Hector took off his baseball cap and tore at his hair. “Shit, what are we going to do? We can’t do this song now!”

Kyle pulled the crumpled schedule from his pocket. “It says right here they’re supposed to be covering ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’ by Carrie Underwood.”

Jared grabbed the schedule and studied it. “This must be some kind of mistake.”

“How can it be a mistake?” I asked. “They’re doing our song! And they’ve clearly been practicing it. Lacey did this on purpose!”

Kyle shook his head. “She couldn’t have done this alone.”

“He’s right,” Jared said. “The producers must be involved with this, too.”

“We need to talk to Dan,” Hector said.

We moved to a spot where we could see the audience while Fairy Lights continued their country version of our cover song. Normally the mentors sat and watched the performances from their chairs, but Dan was standing next to Lissa and arguing with her. We couldn’t hear what he was saying, but judging from his frantic gestures and wild eyes, he was pissed.

The guys left to find one of the producers to ask what was going on, but I waited backstage for Fairy Lights to finish their song. This was the kind of disaster that would have sent the old Maddie running, but no more. I was ready to fight.

When her band finished, I was all ready to go off on Lacey, but before I could, her mother stalked up to her and dragged her off the stage. The woman lightly smacked Lacey on the back of the head, making her wince.

“What was that? That was awful! I’ve trained you better than that!”

“Mama, stop, please,” Lacey said, smoothing her hair. “I did the best I could.”

“The best you could? You were way too pitchy in the chorus. We went over this yesterday. I thought you got it, but clearly we should have rehearsed it more!” When Lacey’s head dropped, the woman grabbed her chin and tilted her head up. “Hey, do you hear me?”

Lacey nodded, and I actually felt bad for her. Dammit.

Her mother huffed. “You have one more song tonight, and you better not mess it up. You are going to win this thing. Don’t embarrass me out there.”

The woman walked off, glaring at me as she passed by. Lacey took a moment to compose herself, wiping at her eyes, and she looked so young. I’d forgotten she was only seventeen, since she seemed so much older when she was on stage. And now I couldn’t yell at her because I related all too well to having a difficult relationship with your mother, even if mine seemed nowhere near as bad now. No, I had to remember why I was here. I cleared my throat, and she turned, eyes narrowing at me.

“You stole our song,” I said.