Part Three: Rehearsals
Chapter Eight: Re-Vamp Madness
Torrence was fending off more attackers. The girls in La Brea were cruel, vicious, and jealous beasts. Yet, this just didn't matter to the Seer. She let the beasts surround her, yelling insults and stabbing at her integrity. She took it all with the grace of a goddess, even though she was angry on the inside. Truth be told, she just wanted to tear the beasts apart with her bare hands. And maybe teeth, too.
Auriella stood back, clutching her purse tightly as these girls—supposed friends of hers—went after her best friend like a piece of scrap meat among jackals. Ella never admired Torrie more than when she could face the harsh scrutiny of the Popular Crowd.
Torrence lifted her chin, icy azure eyes surveying the hounds gathered at her feet. All she could hear was screeching. She let her eyes speak for her, and eventually those girls turned heel and scampered away like the bitches that they were.
"How do you do it?" Auriella asked her friend as she walked over to her.
"Do what?" Torrence rubbed the back if her neck, trying to calm herself.
"Taking what they say with such bravery. Not caring." Ella replied, looking after those girls that she was "in" with.
"It has nothing to do with bravery. You just have to know when to stand up for yourself, Firebug. They are not better than me, and I am not worse than they are." Torrence wrapped an arm around Ella's waist as they began walking down the hall together. "Oh, thanks for calling me a slut, too."
"I'm so sorry, Torrie. It wasn't like that!" Ella argued, her blue eyes wide. "I was just trying to get rid of Rose."
"It's okay. I forgive you, Ella."
Auriella moved away from Torrence and her embrace, biting her lip in true Ella fashion. Torrence looked at her and smiled softly. Ella wasn't worthy enough for this friendship, and yet she knew that Torrence felt the same way. How did two opposites like them end up staying friends for so long? It was a blessing. Ella couldn't make it without Torrence around.
"Good… I'd hate to make you angry."
Torrence shrugged, a sense of calm floating around in her electric eyes. "Ella, it's fine. I get it. Besides, you and the girls are about the only people I could stand calling me that. Only you three."
Auriella frowned deeply, hating that Torrence would even remotely think of herself in that way. You could hear it in the deflated way she spoke, in a voice so soft, one would wonder if it really was Torrence.
"So, you're going out with Nick tonight?"
"Oh, yeah. They are picking me up to do the whole makeover session," Ella replied softly, still pondering Torrie's demeanor. "What are you doing tonight?"
"Well, Hailley invited me over to run lines with her since Blaze is going out with Conrad tonight, but Kyle and Catty invited me over for dinner. So, I'm going to eat with them and have Kyle take me to Hailley's later."
"Sounds exciting. You getting along with Miranda, then?"
Torrie grinned brightly, and whatever she had been feeling before disappeared right before Ella's eyes. "Man, I love that little girl so much."
"I'm glad." And Ella was. But, somewhere, deep down, she feared being replaced as Torrence's sister.
"Ella, stop worrying." Torrie brushed back her black hair from her face before leaning over and giving the blonde a kiss on the cheek. "You are going to have an amazing show. Okay?"
"You saw my performance?" Ella asked, her voice all squeaky and shocked.
"Wanted to see if we would have any fun then." She shrugged, a smile beginning to twitch at the corner of her mouth.
"Great." Ella pursed her mouth and glance at Tor quickly. "So, what's going to happen?"
"Oh… You'll see," the Seer teased, shrugging again as if it didn't matter at all.
"Torrence, you suck so bad," Auriella pouted.
The grin on her friend's face told her that she just didn't care. She wasn't going to find out what "fun" meant exactly from Torrence.
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Nikolas was actually quite a ruthless dictator when it came to his band. He needed Auriella to be the model of singing perfection, and Ray, Kane, and Adam were in on his mad game. Here she was, a girl who went up against crazed Followers, and she was scared of a boy.
What a crazy world.
Kane held her hand after the boys had finally got her shoved into a chair. She groaned and whined and twitched, but he never let go of it. A woman with bubble gum-pink hair and red contacts loomed over her like a demon, a mad look in her contacted eyes. Ella swallowed hard at her reflection in those eyes, and she felt tears prick at her own in turn.
There really wasn't a reason to be at all like this. It was, after all, only hair. It wasn't like it couldn't grow back. But it was her hair, and she loved her hair. That was the point.
The hairstylist stuck the long cover under her chin, a wicked grin on her face. "So, what are we doing today?" Ella honed in on her high-pitched voice and found herself wincing.
"Nothing that would give her a heart attack," Ray cackled evilly. Or, at least, that was how he sounded to Ella. How could she be sure that the boys hadn't been kidnapped and replaced with shape-changing Regulators that were going to drag her away and she would never be seen again…
"I think the shampoo was enough!"
Auriella sniffed a bit. She caught Kane's eyes in his reflection in the mirror, and he nodded at her, squeezing her hand.
Nikolas was a man of action though, trumping her words. "Right. We just want about… Hm, four inches off, her bangs reshaped as in swept to the side, and if you could, I want to dye the tips of her about an inch up the same blue as her eyes," he commanded.
Ella gave a pathetic little cry. The hairdresser nodded, ignoring her victim. "That I can do."
She thought about what this new hairstyle could do to her status at school. What Nick was talking about was a Torrence kind of cut, not an Auriella kind of style.
"No, no," Ella whined as Bubble Gum Girl picked up the comb and scissors. They were the Scissors of Death.
She really couldn't have, but she felt the blades scrape across her blonde locks. Snip snip, the comb moving through the back of her thick hair, the comb brushing, snip snip. Heat burned along her skin as she struggled to take control of her power. The woman ran her fingers through Ella's hair, the scissors gone now, placed on the counter. The cut was over. All that was left of this horrible makeover was the dye.
Her scalp burned.
Kane gave her a big smile now. "That wasn't so hard, you cry baby."
"I hate you all," was the only thing she could muster up to say as the vindictive and demonic hairdresser came back to her, armed with the deadly chemicals.
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Ella was self-conscious about her hair, afraid someone she knew from school would see her too soon. After all, she really couldn't hide this from the cheerleading squad, but she'd rather wait until tomorrow before people saw it. She touched the shortened ends of her hair, stained blue, and wondered how people would react to this.
"It's not going away, no matter how many times you rub it," Nick laughed, grabbing the back of her head and shaking her gently.
"Meh." She nodded and frowned, letting her hair go. Okay, she did have to admit, the new hair was really cool. Her new bangs swept over her eyes and her hair tickled her collar bone and neck where it ended now.
"Not that we have anything against you, but our fans probably won't take to a preppy chick, y'know?" Ray summed up, trying to make her feel better about forcing her to get her re-styled like this.
"Hey, do you think I look good in this?" Adam inquired, holding up a red plaid mini to his hips, shaking them. The skirt was easily a size one—too small for Auriella, let alone Adam—but he still insisted on at least putting one leg through.
A few girls shopping nearby stared at Adam. They were clearly dismayed by his antics and attracted to his looks. Ella chalked it up to the goatee. Catching their eyes, the bassist did a little hip pumping action at them, the skirt clinging to one thigh. The girls gasped and turned red, walking away.
"What will Cathy think?" Ray scolded, holding out his hand for the skirt. "That would look better on Auri, anyway."
The blonde laughed, waving the skirt away from her. "Maybe not that one."
"Yeah, I think those girls want the skirt," Nikolas joked, waving at the girls who had relocated to the other side of the store now.
One bold girl even waved her little prissy fingers back at him, smiling shyly.
"I think they want Adam and Dollface," Kane pointed out.
"Well, then. Let's give them what they want!" Now Adam had another skirt on his other thigh and a silk camisole in place of his shirt. With a quick shimmy, he was off and after the poor girls, chasing them around the store while the clerks chased after him.
Ella picked the skirt the bassist was wearing of the shelf—in size 6—touching the fabric. It was an ordinary red skirt with black stripes—white and blue threads mingling inside the black. She could rock it.
"Hey, Kane, you think?" She held it up t herself. It wasn't outside of something she would normally wear. She could wear some of Torrence's boots—or buy her own--, get some fish nets and halter or something; it would totally pay off for tomorrow night.
"Totally." He gave her a smile, mocking the prep-girl talk by answering her in that way.
"What to wear with it, though?"
"Nothing," he joked.
Her eyes widened and a blush crept up her neck. Ray came up behind the keyboardist, knocking him in the back of the head.
"Pervert," the drummer muttered with a grin.
"Where's Adam and Dollface?" Kane asked, scanning the store in search of them.
"Well, uh, Auri, hurry up and buy what you have," Ray told, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"Why?" Ella asked, lifting one questioning brow at him, She really wanted to keep looking around.
"We, uh, just got kicked out of this store."
Well, that had certainly never happened to Auriella before, being kicked out of some place. What a difference a new crowd made.
AN: The hair salon scene. I am an avid fan of America's Next Top Model. I know, lol, strange, but hey! I like it. Anyway, the makeover episode is always my favorite because of the way the girls acted about getting their hair chopped off. So, I added that element to this chapter, plus, I'm sure those girls were thinking that Tyra was Satan Incarnate during those hours.
Next Up: The gig, and Ella meets Andromeda.
