“Have you come to gloat?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard me. “That was a nice publicity stunt back there. I knew all your ‘we’re just friends’ crap was an act.”

I clenched my fists. She was just trying to distract me. “You stole our song,” I repeated, louder.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I shoved the schedule in her face. “You were supposed to be doing a Carrie Underwood song.”

“I covered Carrie Underwood last week. Why would I do one of her songs again? Besides, that’s the song you’re supposed to be doing.”

She handed me her own schedule, and there it was. “Radioactive” was listed as Fairy Lights’ song, and “Jesus Take the Wheel” was listed as ours. We’d been given completely different schedules. As had the rest of the show, I was sure. The world seemed to close in on me, tighter and tighter, pressing against my chest, and no matter how much I gasped for air I still couldn’t breathe.

“Did you choose ‘Radioactive’?” I finally got out.

“No, the producers suggested it. I thought it was a weird choice, but whatever.”

Everything clicked. The leaked photo of me and Jared. Our last-minute song change in the semi-finals. My broken guitar. Steve encouraging me to leave the show. And now this. It had never been Lacey or any of the other contestants on the show; it had been the producers all along. They’d been sabotaging us for weeks, either for more drama and higher ratings or because they wanted America’s sweetheart to win the show. Or both.

They would never let us win.

I rushed off to find the rest of the band. In the lounge, Dan argued with Steve, waving the schedule in his face, while the guys watched it all unfold. I joined them, too stunned to tell them what I’d learned. I needed to hear what Dan said first. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was some other explanation for all of this. Maybe there was a possibility we could still win.

Dan threw up his hands and stomped over to us. He dragged us out of the room and into a corner of the hallway, away from the cameras, where no one could hear us.

“This is bullshit. The producers fucked us over. I can’t believe it.”

I closed my eyes. It was all true. I explained what I’d learned from Lacey and what I’d just figured out—that the show had been sabotaging us for weeks; that we’d been doomed from the start and could never win the show. For a minute, the guys were silent, taking it all in, their faces frozen in horror. And then Hector erupted with a long stream of obscenities in both English and Spanish.

“I can’t believe this,” Kyle said. “This is so unfair.”