Limelight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

~~Captive~~

"Blair Waters!"

She whirled around after shooting Aaliyah yet another text anxiously to meet the angry glare of Oliver Pearson and Madison wearing dazzling glitter on her eyelids and a generous amount of highlighter on her cheekbones making her seem almost inhuman as she glowed under the fluorescent lighting. "Before you go off again," Blair started in a wary voice, looking around backstage at the hurrying around trying to perfect everything for Madison's pending performance in just over two hours. Right now, Orla was rocking the stage with her incredible riffs and raspy voice, but she was coming to an end of her slot, and up next was Aaliyah, who was still nowhere to be seen, "I still haven't heard from Aaliyah."

Oliver gritted his teeth. "She's on in under thirty minutes. How do you lose track of your client like this? You're responsible for her." He demanded a sneer in his tone.

Blair tried to hide her glare. "Aaliyah's her own person, Oliver, she said she'd be here hours ago," She said running a tired hand through her hair, "And she's not responding to any of my calls or texts—"

"She signed a contract, Blair. You both did," Madison snapped, her long false lashes fluttering against her translucent skin and her silver metallic bodysuit and knee-high silver platform boots that were incredibly distracted, but Blair guessed that that was the point. Madison had been working her voice a bit too hard and was going to have to rely on lip-syncing for her performance. She wasn't too happy about that, understandably, Blair guessed grudgingly, and it didn't help that a third of her lineup was unaccounted for thirty minutes before their curtain call, "If Aaliyah doesn't show up in time for tonight—"

"You're going to what?" Blair demanded, not in the mood for an argument with Madison right now, "Sue her? And me? Your cousin?"

"That's not how the family card works, cousin," Madison sneered in a cold voice, poison dripping from the word 'cousin'. Blair couldn't help but grin at her, though there was no pleasantness in it. And as she opened her mouth to respond, she heard another burst of noise coming from behind her.

"Blair," It was her father, she whirled around tiredly to see him, Uriah and her Aunt and her mother tailing him. Rochelle calling out profanities against Aaliyah. She had to refrain from sighing in exasperation, already knowing what was coming next.

"Where in the hell is Aaliyah?" Rochelle demanded hysterically, "I know that my daughter did not offer her the chance of a lifetime for her to blow it off last minute like some slack-off."

Blair wanted to say that Madison wasn't that big of a deal anyway, but she decided against it. It was important. And she was talking to her Aunt and Madison's mother. She opened her mouth to respond when she was interrupted again.

"—This will not look good for Aaliyah's own career, Blair," Uriah said in a grave tone, "Blowing off a huge concert like this will not go over well. Why haven't you been able to account for her? This is why we had insisted that it was a bad idea having a kid manage Aaliyah."

"Seriously Uriah," Blair replied in a cold voice and a sigh, "Like you needed to bring that up. Last time I knew, Aaliyah had been here in the morning to practice for tonight because she had something to do later. She said she'd be here in enough time before she had to be on stage."

"Well, she's clearly not here," Madison snapped with a freezing voice, "How is this happening right now? My first world tour and it's totally a shambles and we haven't even left the City yet."