happen in the middle of intimate kissing, so of course, he was left blind and deaf.

I groaned softly as I pulled away, and I started to say something, but then I remembered he couldn’t hear me anyways. So, instead, I very carefully poked my head out to see if anyone was around—just to make sure, you know?—and then pulled him in my arms and rushed him downstairs.

Of course, the others would be half naked and in the middle of changing when I got here with Niall on the bed.

Harry was the first to scream. “What the hell?!”

In an instant, I was in front of him with my glowing red eyes wide. “Shh! Harry, don’t scream. Please don’t scream! No one can know about this.”

He was stammering, eyes wide and unable to speak. “Wh-Wh-Wh—?”

“What’s going on?” Zayn hissed, but when I turned to look at him, he started tripping back away from me. “Your eyes! They’re—”

“Scary and red, I know,” I said, my words coming out much faster than I intended. “Long story short, I’m a freaky science experiment—enhanced human, as they call me. Look, Niall’s a bit blind and deaf right now. Watch him carefully and make sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

“Evie, I’m fine,” Niall told me, which surprised me, especially when he began laughing at my expression. “What a way to tell ‘em, right?”

Liam was the first to seem relatively calm. “This is what you were talking about the other day, wasn’t it?”

I quirked my lips to the side and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Evie, go on and get ready,” Niall said, surprising me when he stood up as if nothing had just previously happened to him. “I’ll explain anything they wanna know. You go tell everyone and get ready.”

I frowned. “You can’t keep doing that, you know.”

Something changed in his eyes, something that only made them shine brighter, and to my delight, his smile brightened as well. “It’s not every day that the most beautiful girl in the world says she loves me too.”

The only reason I didn’t respond to that was because I faintly heard someone knocking on a door that sounded close enough to be mine. Honestly, it took everything in me to just blink at him, my lips slightly parted while he just gave me a crooked smile.

“Everit, you in there?” I heard Caleb say from outside of my door. “Brinley said you were just in here.”

My eyes were wide. “Oh crap! Niall, my contacts! Caleb’s outside of my door looking for me!”

Niall’s expression immediately changed to one of slight horror, but instead of panicking, like I was, he just took a deep breath. “Guys, anyone dressed follow me. I’ll distract him, and you can sneak in there, okay?”

Liam and Niall both left the room, and I was sneaky and quick to follow after them. They went up the stairs and began talking to Caleb, who proceeded to ask them about the meeting, and while they had him distracted, I grabbed a strawberry lemonade can and quickly walked up past the three, careful to avoid all eye contact as I slipped into my room.

I let out a sigh of relief and immediately went to put in the contacts. In reality, the color was nothing like my actual eye color because the color doesn’t occur naturally. So, it was the brightest green Niall could find, but it still wasn’t a match. No one noticed, though, so that was a plus.

I took a chug of the strawberry lemonade to get the taste of the venom out of my mouth and quickly changed into my attire for the night.

It was a bright blue swishy skirt—not too short—a black corset tank top, and a pair of black studded hidden wedge sneakers. I also painted my fingernails bright blue and put some silver glitter as a top coat, aside from an accent finger painted pink.

That part was easy. Straightening and styling my hair just right wasn’t. I had to straighten it. Then mess it up. Then use some weird gel stuff that made it stay straight and also spiky, almost. I mean, it wasn’t, but it was helping show the layers in my hair in a punk sort of way. Some considered it a rock hairstyle.

Anyways, I put on silver eye shadow and a thin line of black eyeliner. For a stage effect, I actually winged my eyeliner and put on some mascara.

I put, in my many earring holes, a single earring that fit perfectly into my earring holes, but it also made it look like it was playing connect the dots with them. It was really neat, and they sort of just went with the whole outfit.

I was a bit later than I was supposed to be because when I finished putting in my earrings, I heard the music start playing downstairs. In an instant, I was giving Harley a quick kiss goodbye and rushing out of my room, leaving him there to go to sleep.

Everyone was already dancing when I got down there to a song I didn’t recognize, so I just sort of made my way into the kitchen to grab another strawberry lemonade.

Louis actually greeted me from the kitchen table. “Ah, Everit. Just the gal I was looking for.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him, noticing he no longer looked freaked out by my presence. “Oh? What for?”

“Well, I wanted to tell you how incredible I think it is that you’re here,” he said, and he smiled widely. “You’ve made your life your own, despite what those people did to you, and you’ve done so many things no one should ever have to do. I think you’re amazing, and I’m glad I met you.”

While I was standing there, lips slightly parted due to the lack of words, Noah and Madi came rushing in to pull me into the living room—where everyone was dancing—as the song changed to one I had never heard before.

And right about that time, they dragged me over to Niall.

When I realized that it was a love song, they were lucky looks couldn’t really kill. Still, as I listened to the words, it made me laugh. Yes, this applied to Niall and me, but it really applied to them, too, so I just smirked right back at Noah, whose eyes narrowed.

“Just take me to the other side,” Niall quietly sang to me while people unknowingly danced around one of the most perfect moments in all of my life. “I see that sexy look in your eyes, and I know we ain’t friends anymore. If we walk down this road, we’ll be lovers for sure. So tonight, kiss me like it’s do or die, and take me to the other side.”

And every nerve, every fear deep down inside of me, exploded. Just like that. I wasn’t scared about this performance because I had done it well before. Niall thought it was incredible, and I could do it again. He had faith in me, and that was what mattered.

He was all that mattered anymore.

Notes

The lyrics are from The Other Side by Jason Derülo. :) Same song Niall sang to Everit. :)

You can see her outfit here. :)

I hope you guys like this chapter. Next is her performance of Dirty Love. :) Things are about to pick up.

Lemme know what you think. :)