#all strings attached

January 1st 2017.

It was exactly 4 o'clock as we girls sat around a table in a run down restraint disguised in big floppy hats and sunglasses in downtown New York, waiting for their, now, ex-band mate to show and as if on cue Camila came shuffling through the door with her head low as she approached the table.

“Hi.” She whispered. It was the first time we had seen each other since the news of Camila’s forced departure broke and shattered the internet with headlines of “Camila Cabello leaves Fifth Harmony in pursuit of a solo career.”, “Camila Cabello informed Fifth Harmony of her leave via her representatives?”, “The ladies of Fifth Harmony bite back at Camila Cabello’s shady letter”. Of Course none of them were even remotely close to the truth of the toxicities going on behind close doors.

“Hey little one.” Ally greeted, but her voice lacked the usual enthusiasm it once had. Camila smiled gently back and sat in the empty seat around the circular table in between Dinah and Normani.

No one said anything for a while, we just let the tense atmosphere hang in the air for a while as we churned over our feelings upon recent events. It was hard not to get sucked into the tabloids and false narratives and start believing them. It was like the devil whispering on your shoulder.

“Hey Camila, I’m sorry about those things. You know we didn’t-” I explained, but was cut off by her dismissal.

“I know Lo. It’s okay.” Camila reassured me and Dinah placed a gentle hand on Camila’s back comfortingly. Despite the fact we hadn’t put out the letter, we all still felt incredibly bad about it, considering Camila had got the brunt of the backlash and hate. As per usual.

I just nodded my head, knowing she meant her words, but I still felt the guilt.

“Let’s get this over with quickly then.” I said, getting down to business and the true reason we were all here, hiding out in the rough part of New York.

“What’s the plan?” Ally asked.

“I don’t quite know, but what I do know is that we can’t let this go on. We have to fight back.” I spoke determinedly.

“But Lo, you know we’ll get into trouble if we do.” Normani warned.

“That’s why we have to be sneaky about this.” I said, reaffirming the plan i had hatched out in my head. “Look, both the label and management are clueless as to our power, because we aren’t walking around in million dollar suits and carrying brief cases. They see us as little girls who can be easily manipulated, but clearly,” I gestured around the table to the four of us. “That’s not true. If I’m being honest they are all a bunch of old guys sitting around think they know how the new world works and how to get people to buy into things, but they don’t. Have you seen twitter lately? They have no idea how to control that!” I said referring to the multiple hashtags that had been trending for the past two weeks.

“That’s true, but I don’t see how that’s going to help us. As much as I love our fans Lauren, I don’t think they are going to make much of a difference in this case. We’re bound by contracts.” Ally said, giving a sad smile, thinking she had shot down my plan, but she hadn’t. I’d been planning this for years, with the help of Camila. I actually sounds quite ridiculous when you put it like that, but it was true. We wanted out of this toxic ‘Relationship’ with out benefactors.

“So we don’t break them. We do what we have to do and let overs do the work for us.”

“I don’t get it Lo.” Dinah said, looking at me with pure confusion.

“Guys we have an army of people at our beckon call.” I told them enthusiastically, hoping they get the picture, but they didn’t. They had never been on the receiving end of our fandoms digging and CSI skills. “Our Harmonizers can dig up anything, we just have to give it to them, without anyone being able to trace it back to us.”

“Right…? I think I’m following, but how do we do this Lauren?” Dinah asked.

“Yeah , none of us are exactly tech whizzes.” Normani agreed.

“I know a guy.” I said waving off that little detail, “Camz how about you take it from here, babes?” I offered seeing as she was the key holder for it all. Camila had all the dirt, everything we needed to generate enough uproar.

“Right, well for the last few years. Lauren and I have been generating a collection of …evidence, if  you will? To use against Epic and Maverick. It’s not much at the moment, we expected longer,” Camila said sadly, looking down at the table and Normani grabbed her hand in support. “But, it’s enough to do some damage.” Camila, continued and pulled out her phone to play an audio recording, she had sneakily captured one day during one or my breakdowns.

“They are making decisions on a literal basis, to fuck us over, to make us literal slaves. Like literal slaves Ally. We are doing fucking labour everyday and we see nothing.” My distressed voice played out through the speakers of Camila’s phone, but only loud enough so that we could hear it, making me cringe.

“I know, I know” Ally’s voice cooed out in the recording, in an attempt to soothe my hysteria.

“We’ve gotta go do the show.” A male voice, spoke out. It sounded like Will, our tour manager, but I wasn’t quite sure, but either way it still pissed me off.

As soon as the recording stopped Camila locked her phone and put it back in her bag again, waiting for someone to say something as we all sat in silence.

“Y-You recorded that?!” Ally asked astonished and Camila nodded.

“You were saying stuff I thought might be useful so I- um started recording it. Actually it was just the right thing we had been looking for right Lo?”

“Yeah it was. It is.” I corrected, leading onto the next part of my plan. “Which is why we are going to leak it onto the web. I’ve got a guy who can leak it onto twitter without a single trace.” I said, before they could jump in and refuse.

“So no one will know it was us?” Ally asked.

“No one.” I swore, looking around the table at each of their faces, things seemed different, it looked like they had hope in their eyes for once, which was a nice exchange from the look of dread they always carried as we sat wondering who’s name would be dragged through the mud next. First it was Camila, then it was Mani’s, then mine, then Dinah’s, then Camila’s again, then mine, because I had pissed management off again after I found out about Camila was actually being kicked out of the group, but that was a story for another time. And eventually they seemed to have stopped at Camila, whilst dragging the four of us down with her.

“Do it.” Normani spoke assuredly, breaking the silence.

“Are you sure? I need everyone’s agreement on this.” I said looking at Dinah and Ally for confirmation, seeing as I already knew Camila’s answer, we had talked about this before.

“Yeah, do it. Let everyone know what scum they are.” Dinah agreed mercilessly.

“Ally?” Camila asked, before making any moves to leak the audio.

“Leak it.” Ally confirmed nodding her head once.

“Okay.” I said pulling out my phone and pressing dial on Elliot’s number. He answered right away and I told him exactly what I wanted him to do and how I wanted it done, but he already knew the game plan.

“It’s done.” I said after I hung up the phone and everyone nodded in since felling the tension rise again.

“So what do we do now?” Dinah asked.