Jared gripped the mic so hard I was surprised it didn’t break, but he said nothing and we started again. Angel let us finish this time and then plastered on her fake cheer now that the cameras were rolling.

“That was great!” she said with a little clap. “I love the way you’ve twisted the song and made it darker. I’m so happy you chose me for your mentor!”

Kyle snorted and then covered his mouth with his hand like he couldn’t believe that had escaped. Angel’s eyes narrowed at him, but then her phone rang—playing her band’s most popular song, of course. She held up a finger to us as she raised the phone to her ear.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jared muttered.

My thoughts exactly. Since there was nothing to do but wait for Angel, I picked up my coffee and took a sip, but it had gone cold now. Yuck. I moved across the room to dump the plastic cup in the trash.

“No, you tell him that doesn’t work for me. All or nothing!” Angel yelled at someone on her phone, pacing across the room like an angry jungle cat. She waved her free hand as she spoke and backed right into me, knocking into my arm. Coffee splattered all over both of us, and time seemed to slow as Angel looked down at herself and then up at me.

“You stupid bitch!” She wiped coffee off her leather jacket. “Look what you’ve done!”

“I’m so sorry!” I looked around for some napkins or something, my face burning. All of this was being filmed by the camera guys, who were probably thrilled to have captured some drama. I could only pray some kindhearted producer cut this moment so the entire country wouldn’t laugh at me. Kyle ran over and handed me some napkins, but Angel waved him off when he offered her some.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” she snapped and turned to the door.

“No, you don’t seem to have time to be a mentor at all,” Jared said.

She spun to face him. “What did you say to me?”

“You heard me.” He moved to stand in front of me, like he was going to protect me from her wrath. “And you need to apologize to Maddie.”

Angel pointed a finger at Jared. “You ungrateful little shit, you’re lucky to even be on this show!”

Seeing her shout at Jared upset me even more than her calling me a bitch. “We should have picked one of the other mentors.”

“No kidding,” Hector said. At some point, he’d moved to stand beside us, fists clenched at his sides.

Angel looked like she might strangle one or all of us. I was surprised the show didn’t intervene, but they probably loved this stuff. “You’re done,” she yelled. “Tomorrow you’re all gone!”