Are We Out of the Woods Yet? by Pengi
Summary:

After witnessing a murder in a convenience store, Nick is whisked away to a "safe house" in northern Vermont, where he can be under 24-hour police surveillance. But his protective service may not be as safe as it seems...
Categories: Fanfiction > Backstreet Boys Characters: Group, Nick
Genres: Action, Drama, Humor, Romance, Suspense
Warnings: Death, Sexual Content, Violence
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 15 Completed: No Word count: 46698 Read: 24882 Published: 01/03/15 Updated: 06/30/15

1. Chapter One by Pengi

2. Chapter Two by Pengi

3. Chapter Three by Pengi

4. Chapter Four by Pengi

5. Chapter Five by Pengi

6. Chapter Six by Pengi

7. Chapter Seven by Pengi

8. Chapter Eight by Pengi

9. Chapter Nine by Pengi

10. Chapter Ten by Pengi

11. Chapter Eleven by Pengi

12. Chapter Twelve by Pengi

13. Chapter Thirteen by Pengi

14. Chapter Fourteen by Pengi

15. Chapter Fifteen by Pengi

Chapter One by Pengi
Chapter One


Avery leaned against the clerk’s desk, spreading a plethora of brochures about local tourist traps across the glass counter top that housed the lotto tickets and cigarettes, knocking the Zippo light rounder with her elbow, making it spin with a crickety, squeaky sort of sound. “Sorry to bug you,” she said, her breath coming a little heavy after having walked all the way inside the 7-Eleven from the car. She held her curve of her stomach with her palm across the bottom of her abdomen. The clerk looked up from the newspaper he was paging through. “Could you help me with these for a moment? Have you ever been to these places?” she asked, fanning the pamphlets in his direction.

The clerk folded his paper and stood up, coming over to the corner of the counter she’d chosen, turning his back to the security monitor on the desk behind him. He looked down at the brochures, “They’re tourist traps, mostly, those are,” he said.

“But have you been? Are they any good? My boyfriend and I are travelling and I wanted to get a taste of the local culture,” she said. She ran her hand over her belly.

The clerk chewed his lower lip. “I reckon I wouldn’t particularly recommend none of these places,” he said, looking over them. He picked one up, “Well this one ain’t bad,” he conceded, picking up one for a local aquarium, “But sure is alotta walkin’ and you probably don’t want none of that in your, uh, condition.”

Avery nodded, “The less walking around the better,” she agreed.

He was picking through the brochures, telling her the pros and cons of each, detailing the sort of crowds and prices she could expect at each one, offering his expert family advice to her. Meanwhile, over his shoulder she watched on the monitor as Marty slid bottles of alcohol into the deep inner pockets of his bomber jacket, stuffed granola bars in his back jeans pocket and chips into the sleeves of his coat. He poked around the tiny pharmacy aisle, adding a couple bottles of cough syrup into the pockets as well. He mosied around the store for a few minutes, adding little cups of cookies and packs of gum and a box of matches. Finally, as the conversation at the front seemed to slow, he walked up with a small bag of chips, two chocolate milks and a box of safety pins, which he paid for with a ten dollar bill.

“You have a good day,” the clerk said as they headed for the door, Avery hugging her stomach. “Safe travels. Good luck with the baby. Enjoy that antique store.” He waved as they left.

In the car, Avery pulled the sweatshirt she’d got from one of the tourist trap rounders out from under her shirt. She laughed as she tugged it on over her head, her hair tumbling over her shoulder, “Jesus, he was so nice I almost felt bad stealing from him.” She shook the sleeves over her hands and held the wheel. “Now you can turn the A/C up if you want to and I won’t freeze half to fuckin’ death,” she added, turning to Marty, who was working on unloading all the stuff he’d picked up from his various pockets and sleeves. “Hey let me see those safety pins you bought,” she said, and he handed them to her as the pile of stuff at his feet grew and his bomber jacket became less and less puffy. She rolled the sleeves of the sweatshirt up over her wrists and safety pinned them there. She wished she’d taken the time to glance at the size of the sweatshirt she’d used as her baby bump. She could’ve used a medium instead of this XXL.

Marty held up a package of Chips Ahoy he’d gotten, “Just for you,” he said as he unscrewed the lid on the Yoohoo he’d bought. “Good haul,” he added. “We got some good stuff here.”

“I’m eyeballing that Robitussin like nobody’s business,” Avery replied.

“One more stop and we can go back to the hotel,” Marty answered. He took a long sip of the Yoohoo. Avery sighed, but didn’t argue, she just ripped into the cookies and stuck one in her mouth as she pulled away from the curb, the headlights of their car cutting through the dark. The radio played some terrible country song, but neither of them had the ambition to search through the channels for something else, so they rode through the streets with the song blaring until finally Marty pointed to the left a couple blocks before the hotel they were staying in, “Pull into this 7-Eleven up here. We’ll knock this one off and call it a night.”

Avery pulled in and parked the car in the space nearest to the door.

Inside, she poured herself a slushy from the ICEE machine on the back wall while Marty took his time sizing up the place. The plan was that when he gave her the go ahead signal, she’d spill the ICEE and the distraction caused by that ruckus would be enough time for him to grab hold on what he needed to. So she fiddled with mixing colors from the nozzles as he walked slowly around the store, pausing here or there to pretend to read the nutritional labels on various food products while the vigilant clerk watched from behind the counter.

When Marty cleared his throat, she turned and let the cup slip from her fingers, splashing onto the floor in a cascade of red syrupy ice. “Oh shit!” she cried out as the clerk rushed around his desk to help her out. He didn’t even see Marty duck back there the moment his back was turned. Marty started stuffing anything he could get his hands on from under the desk into his jacket. Cigarettes, lotto scratchers, a zippered leather envelope full of money, and other odds and ends.

“I’m so sorry,” Avery cried as the clerk went to fetch a mop and bucket from the closet by the beer coolers, “I didn’t mean to!”

“Is alright, is alright,” the clerk was trying to console her in his broken Indian accent. “I can clean, it take just a minute; look, look, not a problem worth your tears, miss.” He waved the mop at her and swiped it over the slushie.

Just then, several things happened at once.

A second clerk came out a door directly adjacent to the counter where Marty was crouched, prying open the cash drawer. The front window of the store was suddenly lit up as a large tour bus pulled into the lot and came to a stop at the pump. Avery, knowing the second clerk was trouble, tried to rush forward to go get the car running, and instead slipped on the slushie and landed square on her ass in the mess.

“What are you doing?!” shouted the second clerk to Marty. He looked around for the first guy, who was busy reacting to Avery’s fall, trying to help her up. “Call the police!” the second clerk snapped when the first one looked up from pulling Avery to her feet. “We’re being robbed!” The first clerk ran toward Marty.

There was only one way out from behind the counter and the clerk was now blocking it. Desperation kicked in and Marty reached into the back waistband of his pants and pulled out the gun he’d concealed there and took aim. He pulled the trigger before the clerk even realized there was a gun and the guy folded to the floor, falling on top of Marty, the blood already blossoming on the guy’s blue button-down shirt.

“Oh shit!” the first clerk yelped, dropping the mop and Avery’s hand, making her slip back to the floor a second time. She cried out in shock from both the sound of the gun, which she hadn’t known Marty had in the first place, and the surprise of hitting the hard floor again, then scrambled away on her hands and knees and got up, grabbing onto the candy shelves in front of the register for support. One of them broke and Reeses and M&Ms and Snickers and Bubble Yum and whatever else was on it went flying across the floor, joining the mess of the slushie. The clerk held his hands up in the air as Marty came around the desk, blatantly holding the cash drawer from the register in his hands now.

“Get the fuckin’ car!” he yelled at Avery, “Now.”

She ran for the door. “Don’t hurt him,” she yelled at him. The clerk had been so nice to her, she didn’t want him to be hurt.

“I said get the fuckin’ car, bitch!” Marty yelled. This had gone downhill so quickly. He tried not to think about how good of a shot of Avery’s face the security videos had probably gotten from her two falls to the floor. His stomach turned at the thought of a positive identification on them. The cops had been after them for months without having a clue what they looked like. That would be changing now. Panic rose in his throat at the thought of the cops. “Hurry the fuck up!” he yelled.

Crying, Avery ducked out the door.

“Jesus.” Marty spit, frustrated, at the floor then turned to the clerk. “Get on the floor,” he demanded, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “Just get down on the floor.”

“I sorry, I sorry, I sorry,” cried the clerk as he dropped to his knees among the fallen candy and slushie. He held his hands up as he crouched down. Marty stood there holding the drawer trying to decide if there was a way to kill the security footage, if it was worth the extra time to try.

As he was deciding, the door jingled and a guy walked in, a guy with messy blonde hair and a bright red sweatshirt, the hood pulled up, a pair of white Beats headphones around his neck. Marty looked over, the guy’s eyes met his, they stared at each other for several long seconds. Then the guy’s eyes travelled down to the cash drawer in Marty’s hands, the clerk at his feet, laying on the floor, in the mess of spilled slushie and candy and the guy’s jaw dropped. “What the hell ---?”

Marty stopped thinking. He aimed the gun at the guy. “Get down on the floor!” he yelled.

“Fuck.” The guy dropped to the floor. “Don’t shoot me, man,” he begged.

“Yes, don’t shoot us, please, you take money, just don’t shoot,” the clerk begged from the floor. “My wife need me, I make the money, she need me,” he continued.

Marty started backing away, toward the door.

Just then, an alarm went off. The whole store was filled with this larger-than-life sound and red lights flashed from the security cameras. All three of them jumped, unsure what had caused the alarm to sound - they couldn’t see that the other clerk, the one who’d been shot, had not in fact died and had reached the emergency call button located under the register. Marty swore, loud enough that they could hear it over the alarm sound.

“I stop it, I turn it off,” offered the clerk on the floor, and without waiting for a response from Marty, he started to get up to turn off the alarm.

Marty turned, having not heard him say his intentions, aimed and fired his gun right into the top of the clerk’s head, and he dropped back down to the floor.

Fuck!”

Marty turned to look at the guy crouched beside the Lays potato chips, whose eyes were wide and panic-stricken, staring at the already pooling blood under the clerk’s head. “Lay the fuck down on the floor, mother fucker,” Mart hollered at him.

The guy rolled quickly to the floor, pressing his entire body against the floor, face and all. His face was crumpled into a grimace, tears in his eyes. “I won’t tell nobody, man, I won’t tell nobody nothin’ man, I swear to Christ,” the guy sobbed.

Marty hesitated. He glanced out the window. He could see someone running toward the store from the gas pump. He didn’t feel like dealing with yet another witness, so he said, “You better fuckin’ not or I’ll come after you and make every last one of your goddamn nightmares come true,” and with that, figuring that he’d sounded menacing enough to keep the guy from talking for at least a few minutes, he rushed out of the store and ran to the waiting getaway car, where Avery was sitting in the driver’s seat, clutching the wheel, her hands shaking.

Marty passed the second guy just as he was getting to the door and moved quickly to dodge past him, keeping his head down and holding the cash drawer and gun to his chest, trying to minimize the descriptive details the guy could possibly have of him. He threw himself into the car. “Drive!” he bellowed at Avery before the door was even all the way closed. She peeled out of the lot so fast, the tires squealing on the pavement. It had started to rain and the wipers ran full blast against the window as they pulled away.





Nick lay there on the floor of the convenience store, unsure what to do. He’d never been so close to a dead body before. He tried not to think about the pool of blood that was probably growing larger by every moment over there, tried not to think about the way the guy’s brains and blood had splattered every which way from the moment the bullet struck his skull, tried not to think about the guy had cried and begged not to be shot… Nick didn’t dare to move. He could feel his tears on his cheek, rolling across the bridge of his nose, falling to the floor under his face. Every nerve ending in his body shook, and he just laid there, feeling rather paralyzed by the whole thing.

It seemed nearly impossible to believe that less than ten minutes before he’d been on the tour bus, happy and laughing with Mike and Justin and Eddie, watching Jaws on DVD and headed to the next Backstreet Boys tour date in St. Louis. The bus had needed gas and Nick had needed snacks and they’d pulled off the highway and found this particular gas station and all of that had led to this, his palms and cheek pressed to the dirty tiles of a 7-Eleven somewhere southwest of Cincinnati.

The door jingled as it opened and all the muscles in Nick’s body tightened, his eyes squeezed shut. Overhead, the alarm was still going off, echoing loudly throughout the store. Nick was sure the guy with the gun was back, sure he was about to die. He thought about all the things he’d never gotten to do, but had always wanted to do. He thought about his family, about the girlfriend he’d recently broken up with but had meant to call and apologize to that would never know he still kinda sorta might feel something for her. Thought about Brian, Kevin, AJ, and Howie whose tour buses had gone on ahead without stopping, who would find out soon that they were down one Backstreet Boy. He wondered if they’d keep singing, if they’d break up, if the fans would follow along. Shit, the fans. They were gonna freak out. Of all the ways for him to die - after everything he’d been through, all the near hits with the heart problems and the drugs and the alcohol - and here he was, gonna die by gunfire for having walked into the wrong convenience store at the wrong time.

“Nick? Holy mother of Jesus.” It was Mike.

Nick looked up, shaking, “Is… is he gone?” he asked.

“That dude? That dude did this?” Mike spun around to look but the car was already gone, “Jesus fuckin’ hellfire. Get up, get up.” He rushed over to help Nick up, pulling him up by his arm. “Oh shit, man, you seen this?” he was looking at the poor clerk.

Nick tried not to look, “He just shot him,” he cried. “He just shot him, like it was nothin’.” He couldn’t stand up, his knees were too weak. Mike pulled him up anyway, tugging his arm around his neck to support him.

“C’mon, we’ll get you out to the bus so you can sit down. Holy shit.” Mike was normally so much more put together than this, Nick thought. Usually, Mike was the calm one. He was literally paid to stay calm in emergency situations. Then again, he was also paid to protect Nick from bullshit like this happening. But he’d been playing MarioKart with Justin on the bus, though. He’d come after Nick when the bus was finished gasing up and Eddie, who’d explicitly told Nick that he had ten minutes to get in, get his shit, and get back out to the bus had told him to go make him hurry up. Now Mike understood why Nick had been taking so long.

The two of them made the way across the parking lot. Justin and Eddie were running toward the store, having heard the alarms going off. “What happened?” Eddie yelled. Justin had a panicked look in his eyes as Mike practically dragged Nick across the lot toward the tour bus.

“He shot him,” Nick cried.

“What?” Eddie’s eyes widened.

“He’s dead, he’s dead,” Nick’s voice shook with emotion, “His wife needed him and now he’s just dead.”

Mike pushed past Eddie and Justin, who followed them to the bus.

“Who is? What happened?”

“The store just got robbed and the clerk’s been shot,” Mike replied, “That’s why the alarm.”

“Should one of us go help him?” Justin asked, half turning to the convenience store.

“Guy’s very dead,” Mike replied, shuddering at the memory of the mess.

“Shit,” Justin muttered.

Eddie already had his phone out to call the police.

The door of the tour bus as opened and Nick struggled to sit on the bottom step. He leaned forward, his head between his knees, staring down at the cement. The smell of the gasoline was making his head spin, emotions swarming him, but the rain drizzling down had wet his face and the cool night air was helping him refocus, recenter. The tears had stopped, at least, either because he’d realized they were pointless or else because he’d run out, he wasn’t sure which. He gripped his knees, nauseated and shaking, the mental images running on repeat through his mind.

“Hello? We have an emergency,” Eddie was talking into his phone, “We’re at a 7-Eleven and it’s just been robbed and the employees have been killed.”

“Nick, you okay man?” Mike was crouching down beside him, looking up at his face like a person might do to a little kid.

Nick shook his head. He felt like he wouldn’t ever be okay again after that. The gunman’s words spun in his head over and over again. I’ll come after you and make every last one of your goddamn nightmares come true. He felt another wave of nausea crawl up his stomach and he jumped up, leaned over the trash can by the gas pump, and threw up into it.

Mike stood up.

“I’m not sure our location, but the alarms are going off inside,” Eddie was still on the phone, answering questions the 911 Operator was asking.

Nick’s hands curled around the edge of the cool metal waste bin. “He’s gonna come get me,” he choked, barely coherent.

“What?” Justin, who was closest to the trash bin and still only half heard Nick’s words, leaned closer.

“That dude, he’s gonna come after me,” Nick spit into the bin, trying to get rid of all the throw up taste in his mouth. “He’s gonna come after me and kill me.”

“He’s not gonna come after you,” Mike said, “I’ll fuck him up if he even tries.”

“The cops are on the way,” Eddie said, covering the mouth of the cell phone. “Nick, are you okay?”

Mike shook his head in reply.

“Someone call Jen and let her know what’s going on. We might have to postpone tomorrow’s show, we might not get out of here for awhile if they gotta question Nick and everything,” he said, and he started pacing the length of the tour bus, still on with the 911 operator until the police arrived.

“Question me?” Nick squeaked, “They can’t question me, I can’t tell them nothin’. I said I wouldn’t tell them nothin’.” He looked at Mike with wide eyes, “Please. I can’t. They can’t question me, please.”

“They gotta question you, man,” Mike said, “You’re the only witness that saw what the hell went on in there.”

“It’s the only way to help that dude’s wife,” Justin added as he pulled out his phone and started searching the contacts for Jen, the Boys’ manager. “Justice and all that.” He turned as he pressed the call button.

“Guy’s gotta know you’re gonna talk when the police come,” Mike added.

“I told him I wasn’t gonna talk, that’s why he didn’t shoot me. Then he said if I told anyone he’d come after me.” Nick felt his stomach turning over and over and over inside him. “He said he was gonna come after me,” he added, panic rising up in his throat, along with more vomit. He retched again and again into the trash bin. Mike patted Nick’s back in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

Chapter Two by Pengi
Chapter Two


Avery was sitting on the end of the bed, staring at the local news channel. They were covering the shooting at the 7-Eleven. She held the remote in her hand, her wrist limp, scared to death. The sweatshirt she’d stolen, now stained by slushie, hung around her, way too huge for her small frame. Marty was in the shower, steam poured from the open bathroom door.

“Detectives are on the scene of this fatal robbery in Cincinnati tonight, trying to piece together the details of what they’re saying is only the latest in a string of robberies thought to have been committed by the same Bonnie-and-Clyde duo they’ve been chasing around the state for some time. The couple, thought to be in their late-twenties or early-thirties have yet to be identified, but have stolen thousands of dollars in money and merchandise from various convenience stores across the state…”

Avery frowned at the blonde bimbo in her New 12 windbreaker as she clutched the little microphone, the backdrop of the 7-Eleven glowing across the street from her. It was swarmed with flashing blue police cruisers and that stupid tour bus sitting by the gas pump.

“Witness testimonies and surveillance footage are being processed by the police department and further information about the gunman and his accessory will be broadcast as soon as possible,” the blonde continued, “Back to you, Jim.”

They switched from the location view to the in-studio and Avery muted the television.

Avery looked down at her knees. She knew they were going to have a pretty good shot of herself. When she’d slipped in the slushie, she’d been staring right up at the video camera’s black dome on the ceiling. There was no way they didn’t have a perfect picture of her face. She clutched the remote tight, flexing her muscles around it.

In the bathroom, Marty turned off the shower.

She hated him at the moment. Hated that he’d not only had a gun but fired it and killed two people. That had never been part of their plans. They weren’t murderers, they were just thieves. They’d actually said that once, way back when they first started, when Avery had shoplifted a pack of condoms and a couple of those convenience store brownies because they were flat broke. They’d agreed that taking what they needed was okay, but they’d never kill for it, and eventually, they’d said, when they became rich somehow, probably from a stolen lotto scratcher they’d joked, that they’d go back and pay back all the convenience stores they’d stolen from. She’d kept a list of stores in a little notepad in her purse. She’d believed that they’d one day make it right. But there’s no way to give blood back to a dead man.

Marty came out, a towel around his waist, rubbing a washcloth over his hair.

Avery looked up.

“We’ll dye your hair,” he said, seeing the anxious look in her eyes. She’d already told him about staring up at the security camera when she’d fallen down. He threw the washcloth to the floor in the corner. He grabbed a fresh shirt out of a duffel bag on the bed. “We’ll dye it brown and cut it off.”

She ran a hand over her long blonde braid, which hung over her shoulder.

“If we knock off a couple more stores, we can save money and move to Canada,” he added.

“It’s cold in Canada,” Avery said.

“It’s cold in prison, too,” Marty said.

“We wouldn’t have this problem if you hadn’t shot the clerk,” she said pointedly. “Which you swore we’d never do.” She shook her head.

“Babe, it was a good thing I had that gun or else we’d definitely be on the way to prison,” he said. “C’mon now, you don’t even know for sure that camera you saw was working, if it was a decoy dome, you don’t know. And just ‘cos they see your face doesn’t mean they’ll find you. You’re a plain girl. We change your hair up a little bit, nobody will ever know it was you --”

Avery turned away, looking at the TV. The news was now covering some concert from earlier that evening, showing footage from the stage, panning the audience as elated twenty-thirty-and-forty somethings screamed like lovesick teenagers.

“Hey wait a second.” Marty came over and grabbed the remote from her hand.

She kicked him, “Give it back, fucker, I had it first,” she snapped as her toes hit his shin.

“Bitch!” he yelled at her as he dropped the remote. He staggered forward and picked it up, “Jesus Christ. Don’t you recognize that guy,” he pointed at the TV and turned the volume up.

“--- to see the fans and get to interact with them at the soundchecks and everything.” On the screen, a blonde guy in a sweat-soaked t-shirt was talking, a towel wrapped around the back of his neck. A blue bar at the bottom of the screen said that he was Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys. “They’re the reason we do this, they’re amazing. We love our fans.”

“And the fans certainly love the Backstreet Boys right back,” the voice over newscaster said as the video feed cut to a string of tour buses trying to get out from a huge crowd of women, all screaming and holding up signs. From one of the windows, Nick Carter waved at the news crew as the bus went by. “Channel 12 news,” the voice over ended the segment.

“That was the bus at the gas station,” Avery observed.

“That’s the guy,” Marty said, “That guy, that’s the guy that came in the store, the witness guy.”

Avery sighed heavily, “We’re screwed,” she said.

“Screwed?” Marty was staring at the TV. He muted it again as the in-studio crew started talking about some protest that happened a couple days ago downtown. He tossed the remote onto the bed beside Avery. “How are we screwed?”

“My face on the video camera, a fucking Backstreet Boy witness,” Avery shook her head, “We’re screwed.”

“Not particularly,” Marty answered.

“Of course particularly,” said Avery.

Marty rubbed his chin. He walked back over to the other bed, fishing around in the duffel bag ‘til he found a pair of gym shorts, which he tugged on, tossing the towel he’d had around his waist into the corner with the other cloth he’d used to dry his hair. He pulled the drawstrings tight and chewed his lip.

“Marty, once they get a picture of me and a good description of you out of that guy, we’re both screwed. They’ll find us in no time, dyed hair or not.” Avery turned the TV off altogether and tucked her legs up under her. She shook her head, “I should’ve gone to college like my momma told me,” she muttered. “Instead I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison.”

“We ain’t going to prison. We just need to get creative is all,” Marty said.

“Get creative,” scarfed Avery, “Yeah. Let’s get real creative. Maybe we can practice fashioning shives so we’re real good at it in our cells.” She laid back, staring up at the ceiling. She wondered how her life had become this. She’d started out okay enough, hadn’t she? Once upon a time, she’d been a good girl, right? She couldn’t quite remember who she’d been before she met Marty and let him consume her. It’d been so long. She felt lost, like a little kid in the woods.

Marty’s voice was low, conniving, “Yeah… creative.”





Nick couldn’t relax. He just kept pacing, pacing, pacing, pacing. Mike was anxious just watching him. “For fuck’s sake, will you please sit down?” he begged, “You’re going to get dizzy, this ain’t that big a room.”

But he couldn’t stop.

He’d talked to the cops, given them a fair description of the gunman, which they’d recorded for their artist to get the details fresh from his mind before they’d started to fade. Nick felt like he was being watched, like the gunman was somewhere lurking in the shadows, just waiting to jump out and shoot him in the head like the clerk. His palms were pools of sweat. He knew the likelihood of the guy following them once the bus left Ohio was on the low-ish side. Following the Backstreet Boys around on a tour was an act of stealth that only the most crazy fans could pull off. Half the time he didn’t even know where he was going next. Surely the gunman wouldn’t be able to catch up with him to fulfill the promise about making nightmares come true, right?

But he wasn’t sure enough to stop pacing.

Eddie came on the bus, “They need us to stay through tomorrow,” he said.

“No,” Nick replied, “No. I don’t feel safe. I want to leave. I wanna go to St. Louis.” He stopped pacing long enough to stare at Eddie, trying to make his point.

Eddie sighed, “They need your help still, they have more questions, they gotta take fingerprints and they want to run them through a criminal database, see if they can’t find a picture of the guy you saw. They need you to help ID him.”

Nick was frustrated. “Are you people not hearing what I’m telling you? This guy said he would kill me if I talked to the police. He is going to come after me.”

Eddie was frustrated, too. “I know Nick, you’ve told us about seventy-nine times since the police got here. But there’s nothing I can do. They’re insisting that we stay. If you comply maybe they can get everything done faster and we can get back on the road.”

Nick shook his head and turned away. “There won’t be any road to get back on if I’m fucking dead,” he said, angry. He returned to pacing.

“Can’t they forward the stuff they need him to do?” Mike asked, trying to find a middle ground.

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Eddie said, sighing loudly, “I don’t know. I don’t understand half the shit they’re saying. They’re all jargony and whatever. This is unbelievable.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And Jen’s pissed. Like I did this on purpose. Like it was my idea to stop at the one fuckin’ gas station in the world that was getting held up on purpose. Damn it.”

“I want protection,” Nick said.

“You have a bodyguard,” Eddie said back.

“Yeah fuck lot of good that did me,” Nick snapped.

Mike looked hurt, “Hey now, bro, I’m on your side,” he said, “Don’t go throwin’ me under the bus for this.”

Nick continued pacing.

“I’ll talk to them about having someone guard the bus,” Eddie suggested.

“I want a hotel room,” Nick added. “They saw the bus. They’re more likely to come after the bus. It’s like a rolling billboard sign declaring where I am.”

“We can do a hotel room,” Eddie agreed.

Nick was wringing his hands.

Eddie sighed, “Nick, you gotta calm down.”

“I saw a guy get shot in the head,” Nick snapped, “I can’t calm down.”

Eddie sighed again. “I’ll go talk to the cops about getting a hotel room,” he said, and he jogged back off the bus.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Mike said when he and Nick were alone on the bus. “I won’t let you down again man. I swear it.” He stared up at Nick.

Nick shook his head, “I’m sorry. I’m an asshole. It ain’t your fault what happened. I would’ve been pissed if you followed me in a damn convenience store, I mean I ain’t a kid. Plus who knows what wouldda happened if you’d gone in.”

“I would’ve jumped that skinny ass bastard,” Mike answered boldly.

“Exactly. Probably would’ve got yourself shot or somethin’,” Nick said. He came to a stop in the pacing. He shook his head, “Nobody gets it. I’m scared to death.”

Mike frowned.

“Isn’t there like a Witness Protection Program or something?” Nick asked.

“I think that’s only for people who witness like Mafia type stuff,” Mike replied.

“Oh.” Nick went back to the pacing.

“I don’t know for sure, though, maybe ask somebody.”

Nick took a deep breath.

Eddie came back on the bus a few minutes later. “Okay, so they’re gonna get us a hotel room and send someone over to talk about security measures for you in the morning,” he said. “Better?”

“Marginally,” Nick answered.

“Marginally is something at least,” Eddie said, and he stepped around to the front of the bus to give the driver instructions.

Mike looked up at Nick. “See? Gonna be okay.”

“Right,” Nick’s voice carried sarcasm. “If I make it through the night.”





Marty could feel his brain working a hundred miles an hour. “What if we… we kidnapped him.”

“What?” Avery sat up. “Kidnapped who?”

“The Backstreet Boy. The witness.”

“Because adding kidnapping to our list of criminal activity will put us right onto death row?” Avery asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“No. But the ransom money would get us out of the country,” Marty replied. “He’s a Backstreet Boy. He’s gotta be loaded. Surely his family and friends or management or someone would be willing to part with a good sum of money to get him back if we were to take him.”

Avery stared at Marty, incredulous. “What’re you thinking, we get a nondescript white van with a mattress and some zip ties in the back and lure him in with a Butterfinger? For Christ’s sake, we’re trying to get out of trouble, not in deeper.”

“And the only way out of trouble now is if we can get out of America. We need money to get out of the country. A lot of it.”

“Didn’t you clean the drawer out at the 7-Eleven?” Avery asked, “Why don’t we just use that money.”

Marty rolled his eyes, “That ain’t enough to get us out of the country.”

Avery sighed, “Even if this idea wasn’t completely ridiculous - which it definitely is by the way - how do you think we’d even get near that guy to kidnap him anyway? He’s a Backstreet Boy - meaning he’s unattainable on a regular basis, not to mention when he’s surrounded by a shitstorm of cops who are all literally on the look out for us.”

Marty rubbed his chin as he paced. “Okay. Good question. Let’s see. Let’s see…” He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, walked to the window and moved the curtain slightly to peer out into the street below. He hummed, trying to get the creative juices flowing. “Too bad I didn’t know who he was before, when he was in the store, I could’ve just saved us a step and taken him with me then. Think that mofo would’ve done anything to keep from getting shot. He was scared shitless.”

“Well he’s not exactly a manly man, is he?” Avery said, “Dancing like a pretty boy every night on the stage like he does. I can’t imagine it takes much to give the guy nightmares.”

“Nightmares…” Marty mumbled, and he remembered his threat in the store. “Wait… Isn’t there some sort of like witness protection something?” Marty asked, “For witnesses that are afraid that they’ll be tracked down if they talk?”

Avery sighed, “For witnesses of organized crime, like the Godfather or whatever. You might be named after him, but you, sir, are not Marlon Brando.”

A grin crossed Marty’s mouth slowly. “I’m way smarter than that motherfucker. Get up. Let’s go, we gotta get moving to make this work.”

“I’m not going out there, for all you know they’ve already IDed us and are sending SWAT teams to the hotel lobby!” Avery said.

“Not exactly a manly-man are you?” Marty teased her.

“I am not a man,” Avery said pointedly, “And excuse me for not wanting to get shot ‘til I look like a block of swiss cheese,” she added.

“And staying in the room waiting for the SWAT team is going to make it better?”

Avery crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’re gonna have to grow some balls, Princess, if you want this get out of jail free card,” Marty said with a grin.

Chapter Three by Pengi
Chapter Three


Nick jumped at the sound of someone knocking on the hotel room door the next morning. He’d sat up in the bed the whole night, staring at that door, waiting for it to be blown in Die Hard style. It seemed inevitable that the gunman would find him, like he was just passing time, holding his breath waiting for the moment to come. Mike was the only one of the entourage that stayed up with him. Eddie and Justin and the bus driver had a separate room. But even Mike seemed to be failing, his eyes getting droopier and droopier as the morning came nearer. By six, when the knock came, he snorted himself awake at the sound of the urgent rapping at the door. Nick stared, wide-eyed and anxious, at the door.

Mike walked over and peered through the peep hole.

“Who is it?” Nick asked him from the bed.

“A girl…” he paused. “Who’s there?” he called louder, through the door to the woman on the other side.

She turned to face the door, her brown hair pulled into one braid that hung over her shoulder. She had on polarized sunglasses and a gingham button-down shirt, tucked into a pair of jeans. She held up a badge toward the door. “I’m Officer Montgomery-Whitman,” she replied. “I’m here to speak with Nick Carter.”

Mike squinted through the peep at the badge and then undid the deadbolt.

“Who is it?” Nick repeated the question.

“A cop,” Mike replied as he pulled open the door.

Officer Montgomery-Whitman stepped inside and pulled her sunglasses off, looking around the room as she did. Her eyes landed on Nick. There was something slightly familiar about her to him. He stared at her, trying to figure out where he’d seen her before. Was she one of the girls that had been in the soundcheck the night before? he wondered.

“Are you Nick Carter?” she asked, looking at him.

Must not’ve been the soundcheck, he thought.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied.

She nodded, “First of all, let me apologize first hand to you for what you’ve been going through. It’s a terrible thing, what happened last night.” She cleared her throat, “Did the, uh, the department tell you I would be coming this morning?” she asked.

“The department didn’t tell me shit,” Nick answered.

Mike spoke up, “Eddie mentioned there would be someone here to talk to us about security,” he said.

“Oh,” Nick said, “Yeah, you’re right, he did.” He looked at Officer Montgomery-Whitman. “I didn’t think they’d be sending a chick.”

She frowned.

The frown made him realize where he recognized her from: she reminded him of the chick cop on Dexter.

That chick could kick some ass.

“Not that I think chick cops are any less capable or nothing,” Nick stammered, “I’m not like, sexist or nothin’, I’m just…” he realized there was no talking himself out of that, so he stopped talking altogether.

Officer Montgomery-Whitman said, “Anyway. I’m here because I’ve been assigned to your case.”

Mike had finished fastening the deadbolt again and he came back over and sat down facing the two of them, “So what sort of security measures are we talking?” he asked with a yawn. “Should I be expecting to be working overtime for a bit?”

Officer Montgomery-Whitman looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “You, sir, can consider yourself off duty. I will be the one handling the security measures for Mr. Carter until the perp is apprehended.”

“What?” Nick looked from Mike to the she-cop, “What do you mean? I need Mikey. What am I gonna do without Mike? Some dude attacks me, I don’t think no chick like you is gonna be able to stop him killin’ me dead.” He paused. “I mean that in the least sexist way possible, though, of course.”

“Of course,” she replied. Then she answered the question, “Have you ever heard of the Witness Security Program?”

Nick nodded, swallowing, “Yeah. Like on TV and stuff.”

Officer Montgomery-Whitman took a deep breath, “Well, Mr. Carter, welcome to the Witness Security Program.” She smiled wanly at him, then at Mike, then turned back to him. “I’ve come to collect you, welcome you to your temporary life, and bring you to the safe house.”

Nick looked at Mike, then back at the officer. “Where’s that at?”

“I cannot disclose the location to you until I can be assured that we are completely alone,” she answered with a glance at Mike.

Mike stood up, “Well wait a minute, you’re just gonna take him off somewhere, God knows where? How long? How will we get in touch with him?”

“Through the police department,” she replied. “He will be placed under 24-hour surveillance. Protective custody. The department will know how to contact me and I will be with Mr. Carter until the resolution of the case, when they’ve got the perp in custody.”

“Can’t they just call my cell?” Nick asked.

“You won’t be able to use your cell phone. That’s one of the best ways that criminals can track a victim is through their phones, forwarded mail, social media accounts, email…” She ticked the things off on her hands as she said them. “We can’t be taking any chances,” she explained. “These are extremely dangerous people we’re talking about.”

Mike shook his head, “You can’t just take him off to wherever. There’s gotta be a way for him to contact us.”

“Are you not listening? Contact with your former life before the perp is apprehended is the number one way that victims end up killed,” Officer Montgomery-Whitman snapped at Mike. “If you need to contact him after he is transferred into protective custody, then you can call the department and they can get in touch with me.” She turned to Nick, “Get your things.”

Nick took a deep breath. He was scared enough of the gunman that he didn’t really see any other options. “Once the guy’s caught, I get to come back and everything?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Okay,” he turned and grabbed the bag of clothes and things he’d brought in from the tour bus.

“Leave your cell phone and any other electronic devices that connect to the internet here,” she said, “So you can’t be traced without our knowledge.”

Nick rooted into his bag. “I can keep my iPod, though, right?” He looked nervous.

“As long as you disable internet service.”

He turned off the cellular and wifi and tossed it back into the bag.

Mike and Officer Montgomery-Whitman stared at one another as they waited for Nick to finish going through his bag.

Finally, Nick said, “Okay. I think I’m good.” He licked his lip. “What about, like, money and stuff? I probably can’t use my credit cards. Can we stop at a bank before we go?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly. Then she coughed, “I mean, we definitely have to stop before we go anywhere or else they could track your location by the use of the ATM,” she explained.

Mike frowned severely, “Is there anyone particular we should talk to at the police department if we need to get in touch with him?”

Officer Montgomery-Whitman paused, “Well. Yes, yes, you could ask for Mr. Scott Matthews, and he’ll know exactly how to get in touch with me.”

“Scott Matthews,” Mike repeated.

“Yes,” she nodded, “Scott Matthews.” She turned to Nick, “Okay, Mr. Carter, let’s go. I’ll give you more information in the car.”

Nick hesitated. He looked at Mike with a nervous expression, suddenly scared to be going off on his own.

“Take care of yourself,” Mike said, pulling Nick into a hug. “Stay out of trouble. Don’t give her any bullshit like you give me sometimes.”

Nick nodded.

“Don’t worry,” Officer Montgomery-Whitman said, “It won’t be long before the PD has this case figured out.” She smiled. “Let’s get this show on the road,” she added.

“See ya man,” Nick said, and he patted Mike’s back, breaking away from the hug. “You heard her,” he said, “Won’t be long.” He nodded.

Mike nodded back.

“Ready?” Officer Montgomery-Whitman asked.

“Yes,” Nick replied.

“Okay, come with me,” she said, and she led the way out into the hallway, Nick following behind her. Mike stood in the door, watching as they walked the length of the hallway, and got on board the elevator.

The doors closed and Mike took a deep breath, ducking back into the hotel room. He looked around at the room, at Nick’s phone and Nintendo 3DS sitting on the bed where he’d left them, two devices that it seemed Nick never, ever went anywhere without, suddenly abandoned. Mike picked them up and set them carefully into his own backpack before sitting on the bed, feeling kind of empty and alone now that Nick was gone. He listened to the silence for some time, then, when he couldn’t stand the quiet any longer, he turned the TV on.

“-- latest information from the Cincinnati police department on the fatal shooting last night at the 7-Eleven includes images captured from the security footage of one of the two suspects involved in the crime,” faded in a voice from the Channel 12 news station. But Mike changed the channel before they flashed the screen capture from the security tape.





“Do you have, like, I dunno, a first name?” Nick asked as the car, which smelled faintly of cigarettes, pulled away from the parking lot of the hotel, leaving the tour bus and everything else behind.

“It’s Avery,” she replied.

The moment the name was out of her mouth, she regretted it. She should’ve used an alias, should’ve made up a name, she realized. How had she and Marty not thought of that? she wondered. They’d worked so hard formulating this plan, coming up with the idea, the way she’d do it, the words she’d use. Of course the hardest part had been trying to make a $3.99 children’s toy from the 24-hour Kroger look like a real police badge. That’d taken the most time. The rest had kind of fallen into place in that thrown-together-enough-to-make-it-work-fast kind of way that things sometimes do. The details hadn’t really been ironed out to perfection and the fact that she just instinctively told Nick Carter her real name had definitely been one of those wrinkles they should’ve ironed.

“Avery. Like the paper company?”

“I guess so,” she answered with a shrug.

“I never met anybody named Avery before,” he explained.

She shrugged, “It’s not a common name. Not like Nick is.”

“I guess,” he answered. “So... where are we going?”

“The island of La Motte in Vermont,” she replied, “But we’re headed north to upstate New York for now, where we’ll stay in a hotel tonight and continue on from there in the morning.”

Nick nodded. “I like islands. I live on one in Florida. I like the ocean.”

“It’s a lake,” she said. “It’s Vermont. It’s land-locked.”

“I dunno if I’ve been to Vermont,” he said. Nick had never been great at geography and he wasn’t positive he knew which one of the states Vermont was. “Isn’t it next to Maine?”

“New Hampshire’s in between,” Avery answered.

“I’ve been there. We did a concert there once. There’s a lot of woods up that way. We been to Maine, too. And Massachusetts, but that’s more cityish than the others in New England, isn’t it? Have you ever been these places before? Do they use different safe houses everytime someone enters the program or is there like certain houses the department uses over and over again? Have you been an officer a long time?”

Avery looked over at him pointedly.

“Oh. Right. Sorry, I ask a lot of questions when I’m nervous. It’s one of the things that pisses Kevin off about me. He gets really annoyed when I talk a lot, but I never really notice it when I do it. You ever do that? Things that annoy people that you don’t even realize you’re doing, it’s just like something you do? Like talk a lot, I mean?”

Avery raised her eyebrows.

“Damn it, I’m still doing it aren’t I?” he asked. Nick took a deep breath, “Okay, I swear, I’ll shut my mouth now. Can we turn on the radio maybe? That’ll help.” He reached for the knob.

As it turned up, the news update was about to start. “And now bringin’ you the local news. An update on that 7-Eleven hold up last night --”

Avery turned the radio off quickly. “No radio station,” she said. “They, uh, they could track it, it’s satellite radio.” She cleared her throat. She had a pretty strong feeling that was definitely not true, but weak as it was it was the only argument she could come up with to keep him from hearing the update at that moment. For all she knew they’d positively IDed her, they might have a name or something. “I have an iPod plug somewhere,” she said, because she didn’t really want him to start talking again. “It might be in the glove box.”

“Okay.” He pushed the glove box open and started rooting around inside. “You smoke?” he asked, surprise in his voice.

She looked over. There were four packs of cigarettes that Marty had stolen, two Zippo lighters, the AUX cord he was looking for, and a half eaten Toblerone. “Occasionally,” she replied.

“Looks like you smoke like a chimney with that kind of stock,” he muttered, pulling the AUX cord carefully out of the rubble. “I mean I figured you did anyways, ‘cos it smells like it in here, kinda. You should get one of those Febreze car air fresheners. They really work. I know ‘cos I used to smoke,” he informed her, “All the time. I was really stressed. Did a lot of drugs, too, back in the day. I kicked’em since, though. I’m doing pretty good actually. Quit smoking a couple months ago. It was fuckin’ with my voice. I get this bronchitis, it’s kinda like chronic or whatever it is when you get it over and over. Like I get over it, then I get it again, it’s like a cycle, like it just keeps coming back, ‘cos I fucked up my lungs, with alla the smoking and the drugs and shit and it kinda blows. Especially when you’re a singer ‘cos it’s hard to sing when you got the bronchitis. I got tested once for that COPD stuff, you know, but they said I don’t have it but if I did it’d be okay because singing is actually an exercise for it and --”

Avery grabbed the AUX cord out of his hand and plugged it in, “Here, hook up your iPod,” she said, handing him the other end.

“Sorry, I did it again, didn’t I?” Nick asked. He reached in the bag and found his iPod. “I’m just really nervous, I swear I’ll stop doing it once I calm down. Really. I’m actually pretty quiet normally, like unless I have something real good to say I’m usually pretty quiet. I swear it.”

“I look forward to your calming down,” Avery said.

Nick plugged in his iPod. “What kinda music do you like?” he asked, looking down at it, biting his lower lip, “I can make a playlist. I have all kinds of music on here. I really like a wide variety. Basically anything, really. I like Journey. With Steve Perry, of course. Steve Perry’s awesome. I met him before. He’s so bad ass. I always wanted to meet him when I was a kid, but I --”

“Journey’s great, just put it on,” Avery interrupted him.

“Sorry.” Nick looked down at the iPod, scrolled through the artists screen and found Journey and hit shuffle.

Winter is here again oh Lord
Haven't been home in a year or more
I hope she holds on a little longer
Sent a letter on a long summer day
Made of silver, not of clay
I've been runnin' down this dusty road


Nick started singing along.

Avery took a deep breath.

Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'…


Avery hoped his they got the payoff they were looking for quick, or else she was gonna end up killing him anyway.

Chapter Four by Pengi
Chapter Four


Three hours later, there was a knock on the hotel room door that roused Mike from a deep sleep, the TV still running on Roseanne reruns. He snorted out of sleep as Eddie’s voice, muffled, carried through the door, “C’mon, you guys, open up. So much for not being able to sleep.”

Mike hauled himself to the door, rolling his neck as he walked, “I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” he groaned. He pulled the door open, “What?” he asked. His eyes landed on Eddie, and a officer with a long nose and a police hat tucked under one arm.

“Finally, jeez,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes as the two of them piled into the room. “Considering the fit being thrown last night over security measures, you’d think you two would be more anxious to get this meeting going.” He came to a stop in the middle of the empty room, the sound of Dan Connor yelling at DJ for whatever rascally thing the kid had done in that episode echoed in the empty room. “Where the fuck is Nick?” Eddie turned to face Mike as he came back in the room after closing the door.

“I dunno,” Mike said, “How the fuck should I know? Ask this guy,” he pointed at the cop.

The officer looked surprised.

“Are you Matthew Scott? Or was it Scott Matthews? I don’t remember. Whichever it was, is that you?” Mike asked.

“I’m Officer Flynn,” he answered. He looked around at Eddie.

Eddie stared at Mike like he had seven heads, “Who is Matthew Scott?”

Mike looked helplessly at Eddie. “I don’t know, I was up all night with Nick babbling on and on and on -- you know how he gets when he’s nervous, it’s like vocal vomit -- and I was half asleep when she came to pick him up, I don’t remember the name. It was either Matthew Scott or Scott Matthews, I don’t remember. Didn’t she tell you who the contact at the department was, for Christ’s sake? There can’t be both a Scott Matthews and a Matthew Scott there, right?”

Eddie blinked, “Didn’t who tell me the name when they came to pick up Nick?” He asked, his voice rising, “Nick went with someone? What?”

It was Mike’s turn to blink at Eddie. “What do you mean who? That chick - that chick cop. The one with the - with the - with the braid…” he waved his hand over his shoulder, “And them glasses, those polarized glasses?” He stared between Eddie and Officer Flynn, who were both staring at him expectantly, their expressions getting more and more concerned. “She was here at like six o’clock?”

Eddie’s voice was tight, tense, “There wasn’t no cop here at six o’clock.”

“She -- she knocked…” Mike waved at the door.

“Did you check her badge? Did you see the badge number?” Officer Flynn reached into his utility belt and produced a notepad. “Get a name at least?”

“Yeah she had a badge, I don’t remember the number. Like I said, it was six in the damn morning and Nick had been up all night yammering about everything from magic eight balls to solar power to zombies.” Mike paused. “Wait. Fuck. There really wasn’t a cop here? That wasn’t a cop? Then who the fuck was it? Where’s Nick?”

Eddie’s eyes were wide, “He just went with her, he didn’t like call somebody to check that was what he was supposed to do or nothin’?”

“She said she was Witness Protection,” Mike stammered, “She said she talked to you, I think.” Suddenly he couldn’t even remember what, exactly, she’d said at all. “She knew about the case, knew he was the witness.”

“More than likely we’re looking at our Bonnie,” Officer Flynn stated, “She knew the details because she’s part of the crime duo we’re after.” He scribbled notes on his pad. “Any physical details you recall, other than the braid and the sunglasses?”

“I dunno, she was brunette. Kinda tall for a chick. I mean she measured up okay against Nick height wise and everything.”

“Did she give you a name?”

“She did, I just…” Mike stammered. He bit his lip, thinking hard. “It was an M, it started with an M. It was hyphenated. M- something. Long names.” He groaned, “Fuck, I can’t believe I let him go with her. I’m the worst security detail ever.” He rapped his forehead with his fist. “Stupid, stupid idiot.”

Officer Flynn pulled a cellphone from his pocket, “I’m gonna go downstairs, find out about security footage in the lobby… Does Nick have a cell phone or any other GPS-enabled devices he might have brought with him?”

“She told him they could be traced, they left them all here, the only thing he brought was his iPod and the clothes he brought in from the tour bus last night,” Mike replied, “And the iPod’s wifi signal’s off, she made him turn it off.”

Officer Flynn shook his head, “They’re smart, these ones, they know what they’re doing.” He turned away and headed for the door at a trot, holding the cell to his ear, rambling out coded details about the new developments of the case.

Mike looked at Eddie, “I can’t believe this,” he said, eyes wide. “I can’t believe this.”

Eddie frowned.

“He better be okay, or I’ll never forgive myself, holy shit,” Mike said, his throat constricting. “I’m the worst bodyguard in the world.”




Marty was waiting for an update. He was sitting in bed in one of the rooms of the hotel, watching TV, another hour before the early risers that had left early would be expected to be gone from the room, their leftover room service breakfast an added bonus. He nibbled on the perfectly tangy bacon strips he’d found and sipped the second half of a mimosa they’d left on the dresser.

It was nearly two in the afternoon and he’d expected Avery to call before noon with an update on their progress. A part of him was starting to worry they’d been picked up somewhere along the way. Surely by now they’d figured out that Nick had indeed been kidnapped and not whisked away into the Witness Protection Program. He wasn’t sure how the authorities went about solving something like that, did they create blocks at state lines, check all the major interstates or what? He just knew Avery had been expected to call him when they reached Eerie, Pennsylvania, and that should’ve been around noon, even allowing for a couple stops she was damn late with the call.

His cell phone vibrated on the sheet next to his hip and he picked it up, recognized Avery’s phone number on the screen, and answered it, “What the fuck took you so long?”

Avery’s voice was low, agitated, and harsh, “You better get that fuckin’ ransom note out as soon as possible because I swear to God if you leave me alone with this guy much longer I’m going to kill him.”

Marty sat up, the hostility in Avery’s voice catching him off guard, “Whoa, slow down there, Princess, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on is I’ve been in the car since six-thirty and he hasn’t shut up. Did you know there are thirteen different club remixes to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing?”

“No…”

“Well I do now,” she hissed, “Because he fucking played - and sang along to - every single one of them. If I ever hear Steve fucking Perry again I’m gonna stab my ear drums out with a dull pencil.”

Marty took a deep breath, “Okay, so you’re having a bad trip --”

“If we ever kidnap another person, you are taking care of them, not me, asshole, not me. Not again.” Avery’s voice was bordering on desperation, like a crazy person about to crack.

“It was your idea to keep him alive,” Marty reminded her.

“That was before I’d spent eight hours in a vehicle with him, wanting nothing more than to push him out and watch him splatter on the highway,” Avery groaned.

“So where are you?”

“Eerie,” she snapped.

“You’re just now getting to Eerie?” Marty’s voice rang in surprise. “How did you make a five and a half hour drive into eight?”

Avery’s voice lowered even further, “That’s how often Mr. Talkative had to take a piss. Every time he saw a tree out the window he had to take a leak on it. He’s worse than a fucking dog.”

“Well, just keep thinkin’ to yourself that a couple days with him is worth several million dollars and a life on Easy Street over in Europe somewhere, bae,” he said, “Just remember the flat in Paris we talked about. Warm bread and brie every morning, cafe au lait, the Eiffel Tower views…”

“That is literally the only thing keeping me from strangling him.”

A knock at the door, followed by a latino accent calling out, “Housekeeping!” made Marty jump up from the bed, grabbing the remaining bacon and putting it into his shirt’s breast pocket, and swallowing the last of the mimosa in one gulp.

“Babe, listen, I gotta go. You stay strong, don’t kill him - not yet anyway - and I’ll get the ransom note out soon, okay?”

Avery sighed out a stream of frustration. “Okay. Hurry, though.”

“I’m hurrying,” he replied. “I’ll call you tonight. Around two.”

“My time or yours?” Avery asked.

But Marty had already hung up.

She sighed again and shoved the phone back into her pocket. They were at a Krispie Kreme and Nick was inside buying donuts and coffee, she could see him through the plate glass store front as she leaned against the car’s hood. She hoped to God he got himself a decaf like she’d told him to. She couldn’t even imagine how bad the chatter would be if he was amped up on caffeine as well as nerves.

Oh how many times she’d felt herself thinking of the gun in the cubby on the door panel of the car, left to her care by Marty, who had thought it best to get the murder weapon out of the state as well as the only witness. She’d planned to toss it into Lake Champlain when they got to Vermont, but now she was reconsidering that. She might need it to put Nick out of her misery.

Especially if he came back with caffeine.





“I was born here,” Nick said. It was a little more than an hour later, almost four in the afternoon Eastern time, and they were on I-86 headed east to I-81 that would take them north to their final stop for the night, Watertown. They were approaching Jamestown, New York. “Lucille Ball was too,” he added, “In the same hospital and everything. My mom was real proud of that, she talked about it all the time, tellin’ me how she mighta been born in the same room and all. It’s a real old hospital, I guess.” He stared out the window.

Avery was biting her lips. She’d figured out somewhere around Cleveland that if she didn’t try to answer him he’d at least take some breathing spaces between soliloquies.

“I dunno why I said was and talked, like she’s dead or somethin’, ‘cos she’s not.”

“Lucille Ball’s been dead for like twenty-six years,” Avery said.

Nick glanced at her. It was the first time she’d talked since Eerie, where she’d demanded to see the receipt for the coffee and donuts to see that he’d ordered decaf, which he had. The sound of her voice kinda surprised him after all the silence. “Well I know that,” he said, “I meant my mom. Lucy’s dead, but my mom’s alive. As far as I know, anyways.”

Avery raised her eyebrow. “As far as you know?” She had a feeling she was gonna regret opening her mouth. This statement had lifestory pending written all over it and she had a feeling that Nick would be quite long winded talking about himself, just judging on the way he looked and the fact that he clearly had a healthy-sized ego. She was probably opening a big ass can of worms that would last all the way to Watertown, only pausing for pee breaks on every other tree.

Nick shrugged.

She glanced at him. “What? You talk literally for nine hours straight and now that I actually got a question for you, you’re speechless? She must be a doozy.”

“I just don’t get along with her well is all.” He looked out the window. “My Grampa Doug used to live somewhere ‘round here. I dunno where. I was too little to remember how to get there. He moved later and stuff, but he used to live here and we’d come for visits sometimes and he taught me how to fish, me and my sisters, BJ and Leslie.” He was quiet for a long moment, took a deep breath. “That was a long time ago, though.” He looked down at his coffee cup.

Avery waited, expecting more. But no more came.

Had he finally run out of shit to say? she wondered, barely daring to be hopeful. But another glance over at him proved it wasn’t that he didn’t have anything to say it was that he was pretty choked up and couldn’t speak.

She felt a little bad for the relief she felt at his silence. Kind of.

Finally, the guilt of revelling in his silence got to her and she asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered. He watched as the last exit for Jamestown passed by and then he cleared his throat. “Anyway, where are we going again?”

“Watertown tonight, then the Isle of La Motte in Vermont,” she answered.

“Is La Motte like a city?” he asked.

She scoffed a laugh.

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a definite no,” she answered.

“So you’ve been there?” Nick asked.

Avery nodded, “Yeah. Every summer growing up. My grandmother owns a summer house there on the lake. That’s where we’re going.”

“Your grandmother’s house?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool,” Nick said. “Is your grandmother gonna be there?”

“She’s dead,” Avery replied.

“Sorry,” Nick answered. “You said owns, like present tense.”

Avery shrugged. “Well she left it to her cat, so I guess nobody really owns it anymore, but I have a set of keys.”

Nick blinked. “She left it to her cat?” he asked.

“Yes. Nancy Reagan. That’s the cat’s name.”

“As in --”

“Ronald and Nancy Reagan, yes. My grandmother was very much a republican and she loved him as a president and as an actor and yes, she named her cat after his wife. There was a beagle named Ronald, too, originally, but the beagle died before she did, which is probably a good thing otherwise the dog would’ve inherited her everyday house, I’m sure.”

Nick nodded slowly. “I’ve heard of people leaving like fortunes to their pets and stuff. Never knew anyone in real life that did it, though.” He paused. “So…is Nancy Reagan gonna be there?”

“The cat’s dead, too.”

“Oh. Well. At least she’s reunited with Ronald, I guess?” he said. “Sorry about that, too. You said that one present tense also, by the way, you might wanna work on your grammar with the deceased so people know when someone’s dead so they know to offer you condolences.”

“A minute ago you were saying was about your mother,” Avery reminded him, “So hold the judgement.”

“Well, she’s dead to me, so really the tense was okay on my part,” he said with a shrug.

“That’s strong,” Avery said.

Nick sighed, “I know.”

She clutched the wheel, staring straight ahead.

“So what’s La Motte like?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

Avery licked her lips, “Well. You ever seen the Andy Griffith show?”

“Sure,” he answered.

“Remember Mayberry?”

Nick nodded, feeling a little scared. “....yeah,” he said hesitantly. “Is La Motte like Mayberry?”

Avery laughed, “La Motte is to Mayberry, as Mayberry is to New York fucking City.”

Chapter Five by Pengi
Chapter Five


Officer Flynn had brought Mike in for questioning at the station, not because he was a suspect or anything, the officer reassured him, but because he was now the only witness to the kidnapping of the only witness. Mike was sitting in the questioning room at the police department. Officer Flynn and another guy, Detective Brody, were seated across from him. “I’m gonna show you a series of photos,” Detective Brody told him, “And I just need a straight yes or no if this was the woman who came to your hotel room this morning. Just yes or no, no I’m ninety percent sure or anything like that. Just yes or no. Understand?”

“Yes,” Mike answered.

Detective Brody paused a moment, then put the first photo down.

It was Cameron Diaz.

“No,” Mike answered quickly.

“Good job, that one was just a test.” He smiled. Then he put down the next one.

“No.”

And another.

“No.”

Another.

“No.”

He put the last one down.

Mike stared at it for a long moment. The girl in the picture was blonde, a surprised look on her face. He reached down and covered the hair and eyes with his fingers, staring at just her mouth. He looked back up, “That’s her. She had brown hair this morning, but that’s definitely her.”

Detective Brody looked up at Officer Flynn. “Well. That confirms that, then.”

“Confirms what?” Mike asked, nervous.

Officer Flynn tapped the photo, “That’s from the security footage at the 7-Eleven,” he explained, “That’s our aforementioned Bonnie. So it’s definitely the gunman and his cohort that have kidnapped him.” His voice sounded grim. He stood up and quickly left the room.

Mike looked at Detective Brody, “So what’s this mean? Do we know who this girl is besides the Bonnie?”

Detective Brody shook his head, “We’ve got people working to run it through the police database for a match, but so far no luck. So it sounds like she probably has no priors. Not really surprising. These Clyde types usually pick unusual suspects for their sidekicks, they think it makes them less vulnerable if we don’t immediately see their girls and suspect something’s up.” He paused, “We’re trying to find her on the lobby footage from the hotel, too,” he said, “Maybe we’ll get a picture of Clyde there. We really need to ID that guy. I’m willing to bet he’s got a priors list a mile long.”

Mike nodded slowly. “Do you think Nick’s going to be okay?”

Detective Brody shrugged. “Depends what they’ve kidnapped him for, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if they just wanted him to shut up and not talk, that’s a whole other strategy than, say, if they realize what his net worth is and want a ransom in exchange for his safety.”

Mike’s stomach turned.

“But we’re doing everything we can to get him home safely,” Detective Brody added as an afterthought.





“What do you mean he’s missing?”

Brian looked up from the jigsaw puzzle that was spread across the tour bus table. He held several pieces in his fist. He raised an eyebrow. Kevin was standing up, having taken the phone call from Eddie. He turned back to look at Brian and covered the mouthpiece, “Any of you guys hear from Nick today?” he asked, looking around at them. AJ and Howie were sitting around the table, too. Howie was mid-swallow on a beer.

“No,” AJ answered, still studying the puzzle.

Howie shook his head.

“What’s going on?” Brian asked.

Kevin frowned, “Nick’s apparently missing.”

“Missing?” Brian and Howie said at the same time.

“They call whatsherface in LA and see if he flew home to shag her?” AJ asked. He pressed a piece into it’s spot on the frame of the puzzle.

Kevin turned back to the phone, “Have y’all tried calling Jess?” he paused, “Isn’t that her name? I dunno, that ex he’s been going on about for the last month. The one that he broke up with for reasons unknown that he insists he’s going to get back with when we get back to LA.”

“Bruised ego,” AJ said, “That’s why he broke up with her. He didn’t bring the hoo to a whoo hoo session, if you know what I mean.” He held up a limp finger.

Kevin waved at him to shut up.

“What? That’s what happened,” AJ said defensively, “And also, her name isn’t Jess, it’s Natalie. Jess was that chick with the frizzy --” he waved his hands around his head, “Natalie’s the one with the big breasts. You know what I’m talkin’ about Brian.” AJ winked.

Brian turned red.

“He tell you that?” Howie asked.

“About her breasts? No,” AJ grinned, “Noticed that all by myself.”

“No, not about her breasts, man! About the --” Howie held up his finger limply, too, the way AJ had.

“Oh. The hoo-less whoo hoo? Nawh, she told Ro,” AJ said. “Ro told me at our mani-pedi before tour.” He snapped another piece into it’s spot.

Brian shook his head in disapproval.

Still on the phone and ignoring the whole Jess-versus-Natalie-versus-hooless-whoo-hoo conversation, Kevin said, “Well… well keep us updated.” His voice sounded worried. He hung up and came back to the table. “Guys, Nick’s seriously missing.”

“Missing?” Brian looked worried, “They don’t have any clue where he went?”

Kevin shook his head. “Well… and it’s kind of a convoluted story from what I gathered, apparently him missing has something to do with that 7-Eleven shooting that’s been on the news.”

“I saw that on the Facebook trending topics,” Howie said eager to contribute some information, “Some couple they’re calling Bonnie and Clyde is like going all over Ohio knocking off convenience stores and they actually shot and killed a clerk yesterday in Cincinnati. Too bad, too, they have a picture of the girl from the security footage. She looks like a sweet girl, you know?” He clucked his tongue.

Brian’s concern deepened, “How does Nick missing have something to do with that?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin answered. “Eddie was just calling to see if any of us had heard anything from him today, said he’d call tomorrow to tell us what exactly is going on, but that we have to call him immediately if we hear from Nick at all, even if it’s just through Twitter or email.”

Howie put his beer bottle down, “Well that sounds… ominous.”

“Tell me about it,” Kevin muttered.





Witness Protection Program Nick’s life sounded really shitty. He sat in the window of the hotel in Watertown, clutching one of the four packs of cigarettes and zippo lighter from the glovebox of the car, watching the wind rustle the trees below. He breathed the smoke deep into his lungs, appreciating the way the nicotine seemed to instantly smooth his crinkled nerves, and tried not to think about all those pictures of this is your lungs on cigarette type pictures he’d seen.

Behind him, Avery was painting her toe nails a shade of mauve on the bed.

“How far is it to this shit hole you’re dragging me to?” Nick asked for the thirtieth time since they’d checked into the hotel.

“About four hours, give or take,” Avery replied. “Depends if the ferryboat is on the New York side or the Vermont side when we get to Lake Champlain.”

Nick sighed a ton of smoke right against the window pane.

“There’s indoor plumbing, though, right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Don’t say of course, the way you’ve verbally painted this place it sounds like the 1700s,” he said. “You’re sure about the plumbing?”

Yes,” she snapped, “I’m sure about the fucking plumbing! And even if there wasn’t, there’s plenty of trees there for you to whiz on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“Nothing. Just that you peed on every tree from Cincinnati to here, so it’s not like you’re gun shy about using your winkie in the woods, that’s all,” Avery said. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and screwed the cap onto her nail polish. Marty would be calling soon. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone.

Nick stared at the phone with a look of envy on his face. He’d been jonesing all day for his phone, like a crack addict without a hit. He wasn’t used to not checking it periodically. And by periodically meaning at least once every ten minutes, sometimes more frequently than that even. He licked his lips, watching as she swept her thumb over the screen.

“Are you… texting?” he asked.

His voice sounded curious in the way that a fat guy on a diet might sound asking a skinny guy who was eating a donut if it was delicious.

Avery looked up. “Just making sure I haven’t missed any calls.”

“Oh yeah,” Nick nodded vicariously. His hand was naturally curved like he was holding his own phone in his hand, like he was imagining what it would feel like to be checking to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls.

She raised her eyebrows.

“You should send a text message,” he suggested, biting his lip.

This was pathetic.

The phone vibrated in her hand, Marty’s number popping up.

“Fuck yeah,” Nick groaned at the sound of it vibing.

“Okay, I’m gonna take this in the hallway so you don’t like fucking orgasm over the thought of answering a phone call over there,” she said, rolling off the bed and scurrying into the hallway, leaving him huddled up with his cigarettes and dirty thoughts. She just hoped she didn’t catch him like masturbating to the thought of a text message when she got back. After that display, she could almost picture him with a magazine article on emoji in the bathroom bangin’ it out. She shuddered at the thought of it.

“You make it to Watertown yet?” Marty asked when she answered.

“Yeah, made it about three hours ago,” she replied.

“Nick Carter still with us?” he laughed.

“Other than a slightly disturbing sexual arousal over the vicarious use of my cell phone, he’s just peachy,” she replied.

Marty’s voice twisted with confusion, “Say what?”

“Nevermind,” Avery replied. She lowered her voice, just in case Nick had his ear pressed to the door to hear the conversation. “So… did you send out the ransom notice yet?”

“Not yet, no,” Marty answered.

“What? Why?” Avery demanded.

“They haven’t gone public yet,” he said. “Until they go public, I’m hesitant to send a note because they might be less inclined to send a huge sum if nobody knows about it.”

Avery sighed, “They might fucking thank us for taking him off their hands,” she conceded.

“By the sounds of it,” Marty snickered.

“My hell is not funny,” Avery said.

“It is a little funny,” Marty replied. “One day, you’ll laugh with me.”

“I better.”

“You will. When we’re sitting on the porch of our chateau after a long day at the Louvre, you’ll laugh at these memories,” he assured her.

Avery sighed.

“So anyway,” Marty said, “Now you’re sure nobody on this island of yours is going to recognize him?”

Avery said, “Well maybe but I’m going to tell him we’re changing his name and we’ll just be like ‘he gets that a lot’ if someone brings up the Backstreet Boys. But I highly doubt anyone on that island will recognize him even if he was wearing a sign that said hi I’m a Backstreet Boy. I cannot stress to you enough how small this place is. There’s a permanent residency of like thirty people, and eighty percent of them are over the age of 60. Two are Catholic priests and four more are nuns.”

“Good. The less people who see him the better.”

“The house is about as far from civilization as you can get,” Avery reassured him.

“Best news I’ve heard all day.”

Avery leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, listening to Marty breathing. His breath rasped a little leaving his lungs, probably from all the chain smoking he did. She missed the whistle of breath exiting his nose. “I miss you,” she told him.

“Yeah, you too,” Marty answered.

“I can’t wait to see you again. Please hurry with the note and everything. I just wanna end all this mess and get back to our old lives already,” Avery said.

“Don’t we both, Princess,” Marty said. Then, “Oh did you get money out of the ATM already with him? Did you happen to get a statement balance or anything? Any clue what kinda figures we should be asking for on this ransom?”

“We got money out but I didn’t see a balance anywhere. Had him take out the max the ATM would let him, though,” she said, “It let him take almost a thousand dollars and he didn’t even bat an eye.”

“Must be nice,” Marty commented.

“Yeah,” Avery said.

“We’ll know soon,” he promised. “Okay. Gotta go.”

“I love you,” Avery told him.

“Yeah, you too,” he answered, and he hung up the phone.

Avery sighed and put it back in her pocket. She slid the keycard and stepped into the hotel room. Nick was laying on the second bed, on top of the sheets and everything, his headphones on, staring at his iPod. He looked up as she walked in and moved one of the ears of his headphones. “Any news?”

“Nope,” she answered. She grabbed one of the complementary lavender-scented lotions from the bathroom counter and crawled into her own bed before cracking open the lotion bottle and rubbing it into her arms, especially her elbows. She made a mental note to swipe the rest of the little bottles, it smelled so good. And also the soaps and shampoos.

Nick sighed, and pulled the other side of his headset back over his ear.

Avery was just glad he wasn’t talking incessantly.

Chapter Six by Pengi
Chapter Six


Avery had been sitting up in bed for at least an hour now, glancing over at Nick every few minutes, hoping he’d wake up so they could get going on the rest of the drive to the Isle La Motte. He’d fallen asleep with the headphones on and other than his head having slumped so his chin rested on his shoulder, he hadn’t moved the whole night.

Honestly, it was too quiet in the room and she kind of - in a weird way - missed the unending chatter.

Quiet gave Avery way too much time to think.

She chewed her lower lip and inched to the edge of her mattress, extended her leg so it rested on the edge of his mattress and gave the whole thing a good kick. The bed was so plush that the kick barely moved him, so she did it again and again, rocking him until finally he stirred, taking a deep breath in through his nose and blinking his eyes open. She pulled her legs back onto her own bed and pretended to have simply noticed he was awake.

“Well look who decided to join the land of the living,” she said.

Nick looked over, pulled his headphones off his head, his eyes registering disorientation and a pinch of confusion. He glanced at the sun streaming in the windows. “I fell asleep?” he asked. He shuffled himself into a sitting position. “What --” he paused to yawn, a big bear yawn, accompanied by an arm stretch, “-- time is it?”

“Almost eight,” she replied.

“Damn, I slept a lot,” he said in surprise.

“Have a rough time sleeping usually?” she questioned.

“Not usually,” Nick answered, “But lately. Yesterday.” He folded his headphones up and wrapped the cord around them, carefully replacing them in their fancy ass case. Avery couldn’t help but think that his fricking headphones probably cost more money than she’d had in her name in the past year - not counting stolen money, of course. “Guess it says something for how much safer I feel now that I’ve got police duty,” he smiled at her in a kiss-up sort of way, then added, “Even if she’s snoring like a beast in the next bed.”

Avery’s eyebrows shot up, “I don’t snore.”

Nick laughed, “Oh yeah you do,” he said with a smirk, “A lot. Loud.”

“Bull shit. You had headphones on all night, you wouldn’t even know,” she argued.

“Why do you think I kept ‘em on?”

“You couldn’t hear a snore over headphones like those,” Avery accused, “You’re lying.”

“Oh yeah? You think so? Ask the people in the next room over, I’m sure they heard you, too,” he said meanly.

Avery narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t the best at taking any kind of criticism - although she’d always wished that she could be one of those women who let things like this roll off their backs with a laugh and a smile, that just wasn’t her style. She frowned. “Get up already, Jesus Christ, we’re already late enough without you sitting here wasting all this time bitching about everything.” She rolled off the bed and snatched up her suitcase from the floor and started going through it for a fresh change of clothes.

Nick was still smirking. “I wasn’t aware we were on a tight schedule.”

“Yes. We are. We have to be to the house by tonight and the ferryboat eventually stops making trips to the island,” she replied.

“I thought it was only like four more hours away?” he asked.

“The way you have to take a pee every five seconds it’ll be like eight hours, and besides, we have to stop for food and supplies before we get to the island, so hurry the fuck up already,” she snapped.

“Aye, aye captain,” Nick said. He got up and grabbed a fresh shirt from his bag, tugging the old one off over his head and balling it up. “Isn’t there a store on the island?” he asked as he pulled the new shirt on over his unruly hair. He looked over at her.

Avery hesitated, “Well. Kind of. But --” she cringed. “Trust me. You’ll see when we get there.”

“Okay,” he replied. He paused. “I’m ready, by the way.”

Avery was still gathering fresh clothes. “What?”

“I’m ready to go.” He stared at her pointedly. “So hurry the fuck up already.”

Avery glowered at him, “You didn’t even brush your teeth or anything.”

Nick shrugged.

“That’s disgusting,” she said, and she huffily carried her clothes to the bathroom.





Marty was up and charging his phone in a coffee house, sipping a latte and eating a bagel, a luxury he was allowing himself as reward for being thrifty the night before and saving hotel money by sleeping in some kid’s fully furnished tree house in the suburbs. He chewed the asiago bagel slowly, watching a particularly short-skirted high school girl placing her order at the counter, half wondering what it would be like to gnaw on her instead of his bagel, when his phone rang.

It was Avery. Probably checking on the status of the ransom note. He didn’t much feel like explaining why he hadn’t done it yet, so he put the phone on mute and shoved it back into his pocket. She just didn’t get how this stuff worked, she didn’t have the patience to wait for the opportunity to maximize the payoff.

The high school girl moved closer to him, stirring her sugar and cream into a plain coffee. He was surprised, he’d have pegged her for a froo-froo drink sort of person, like a java chip frappuccino or something. He liked surprises, and he liked no-nonsense drinks, and the girls that ordered them, too.

Avery always ordered the java chip frappuccino froo-froo drinks.

He bet this no-nonsense drink girl would understand why he was waiting to deliver the call for ransom without badgering him about it.

His eyes followed the hem of her skirt as she walked to her table across the cafe, giggling with another couple girls.

Marty leaned forward as another patron sat down, blocking his view of the girl and swept the crumbs of his bagel into the little paper bag that had housed his bagel. The new comer shook out a local newspaper, revealing a front-page cover story about the 7-Eleven shooting, along with a picture of Avery’s face, taken from the security camera.

He felt a chill tremble it’s way down his spine and he got up and walked out of the cafe quickly.

Marty walked down the sidewalk, clutching his cup. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cellphone. She’d left him a voicemail.

”We’re getting ready to leave Watertown,” she’d said in the message, ”I was just calling because reception gets choppy and stupid up in La Motte because it’s so close to Canada and so far from, like, everything else and other than moose antlers in the woods there’s not much to bounce reception off of up there, which I get is like part of why you thought my grandmother’s place would be perfect to bring him too but also it means I can’t call you as much without taking a jog to the other side of the island where the reception comes in okay…” She’d sighed here. “I just miss you. But whatever. Hope you’re doing okay. Love you.”

He rolled his eyes.

She said that every now and then, and he hated it because he didn’t feel it back. It’d always been more business than pleasure for him. Well, that’s not strictly true, there was definitely pleasure, just more in a businesslike manner is all. He tried to keep her at arm’s length. There was no telling when he might have to ditch her to save his own skin and that was always easier when he was not emotionally attached.

But emotionally attached or not he had to admit that seeing her face on the newspaper had really gotten to him. He didn’t think it was newfound love or anything, though, that had caused the nervous streak in him. Rather, he was pretty sure it was because if they had that clear a shot of her, then it was only time before they find one of him, too.

It was a lot harder to hide yourself when you’re a dude than when you’re a chick. Chicks can dye and cut their hair and look like completely different people. Ain’t much you can do to disguise a guy that way.

Marty thought about calling her to tell her about the papers, but changed his mind.

He didn’t feel like trying to dodge that I love you she kept trying to throw at him.





Somehow, they’d managed to only take four and a half hours to make it from Watertown to Champlain, and Nick had to bite his tongue to resist gloating that his pee breaks hadn’t resulted in extending the trip as much as she’d insisted it would. They were just a couple miles south of the Canadian border. Literally, a couple miles - 2.48 miles, to be exact. Or, as the sign pointed out in a Canadian-friendly way, a mere 4 kilometers. Nick stared at a sign that informed them of such as they sat at a red light, about to pull into a grocery store parking lot. He squinted ahead on the road, like he was trying to see the new country from there.

Avery turned into the lot and wove the car between the lines until she found a spot and parked. She turned and grabbed her purse from the backseat.

“So what’s the game plan here?” he asked, staring at the grocery store.

“Uh… buy food?” she asked.

“No kidding. I meant as far as, you know, The Program.”

Avery stared at him as she slid the strap of her purse over her head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like, you don’t seriously think I’m gonna just walk in here and not be recognized.”

“I do, yeah,” she said with a nod, and reached for the door handle.

Nick laughed.

She turned back. “What?”

“You dunno what you’re dealing with,” he said, “Obviously.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Enlighten me,” her voice was dry.

Nick had a really arrogant looking smile on his face, somewhere between a smirk, a chuckle, and a condescending smile. “I’m sorry Officer,” he said, “But the ladies -- especially the Canadian ladies -- they go a liiiiiittle bit wild over me and it’s really not my fault, or their fault, it’s just my natural animal sexuality that gets ‘em.”

“Animal sexuality,” she repeated in a doubtful tone.

“Mmhm,” Nick nodded. “My fans, they could find me anywhere.”

“I think you’re safe,” she replied, “We are in the middle of buttfuck no place, Nick. Your groupies aren’t going to be hanging around the local Price Chopper waiting for you to arrive.”

“They always find me, even in the middle of buttfuck no place.”

Avery took a deep breath.

“So I just wanna be prepared. What’s the game plan? I wanna know so when they approach me asking for my autograph and a selfie with me I can know what to say to ‘em?”

Avery got out of the car.

Nick followed a second later. “Dude, this is not an insane question. This is a very real question!”

“Could you be a little more full of yourself?” Avery asked as she walked swiftly along. Nick easily kept stride with her. “Like seriously, if you try real hard you might be able to shit gold the way you talk about yourself. Or do you already do that? Do your farts smell like chocolate chip cookies? Do you piss rainbows?”

Nick smirked.

“Stop smirking at me!” she said as they approached the building.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” Nick stopped as they stepped onto the curb and touched her arm so she did, too. “In a completely not-being-an-arrogant-asshole way: how am I supposed to respond to someone recognizing me should it happen?”

Avery hadn’t really thought about it much. She’d just thought about how pitiful and empty La Motte always seemed when she was a kid and assumed there’d be nobody there that would recognize a Backstreet Boy if they fell over one. Most of the residents of La Motte were well over sixty. She shrugged. “I dunno, what do you usually do when all these ladies come after your animal sexuality?” she asked.

Nick shrugged, “Give’em what they want.”

“Okay. Ground rule. There will be no sex at the safe house,” she stated firmly, and started walking to the door.

“Sex? Who said anything about sex?” Nick looked at her with a flabbergasted expression, “I don’t fuck’em, I just give’em a thrill. Most of ‘em practically orgasm if I just look at’em right -- like this --” and he let his face drop into a grin so dazzlingly white, with just the right amount of suggestiveness to the folds of his mouth that Avery could actually see how a woman might wanna fuck him just because of that smile. For a second anyways. Because in the next second, he’d walked directly into the door.

Nick bounced back off the door, his face recovering from his Fuck Me I’m Sexy Carter Grin into a look of bewilderment. “What the --?”

“It’s called a door,” Avery said, holding open her side as a mother with an infant strapped to her in one of those baby backpack things went through. “You pull the handle and it opens. It’s like magic.” She stepped through, leaving him outside.

Nick studied the door a second, then pulled it open and followed Avery. She already had selected a grocery cart. The smallest grocery cart Nick had ever seen. Well, like of a full cart anyways. Whole Foods had these little half carts that were perfect because they had cup holders and everything, but this wasn’t one of those, this was supposed to be an actual grocery cart and it looked like something that a kid might play with. He half wanted to flip it over and find the Fisher Price logo on it.

“Not used to non automated doors, huh?” Avery asked.

“You know the last time I saw a door that wasn’t automatic?”

“The hotel,” Avery said. “You had to push and pull those doors open, too. And I’m willing to bet that fancy tour bus of yours isn’t equipped with automatic doors, either,” she said.

“I mean in a store,” he answered, glancing back at them as they walked into the produce section. “It’s like the fuckin’ stone age.” He turned around. The whole store was smaller than his house in Los Angeles. There was a grand total of seven aisles. “Holy mother of Jesus,” he muttered. “This is the whole store?” He looked at Avery.

“Welcome to the North.”

“Is this the store that you said wasn’t a store that I’d understand when we got there?” he asked.

“No this is the last real store before that one,” she answered. She started picking up fruits and vegetables and putting them in the cart.

“This is a real store?” he asked. He shook his head, “Fuck.”

Avery cleared her throat, “If I was you, I’d stop bitching about the validity of the store and start picking out food for you to eat for the next week.”

“A week? All at once? But I dunno what I’ll want later in the week. Why don’t we just come back tomorrow?” he asked.

Avery picked up a bunch of bananas, “Because it’s another hour to the island and that’s a long way to go everyday.”

Another hour?” Nick stared at her incredulously. “And this is the last real store? Bullfuckin’ shit. Is it really?”

“Yes,” she replied, bagging the bananas and putting them into the cart.

Nick took a deep breath. “I’ma need another cart just for the cereal aisle…” he muttered and he wandered back to the doorway to get another cart.

Chapter Seven by Pengi
Chapter Seven


“Okay. I’m officially worried about Nick,” AJ announced, letting himself onto Kevin’s tour bus.

Kevin was laying across the couch seats, watching a movie on Netflix. He paused the playback and sat up, “Just let yourself in, why don’t you?”

“Ain’t like you’re gettin’ laid in here like the old days,” AJ answered. He switched gears back to his original intent, “Dude, I texted Nick yesterday and that mofo ain’t answered yet.”

Kevin nodded, “I’m havin’ the same problem. We all are.” He took a deep breath, “Eddie hasn’t called me back yet to explain what’s going on, and I, too, are getting worried about him.”

AJ threw himself onto the couch next to Kevin. “I wasn’t worried ‘til it’d been twenty-four hours without any text messages. You know that asshole averages 20 texts a day? Just to me.”

Kevin nodded.

AJ gnawed his lip. “You think he’s okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he’s Nick, I mean, he has to be okay. Right?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin replied again.

AJ folded his arms over his chest.

“I’m gonna call Eddie.” Kevin stood up and got his phone off the table, where it was sitting plugged into it’s charger. AJ sat forward eager to listen in as Kevin dialed the phone number.

“Hello? Hello? Nick?” Eddie’s voice was anxious.

“No it’s Kevin,” Kevin said. He paused, “I take it you ain’t heard from Nick, then.”

“No,” Eddie replied despairingly.

“Neither have we,” Kevin said. “So yesterday, you were in a rush to hang up. You said Nick missing had something to do with some… hold up?”

Eddie sighed. “The night before last, we needed gas and Nick was whining he had to pee and get snacks, so we pulled off the highway and go to this 7-Eleven… Well we start gassin’ up the bus and Nick goes inside and apparently the store was being held up, so he sees this guy get shot in the head and he freaked out, obviously…”

Kevin rubbed his forehead, “Oh Jesus.”

“What?” AJ asked, and he got up and inched closer until Kevin tilted the phone so they could both hear.

“I know. So after he comes back out as the gunman peels off, and he’s all upset, babbling on that the gunman’s gonna come for him. Well we call the cops and reluctantly Nick tells them everything and then he was panicking so we asked the PD to come talk to Mike about heightened security…”

Kevin couldn’t imagine the level of nervous talking Nick must’ve been doing since.

If they listened real close, they could probably hear the unending stream of consciousness that Nick would undoubtedly be unloading to anyone with ears within listening distance to him over that kind of anxiety.

“This is where the story gets kinda fuzzy. See, Mike and Nick had a separate room and this person comes to their door with a police badge and says Nick’s gonna be in the Witness Protection Program --”

“It was Mafia he witnessed?” Kevin’s voice was sharp with surprise.

AJ’s eyes widened.

“No,” Eddie said, “Which is one of the reasons we know whoever this Witness Protection Program gal was, she wasn’t for real. Unfortunately, nobody realized it until after she left, taking him with her.” Eddie paused.

AJ looked at Kevin, then at the phone. “Wait the fuck up,” AJ said thickly, “So Nick’s not missing, he’s been fuckin’ kidnapped?”

Eddie took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said finally.





“Okay this area’s gotta been named by a Blockhead,” Nick announced. He was staring at a map of the ferryboat’s destinations while they waited in the car for the boat to return for it’s next trip across Lake Champlain. He giggled like a little kid.

“A blockhead?” Avery asked, glancing over.

“Yes,” Nick was ecstatic, “There’s a place called Knight Island,” he said, “And it’s in Jordan Bay.”

Avery stared at him.

“Dude. Jordan Knight.”

Avery raised an eyebrow, “The New Kid on the Block guy?” Her voice dripped with just a little bit of disdain.

“Dude is fuckin’ awesome, we’re friends,” Nick said. “But look. Knight Island in Jordan Bay. Isn’t that funny?”

“Sure,” Avery said with a shrug.

“No seriously, I wish I had my phone ‘cos I’d tweet the crap out of that.” He folded the map so the island showed center of the folding. “I’m saving this. When this is all over I’ma give this map to him. He’s gonna think it’s bad ass as hell.”

Avery pulled a lip gloss out of her purse.

Nick sighed and turned back to the map. “My friends would appreciate it,” he mumbled.

“I’m not your friend, I’m your police duty,” Avery replied. “You aren’t supposed to like me.” She put the lip gloss away and leaned back in her seat, watching the little bridge that would allow them into the boat, cat and all, whenever it arrived.

“Well that’s good,” he said, “‘cos it’d be damn hard to.”

Avery rolled her eyes.

“You are a generally unpleasant person to be around,” he commented. “Anyone ever tell you that before?”

“Of course,” Avery replied. “I deal with unknowledgable douche pants like you all the time. Of course it’s come up before.

“Okay, see, you say I’m a douche pants, but that only proves my point about your unpleasant-ness, there by making me un-douche pants because I’m just being honest.” He waved his map at Avery like the point he’d just made had struck home.

She sighed.

“You sigh a lot,” he commented.

“You make me sigh a lot.”

Instead of answering, Nick unrolled his car window and leaned out, looking at the water. They’d driven across a mile long bridge from New York into Vermont, and now they were just awaiting the ferryboat to the actual island. Nick had been fascinated by the lake since it had first come into view. “I think I see the boat,” he commented with enthusiasm.

Avery hated the boat.

It came into dock, though, no matter how hard she willed it to stay away, and soon there was a guy waving for them to drive forward onto the deck. Avery drove the car over the little bridge and onto the boat. Once it was situated, they got out and Nick practically raced to the rail, looking down at the water splashing against the hull of the boat. He breathed deeply, missing the smell of salt in the air that he normally associated with large water bodies. Avery joined him, though with less enthusiasm, and held onto the railing tightly with both hands, trying not to get seasick. Nick let out a hooting yell when the boat lurched forward a few minutes later, once the other two carloads of passengers had been boarded. Avery’s fingers tightened all the more on the railing.

“I love boats,” Nick commented, eyes gleaming with ecstatic-ness as he looked around at Avery.

She looked surprised when he stared down at her.

“What? Is my admission to boat loving a surprise to you after how excited I’ve been about getting on this thing for the last hour?” he teased her.

“No, no it’s not that,” she replied. “It’s just your eyes. They’re blue.” She bit her lip.

Nick laughed, “Yeah.”

“I didn’t notice before.”

“Aren’t cops supposed to be like observant?” he teased.

“Yeah, but --” Avery hesitated.

“But what?”

“I’m color blind,” she said. “I can only see this one particular shade of blue. And it’s exactly the shade your eyes are right now.” She stared up at him. “Wow.”

“Oh,” Nick said. He wasn’t sure how to react. He felt himself trying not to blink, like letting her see the blue, but the wind coming off the water made it hard, and his eyes kept drying out. He finally turned away. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be color blind. “Is it like a black and white picture?” he asked.

“They’re all black and white pictures to me,” she reminded him.

Nick scrunched up his nose. “That’s weird.”

She shrugged, “Maybe. It’s not weird to me. To me, seeing the color is weird. I don’t know how I didn’t notice your eyes before now, the color usually stands out.”

Nick shrugged back, “I dunno, I’ve been anxious, they kinda change color when I’m anxious. They’re only blue if I’m happy or whatever… they get more gray-ish kinda when I’m not.”

“So despite all the bitching you were just doing about me being an unpleasant person, you’re actually happy, huh?”

Nick laughed, “Yeah. I guess so.” He paused, “But I mean, I’m on a boat. Boats make me happy.”

“You are on a boat, yes,” she agreed, and she gripped the rail tighter again. She’d almost forgotten in the rush of seeing the blue in the flecks of his eyes.

Nick stared out at the water. “Can you see the blue in the water?”

“Some but mostly it’s the wrong shade,” she replied.

“Damn,” Nick said. “Well, it’s pretty.” He paused. “I’m glad I didn’t like ask you what your favorite color is or something.”

Avery laughed.

“How do you answer when people ask that?”

“I just say blue,” she answered. “Or if I’m in a mood to freak them out I say some color that I’ve heard is really horrible. Like puce or something.” She shrugged, “It’s all the same to me. Varying shades of gray.”

“So weird,” Nick muttered.

They stood there, side by side at the rail, watching the island come closer and closer, but not get much bigger. Nick consulted his map again. “So this whole island is only like seven miles?” he asked.

“Yup. It’s small.”

Nick glanced up at the island, then back down at his map. “Is the ferryboat the only way on and off? It looks like there’s a bridge up here connecting to Alburg.” He ran his finger over the map.

Avery nodded, “There is, but it’s not as fun as a ferryboat.”

He stared at her, couldn’t really argue, and looked back down at the map. “Good to know there’s more than one way off the island though, should we need it,” he commented. The wind threatened to rip the map out of his hands and he caught it only just in time and shoved it back into his pocket. “So what’s this house we’re going to like?”

“It’s a lake house,” Avery answered with a shrug, “It’s on the lake, lots of trees around it. There’s a little beach behind it, a dock, raft a little ways into the water, you know. The works. We used to have a Tarzan rope swing that we used to jump into the water a lot but I don’t know if it’s still there, that was ages and ages ago.”

“Did you come up here often?”

“Every summer,” Avery replied. “From the weekend after school let out until the week before it went back.”

“So you grew up here,” he said.

“Basically,” she nodded.

“How’d it become a safe house?”

Avery shrugged, “We just figured it would be the safest place is all,” she said. “Nobody’s gonna expect you to be here. Most people don’t even know this place exists.”

“I didn’t know it existed,” he conceded. “So what’s there to do here?”

“Not much.”

“Great.”

“There’s a shrine to Saint Anne on the northwest side of the island, that’s the biggest tourist draw, that and the Goodsell Ridge Preserve, which was once a quarry and is just basically a big field of rocks that happen to have a lot of fossil markings on them, so you see a lot of geologists poking around there. There’s an apple orchard, and a… well it’s a barn attached to an old house, but it’s called an art museum and they have Sunday tea and concerts.”

“Concerts?” Nick’s voice pitched with excitement.

“Don’t get excited,” Avery said, shaking her head, “I’m not talking Guns N’ Roses, I’m talking some ancient woman and a piano that’s slightly off key.”

“Oh.” The disappointment in his voice was quite apparent.

“But you’re not here to be entertained,” Avery pointed out.

“Yeah,” Nick agreed.

The ferryboat docked, sending a jolt through the boat deck and Avery stumbled into Nick, her face landing squarely onto his chest. He caught her and righted her carefully, “Whoopsie Daisy,” he said. She grabbed the rail and looked slightly seasick. “If you hate the ferryboat so much, why didn’t we take that bridge?” he asked.

Avery shrugged, “Because getting to La Motte on the ferryboat is how my parents always did it, I guess. It’s tradition or whatever.”

“Fair enough,” he said, “Can’t break tradition, I get it.”

They walked back to the car and climbed inside, and when they were directed she drove over the little bridge off the boat and onto the land. Avery was glad to be back on solid ground. Honestly, part of the reason she’d wanted to take the boat was so that he would think there was only one way on and off the island, she’d wanted to stunt his ability to escape, should he realize what was really happening. She made a mental note to try to make that map disappear as soon as possible.

Nick stared out the window. So far, it seemed like La Motte was nothing but trees - giant ass pine trees so thick they seemed like they were a million years old. The floor of the woods was covered with orange pine needles and pinecones, and squirrels ran up and down the trees in droves, carrying nuts in their mouths as they ran along, their little squirrel talons gripping the bark like Spiderman on the side of a skyscraper.

They seemed to pass nothing but trees.

Then they came to an intersection. A group of four houses, a barn, and what looked like an oversize garage. “Welcome to downtown,” Avery said with an air of sarcasm as she crossed over the intersection.

Nick glanced back, turning around in his seat to see the buildings disappear among more trees behind them. “That’s it?”

“Mhm.” Avery’s mouth was pressed in a thin line.

Nick turned back to face forward. The car emerged through a field for a moment and he could see rocks and more trees in the distance. He frowned. Then they were plunged back into trees again and came to a cross road where the one they were on ended in… well, the lake. “Wait. Wait was that seriously the whole width of the island we just drove?”

“Yes,” Avery replied, turning south on the crossroad.

“But that wasn’t even two miles. It says it’s two miles across. That was like… a mile and a half.”

“It’s only two miles across at it’s widest point,” Avery replied.

They passed a couple houses, set way far off the road into the trees with long winding driveways. Passed a couple mailboxes that didn’t seem to belong to anything at all. A sign that announced they were passing the preserve she’d talked about and then nothing for a really long time except the trees. Nick was starting to feel like they’d maybe found the end of the world.

Finally, Avery turned into a driveway he almost hadn’t seen at all because it wasn’t paved or anything. There were no markers, no mailbox. The driveway was rough, exposed roots and potholes in the dirt making it bumpy, and it wove in a swervy sort of way through low ferns and thick trees. Then they broke through the line of trees into a wide open lawn with a gentle slope that led up to a hill and on the hill sat a squat little wood-and-stone house with a semi-circle of trees surrounding it, broken only by the shore of the lake, which was down a curving path that wound around to the back of the hill the house sat upon.

“Welcome,” Avery said as she came to a stop, “To the safe house.”

Chapter Eight by Pengi
Chapter Eight


Safe, maybe.

Moth ball scented and abandoned since God-knows-when, yes.

Most definitely.

Nick sneezed the moment they walked through the door and dust was stirred up. They were on a porch, not even the actual house yet, and there were cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling that were so big he didn’t wanna imagine the spiders that created them. He rubbed his nose as Avery undid the lock on the front door and they stepped inside to find even more dust. She flipped a light switch and the place kind of hummed a moment before lighting up.

“It’s been awhile,” she said.

“Yeah, I see that,” he said, looking around.

The furniture was covered with sheets of plastic held down by bricks and dust kind of pooled on the plastic covers. There were paint cans on the floor in the breezeway, which had three doors - one, straight ahead, led to the living room, which had a big window that overlooked the lake, which was slowly turning orange from the sunlight. To the left, it led to a kitchen, and the right, a short hall with three doors that he assumed were the bedroom doors. There was no upstairs, and didn’t appear to be a downstairs, either.

Avery walked straight ahead into the illuminated living room, right to the wide window and stared out. The room sort of fanned out; the shape of it reminded Nick of a seashell or something. There were bird turd on the window. “Well, we’ll have to clean up a little,” she said, and she turned, kicking a brick off one corner of plastic, and started rolling the plastic up, revealing really outdated furnishings that would’ve been outdated even the last time the plastic had been off them. In fact, staring at the asparagus green tweed fabric of the couch, Nick was pretty sure the living room hadn’t been not-outdated since about 1974. He sneezed again at the dust the plastic was kicking up. “Maybe more than a little,” Avery admitted.

Nick rubbed his nose, “It’s like the apocalypse in here. I’m pretty sure this exact scene was on The Walking Dead once.”

“Minus the zombies,” Avery said.

At that exact moment, there was a knock on the door.

Nick looked back at the door, his eyes wide, then turned to look back at her.

“Stay out here,” Avery said as she stepped out of the living room, walked up to the door and peeked out the side window. There was a man in a tan and green sheriff’s uniform on the porch, back-to the door, looking at the car. She glanced over her shoulder to be sure Nick was out of view, then pulled the door open slowly, peeking out, her heart racing. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Avery Montgomery?” the sheriff asked, turning to look at her, his eyes covered with dark sunglasses and the shade of his wide-brimmed, stupid-looking hat.

“Uh huh,” she said slowly.

“It’s me…” he pulled his glasses off, “Billy Tanner.” He grinned real big at her.

Billy,” she said, surprised, “You’re still here? Damn.”

“More like here again,” he said, “I moved for a piece to go to the Academy. It’s mighty nice to see you, it’s been a fair while.”

“Sure has,” she answered, nodding.

Billy Tanner grinned, leaning against the door frame, and Avery took a step back, holding the door. “So what brings you back to these parts?” he asked.

Avery shrugged, “Just… you know… visiting.”

He nodded slowly, glancing around. Then his eyes lit up as he focused on something past Avery. “Well hello there sir,” he called, “Nice to meet you.” He turned to her, “Were you going to introduce me to your male friend there?”

Avery turned around to see Nick had peeked around the door frame of the living room and been spotted. His face was apologetic as he stepped forward and shook Billy Tanner’s hand. Avery’s stomach knotted itself up and her mind spun into over time. Pressured, she blurted, “Billy, this is -- Chad -- he’s my -- my fiance.” She smiled brightly. “We were coming up to see about -- about fixing the place up to -- to maybe sell it.”

Nick shook Billy’s hand, then glanced at Avery with a fleeting look of confusion before he turned back to Billy with a grin.

“Oh. You’re gettin’ married.” Billy looked let down. “Well. Congratulations,” he added, catching himself. His handshake tightened on Nick, and lasted a couple beats too longer than it should’ve.

Clearly, there’s history here, Nick thought.

“Thank you,” Avery replied. “Now. Did you want something in particular?” she questioned.

He shook his head, “Just checking in. Saw a strange car pull in the driveway. Thought I’d investigate. Make sure the old place was okay.” Billy had perfect teeth except one of the canines was crooked, out too far from the others, giving him a sort of awkward, lop-sided look to his grin.

“Well, it’s just me, so all’s well,” Avery laughed. “I’ll let you get back to your beat.”

“Alright,” Billy agreed, putting his hands on his utility belt importantly. He paused, looking around the porch. “Y’all ain’t really thinkin’ of sellin’ are ya?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“We need the money for the wedding,” she said quickly.

Nick stared at her, amazed how quickly she’d spun the lie out… also wondering how in the hell she thought he looked like a Chad.

“I’ll check back in on you. How long are you staying?”

Nick raised his eyebrow at Avery with interest. This was a question he was itching to ask, too, because he was pretty positive that the Isle La Motte was going to suck. A lot.

“We aren’t sure,” Avery answered casually. “However long it all takes,” she replied. Which was the most honest answer she could give.

Billy Tanner nodded, “Well. Well okay then. I’ll see you around.” He stepped backward and pushed the screen door open and stepped down into the yard, walking toward his truck, which had a magnetic police logo stuck to the door.

Avery watched until the truck’s tires were kickin’ up dust.

Nick looked at her. “So what’s his story?”

She swallowed and turned back to the house, closing the door, “One of the other summer kids from around here,” she replied. “His grandmother and mine were friends, we were together a lot when we were kids.” Avery shrugged, “Not much else to tell besides that, really.”

“Y’all ever… hook up?” he asked.

Avery pulled the front door open instead of responding and said, “We gotta get the groceries inside.”

Nick grinned and rushed after her, practically dancing foot to foot. “This is all very Nicholas Sparks-y,” he commented, “Like the Notebook only with less douchebaggery.”

Avery rolled her eyes, “Oh stick around, there’s definitely enough douchebaggery to go around in Billy Tanner for the both of us,” she said.

“Funny y’all both became cops, huh?”

Avery nodded, “Yeah.” She pulled open the back door of the car and started stringing grocery bags around her wrist.

Nick frowned, “Wait. If he’s the local police, how come he didn’t know already that we were comin’?” he asked.

“What?” Avery stood up, a bunch of bags strung ‘round her hands.

“Well back in Cincinnati, when Mike asked how he could get in touch with me, you told him through the police department,” Nick said, “And you said that your PD would contact this PD and they could relay messages. So if that’s true, how come that guy didn’t already know we were here?”

Avery thought quick. “It’s a need to know basis,” she said. “The chief here knows, but Billy’s not chief he’s just a pee-on, you know? And he’s not very bright, either,” she added, “So he doesn’t get to know everything. It’s need to know only.”

Nick nodded slowly, letting this information sink in, “Okay,” he said finally. Then, “So how come my name’s gotta be Chad?”

“Because that’s the name I gave you.”

“But… I wanna be something more manly. Chad sounds stupid. Chad sounds like a loser. I wanna be cool. I wanna new name. Like Shaq or Thor or --”

Avery stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

“-- or Bruce Wayne,” Nick finished. He grinned.

“Yeah. No. You’re Chad,” she replied and she carried the groceries toward the house. “Grab the last handful there, Chad?” she called, and disappeared onto the porch.

Nick flipped her off behind her back, then grabbed the rest of the stuff. “I’d make a good Bruce Wayne,” he muttered to himself, “Chad’s a sissy name, I ain’t no sissy.” He shouldered his way onto the porch and was fighting with the knob on the door, carrying the grocery bags on his arms, when he heard Avery shriek inside, followed by the sound of clattering pots and pans. He dropped the bags onto the floor and bolted through the door, his heart pumping adrenaline like nobody’s business.

Maybe it was partly because he’d just been whining about being more manly or something, he wasn’t sure, but he felt like a superhero as he leaped into the kitchen, right over the pile of grocery bags she’d left by the foyer doorway, and looked around for what dangers had alarmed her, ready to fight to protect her. If only he’d had this streak of superheroism at the 7-Eleven, he might’ve been able to keep the whole thing from happening.

Avery stood, back against the stove, staring at the pantry door, clutching her heart.

“What’s wrong, what is it? Who’s ass do I gotta kick?” Nick gasped, looking around.

“Mouse,” Avery choked, pointing a shaking hand at the cupboard.

Nick’s superhero attitude deflated. “Mouse? Where?”

“Shelf, shelf, bottom shelf,” Avery said. She was as far pressed to the opposite wall as the appliances would let her, sliding further away so that she was now leaning against the fridge.

He walked over to the pantry door and bent down, looking at the bottom shelf, and sure enough, looking just as petrified as Avery, was a little mouse. Nick looked around, saw a big soup pot that Avery must’ve dropped, and held it up to the edge of the shelf. He swiped his hand toward the mouse, shooshing it into the pot.

“Oh my fuck, don’t touch it, you asshole!” Avery screamed, seeing Nick reach into the cupboard.

“It’s just a mouse!” he yelled back.

“It could have a fuckin’ disease!”

“It’s not diseased, it’s just hungry,” Nick said, and the mouse scurried around in the bottom of the pot, it’s little feet making scraping sounds against the nonstick surface, and he stood up. “See, look, it’s kinda cute.” He held the pot out to Avery for her to look, and she shrieked again.

“Get that thing away from me!”

Nick laughed, “Jesus,” he shook his head and walked back out the front door and across the lawn to let the mouse go by the woods.

Avery sank onto the floor in the kitchen, tears in her eyes, “Holy shit.” She breathed.

When Nick came back a moment later, carrying an empty pot, she pointed, “Throw that thing away, I’m not cooking using anything that’s had that in it.”

“Just wash it,” Nick said, tossing it into the sink.

“It’s had mouse in it,” Avery answered, “You don’t know where that thing’s been.”

“He’s been in the cupboard,” Nick replied.

“We need mouse traps,” Avery declared. “Those ones with the - the snap.” She made a hand motion like the snap coming down.
“No! That’s inhumane.” Nick looked deeply offended.

Avery made a face, “It’s inhumane for them to be in my pantry!”

Nick shook his head, “You haven’t been here in how long? Of course there’s gonna be mice. The place looks like nature reclaimed it a decade ago. Newsflash, there’s probably spiders big enough to rope and ride’em in here, too, and maybe even a snake or two judging by the grass out there.”

Avery looked sick.

Nick stepped up to the sink, pulling the hose nozzle out to attempt to clean the pot, but when he turned the knob for the faucet water nothing came out. He turned to Avery. “I thought there was running water here?”

Avery struggled to her feet, still wary of the cupboard. “There is,” she answered.

Nick waved his hand at the faucet.

Avery frowned, “I’ll call the water company.”

“Brilliant,” Nick snapped, and he went back out to get the groceries he’d left on the porch as Avery studied the pot. She glanced over her shoulder at him pulling the bags in through the door and snatched the pot out of the sink and put it into the small garbage bin next to the door. It didn’t quite fit so it sat on top at a weird angle. She grabbed the bag closest to her and inched back toward the cupboard, armed with one of Nick’s boxes of Cheerios and gingerly stepped forward to put the box on the shelf, her eyes scanning constantly for other eyes to be staring back.

Nick came back into the kitchen, put the bags down, saw the pot in the trash, made a face, rolled his eyes, and wandered back out into the other room. “So ridiculous,” he muttered as he went.

“What was that?” Avery yelled, her cheeks hot.

“I said it’s ridiculous,” Nick yelled from the other room.

Avery dropped the bag onto the floor and went out to the living room where he was looking around at all the dust. “What’s ridiculous?”

“This. This place. It’s disgusting. You people couldn’t get like a fuckin’ clean place for a safe house? Do y’all know who I am?” He put his hand on his hip, full swing diva style, and stared at Avery. “You’d think being a celebrity and all that I’d get like preferential treatment but instead I’m stuck in the middle of buttfuck no where on earth, in this moth-ball-scented, rodent-ridden, dust-consumed, no-running-water hell hole, with the biggest fuckin’ girl the police force could possibly stick me with.”

Avery’s jaw set.

“Yeah that’s right, I called you a girl,” Nick sneered, “A little girl. Screaming over mice. What the hell good are you gonna be if the fuckin’ gunman shows up? You gonna scream and slam your bad self into the stove then, too?”

“Lots of people are scared of mice, asshole!” Avery yelled.

Nick yelled back, “You have a fuckin’ gun, how are you a’scared of a mouse?!”

“What does having a gun have to do with being afraid of a mouse?” Avery snapped, “What’d you want me to do, shoot it?”

“I just wanna feel like someone’s actually trying to keep me safe,” Nick snapped, “Isn’t that the whole point of the witness protection program? You’re not doing your job very good.”

“Me being afraid of a mouse doesn’t mean I’m not doing my job!” she yelled.

“It does because you’re the biggest pansy on the force, I bet.”

Avery glared. “You’re a fucking asshole,” she snapped and she turned and left the living room, headed back to the kitchen. She couldn’t stand to look at him another minute. She hated him for saying all that, though she didn’t really know why, it’s not like she was really a cop, so his words shouldn’t have stung at all. Who cares if he thought she was a shitty cop? If he really believed she was a cop, no matter how shitty of one, then she was doing her real job just fine. She slammed the grocery bags around, pulling the stuff out of the bags heatedly, her frustration venting by the slamming of food packaging onto the cupboard shelves. As an added bonus, the noise would probably help keep the mice away. At least she hoped it would.

Chapter Nine by Pengi
Chapter Nine


“Backstreet Boy Nick Carter was reported missing this weekend by the band’s management team after the singer allegedly witnessed the fatal robbery at the 7-Eleven store in Cincinnati, Ohio, following the band’s last tour date. Subsequent dates have been postponed or cancelled until further notice by Ground(Ctrl), and a public statement is expected later this afternoon…”

“They won’t waste any time, do they?” Eddie flicked the TV off with a twitch of his wrist on the remote control. He sighed, leaning forward to cup his forehead in his hands.

Officer Flynn was sitting at the makeshift desk he’d set up in the hotel room, which had become the official control room headquarters of the Find Nick Carter campaign. He had papers spread all over the desk, and was sipping from a mug of steaming coffee with the picture of a cartoon cow that said de-calf, though the liquid it contained was anything but. A plate at his elbow held a single sugar-coated donut. It had once held three. “Time wasted is time better spent on trying to find him,” Officer Flynn said.

Mike looked at Eddie with annoyed eyes.

Officer Flynn’s systematic study-the-facts-and-paperwork approach to helping find Nick was frustrating, to say the least. Personally, Mike felt like he couldn’t sit still. If he wasn’t up pacing, his one leg was bouncing up and down with anxiety he didn’t know how to vent. He couldn’t understand how Officer Flynn could sit there and pour over paperwork. If it was him, he’d been out walking the streets desperately. He pictured himself driving slow through Cincinnati shouting his name out the window like he was looking for a lost dog.

“Through the peephole, the badge looked real,” Mike muttered for possibly the millionth time.

It’d become a sort of mantra, something he muttered every now and then, not because he was prompted to by anyone accusing him, other than himself, it was just something to say when his mouth felt that it, too, couldn’t be still.

Nobody even looked up when he said it.

Eddie threw the TV remote onto the bed and stood up, walking over to the desk and peering over Officer Flynn’s shoulder. He was sifting through black and white images of females that had been arrested in the past five years on his laptop, the picture of the girl from the 7-Eleven propped against the keyboard. Next to the computer on the desk he had a folded map of the state of Ohio, circles drawn around a few points on the map. Each point had a number on it.

“What’s this?” Eddie asked, waving his finger at the map.

Officer Flynn didn’t even glance at it. “Places where our Bonnie and Clyde duo have hit,” he said. The markings were all over the place. There didn’t seem to be any kind of rhyme or reason linking the places, just dots on a map.

“What’s with the numbers?”

“The number of places we believe they’ve struck in each city,” he answered.

Eddie sighed. “So he could be anywhere.”

“The odds are that he is within state lines,” Officer Flynn answered. “Our Bonnie and Clyde haven’t struck outside of Ohio before, and we have no evidence to tell us that they may have left the state at this time.”

“But we’re so close to the Kentucky border,” Eddie pointed out. “Could’ve been like a ten minute drive south, basically. Are Kentucky patrol cars keeping an eye out?”

Officer Flynn shook his head, “They ain’t in Kentucky.”

“You don’t know that,” Eddie said, frustrated.

Officer Flynn looked up. “Which one of us is a police officer?” he asked.

Eddie sighed and turned around, going back to the bed and setting himself down again. He glared at the ugly pattern on the carpet. “Where could they possibly have put Nick Carter that he hasn’t been spotted yet by a fan, for Christ’s sake?” Eddie groaned. He rubbed his temples.

“The BSB CIA are failing us,” Mike agreed, and, despite the situation, he chuckled a little. “They always know where he is. Maybe we should take to the fuckin’ fan forums.”

Eddie laughed, too.

Officer Flynn turned around, “This is not a laughing matter,” he said. He shook his head in disapproval, then turned back to his work.

“Well, it’s out there now that he’s missing thanks to the friggin’ media,” Eddie said, waving at the silent TV. “They’ll be all over that in an hour. If there’s a fan out there that’s seen him since he went missing it’ll be all over Twitter soon enough.”





Avery was still fuming, slamming things around in the kitchen. Nick had pulled all the plastic off all the furniture in the living room, smashing it into a big dusty ball that he pushed out onto the lawn, and now he was standing there staring around a room of ugly furniture. There wasn’t even a TV. He sighed and turned around, headed to explore the other rooms the opposite direction from Avery.

Sure enough, the three doors off the hallway proved to be a bathroom and two bedrooms. He used the bathroom, remembering after peeing that the water wasn’t running, and went back to the hall to check out the bedrooms, wiping his hands across the thighs of his pants. One room, the master room, was done out in this rustic teddy bear and plaid theme and he cringed at the red and black plaid and the bears everywhere. Avery could have that room, he thought, and he backed out and opened the door to the other room. It was smaller, but that was okay, he preferred smaller spaces anyways. It was done in greens, too, which was his favorite color. So he settled himself onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, the door wide open.

He could still hear Avery muttering to herself about what an asshole he was.

Nick rolled onto his side and looked around the room. It was basically bare. Guest room, he thought. Or maybe witness room.

Finally, he stood up and went over to one of the book shelves, letting his eyes scan titles. Mostly the books in there were crappy sci-fi, like the nerdy version of Harlequin romance novels, the type books with a shit ton of bad writing available freshly regurgitated every month.

There were a few classics, too, like the Lord of the Rings books and the Mars Chronicles and Brave New World and that sort of thing. He ran his hands over them. He wasn’t much of a reader. He turned back to the hallway and went out to get his bag from the foyer, planning to get his iPod and lay on the bed ‘til he fell asleep.

Avery was sitting on the floor, back against the stove, knees to her chest, arm over them, head in her arm.

Nick hesitated, holding the bag’s shoulder strap in his hand. She didn’t know he was standing there, he could easily just sneak off and pull those headphones on and ignore her very existence. But Nick wasn’t that kinda guy, a fact he acknowledged with a sigh as he gave in, dropped the bag back to the floor, went out to the kitchen and sat down next to her.

Avery didn’t move.

He elbowed her gently to get her attention.

Avery looked at him.

He took a deep breath, “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

Avery looked away.

Nick sighed. He felt bad for upsetting her, even if she'd been kind of a bitch to him she still wasn't as terrible a police duty as she could've been. He could've ended up with some fat lazy cop who did nothing but sit around and slurp donuts or something. Avery beat that, at least. So he nudged her again.

She shuffled an inch away.

"Y'know, I got this friend," he said, "Big guy, really works out, you know? Has biceps like bazookas. Anyways, he came to my place in Key West this one time, down in Florida, and we go out on my boat and we're off on this island and I got this little hibachi grill and we're cooking. Well the food gets the gulls attention and next thing you know, here we are sittin' around on these rocks and this seagull swoops down and lands on the rock next to him. He about pissed himself. You ain't never seen nobody run like the way he ran. Scared to death -- of a bird."

Avery had looked up at some point during the story and she stared at him now with wet eyes. "I'm not particularly fond of birds either," she said. "My sister had a parakeet once, that nasty little sonofabitch scared the bejesus out of me. Always peckin’ and staring at you with its beady little eyes… He was a killer, that one.”

Nick tried not to laugh at the thought of a killer parakeet. "Anyway. My point is, everyone is scared of something, even the people who we think are too big or powerful -- or armed -- to be." He looked at her meaningfully. He just wanted her to know he was sorry, even if he was bad at getting the actual words out.

Avery sighed.

"I'm scared of stuff, too," Nick said, "I mean, if I wasn't we wouldn't be here, would we?"

Avery glanced at him. Little did he know his being there had nothing really to do with his fear at all, but more about Marty being aware of the likelihood his bank account balance being rather high. She didn't say anything.

"C'mon," he said pleadingly, "This place is boring enough without you giving me the silent treatment on top of it."

Avery still wasn't sure why she was so angry at him, even after thinking about it for awhile she hadn’t come up with any reasons - nor had she managed to cool down much. Maybe it was because he'd made her come back here, or because he'd made her leave her life she was with comfortable back in Cincinnati, or because he'd made it so she couldn't imagine a happily ever after with Marty anymore that didn't include border hopping and police dodging for the rest of their lives. Maybe it was because he'd caused the nightmares that plagued her dream - a single shot sounding, falling into the deep pool of red slushie below… She'd awakened a dozen times in the last couple nights, her heart racing, unable to breathe as though it was her that had been shot, as though it was her falling, as though she was drowning, falling deeper and deeper in blood red water.

Of course even Avery knew none of this stuff was Nick's fault exactly. Or at all, really. He was as much a victim as she was.

Really it was Marty's fault.

Really she was mad at Marty.

But Marty wasn't here. Marty was off some place in Cincinnati, forming and hopefully executing Step Two of their Grand Plan while she was exiled off with Nick. So she couldn’t get mad at Marty too much.

Nick however -- Nick was there. Nick she could be mad at. So she'd be as mad at him as she wanted and he would just have to deal with it.

In that spirit, she stood up and stomped out of the kitchen, leaving him there on the floor.

Nick shook his head as the door down the hallway slammed shut and he flipped his middle finger high in the general direction of her. He struggled up to his feet and grabbed his bag off the floor and went back into the bedroom he'd chosen and threw the bag across the room. He sat down on the bed and pulled the pillow under his neck.

Fuck her, he thought. He could play the silent treatment game as well as anybody. He pictured never speaking another word to her for the rest of the time they were here. He wouldn't crack, he told himself. No way. Avery would just need to endure the silence, unless she wanted to talk first, then maybe --- if the words she said were “I’m sorry”, then maybe --- he would accept and allow her the courtesy of hearing the sound of his voice.

He fell asleep fuming, plotting his passive aggressive revenge.





The next morning, Nick woke up at the very first breaks of dawn as the sky was turning violet and orange. His legs were stiff and his muscles tense from the long car rides. He got up and tugged on his sneakers, tying the laces quickly, headed for the door, stretching his arms as he went.

The air was chilly, so he flipped the hood of his grey sweatshirt up onto his head and pulled the strings tight to his chin, his headphone wire snaking down his chest to the kangaroo pocket, where his iPod was cradled gently, playing a mix of 80’s rock songs, and he took off jogging down the length of the driveway, past the line of trees and out onto the road. He tugged the map from the ferry out of his pocket and followed West Store Road north.

He’d spent some time studying the map, memorizing the fairly non-complicated circular route that would give him approximately 3 miles for every lap he did, similar to the route he jogged back home in around his gated housing community. He puffed the cool morning air in and out of his lungs with the precision his trainer had taught him, trying to strike his feet on the ground to the beat of the music he was listening to.

As he ran, the sun came up and painted the clouds brightly, turning the sky into bright blue with cottony white clouds hanging above the earth. He liked the feeling of the seclusion of the trees and the pounding of his sneakers on the pavement beneath him. He passed by a couple houses, mostly just trees. The lake lay to his left as he ran for the first stretch, and he was sad to see it go as he turned right onto New Road.

There wasn’t anything new about New Road. It was all woods with veins of tiny shack-type homes sprouting off to the left and right. A campground that had a couple RVs with paper lanterns hanging from their awnings stood among the trees. The next turn was a right onto Main Street, which must’ve been Main only because it had actual lines painted onto the pavement. There were more houses on Main Street, at least. He passed one painted a violent, 1970s-eyeshadow blue color with a pathetic looking cow standing in a wide pen to one side.

Further on, he passed what looked like a farm with a little shed-sized cafe out front with a little sign street sign boasting they had homemade apple cider donuts with cinnamon sugar. Several trucks were parked in the driveway there and a flag pronounced that they were open. Nick glanced over as he jogged by, only to find himself being watched by several people milling around the trucks… including the cop that had come by the house the day before, who was leaning against his police truck holding a mug of steaming coffee.

Bobby? No. Billy.

The guy tilted his ugly ass hat Nick’s direction when their eyes met, and Nick waved a hesitant arm as he passed by and the cop turned to the guy standing next to him to say something.

Another mile down the road and Main Street turned back into West Shore Road and Nick was running with the lake to his left again as he rounded a curve and the driveway of the safe house loomed into view. He felt his lungs burning from the fresh air and decided he only needed to take one lap this time - promising himself that the next day he’d do two. He turned down the driveway, his jog slowing down to a slow trot and then a walk as he reached the house.

He bent to clutch his knees when he came to a stop, shoving the headphones and sweatshirt hood off.

“Where the fuck were you?!” Avery came running out the door of the house.

Sticking to his passive-aggressive revenge plot, he didn’t answer, he just stood upright and passed by her, climbing the porch steps and going into the house. She followed, her face puckered in anger. “Nick…” she snapped, “Nick!

He went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water he’d bought the day before, unscrewing the cap and swallowing half the bottle in one go. “Nick, where were you?”

He lowered the bottle, stared right at her, shrugged in a haughty, non-apologetic manner, and pushed by, headed for the bedroom, his headphones around his neck, taking another swig of water.

Avery stared after him, incredulous, then bolted to catch up before he could close the bedroom door, catching it to keep it open. She stared at him as he plugged the iPod in, folded the headphones and put them in their case in his bag, then laid on the bed, arms behind his head, feet crossed.

“Are you punishing me for last night?” Avery demanded.

He still didn’t answer.

“Talk to me, you son of a bitch,” she snapped.

Nick shook his head.

“No?”

He smiled.

Avery sighed. “Okay I’m sorry for giving you the silent treatment last night, alright? Are you happy?”

He ran his hand behind his ear, like he was hard of hearing.

“I said I’m sorry, asshole.”

Nick grinned, “You could’ve left the asshole part off of that, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Where were you?” she demanded.

“I went for a jog,” he answered.

“A jog?” Avery raised her eyebrow.

“A jog,” he answered.

“A jog,” she said with a groan. “Next time leave a freakin’ note, I thought you took off or something.” She shook her head and leaned against the door frame.

“Took off?” he asked.

Avery sighed, “Yeah.”

“Where would I go?”

“I don’t know!” she cried, “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

Nick raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything. He wondered fleetingly why she’d think he would take off before they’d caught the gunman that was after him - but then he passed the thought off, figuring she’d probably thought that he meant it when he’d said he didn’t feel safe with her.

But he wasn’t sure he’d meant it at all.

Chapter Ten by Pengi
Chapter Ten


Avery snuck out of the house later that afternoon, while Nick was in the shower once the water had finally, finally been turned on. She stole quick glances back at the door as she stood by the car in the driveway, dialing Marty’s number and waiting until he picked up.

Earlier, when she’d woke up and found Nick’s bedroom empty, the door wide open with not even a trace of him to be found anywhere in the house or by the lake, she’d called Marty in a panic…

”He’s gone,” she’d sobbed into the phone.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Marty’s voice was sour.

“Gone - Gone. Like he’s escaped.”

“He found out you ain’t a cop?” Marty sounded exasperated. “Fuck. How long? How far could he have gotten?”

“I don’t know!” Avery wailed. She didn’t want to admit she hadn’t checked on him at all since she’d gone to bed the night before. He must’ve figured it out when she was afraid of that damn mouse, she thought. Must’ve put two and two together, must’ve run for that bridge. She wondered how long ago he’d left, if he could possibly have made it across yet, if he was on the mainland and if he’d found someone to bring him home yet. Were there cops on the way to arrest her? Oh God, was Billy on the way to arrest her?

“Go find him. Now.” Marty’s voice was sharp.

“Find him? Find him where? I don’t even know where he went.”

“I don’t give a fuck where he went, you need to go find him. Now.” And like that, Marty had hung up on her without a single other word spoken.

Avery had felt stung, like she’d been slapped in the face. She’d stumbled to the door and there he’d been - Nick, that is - standing all doubled over in the driveway. The prodigal returned, just like that. She’d been so relieved and so infuriated at the exact same time… She remembered a time she’d been in a minor car accident after stealing her mother’s car. She’d stared at Nick the same way her mother had stared at her that night, with a flood of angry tears and relief at the same time.


“He’s here,” Avery said quickly instead of a greeting the minute Marty answered.

Marty’s exasperation was evident. “Good. You know, need to stop bitching about him 24-7 and start working on making the fucker happy to be with you. Whatever it takes. Don’t forget, he runs and we lose all the money we’re posed to make off this. Either that or you gotta just chain him up and get it over with.”

Avery rolled her eyes, “He might notice he’s been kidnapped if he’s chained up, Marty.”

“Or think you’re a kinky woman,” Marty chuckled.

“Marty,” she said in her best warning tone.

“Well… well fuck it if he does know he’s been kidnapped,” Marty said, “It doesn’t matter if he knows. He’s gonna figure it out eventually when we return him to the wild.”

Avery could hear through the phone that Marty was smoking. She wondered where he’d gotten the money for more cigarettes, since he’d left all his packs in the car that was currently out in the driveway. She wondered if he’d knocked off another store, if he’d spent all the money from the 7-Eleven till on smokes.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea he knows,” she said. “He’s a big guy, I wouldn’t be able to keep him here.”

Marty puffed out smoke into the phone, “Well. That’s why you need a big chain or a big rope. Something the Nickopotemus can’t chew through.”

“He’s not fat,” Avery said, “He’s lean. Just… he’s got some muscles packing there. And I’m not exactly Annie Oakley or Wonder Woman or whatever.”

“No shit,” Marty snapped. “You know, none of this shit would’ve happened if you hadn’t fucked up in the 7-Eleven to begin with. You were supposed to make sure there was only the one guy there,” he accused. “The first guy never would’ve been shot if we’d know he was there. And you were supposed to watch the front door in case somebody came in while I was robbin’ the place and you didn’t do that either. So don’t bitch about having to watch him. You didn’t get the short end of the stick, you got fuckin’ justice.”

Avery sighed. “I didn’t mean to fuck up, okay, Marty?” She shook her head and leaned against the car, sighing.

“I’m just saying, you don’t need to be fucking this up any worse than you already have,” he said.

“I know,” Avery replied. “I know. He was just out for jog, though. That’s all. He’s back now, I haven’t fucked anything up --”

“Yet.”

“I’m not going to fuck anything up Marty. He didn’t go anywhere, okay, everything’s fine.”

“You don’t know that everything is fine,” Marty said hotly. “You don’t. And you won’t know, either. You’ll never know. Somebody could approach y’all at the most unexpected moment because they recognize him. Someone could easily have cable, just because your grandmother didn’t doesn’t mean there ain’t nobody on that island that has cable… and his fuckin’ face is on every channel practically.”

“That’s just down there, I’m sure,” Avery said, “A 7-Eleven getting knocked off isn’t national news.”

Marty’s voice was sharp, “But a missing Backstreet Boy is,” he said. “The whole fuckin’ country gives a shit, Ave. But other than the danger it poses for you up there, it’s good because if we let the world panic a little more, we’re looking at a really sweet ransom deal. We just gotta keep his face from being seen by people that can fuck over the plan and we’re in the gold, babe. Rolling in the gold. All the way to Venice or Paris or Berlin or Johannesburg or Sydney… wherever you wanna go, Princess.”

Avery sighed and rubbed her forehead. She wanted all those places, any of those places, as long as Nick Carter wasn’t there to whine through them, as long as she was back with Marty and comfortable and happy again. “Well we gave him an alias and everything. Just in case.”

“An alias won’t help much if they approach him, thinking he’s the missing Backstreet Boy and that he’s been found and he realizes that they’re looking for him,” Marty pointed out.

“So I’ll make something up if we do,” Avery replied. “Tell him it’s part of the program or something.”

Marty said, “Just make sure you have some good strong rope on hand and a place to put him if he finds out. This is a multimillion dollar pay off, Ave, not some seventy dollars in the till from a gas station. This is big time. It’s what we need in order to survive, in order to have any future. At all. Together or apart.”

Avery looked up and saw Nick coming out the front door, his wet hair sticking up every which way. She didn’t have time to ask what he meant by together or apart or to even stop to consider the implications set forth by such a statement. “I know,” she said hurriedly, then added in a more professional voice, “Well thank you for checking in, Chief, I appreciate you keeping us updated on the case, sir.”

Marty laughed, “Atta girl. Take care of our booty, Princess,” and he hung up.

“Have a good day sir,” Avery answered to the silent hum of disconnect as Nick walked up.

Nick had a t-shirt hanging around his shoulders, chest bare, his jeans hanging loose at his hips. “Hey,” he said as he stood on the bottom step of the porch, the screen door open, “Was that news from back home?” He looked eager.

“Just a quick check in with the Chief is all,” she replied.

“Oh,” he answered, “Did he have any messages from me? Did they get the gunman yet? Do they have a suspect? Can we go home soon?”

Avery shook her head no to all of it. Then she said, “I did mention about the jogging and me worrying sick over here that you’d been taken and he said he doesn’t want you out jogging by yourself anymore. I need to be with you 24/7, that’s the purpose of me being here, the purpose of you being here. For all you know, the gunman followed you, then us, all the way here and is just waiting for the chance to shoot you dead and a jog is the perfect time because it’d take me awhile to know you weren’t just taking a rest or something.” It was the perfect lie. It’d keep him from running all over, keep him from being seen, drawing attention to their presence. It’d keep him there at the house.

Nick sighed. As much as he wanted to be safe and looked-after, he didn’t like being told what to do, told he couldn’t go some place without a shadow. He’d lost a lot of girlfriends because of security measures -- he loved Mike and all, but dude was a total buzzkill when the ladies wanted to get in some blatant PDA, even if he was reading a book at the next table over. He’d evaded Mike several times on tours in various countries because sometimes a guy just wants a little time alone.

He was gonna end up having to operate the same way with Avery if he wanted to be alone, apparently.

“It’s for your safety,” Avery said.

Nick nodded.

“Good, now let’s get inside.”

“There’s nothing to do inside,” Nick whined.

“There’s not a lot to do out here,” Avery replied.

Nick looked around. “We could go check out the lake.”

Avery made a face.

“C’mon,” he said, “It’ll be fun.” He yanked the t-shirt from around his neck and pulled it over his head, tugging the hem down over his abdomen.

Before she could stop herself, Avery thought that she had kind of hoped he’d leave it off.

She was still clearing the thought out of her mind when he took off at a run around the house, down the slope, disappearing to the beach. Avery sighed and ran after him, slipping on the little hill so that she basically grass-skied down and came to a stop on a small bed of beach sand that ran the length of about fifty feet of the edge of the lake. The water was blue and clear for a little ways, then darkened into the deep that stretched away into the middle. A couple ducks were paddling around the edge at the far corner of the beach and a dock stretched out over the water, swaying gently as the lake surface chopped gently in a wind that surged off New York across the water. Nick was standing on the dock about halfway down it, inspecting a small canoe that was tethered to the third section of dock.

Avery stood on the shore. “C’mon, that wind is freezing, what the hell do you wanna be out here for?” she yelled at him. Not even a toe was on the dock.

“Adventure!” Nick yelled back. He knelt down and reached into the boat, pulling off the cover that had protected it from the elements.

“Can’t we just go inside?”

“When there’s a perfectly good boat here?” Nick asked, looking over at her with a grin. “C’mon, let’s take it for a spin.” He waved his finger around in a circle, indicating the lake and the circumference of the island.

Avery shook her head.

Nick looked at the boat, then back at her. “You scared of boats?”

“Are we gonna start this bullshit again?” She asked, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“I know this guy --”

“I know about the fuckin’ bird guy,” she said.

Nick grinned. “C’mon,” he pleaded.

“No.”

“Aaaa-verrrr-reeeey,” he whined each syllable like it was a whole word all it’s own. He puckered out his lower lip.

She crossed her arms.

“Are you seriously scared of the boat?” he asked, “Why?”

She pursed her lips, then untightened them, shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Because,” she said. Avery hesitated. Then, with a sigh, she said, “Because -- because gran always said it was haunted.” She dropped her arms, hearing how ridiculous it sounded as soon as the words were out of her mouth. “Oh fuck it,” she said, and she walked the length of the dock to where he stood, “It was just to keep us kids from messin’ around with it, it was gramp’s boat and she didn’t want one of us climbing in it and falling down. My brother did that once, chipped his front teeth.” She was sitting on the edge of the dock next to where Nick was kneeling and she slid herself into the boat and set herself onto one of the wooden benches that stretched across the width of the boat. “There. Are you happy now? Huh? Chad?”

Nick stood up and looked warily at the boat, “Haunted, huh?”

“Get in the boat,” Avery said.

He laughed, climbing in. “This thing is old as shit,” he announced.

“Gramp bought it in the 80s,” she said. “Got sick of fishing off the dock for sunnies, so he bought this monstrosity to go out there,” she waved at the lake, “And fish for sunnies there.”

Nick leaned down and reached to his feet. “Yup,” he said, “Definitely a fishin’ boat.” He held up a purple rubber worm with a rusty hook still stuck to it and waved it in Avery’s general direction.

She waved it away.

“Think the rest of his fishin’ gear is still here some place?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know,” Avery replied. “He didn’t fish much back home. But the last few years he was here he was real sick.”

“Sick?” Nick asked. “Cancer?”

“Dementia,” Avery answered.

“Oh.”

“He died in 2002.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick said.

“Gran died in 2010. She lived here with her cat and dog all that time because she didn’t want to go home to the house gramps died in,” Avery said. She reached out her hand and took the wiggly worm thing from Nick.

“Ronald and Nancy Reagan, right?” Nick asked. “The cat and dog?”

Avery nodded.

“My gramma had dementia,” Nick said. He leaned back against the seats of the boat, staring up at the sky, crossing his legs and letting them hang over the edge of the boat. “She used to call me Bob - that’s my Dad - and she’d yell at me for treating my mom like crap.”

Avery looked at him with wide, apologetic eyes.

“She was a tough ol’ thing,” he said nostalgically. “She was the one that lived in Jamestown with my grampa, the one I was tellin’ you about on the way here. The one that taught me how to fish.”

“Is that why you wanted to find the gear and go fishing?” Avery asked, and despite herself she found she felt kind of touched by the idea that Nick had wanted to feel more connected to his grandfather.

Nick shook his head, “I was just being nosy then, I didn’t really wanna go fishin’ or nothin’,” he answered. “I ain’t any good at fishing. I used to cry and throw all the fish I caught back.” He laughed, “When Grampa Doug taught me how to fish, he told my Gramma, the one that had the dementia - but this was before that started, he told her we’d come home with a week’s worth of dinners that day, but every fish I caught I was tossing back in the water and I cried when he caught them and made him throw them back, too, and they were pathetic little guys anyway, more like anchovies than real fish. Anyway, --” he paused here to catch his breath, “When it started getting dark, Grampa and I got in the truck and he drove down to the nearest grocery store and bought twelve frozen trout and we shoved our hooks through their frozen cheeks and drove on home with’em, telling Gramma he’d caught all them fish himself. She pretended not to notice they were frozen.”

Avery laughed.

“That’s love,” Nick said.

Avery smiled. Nick closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and put his hands on his chest. She sat quietly for a moment, looking around. Then, “Are we gonna go anywhere on this thing?”

“Eventually,” he said.

“Eventually?”

“Gotta get you used to being on a boat before we go anywhere. I ain’t paddling this thing all the way out there,” he waved his hand like she had to indicate the lake, “and have you have a sudden panic attack and the next thing you know the boat’s turned over --”

Turned over?” Avery said, “Like Titanic?”

“Slightly less dramatic,” he said. “More like the door in the end.”

“They both could’ve fit on that door,” Avery said.

“You sound like AJ,” Nick mumbled.

Avery stared at the stupid plastic worm. “Who’s AJ?”

Nick sat up, raised his eyebrow and stared at her. “AJ?” he said, “AJ McLean?”

Avery stared at him.

“Backstreet Boy AJ McLean.”

“Oh he’s one of your bandmates?” Avery said, “Why didn’t you just say that? Jeez. Don’t look at me like that.”

He had his incredulous face on.

“I don’t follow pop music,” she said with a shrug.

Nick laid back down and closed his eyes again.

“So how long until eventually?” she asked after several beats of silence had followed the closing of his eyes.

Nick shrugged. “I’ll know it when you get there. For now, just relax. It’s like a waterbed.”

“You have a waterbed at home?” she asked conversationally, leaning back the way he was.

“Nawh, I don’t. But Brian had one back in the day,” he added.

“Who’s Brian?” Avery asked.

Nick leaned up just enough to look at her, “You’re fuckin’ me, right?”

Avery smirked, “I told you. Rule number one. No sex in the safe house.”

“Haw-haw,” he said. “Seriously, though, dude. Brian Littrell? No?” Nick shook his head, “Damn, we gotta get you a CD when we get back to civilization.”

Chapter Eleven by Pengi
Chapter Eleven


It was almost nine o’clock at night when Marty rolled over and found a sheet of blonde hair in his face. He blinked awake and his eyes traveled down the shower of hair to the slim waist, the curve of tailbone disappearing under a swath of sheet fabric, wrapped around her hips. He yawned, and stretched, every muscle of his body tight, exhausted from the exertion of the night before. It came back to him slowly, in flashes of memories, making something stir in the depths of his stomach as he thought about the experience. This girl had been everything he’d hoped she would be when he watched her at the cafe, everything he’d dreamed. She was reckless, broken enough to see past the danger that a guy like him posed, eager enough to be excellent, and not at all jaded, like the way he feared Avery would be when she’d finished babysitting the moneymaker up north.

He stretched his arms, yawning, and rolled out of bed. He caught a glimpse of his ruffled hair in the mirror over the dresser and ran his hand through it. That morning, the room service people had left a copy of the morning paper, which he’d left on the floor by the door on his way out to the cafe. Now, he picked it up as he walked by into the bathroom, closing the door. He sat down on the toilet and unfolded the paper, shaking it out to read it.

Will Backstreet Boy Nick Carter ever be back again? read the headline. Beneath it was an incredibly outdated photo of Nick Carter from like the mid-90s. Marty smirked. The article detailed the fact that Nick’s PR agent, a guy named Jack, had released information that the Backstreet Boy had gone missing after witnessing the 7-Eleven shooting in Cincinnati and was now suspected to have been kidnapped. Local police were working on tracking the Bonnie-and-Clyde duo seen in the video feed - followed by a small shot of Avery’s grainy image from the security camera. Marty smirked. They were investigating other local robberies in hopes of discovering more about them - about him and Avery - like they were stupid enough to knock off anything close to the 7-Eleven in the wake of kidnapping Nick Carter. He folded the paper again and finished his bathroom business.

In the room, the girl had rolled over and was staring at him as he came around the corner. He tossed the paper onto the bed as he grabbed for his underwear and jeans from the floor and pulled them on. The girl, whose name he wasn’t positive he’d bothered to remember or even ask for, leaned over and grabbed the paper as Marty was zipping his fly.

“Too bad about Nick Carter, huh? You think he’s still alive wherever he is?” she asked, staring down at the page.

Marty shrugged.

“My mum’s a fan of them,” she commented. “New Kids on the Block, too.” She rolled her eyes.

Marty reached down to tie his boots.

“Why are you getting dressed?”

“I got some shit I gotta go take care of,” Marty replied.

“Shit like what?” she asked, “It’s night time.”

“Just shit,” he replied. He stood up and grabbed the paper out of her hands. “You gonna be here when I come back?” he asked.

She shrugged.

His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and looked down for the ID. Avery. He sent it to voicemail and looked back up at the girl. “Well. I hope you are.” With that, he turned and quickly left the room.

As he walked down the hallway to the elevator, he wondered if he should’ve told her to come with him to start her off on the job. Probably not, he decided. Showing her before he’d fully gained her allegiance wasn’t the best idea. He had to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere first. The same as he’d done with Avery and with Linda before her and Irene before Linda and so forth. He palmed the down button and stood there staring up at the elevator numbers lighting up the floor the car was on.

He’d had a lot of Bonnies to his Clyde.

Finally, the elevator arrived and he hopped on.

When the doors parted one floor below, he had to catch himself from reacting, freezing his face into a thoughtful concentrative stare. Stepping into the space in front of him, so deep in conversation they didn’t seem to even notice he was there, were two members of Nick Carter’s entourage and a police officer. Marty’s palms sweat just a little bit as they got in and turned, back-to him.

There’s no way they know who I am, he told himself quietly. No way. There’s only footage showing Avery, not me. Not me. I’m a mystery. He tried to breathe calmly through his nose. This is a good thing, he thought, Now I know their faces.

“The fact that no fans have seen him is what’s worrying me,” one of the guys was saying, “They always see him. They always find him. He can be in the most random place on the planet and the pictures still show up on Instagram.”

“They could have him confined,” the police officer grunted.

“That’s what worries me,” answered the guy.

“If I’d just… gone inside with him… if I’d just done my job…” the third guy muttered.

“You didn’t know, Mike,” the first guy said. “None of us did.”

“But it’s my fuckin’ job… and… I mean… If they’d kidnapped him, wouldn’t there be a ransom note?” the second guy, who was apparently named Mike, asked, “What if they --” he stopped mid-sentence, unable to finish it.

The first guy looked down at his feet.

“Until there’s evidence of that, we’re ruling it a kidnapping,” the officer answered.

“Wish they’d just say what they want. I’d do anything to get him back,” Mike said.

The doors dinged two floors down and Marty quickly ran off the elevator, dashing around the woman trying to step on, leaving them behind as he bolted down the third floor hallway.

Officer Flynn looked at Mike and Eddie, then back at the door. “That was odd,” he commented. He held his hand out, blocking the door from closing for the woman, and then leaned out to look down the hallway, but their mystery elevator rider was already gone.

Marty had ducked into the vending and ice machine alcove.

Officer Flynn stepped back in and the doors closed.





That night, from a Denny’s several blocks away from the hotel, Marty sent the ransom note. He sent it from a cell phone that belonged to a waitress that had stupidly left her phone charging behind the counter in plain sight. He even put the phone back so effectively distract the police when they tried to track down the ransom note. He only felt a little bad about the hassle he was creating for the waitress as he watched her move around the diner. When he was finished with his eggs, he strolled out the door, casually sweeping up tip money left behind on the tables he passed.

As he walked down the street, he called Avery back. She didn’t answer. When her voicemail picked up, he left a brief message. “Well, we got us a ransom note, Princess. Thought you’d like to know.” And he hung up.





Dearest Friends, Fans, and Family of Nick Carter:

By now, surely you’ve noticed your boy is missing. Judging from experience, you may be relieved by his absence. However, should you wish for me to return him to you, alive and well, as he is now, I may be persuaded...

So let’s talk.

How much is he worth to you?





“Avery… Ayyy-verrrr-reeeeey.”

She groaned and pressed her face into the pillow.

Nick leaned over the bed as far as he dared to, poking her shoulder with his index finger. Poke, poke, poke. “Avery. Wake up.”

She groaned again.

“C’mon Avery. I wanna go for a jog.”

“Fuck off,” she groaned into the pillow.

“You said I can’t go without you,” he reminded her. Nick reached and pressed his palms against the edge of the bed and shook, wobbling the mattress under her. “C’mon. I need to go for a jog,” he whined, “I need to stay in shape.” He shook harder.

Avery’s eyes opened and she struggled to look up at him, “Stop that,” she snapped, swatting at his hands as he shook the mattress, “Stop it.” He did. She stared up at him with a horrible case of behead, her dyed-brown hair a tangled knot of crazy. She glowered at him, “The sun isn’t even up yet,” she snapped.

“It’s coming up,” he replied. “Best time to jog. The lake’s beautiful. I saw it at this time yesterday.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Avery, I gotta stay in shape. It’s important. C’mon. Please.”

She dropped back into the pillow, raising one hand with her middle finger raised.

“Fine, I’ll go by myself,” he said.

“Fine, I hope you get shot,” she muttered.

“Aayyyy-verrr-reyyyyyy,” he whined.

She closed her eyes.

He stood there, staring at her as her breaths fell deep once more. He sat on the side of the bed, bouncing so the mattress jostled under him. “I can do this all day,” he sing-songed. “I literally have nothing else to do but annoy you.”

She flipped the bedding off her, “I should just shoot you my goddamn self,” she snapped as she rolled out of bed.

Nick grinned, not realizing how much of a threat this actually was, and laughed.

Avery yanked open one of the drawers and pulled out a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt. “Don’t you fuckin’ smile at me,” she said. It was one of those great smiles, the ones that she had to admit were pretty damn sexy… the ones that almost made her understand why people loved him… She shoved her way out of the room, headed for the bathroom. Nick grinned and dropped backwards onto the bed, deciding to close his eyes until she was ready to go.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

Nick opened his eyes. He’d fallen asleep waiting for her to come back. He grinned sheepishly up at her and sat up.

“After all that goading for me to move you fall asleep.”

He stood up, “The difference is I woke up easy. You ready?” She’d braided her hair. She looked kinda cute with it braided. He smiled at her - a genuine smile, one that wasn’t quite as fabulous as the famous Carter Grin, but was more real, something only people who knew him well really knew the difference between.

“Let’s go,” Avery said.

Nick led the way down the hall to the front door and out into the driveway. Avery plodded along after him as he started jogging twice as fast as she was. She sighed, watching his back and the muscles in his calves move as he pushed himself forward. She hated jogging with a passion and rarely did it. People in the suburbs with two and a half kids, a station wagon, and a Jack Russell terrier named Spot did things like jog. Her mother did things like jog. So Avery had always avoided it. Yet she’d always assumed she was in shape, she wasn’t pudgy or anything, but she quickly learned that was not the case.

Nick was easily keeping up the pace he’d set in the driveway well after they got out to the road and she was already feeling her legs complain. She slowed, trying to catch her breath. Nick was a ways ahead of her before he realized he couldn’t hear her behind him and he looped back, jogging all the way, his arms pumping, face getting flush but not overheated, cheeks easily puffing out in breaths. “You okay?” he asked, barely winded as he jogged literal, actual circles around her.

Avery glowered at him. “I’m fine,” she said. “How much longer are we doing this?”

Nick laughed, “You’re joking right? We aren’t even out of eyeshot of the driveway.”

“How far did you go yesterday?”

“I went up here to New Road then over to Main Street and back down ‘til it turned into West Shore Road again and back to the house from there. It makes a loop. I think it was like three or four miles maybe?” he was still running actual circles around her. “If we keep doing like this though, you’ll have done three or four miles and I’ll have done about nine.” He smirked.

She was literally panting.

“You ain’t in very good shape for a cop,” he commented.

“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped.

“Touchy subject? You not pass your last health test or something? You been a desk donkey for a couple months before they saddled you with me?”

Avery took a deep breath. She was certain she was gonna kill him before Marty got them the money. He just kept taunting her. Every time she’d decided he wasn’t all completely horrible he went and blew it by opening his stupid mouth. She watched as he passed by her, flashes of him to loathe. They reached the corner by New Road and Avery doubled over, holding her knees. She felt like she might throw up.

“We’re going back,” she said firmly. She refused to A, run any further and B, pass any actual downtown areas in the state she was in, with Nick running around her. She turned around. “You’ve gotten more than enough exercise doing that,” she added, waving at him as he passed around her yet again.

“A’ight, whatever,” Nick replied. He started running backwards in front of her, facing her, running a few feet ahead, then jogging almost right up to her before backing up again, a pattern that was even more obnoxious than running circles. Avery stared at him with loathing hatred. Nick grinned.





Eddie was holding the print out of the ransom note, sent to every major news network, the Cincinnati Police Department, and, smartly, to Ground(Ctrl). He shook his head. Officer Flynn was holding a second copy, but looking at Eddie. Eddie looked up. “What do we do?” he asked.

“You make an offer, we find out how this prick wants the money delivered, and we bug the hell out of it and find out who he is. Then we get Nick back and incarcerate the sonuvabitch,” Officer Flynn answered.

Eddie looked back down at the note. “He seems smarter than that,” he commented, “Like he’ll be expecting us to go after him immediately.”

“We’ll take care of it. This is standard procedure. We know what we’re doing.”

Eddie wasn’t so sure.

“How much do we offer?”

Officer Flynn rubbed his chin. “Well, this guy’s used to knocking off gas stations. Hundred thousand should do it.” He nodded.

Eddie chewed his lower lip nervously.

“The good thing,” Mike piped up from across the room, where he’d been sitting in the dark, “Is that if this letter’s truthful at all, then at least he’s still alive.”

“Sounds like he’s getting annoying though,” Eddie commented.

“When isn’t Nick annoying?” Mike pointed out.

Eddie sighed. “Right now, I’d do anything to have him here annoying me.”

“Me, too,” Mike agreed, “Man, me too.”

Chapter Twelve by Pengi
Chapter Twelve


“What do you need rope for?” Nick asked as they walked across the miniscule parking lot into the La Motte General Store at the intersection Avery called ‘downtown’. He was still antsy from having not taken a full 3-mile run that morning, although Avery was still complaining she could barely feel her calves.

“The boat,” Avery answered after thinking for a beat of how to answer.

“It already has rope,” he pointed out. They were on their way up these rickety steps. The general store looked like a big old house more than a store, Nick thought, but he didn’t say that outloud.

Avery shrugged, “It’s old. It could break. We need to replace the rope.” She reached for the door and pulled it open. A little bell jingled, announcing their arrival.

Nick stepped in and looked around. It looked like a house on the inside, too, he thought. The walls were lined with book shelves that should’ve been used for books or DVDs or something but were instead full of homemade preserves and such. There were tables and barrels everywhere with little index cards handwritten to describe the item and pricing they stood before. There was a counter by the door, but nobody was there. Avery stepped past the counter, into a second room. This one had makeshift “aisles”, which were basically just shelving units pressed back to back to form three short aisles. Nick followed her between them to the far wall and on that wall was a variety of ropes hanging from dowels on the wall. A handwritten sign announced that the rope was cut-your-own and cost by the yard.

Avery had decided that it was smart to take Marty’s advice, if for nothing but at least a back-up idea, just in case. She ran her fingers over the various rope and wondered how many yards she’d need to tie Nick, which thickness would contain him, and how she could ever grow the balls to actually tie him up in the first place.

She glanced over at Nick. “How, um, how strong… do you think… the rope should be?” Nothing like acting the captive for advice on their own containment.

Nick, who’d wandered a couple feet away, shaking his head at the smallness of the store, turned back and inspected the rope. “I dunno. It’s not like the water’s real rough or it’s a really big boat or nothin’ --” he grabbed a thin clothesline sort of rope. “This would probably do it.”

Avery was fairly certain that even she could break that rope if she needed to. “Well, I mean,” she said slowly, “I mean, the water gets rough sometimes. Just. It wasn’t just when we were out there yesterday. But normally. Normally…” she paused. “I mean sometimes there’s storms and stuff. Floods. That sort of thing. And the boat is -- it’s gotten away before.” She cleared her throat. “We need, uh, a strong… strong rope. Don’t you think?”

Nick looked at the rope again. “I guess,” he answered.

Avery ran her hands over the rope he’d selected slowly, “I mean. I could probably snap this one with my hands, couldn’t you?”

“Why would you wanna snap it with your hands?”

“I’m just saying if we could snap it with our hands then the water probably could during a storm,” she shrugged. “What one do you think you couldn’t snap… with your hands?”

Nick gave her a funny look.

“I mean just because that’s probably a real good, strong rope,” she said quickly. Then, because he was still giving her that look, “You obviously work out, so I assume if you couldn’t snap it then it’d be strong enough for what I need.” Avery smiled.

Nick looked torn for a moment between confusion about what the hell she was talking about and letting her stroke his ego. He quickly went with the ego boost, though, and she sighed in relief as he started reaching for all the different ropes and feeling them, trying to decide the probability of his being able to snap them with his bare hands.

When they’d selected the right rope, Avery went to find someone to cut a few yards of it for them while Nick waited. Back in the first room, Avery found the old man who ran the La Motte General Store, a bald gentleman with sunspots on his scalp and dark brown pants held up by suspenders. “Mr. Jones,” she greeted him, smiling, “You’re still… workin’ here?”

She’d almost asked alive. Mr. Jones had seemed about a thousand years old the last time she’d seen him, too. Seemed like he’d always been old, even when she was a little kid.

He squinted at her, “Avery Montgomery,” he said in surprise, his old voice rippled with a slight French-Canadian accent. “I haven’t seen you around this part in years,” he commented.

“It’s been awhile,” she nodded.

He stared at her.

“There’s a rope back here I need several yards of,” she explained.

Mr. Jones nodded and led the way back through the store to the ropes. Nick was standing there, still holding the tail of the one they’d chosen. He raised his eyebrows at Mr. Jones as the two of them approached. Mr. Jones raised his right back, “Why, you didn’t tell me you had a male friend with you,” Mr. Jones said to Avery.

“Yeah, this is my - uh - my fiance,” Avery said, trying to remember what they’d told Billy.

Nick nodded, “Apparently I’m a Chad.”

She rolled her eyes at him behind Mr. Jones’ back. Nick shrugged.

“Nice to meet’cha Chad,” Mr. Jones said. He pulled a pair of wire frame glasses from his pocket and slipped them onto his nose carefully before pulling a pair of hedge clippers from the shelf beneath the ropes. “‘bout how long are you needin’ this rope to be, missy?” he asked Avery.

She shrugged, “Ten yards maybe,” she replied, looking at Nick.

“Ten yards? Jesus,” Nick exclaimed, “You tying a little canoe or a friggin’ hippopotamus?”

“A canoe,” she said hurriedly, “But… but this way we have some extra incase… anything else needs tying.”

“This is for a canoe? Your grandfather’s boat?” Mr. Jones asked, measuring out the rope’s length, “Awful heavy rope for that little dingy of your grandfather’s.”

“I just want to be safe,” Avery answered.

Mr. Jones used the hedge clippers to cut the rope at the ten yard length and looped it until they had a pile of rope. “Anything else you kids need?” he asked.

“You got any Twinkies?” Nick asked.

“You don’t need Twinkies,” Avery snapped.

Mr. Jones shook his head, “I don’t carry none them Twinkies. Used to ‘fore the Hostess went belly up, then ‘bout every person on the island went crazy as a bat in the belfry trying to get ‘em.”

“They reopened,” Nick said.

Mr. Jones didn’t seem to hear him.

Nick followed Avery and Mr. Jones back up to the register, where the old man rang up the few items they’d picked up. “You come back now ya’hear?” Mr. Jones called as they left the store with a jingle of the door.

In the parking lot, Billy was just getting out of his truck as they stepped out of the door. “Shit,” Avery muttered.

Nick glanced at her, then back at Billy.

“Well hey,” Billy called, ambling towards them.

Avery took a deep breath, “Hi.”

Nick waved. He was carrying the rope.

Billy laughed, “Oh tying something up are we?” he asked, then he nudged Nick, “That how you finally got Avery to settle down?”

“We’re in a hurry, Billy,” Avery said, turning to the car. “C’mon Nick.”

“Oh so yer the one doin’ the tyin’,” Billy snickered, “Makes more sense, you always was a controlling woman.” He headed up the steps to the general store.

Avery got in the car and slammed the door shut, staring at Nick to hurry up. Nick glanced back at Billy. “We call it the dirty cowboy,” Nick said with a wink and just a bit of a drawl, “Where I’m from, woman like that don’t come ‘round them parts much... I’ll play horsey all night if she wanna ride me that long, you know what I’m sayin’? Like the rodeo up in there, if you know what I’m sayin’... but ‘stead of a buckin’ bronco I’m a -- well, it rhymes at least.” Then, before Billy could recuperate, he scurried to get in the car, too. Billy stared, a kind of stunned look on his face.

“What’d you say to him?” Avery demanded.

“Just that we were tying up the boat,” Nick answered. “Oh and I think Chad’s from Texas or somethin’ now.”





It turned out her name was Megan and she was indeed still at the hotel when Marty got back the night before after sending out the ransom note. She was in the bathroom in a tub full of water so hot the steam was coming under the door jam. Marty was sitting in bed with the news on, waiting for information on the ransom note to be reported, but nothing was being said on any of the media outlets. He sighed in frustration and turned the TV off. Surely they wouldn’t be hesitating to collect him, could they? Even as annoying as Avery made him sound, surely he was worth something to them.

He got up and wandered over to where Megan’s purse sat on the dresser by the TV. He glanced at the bathroom door, pulled just to a close. He could hear her splashing in the bath tub. He slowly unzipped the bag so it wouldn’t make a noise and reached inside, pulling out her cellphone, swiping his thumb over it to awaken the screen. He tapped open the internet browser.

“Marty?” Megan’s voice carried from the bathroom.

He paused, his fingers hovering over the keys to enter in the URL for the email account he’d created for the ransom note. He cleared his throat, “Yeah?”

“Is there an extra towel out there? There isn’t any in here.”

He stared at the towels stacked up on the shelf over the little hanger rack by the door. “No,” he replied. “Let me walk down to the front desk and get some,” he offered and he grabbed the little stack and bolted into the hallway, thankful for an excuse to leave the room a moment. He ducked into the vending machine room and put the towels down on an end table in there while he looked up the email inbox on her phone. He was pleased to see a response from the Cincinnati PD and clicked it open quickly. Less pleased when it loaded and he’d skim read through the offer. “A hundred thousand, what the fuck do they think I am, a fuckin’ charity?” He punched the vending machine.

No deal. Make a much better offer by tomorrow at this time or I may just get sick of having this guy hangin’ around.

He shot the email off quickly, fuming.

Taking a deep breath, Marty headed back to the hotel room and dropped the phone back into Megan’s purse before handing the towels into the bathroom. “I gotta go out,” he said.

“Out?” she asked.

He nodded, “Yeah. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just out.”

“Okay.” Megan got out of the tub and Marty allowed himself to watch until she’d wrapped a towel around herself, then he ducked back out of the bathroom and quickly threw his things into his bag.

He left in a hurry.

The last thing he wanted was to still be there when the police inevitably traced the IP address that had accessed the email account to her phone. He felt a little bad for her, a little bad for himself, too, because he’d only gotten to sleep with her a couple times but it was enough to know she’d have made a good partner for awhile, at least, much younger and more compliant than headstrong Avery had ever been.

But you win some, you lose some, and she wasn’t worth getting caught for.





Nick was laying on his bed, thinking. Something was bugging him, but he wasn’t sure what it was, just something, something about the day. Probably just the stress from everything, he figured. Avery was cooking dinner in the other room, he could hear the pots and pans making clanging noises. He needed something to distract himself, he figured, so he rolled over and went over to the bookshelf he’d sort of half-perused before, this time seeking out something that would catch his attention to read. Amazing what not having a TV or video games could do for a guy, he thought, suddenly he was going to be like a scholar or something.

It took him a few minutes of staring, reading the spines of the books, pulling a couple out and immediately judging the cover and shoving them back into the ranks. There was a mixture of the sci-fi series he’d spotted before as well as romance books, clearly the tastes of both grandparents were represented here. Several of the covers had those bare chested he-men on the cover, usually wearing just the pants, suspenders and hat of a firefighter. Grandma clearly had a particular taste. Finally, after seeing more pecs than at the gym, he found one that looked like it could be interesting.

The Man I Used To Be it was called, and the cover featured a guy hunkered down behind a big dumpster in an alley as a shadow passed by on the wall. It looked kind of stoogey, the way a Hardy Boys book might look, but he carried it back to his bed anyways and threw himself down, cracking open the cover.

Two chapters in, he had to admit the book wasn’t terrible. It was about a guy who, like him, had witnessed a crime and was afraid of the consequences. He could feel the emotions as he read about them and he felt close to Walter, the protagonist. He was about to start Chapter Three, in which he was certain the police would set Walter up on the witness protection program, just like himself, when Avery yelled his name. He dog-eared the page and tossed the book onto the floor.

She’d made spaghetti and put it into bowls and set the table. Nick sniffed the food with excitement. “Hope you’re hungry,” she said.

“Starving,” he answered, sitting and picking up the fork she’d put next to the still steaming bowl of pasta and sauce. She dropped the pan back onto the stove and sat down, too, as he was shoveling the first bite into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, his mind still half on Walter and the story he’d been so involved in.

“You’re awful quiet,” Avery commented.

Nick swallowed, “Just eatin’.”

Avery stared down at her pasta. She pushed some of it around a little bit. Her appetite was limited. She stared at the plate, tracing the shapes the pattern made around the edge, her fingernail following the swirls and twists to the very edge of her food, then back out to the rim. Her grandmother had always criticized her for doing that very thing when she was little, she thought. She looked up the fridge behind Nick as he ate eagerly. She’d been thinking about her grandmother since she’d got back from the general store earlier. Mr. Jones had been a friend of her grandmother’s after her grandfather died. Not just a friend, but a friend. Her grandmother had bragged about her handsome boyfriend the last time Avery had spoken to her before she died. It’d been weird seeing him again now. She wondered if Mr. Jones knew how much her grandmother had admired him.

Probably, Avery thought. After all, Grandma had always been a bit on the boy crazy side. She could remember her asking about all of Avery’s boyfriends, making comments about their cuteness when she got to see pictures of them.

Avery raised her eyebrow at Nick, wondering what Grandma would’ve had to say about him.

She would’ve liked Nick’s jaw, she decided, studying him as he chewed. It was a nice jaw. Grandma also had a soft spot for blue eyes and soft blonde hair, both of which Nick had. Yeah, Grandma would’ve liked Nick quite a lot if she’d met him, Avery thought with a nod. She could almost hear her, encouraging her to knock him over, the euphemism she’d used for sex.

Nick looked down and caught the look on Avery’s face. “You okay?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“You,” Nick said, “You look like you got a mouthful of garlic or something, you’re making a face like you’re disgusted about something.”

Avery shook her head, “Just thinking is all.”

Chapter Thirteen by Pengi
Chapter Thirteen


They went jogging again the next morning, despite Avery’s grumbling. Nick ran on ahead and stopped periodically until she caught up this time, rather than running circles around her. He kind of hoped she’d tell him to go on and complete his run without her, but she kept lomping up after long periods of time, again and again, always full of complaints while she had him within earshot. He made a point of taking off before she could tell him they were headed back. He was determined to do the whole loop.

They’d been at it for over an hour by the time they made it to the intersection where the General Store was, about halfway through the run. Nick was standing by a telephone pole on the side of the road, waiting for Avery to catch up, reading several notices that had been stapled to the wood. He pointed to a bright blue page as she came running toward him, breathing with a slight wheeze to her inhales. “There’s a party tonight,” he said. “At the Barn. What’s that? Is that like a club?”

Avery was clutching her knees, squatted down almost to the ground. “Literally… a barn…” she gasped.

Nick turned back to the page, reading it over carefully. “Says there’s live music, though.”

“Banjos…” Avery choked the words out, “Harmonica… Lame…”

Nick shrugged, “Can’t be anymore lame than sitting ‘round the house or whatever,” he said.

Avery didn’t reply. She felt like she could see stars.

“We should go,” he said. “It’s tonight.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Aw, c’mon, it’ll be fun,” he chided her.

“No,” she answered, “It won’t… and if it is, then we’ll never know, because we’re not going.”

Nick pulled the page off the telephone pole, folding it and putting it in his pocket, deciding he’d figure out a way to get her to go. He looked at Avery. “You gonna make it?” he asked with a chuckle.

She shook her head more and reached out a hand as she keeled onto the grass that ran alongside the road. “Jesus Christ, you and your jogging is gonna be the death of me,” she announced, spreading out on the grass.

“You need water,” Nick suggested.

“Oh if that’s all I need, then let me just dig a well,” she said sarcastically.

Nick looked around, “The general store’s right there. I’ll go get’cha water,” he said, and before she could say no, he jogged off toward the store.

Avery started to struggle to sit up, but her stomach ached from the running and she dropped back onto the grass. “Fuck it,” she mumbled, “If he runs away I wouldn’t be able to catch him anyways.” She closed her eyes.

She promised herself she’d join a gym when she and Marty got to Paris or Spain or Austria or wherever the hell they ended up.

Meanwhile, Nick climbed the steps into La Motte General Store and once again the door jingled as he entered. Mr. Jones was sitting behind the counter this time. He looked up as Nick walked in. “Mornin’ son,” he said. “Just doin’ my crossword puzzle,” he said. “Only thing the paper’s good for.” He waved the page.

“I’m terrible at those things,” Nick said. “I usually just read the funnies.” He opened a cooler and pulled out two bottles of Poland Springs water, dropping a five dollar bill onto the counter by the register.

Mr. Jones slowly rang up the waters and gave Nick his change. “I ain’t much good at ‘em myself, a lot of pop culture references I don’t know a lick about. New fangled stuff. Music and movies I ain’t seen.” He shook his head, “Culture ain’t what it was back in the day, you know.”

Nick cracked open the lid on one of the waters and took a sip. “What kinda questions you stumped on?”

Actor who portrayed Edward Scissorhands, film.”

“Johnny Depp.”

“What’s that?”

“Depp,” Nick replied. “D - E - P - P.”

“D… E... Why look’er there. You’re good at this. How about singer who kissed a girl?” he asked eagerly.

“Katy Perry,” Nick supplied. He paused and reached in his pocket for the flyer about the party at the Barn. He put it on the counter. “Thinkin’ of takin’ Avery to this tonight. These things any good?”

He squinted at the page then shrugged, “Bah. Them shindigs. Dancing, music, them little hotdogs,” he said, holding up his hand to indicate a cocktail weenie. Nick realized as he said the words that the man kind of reminded him of Jon Lithgow in Footloose.

Only about a million times older.

Like if Footloose had been filmed in the time of the dinosaurs.

“Not a fan of dancing, huh?” Nick asked.

“No, no, I used to love it,” he said, “‘fore I had this trick hip o’ mine,” he added with a frown.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Nick replied. He paused. “So… these shindigs, they’re fun? For.. you know.. younger… uh, folks…?”

“Better than sittin’ ‘round all night,” Mr. Jones answered with a shrug, turning back to his crossword puzzle.

Nick nodded, “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Thanks. Look, I gotta go, Avery’s waitin’ for me.” He hoped she hadn’t, like, passed out or something by now.

As he headed for the door, Mr. Jones called out, “Rick Grimes’ Deputy?”

“Shane,” Nick replied as the door jingled and he stepped back outside, folding the flyer back into his pocket.





Megan had fallen asleep, waiting for Marty to come back. She hadn’t even realized so much time had passed - but it was well beyond midnight when the hotel room door slammed open. Megan awoke with a start, sitting up just as the light turned on and she found herself face-to-face with a gun. “Don’t move,” snapped a voice. Megan was still blinking away the sleepiness. She stared past the gun at the man holding it up - a police officer. “Are you Megan Stern?”

She nodded.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said. Another officer came up behind him, pulling handcuffs from his belt as he approached her. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”

“Please stand up, miss.”

Her heart pounding a hundred thousand miles an hour as she crawled out of the bed. “What did I do?” she choked out.

“You’re under arrest for the suspected involvement in the kidnapping of Nick Carter,” the officer with the handcuffs answered as he closed the first cuff around her wrist.

“What?” Megan struggled as he clamped the second cuff, “What are you talking about? I’m not involved in anything!” She panicked, she wondered if someone had overheard her and Marty talking about Nick Carter before, when they’d been watching the TV. That was the only explanation, she thought. “We were just watching the news, we were just talking about the news,” she started to cry.

“We received a ransom email from an IP address that matches your wireless phone,” the officer with the gun said, lowering his weapon now that she was cuffed.

“What? No,” she said, “I didn’t send any emails.”

The officers didn’t seem to listen as they led her toward the door. She felt panic rise up in her throat, nearly strangling her. Her mind raced over who could possibly have overheard her and Marty talking about Nick Carter, who could’ve thought they were doing anything other than talking about a current news story, why the police would think that a ransom note had been sent from her phone…

Marty.

Her mind clicked with realization.





Nick stared at himself in the reflection of the bathroom mirror and cleared his throat. He’d slicked his hair back real classy like and put on the nicest shirt he’d brought along with him to the safe house. Smoothing the front of the plaid button up shirt, he took a deep breath and pushed open the door, peeking each direction up and down the hallway. He could hear Avery humming in the kitchen as she pieced together whatever food she was making.

His plan very much depended upon her not knowing he was leaving until he’d already gone.

If he asked, she’d just say no.

Nick crept down the hallway until he reached the foyer. He peered around the hallway’s opening, into the kitchen, waiting until she turned away. The moment she did, he moved quickly to the door, turned the knob with skills learned back in the day, when him and AJ were always sneaking out of hotel rooms to go meet groupies in the lobby. Without a sound made, he’d managed to get himself out onto the porch, and he carefully held onto the rusty string on the screen door to keep it from creaking. He closed the door carefully, even more so than he’d opened it, and then, satisfied that Avery was appropriately out of earshot, he ran like a bat out of hell across the lawn, headed for the party.





“Nick… Food!” Avery called down the hallway. She wiped her palms on her thighs and shuffled the vegetables she’d cooked for the stir fry around in the pan to keep them warm. She sipped a glass of wine, then pulled two plates from the cupboard and set them on the table. When she’d finished putting out the silverware and put down a hot plate and the veggies were starting to cool, she wondered what the hell was taking him so long... “Nick!” she yelled again, “Food!”

So far, the response to this call had been basically instantaneous. She raised an eyebrow when, after several long moments passed, and he still hadn’t come.

“Nick, what the hell?” She grumbled, heading down the hall to the door, “Are you like asleep or something?” She slapped the door with her palm a couple times, but there was still no response from inside. “Nick?” She pushed the door open.

On the bed lay the flyer for the dance at the barn.

“Motherfuck,” she groaned.





Avery slowed the truck as she neared the barn. It looked the same as it always had every other time she’d been on the island for the monthly dance party here. Christmas lights strung around the yard, hung from the so-called cafe to the barn itself, glowing like stars or fireflies hanging over the empty driveway, full of people talking, holding cans of soda plucked from a giant metal tub of half-melted ice. A couple young girls with violins, a guy with a banjo and harmonica mouth piece, and a woman with a keyboard that looked like something hot off the shelves of Walmart sat on the porch, speakers aimed to the driveway, playing something close to country renditions of 80s songs. As Avery parked on the side of the road, right behind Billy’s empty police cruiser, they were twanging their way through a barely recognizable rendition of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.

Nick was surrounded by people.

Her stomach quivered as she made her way through them to him, wondering if any of them had recognized him, if they’d told him that he was missing... But when she finally broke through the crowd, she found Nick and Billy sitting at a patio table, arm wrestling. Nick’s tongue was clamped between his teeth in concentration as Billy’s wrist shook with the strain of resisting Nick’s pushes. Avery stared at their fists a moment. “Hey,” she said slowly, and they both looked up, causing Billy to lose as Nick slammed his hand to the table top.

“Hey,” Nick said.

“Do over!” Billy said, “I was distracted.”

Nick shook his head, “No, no. I ain’t crazy.” He laughed, “I’m quittin’ while I’m ahead, dawg.” He looked up at Avery, a grin on his face. “You, baby, are my lucky charm.” He winked, standing up and sliding an arm over Avery’s shoulders.

Nick’s arm was strange and heavy over her shoulders and she looked up at him in surprise. Was he drunk or something, she wondered, and she was about to ask what the fuck was up with him, when Billy interrupted her thoughts, saying, “Your fiance ain’t so bad, Ave.”

Nick grinned down at her. “See, baby, they like the Chad.”

Avery gave a forced smile to him, then turned to Billy and said, “Yeah, the Chad is great. C’mere Chad, we need to talk a second.” She grabbed onto his arm and pulled him away from the group of guys, who slapped him on the back and congratulated him on beating Billy as they passed through.

“Ain’t nobody ever beats Billy I reckon,” one guy drawled as he grinned, “Though I’d like ter see ya tryin’ beat ‘im at a target practice, ain’t nobody got a eye for shootin’ like Billy does.”

Nick laughed.

Avery pulled him around the corner of the barn into the dark outside of the glow of the string lights and the hum of the chatter and music. Nick grinned at her as she yanked his arm off her shoulders and dropped it to his side. “What the fuck are you doing?” she demanded.

Nick’s smile hadn’t faded the slightest at this reprimand, “Partying. Having fun.”

“Nick.” She let out an exasperated cry. She couldn’t even imagine what Marty would have to say about the prospect of Nick Carter, his kidnapping victim, being out partying in the midst of all these people, arm wrestling the damn police force and everything. Marty would plotz. He’d freak out on her. She tingled just thinking about all the cuss words that would fall out of his mouth.

“It’s Chad,” he said haughtily.

“Fucking give me a break, you hate that name,” she snapped.

Nick shrugged, “You’re the one that gave it to me.”

Avery groaned and rubbed her face. She had to get him back to the house, this was the final straw. And what’s more was she had to get him tied up. No more of this bullshit. She didn’t think she could take another run around the island like this morning and if he kept pulling crap like this, then she’d have a serious issue on her hands. Marty was right, it wasn’t safe having him loose.

But how would she get him tied up? she wondered.

“They like Chad,” he said. “And c’mon, it ain’t so bad having fun, is it? If there was someone here tryin’ to kill me, they’d of done it by now,” he added.

Avery shook her head, “You don’t know that.”

Nick stared into her eyes. “C’mon. Please. Just for a little bit, then we can go if you wanna. Just a few more minutes.”

Avery frowned.

“C’mon, let your hair down and come dance with me.” He reached over and before she could say anything, he’d pulled the claw clip out of her hair and her updo tumbled onto her shoulders. He clipped it to the hem of her shirt and grabbed her hand. “C’mon. You know you wanna dance with me.”

“I don’t wanna dance with you, Nick,” she said.

“Because you wanna dance with Chad,” he replied, “Which, luckily for you, is me.” Then, before she could say another word, he dragged her back out into the lighted area in front of the barn. She stumbled along behind him, her face flush with a mixture of anxiety (she didn’t know how to dance very well) and anger (she hated him for doing this to her). He got her out a ways into the crowded driveway and pulled her until their chests met in the middle and he was staring down into her eyes, the one hand clutching her fingers and the other snaked around to her back to hold her against him like that.

Something stirred in her as his palm spread across her spine, as the warmth of his body met hers and his eyes searched her eyes. She wasn’t sure what the feeling was, but it was ebbing away at her breathing skills.

Panic?

The twangy cover band was plucking their way through Straight From the Heart by Bryan Adams. Nick laughed and sang jaggedly along, “It was ...only… you and me… young… wild.. and free…” He grinned, and the sparkle of his teeth reached his eyes, shining almost as bright as the catch light from the strings overhead.

“I loved this song,” she said, “I had this cassingle.”

“Me, too,” he replied. “I biked all the way from my house to this record store to buy it with pennies I stole out of my dad’s money bank,” he confessed.

Avery laughed.

“You look pretty, by the way,” he said.

She rolled her eyes.

“You ain’t very good at taking compliments,” he commented, “See, that there’s the part where you’re supposed to say thank you.”

“It’s just the two of us right now,” she whispered, “You don’t have to keep up the fiance facade if nobody else is listening to you.”

“That wasn’t Chad saying that,” he said.

Avery felt her stomach tremble at the thought that he’d meant it… at the idea that maybe as handsome as she was thinking he looked was as beautiful as he thought she looked… He was a really warm to touch and smelled sweet and safe and good. The way the lights reflected in his eyes and lit up his hair and his smile, he looked like a supernova, like a dream...

But no, no. No. She couldn’t let that kind of feeling take over, she thought. She had Marty, she had a job to do here, one that included figuring out how to get him tied up that night.

He dipped her gently backward so that he was leaning over her, his hands bracing her, supporting her, and she felt a rush of energy flow through her as he pulled her back upright and spun around, pulling her back into his chest.

As she pressed against him once again, she had a really wicked idea.

Marty had said to do anything, she thought.

So, as the band wrapped up their Bryan Adams rendition and switched to the mandatory Sweet Home Alabama hack, she leaned into Nick, laced her fingers through his, and said, “You’re looking pretty amazing tonight yourself.” Her voice was low, husky… suggestive, she hoped.

Nick’s eyebrows went up.

She grinned up at him. “You, uh, you really know how to… to win a girl… to make them weak,” she said.

He blinked in surprise.

“How to… turn them on,” she added in a whisper.

“Is that what I’m doin’?” he asked.

“Mhm.”

She knew his ego would take over from there. She could rely on it. He grinned, and pulled her even closer, “I warned you,” he said.

“I didn’t listen,” she replied thickly.

He smiled and leaned closer, so his mouth was right next to her ear and he said lowly, “No sex in the safe house, Officer Montgomery-Whitman.”

“Rules are made to be broken,” she replied.

Nick smiled and spun her around again. A couple people looked their way as he stepped up the dance moves a notch, his heart beating. He looked at her, the beginnings of interest twitching in him, his nerves switching thinking gears from one head to the other. He cleared his throat and with the last shreds of thought aimed toward the brain, he wondered if he even liked her enough to fuck her yet, if having sex with Avery would enhance the time they were spending together or make it harder.

It already made it harder, his other head said.

Fuck it, he thought, the worst that would happen is he’d be miserable for the next however long it took before he could go home again. Well, he was already miserable. But at least he’d be miserably getting laid.

So, decision made, he pulled her back from the spin so that she nestled into him, her back against his chest, his arm crossing over her breasts. She could feel the bulge of his pants against her backside as he pressed into her, bending his face over her shoulder to kiss her neck and the one side of her collar bone. His hair touched her cheek and it was so soft… she closed her eyes and took a deep breath of his smell.

There were worse people this could be happening with, she thought.

Nick’s extra hand landed on her side and he ran it down her waist to her hip and brought his face up from her collarbone so their cheeks touched and he whispered, “If you’re gonna break a rule, you should really shatter the fuck out of it,” he muttered, “Or it wasn’t worth breaking it at all.”

“Agreed,” she mumbled.

She led the way to the car, where she’d parked just behind Billy’s cruiser. He was sitting in the front seat, the door open, what looked like an ipad in his lap, staring down at something, concentrating. He looked up as they approached. “Leaving so soon?” he asked.

“We’re tired,” Avery replied quickly.

Billy’s eyes traveled to Nick. “Tired. Right,” he said, and he turned back to his ipad.

Nick hurried to the passenger side and opened the door as Avery got into the driver’s side.

“Hey… Chad… What’s your last name anyway?” Billy called.

Nick’s mind raced over a plethora of last names, but none of them settled on his tongue. “My last name?” he said to buy time, and then he blurted out the first one that would come out, “Richardson. Chad Richardson.” He quickly got into the car and slammed the door.

“Chad Richardson, huh,” Billy said, and he turned back to his iPad, typing in the name on the police database search.

There was something funny about that guy, he’d thought so since he first saw him, peeking around the doorway at the house.

The database popped back, No results.

Seriously? Not even a speeding ticket or anything?

Billy quickly pulled up Google and typed in Chad Richardson. Results popped up including a Twitter, Facebook and Social Media page for a singer from Canada, but the pictures of the guy looked nothing like the guy with Avery. Additionally, there seemed to be some sports star named Chad Richardson, but nothing else. He opened Facebook and searched for Chad Richardson, but not much came up, and still no matches.

For the hell of it, he typed in Avery Montgomery. She came right up, her profile was friends only, but she had changed the profile pictures not even a week ago to a picture of herself, standing in front of an ice cream place with a guy who was very much not Chad Richardson, holding up a single chocolate-vanilla swirl soft serve cone between their two mouths.

Billy leaned back in his seat and checked the date on the picture, then stared into the dark the direction their taillights had gone.

It didn’t add up, he thought.

Something just didn’t add up.

Chapter Fourteen by Pengi
Chapter Fourteen


They slammed through the porch door, banging into the main door, their mouths locked. She groped around him for the handle of the door and he only just caught his balance as they tumbled into the house. She threw her keys and purse onto the floor as the door banged shut and they made their way down the hall. Avery carefully made certain they turned into his bedroom, and she pushed him back onto the mattress, her palms spread on his shoulders. “Wait here a second,” she said, catching her breath, “I gotta get the… the condoms,” she said.

Nick nodded, her lipstick smeared around his mouth sloppily.

Avery went to her room and pulled open the drawer where she’d put the rope they’d bought at the general store. She ran her fingers over it, then gripped and tugged, a little tug of war with herself, testing the strength. She took a deep breath and went back to the bedroom, carry the rope and a pair of scissors with her.

Nick was sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked up as she came back in the room. He’d taken off his shoes and his pants and he sat there in just his shirt and boxers..

“How do you feel about… a little… fantasy?” she asked thickly. Her heart raced in her chest.

“Fantasy?” Nick asked, curious.

“Yeah,” Avery said. She walked over, slowly pulling the rope and the scissors from behind her back. She bit her lip in what she hoped was an alluring way. “I’ve always wanted to… to have control…” She stared into his eyes.

Certainly he could hear the unsteadiness in her voice.

He looked at the rope, then up at her, “You wanna tie me up?” he asked uncertainly.

Avery nodded.

Nick reached for the rope, holding it across his palms. She felt like her heart had crawled up into her throat and set up residence in the spot where her voice box rested. She could hardly breathe around it. Nick’s eyes roamed slowly from her hands on the other end of the rope, up her arms, to her eyes. He licked his lips. “That’s… that’s kinky,” he whispered.

“Mhm.”

A grin spread across his face, slowly, then all at once he was grinning like a naughty kid reaching into a cookie jar at her.

Avery took a step closer and said thickly, “Lie down on the bed.”

Nick did as he was told, stretching across the bed, staring up at her, his eyes sparkling with mischievousness.

This was too easy.

She walked down to the end of the bed and pulled one of his large feet to her. He giggled when her fingers touched the bottom, tugging his foot out of her grasp. “I’m ticklish,” he laughed, grinning, the corners of his eyes crinkled up. Then, “Hey, shouldn’t I have, like, my clothes all off or something? How are we gonna get’em off once you tie me up?”

“We’ll get it, don’t worry,” she answered, because honestly it just didn’t matter for what she really had planned. She reached for his foot again, careful not to touch the bottom of it this time, and quickly fastened one foot, then the other, to the end posts of the bed. Once she had his ankles secured, she climbed up onto the bed, her stomach dancing all jittery inside of her. She was a vanilla sex kind of girl, not this crazy, kinky, rocky-road sort of stuff. She wasn’t sure how to act, she felt so awkward, she was scared Nick would figure out what was going on just by her uncertainty alone. But how else was she supposed to get him tied up? Her throat throbbed with anxiety as she straddled Nick’s chest and put her hands on him to steady her a moment. She rose and fell with his breath.

Nick stared up at her from the bed, his heart racing, too, because he’d never really done this before, either. Sure he’d joked about it a lot and stuff, but he’d never actually done it. But what better time to try some light bondage than with a she-cop, right? A beautiful one at that.

As he stared up at her, he wondered how he hadn’t seen it before - how pretty she was, that is. He was enamoured now, like he’d been blinded before and suddenly the way the string lights at the party had shined on her had opened his eyes. Sure, part of it had something to do with embracing the role of Chad talking to those guys, telling them stories he made up off the cuff about how he’d met Avery in Cincinnati when he’d helped her fix a flat tire on the side of the highway - a good samaritan who fell smitten for a damsel in distress sort of fairytale. Plus the jealousy in Billy’s eyes had made him feel more intrigued by her, too. He’d always been the kind of guy who fell for the most desired woman in the room simply because she was the one he wanted to know he could get.

Now here she was, sitting on his chest, about to do unspeakable things to his helplessly tied up body, and he could feel his boxers getting tight across the crotch and his toes curled a little at the thought as all the nerve endings blazed with heat. She was touching him, running her hand over his shoulders, pulling his hands over his head, her breasts against his chest, her smell invading his senses, her weight making his breathing heavy.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

She stared at him, “What?”

Nick licked his lips, his eyes staring into hers, “You’re beautiful.”
Avery felt a lump rise in her throat. She hesitated, her hand still against his skin, her legs astride him. He thought she was beautiful? She couldn’t even remember the last time someone had said those words to her. Marty certainly hadn’t ever told her that. Nick’s voice had been so full of sincerity. She wasn’t sure how to respond.

He smiled up at her… a crooked sort of smile. The one that wasn’t the Carter Grin. The one that seemed more real.

Get a grip, Ave, her brain yelled at her. You have a job to do!

Slowly, still off guard, Avery slid the length of rope around one wrist, wove it through the rungs on the headboard and tied the other end to his opposite wrist. Her stomach churned.

Was she doing the right thing? she wondered. Once she sat back up, once she’d gotten him secured, once the sexual ruse was over, what would she say? How would she tell him the truth about his bondage? What would he say? What if she hadn’t fastened the ropes tight enough to hold his limbs in place? What would he do?

“Not too tight,” he requested.

But she tightened it anyway.

The bonds made, he closed his eyes, feeling contained, feeling helpless, and suddenly he wasn’t positive he liked this game anymore. He bit his lower lip, waiting, telling himself this anxiety building in him would dissipate once she started actually having the sex with him. He waited, anxious, squirming, willing himself not to allow a panic to build inside.

Why wasn’t she fucking him yet?

Avery sat up, looking down at him, at his face, at the way he was grimacing, and she felt like a monster doing this to him. “Are you okay?” she asked, worried.

“Uh huh,” he choked.

She frowned. She hated that he was uncomfortable. But then again, was being kidnapped really supposed to be a luxury? She felt torn, somewhere between being ballsy enough to actually be a kidnapper, like Marty wanted her to be, and being the beautiful person that Nick apparently thought she was. She needed to talk to Marty, she realized, to be encouraged, to be reminded of what she had with him. She needed to be told she was doing the right thing. “I’ll be right back,” she stammered, and she rolled off him and off the bed.

Nick’s eyes flew open, “Avery? Where are you going?”

“I gotta.. make a call.”

“But… hey, untie me first,” he requested as she went to the door. “Wait. Don’t leave me here like this. I’m serious, I dunno if I wanna do this. Avery?”

She’d gone out the door.

“Come back, Ave,” he called, panic rising up in him like a red-hot bile in his stomach. “Sonofabitch,” he groaned, and he tugged at his bindings, his wrists and ankles no sooner loosening than he was likely to grow feathers and fly off. He couldn’t even hardly move at all, actually, he realized, and the panic grew all the more intense. “Avery!!!” he yelled.

But there was no response.

What if she forgot about him tied up in here? What if the gunman found them at this very moment, came through the window and found Nick all tied up like this? He’d be a goner. What if she was working for the gunman? What if that’s who she was calling, to tell him to c’mon in ‘cos Nick was all tied up and ready to be served like a fucking duck on a silver plate?

He shook his head. Stop being ridiculous, Carter, he coached himself.

“Avery!” he cried, feeling like his sanity was fleeing from him the longer he was restrained, “Please, come let me out!”

She was in the hallway, her back against the closed door, eyes shut tight, biting her lower lip. As the panic rose in his voice, her heart beat faster and faster against her ribs. She felt cruel, leaving him there as he started to freak out. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Marty’s phone number… only to be sent to voicemail. She groaned. More than anything, she needed Marty’s reassurance at that moment, his promise that this was gonna work out exactly like they’d planned for it to.

“Avery, please!” Nick was shouting.

Her palms were sweaty.

What should she do?

Her phone vibed and she looked down. It was a text from Marty.

cant talk right now - some shits goin down - will txt u later

Avery sighed and ran her hand over her face. She typed back, What shit is going down?

gotta get out of this area - headed north

Headed North?

Avery stared at the text.

You’re coming here?

Avery chewed her lower lip, waiting for a response.

“Avery, fucking hell, please! Where are you? Come back!! I’m kinda tweakin’ out a lil bit in here… hello?”

Her throat ached.

“This is for the best,” she breathed to herself.

just north of cincinatti. wont go there til we get the $$$, Marty replied finally.

She sighed in relief, though she wasn’t sure why she was relieved that Marty wasn’t coming.

Then:

a chick I was hangin’ with just got arrested - i used her cell to send ransom note

A chick? What chick? Avery’s eyebrows knit together, concerned.

You were with another woman? she typed.

“Fuck,” Marty muttered on his end. He was sitting in a stolen car, smoking stolen cigarettes, his hands shaking as he listened to a news station on the radio talking about Megan getting arrested. He was trying to remember how much about himself he’d told her, if he’d said his last name at all, if this stupid piece of ass was going to be his undoing, and now here he was, about to get into domestic bullshit with Avery - the one person who could destroy him faster than he could even blink.

The last thing he wanted to do was piss her off.

just u kno a scapegoat, he typed finally.

Avery glared at the screen.

A scapegoat you’re fucking?

no no princess nothin like that at all - just a scapegoat, u kno i needed some way to send the note without gettin traced back n that was the way is all thats it - ur the only 1 i love u no that babe

But even as he denied it, Avery sat staring at the screen of her phone feeling sick. As much as she wanted to trust Marty, she wasn’t sure that she did.

“Fuckin’ hell, Avery, please!” Nick’s voice rang with panic.

She realized that she didn’t give a fuck what Marty wanted her to do with Nick, it wasn’t like Marty gave a fuck what she wanted to do about any of this. He was down there, gallivanting around with women, apparently, and she was here doing all the work. Marty wasn’t the one that had to stand there in the hallway listening to Nick’s yelling.

Avery turned and quickly re-entered the bedroom. Nick’s eyes were wide, his chest heaving with panicked breaths, a thick sweat on his forehead, all four limbs pulled to the full taut of the rope. Well, she thought, At least I know the rope would actually hold him if I needed it to.

“Thank fuckin’ God,” he crowed when he saw her, “Why’d you leave? Untie me, okay? I don’t like this.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. Hurriedly, she ran over and quickly undid the knots that kept his ankles in place. She kneeled beside him and reached over to undo the bonds at his hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Where’d you go?” he asked, sitting up, rubbing his wrists, frowning at the red marks that the rope had already started to make on his skin.

Avery’s stomach twisted with guilt. “I realized I hadn’t called in a report. I have to call in everyday or the station won’t know everything’s okay and --”

Nick was staring at her.

“And… that’s… that’d be bad.” Avery finished lamely.

He looked away.

“Look, maybe this was a bad idea anyways,” he said.

She bit her lips.

“The sex I mean,” he said. “I mean, you’re on the job and I’m like a target and maybe letting the guard down or whatever to… y’know… engage in that stuff, I mean… it’s a bad idea. We’re all we got out here, if something was to go wrong, like this whole protection program shit’s hard enough without complicating it with sex.” Nick was pretty sure it was the first time in his entire life he’d suggested that he and a sexy woman refrain from having sex. Like ever. Usually his game was fuck first, ask questions later, but there was something unnerving about what had just happened that had him on edge, that was keeping him from feeling in the mood.

Avery nodded. “That makes sense,” she agreed.

Nick rubbed his wrists again absently.

Avery cleared her throat and stared at the carpet as they sat, side by side, on the edge of Nick’s bed.

After a few moments she looked up, “Okay, I’ll, uh, I’ll let you get some sleep, Nick.”

“Okay,” he nodded.

“Okay.” She stood up and went over to the door, hesitating in the frame of it. He was still sitting there, rubbing his wrists, the rope laying sadly on the floor next to the bed. She felt her throat tighten. She took a deep breath, “You said… before… when I was on top of you. You said I was beautiful.”

Nick looked up.

“Did you um… just say that, because of the sex?”

He shook his head. “Why would I say it just because of the sex?”

Avery shrugged.

Nick could see the question in her face, her mannerisms, the way she held herself and he realized that maybe all the noise about being so tough and so strong wasn’t about being bitchy but more about feeling inadequate. Maybe she lacked self-esteem. He could identify with that all too well, strutting to make up for the confidence that he lacked was one of Nick’s greatest acts. He cleared his throat to get her attention. “Avery,” he explained, “I said it because you are beautiful.”

She blushed.

“Good night, Nick,” she said, and quickly ducked out of the room and into the hallway.





“It wasn’t me,” Megan said. She was sitting in the interrogation room, Officer Flynn and another, female, cop stood over her. “I swear to God,” she added. “It was Marty, this guy I was at the hotel with. He must’ve used my phone.”

Officer Flynn’s palm was pressed against the metal table she sat at, his fat fingers splayed, supporting his considerable weight. “I don’t think you’re telling us everything you know.”

“Yes I am,” Megan whined. “I am, I swear it. I don’t know him that much. I met him at a cafe and we were just hangin’ out is all. His name’s Marty, that’s all I know.”

“Why were you with him if you don’t really know him?” the other cop, a woman named Laureen Taylor, asked. She lowered herself into the chair opposite of Megan, her eyes gentle.

Megan turned to her, “Because he… he was real nice and we were gonna get food and…” she blushed.

“Did you have sex with him?” Officer Taylor asked.

Megan’s cheeks turned even redder than before. “My momma’s gonna kill me if she finds out,” she sobbed suddenly.

“For fuck’s sake,” Flynn groaned and turned away.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. This is just between us.” Officer Taylor reached over and took Megan’s hand. “He didn’t tell you anything else about himself? A last name, anything about where he was from or anything at all?”

Megan shook her head.

“Where did you meet him again? What cafe?”

“Starbucks,” Megan replied. “The other day, in the afternoon. I was there with my friends and he came over and started talking to us. They thought he was creepy, but… I don’t know, he seemed nice.”

Officer Taylor looked up at Officer Flynn. “Why don’t you go contact the Starbucks about security footage before they close for the night, and I’ll carry on here.”

Flynn nodded and stormed out of the room.

As the door closed behind him, Officer Taylor turned back to Megan. “Let’s talk about the decisions you made here, and then we’ll talk more about Marty and what this mean for you and your involvement in the case.”

Megan nodded nervously.





Avery was laying in her room, staring up at the ceiling. She couldn’t still her mind. It just kept racing over and over everything that had happened. It was a jumble of images and words - the firefly-like string lights at the barn and the way Nick’s eyes had looked, so blue and perfect. The only color in an otherwise grey world. She thought of Marty and wondered who the girl had been that he had mentioned on the phone. Had he slept with her?

Suddenly, Avery wished she really had fucked Nick Carter. Just to get revenge on Marty for sleeping with this girl, whoever she was. She’d had the chance, too, before he’d changed his mind.

Anxious, she hugged her pillow to her chest, her eyes on the window, on the moonlight filtering through pine trees. She could hear the wind on the water outside, crickets and frogs chirping along the lake's edge.

There was a knock on the door, quiet and uncertain.

Avery sat up. "Nick?"

"Can I come in?" he asked.

She was in a tank top and some underwear, the only clothes she ever slept in. She turned on a lamp next to the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chest, covering the low-cut of the top and hiding her legs completely. "Yeah," she called.

He pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. He was still in just the boxers and t-shirt she'd left him in before. She couldn't help but notice the significant bulge in his pants, though she quickly diverted her eyes. He rubbed the side of his neck with his palm as she shuffled to a stop a few feet from the bed where she laid.

"I um..." he cleared his throat, his eyes turned upward, "I was thinking... and... I..." he stared at her. He'd been laying in bed, thinking of her, about how much he'd wanted to kiss her earlier, and how much he really, secretly understood her questioning his statement about her being beautiful. "I didn't want you to think that me not wanting to... to fuck you earlier... had anything to do with me not thinking you're gorgeous because I really seriously think that, okay? I just wanted you to know that."

Avery shook her head, "I'm not gorgeous."

"Fuck yeah you are," he answered eagerly. He laughed, embarrassed at his own enthusiasm. "Seriously."

Avery rolled her eyes, "You're obviously blind."

"I'm not." He licked his lips, "You're seriously a really pretty girl. Really beautiful. And I didn't want you to, like, think that I 'just said that' before." Nick shrugged, "I know what it's like to doubt it when people say that about you, and --"

Avery scoffed.

"What?" he looked surprised, interrupting himself.

"You. Like you have self esteem issues. Fuckin' look at you. You're a Backstreet Boy for fuck's sake."

"So?"

Avery laughed, "So... Like you have an insecure bone in your body. You're the most egotistic, self-assured ass I've ever met in my life."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Am I?" he asked.

"You know you're a sex symbol," she said.

He shrugged. "That's what they tell me. But that doesn't mean I believe it about myself. It doesn't mean when I look in the mirror I feel any more self-assured than you do." Nick licked his lips, "Look, I was just trying to do something nice here, I'm sorry if that came off wrong and you think I'm just an egotistical ass, but I just know what it's like to question something like that, to be worried about it or whatever and I didn't want you to think that I didn't really want to -- y'know what, forget it. Never mind. Goodnight."

Avery watched as Nick turned and left the room.

She sat there, staring at the closed door, her brain trying to process the stuff he'd said.

Was it possible that Nick was seriously just as self-conscious as she was?

That he really thought she was beautiful? For real?

She was being given a second chance, she realized.

She got up and, forgetting she wasn't wearing much of anything, rushed to the doorway. "Wait," she called. He was just about to close his own bedroom's door. He opened it back up and stepped into the hallway, his eyes registering surprise to see here there, barely clothed. "Yeah?" he asked, mouth dry as his eyes moved over the pale of her skin, over her thighs, the little patch of her stomach that peeked between the hem of the tank and the band of her panties.

"Come back," she whispered.

Chapter Fifteen by Pengi
Chapter Fifteen


Nick crossed the hallway in four steps, engulfing her in his strong arms and pulling her into him. Avery’s breath caught as their chests collided and he leaned down, pressing his mouth against hers, his eyes closed, hands on the curves of her hips. Her fingers trembled against his shoulders as she stepped back into the room slowly, leading him along. She was dizzy with the smell of him, and they crash-landed onto the bed, though he was careful to support his weight to keep from crushing her beneath him. He ran his palms over her arms and she touched his neck and chin and that jaw of his, her fingers tickled by the stubble beginning to grow there. They were a web of limbs and lips, and it occurred to Avery, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and he pressed his mouth to the soft spot just under her ear lobe, that Nick would be an incredibly different lover than Marty had ever been. He was being gentle, caressing her, relishing her, and each touch of his fingertips sent shivers through her body that made her feel desirable and warm in a way that she hadn’t felt in years. Maybe even ever. It was like her body was an instrument and he was a maestro. Every nerve ending was singing.

They’d been tangled like that for several long minutes, his hands exploring her body over her tank top, when he suddenly let his mouth drop away from her skin and he stared down into her face, searching her features with his eyes.

Her eyes were closed. She moaned as he ran his palm over her stomach, over that stretch of skin he’d admired before that showed between the fabric of her clothes. “Nick…”

He smirked, letting his fingers slide down the front of her panties, between her legs, pressing slightly. Her body tightened below him as she pushed her hips up at his hand, her legs parting to grant him access. He leaned down again, his mouth near her ear, and whispered, “I so want to have sex with you but it’s against the rules.”

“What?” she was too turned on to think straight. She could barely comprehend what he was saying at all as his fingers stroked her through her underwear. Marty never paid her attention during sex, she thought dizzily, by now he would’ve been pushing her head down, demanding a blow job. But Nick was sending electric shocks through her every time his fingers moved and his breath was hot on her neck as he whispered in her ear.

“No sex in the safe house,” he said huskily, “Remember? I believe it was rule number one, even.” He grinned, teasing her by slowing his finger movements, letting his hand slip over her thigh and away from her body.

“Don’t stop,” she whimpered.

“Don’t stop?” he crooned, “Don’t stop breaking the rules? The number one rule?” he nibbled her earlobe softly and she writhed under him, her body searching for his hand.

“Nick… please…”

“Why, officer,” he said thickly, “I can’t believe that you’re encouraging illegal activity.”

“Rules are made to be broken,” she panted.

He kissed the base of her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone, slowly backing down the length of her as he kissed a trail. “You’re a bad girl,” he muttered as he kissed the plane of her chest, “How many laws have you broken, officer?”

Avery’s mind was spinning. The question echoed in her head. How many laws have you broken? She felt a lump rising in her throat as she had a sudden flashback of that gas station and all of the laws that had been broken that night… and all of the other nights with Marty, travelling all over the state, stealing the money they needed to make it through day to day. Guilt suddenly flooded her, heavy as a black shroud, as she realized that Nick was right, she was a bad girl, and not in the sexy way that he meant it.

Nick realized she’d stopped responding. He looked up at her. “Are you okay?”

There were tears sneaking from her eyelids.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.

He sat up slowly, concerned. “What?”

She sat up, too, and her tears started falling harder as the guilt weighed heavier. She’d been so selfish all of her life that she’d barely thought a thing of all the things she’d done. She had just always assumed that the world owed her something more than she’d been given naturally. Just because she’d had a rough time of growing up at home, she’d taken that out on the world. Even Nick had fallen prey to her self-indulgence. She’d been so willing to do and take whatever she wanted from anyone who had it, and it was so wrong. People had lost their lives because of her now, and if the money never came for Nick’s ransom, if Marty ran out of patience, there was no telling if he would, too. Where did it stop? she wondered. What happened after the ransom money ran out, as money always does when there’s no income to replenish it? Would she and Marty simply blaze a new trail wherever they went? What happened when they ran out of places to go to start over? It was an unending spiral, a roller coaster that she very much wanted to get off of. Now.

“You’re shaking, baby, are you okay?” Nick’s voice was soft and gentle as he wrapped his arm around the back of her, his hand stroking her spine. “What’s wrong, why are you cryin’? I was just teasin’ you… I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure what he did, but whatever it was, he wanted to take it back.

“It’s not you,” she choked the words out. “It’s not your fault.” She swept her hand over her eyes, “I just… I can’t do this.” She struggled to get out of his hands, rolled off the bed, “Give me a second, I’ll be right back.” She grabbed her cell phone discreetly and rushed out of the room.

In the bathroom down the hall, Avery sat on the edge of the bath tub and pulled up her text conversation with Marty.

Where does it end? she typed.

She bit her lips and looked up at the ceiling, her breath heavy from the congestion that came with crying.





Two blurry images filled the news station’s screen - the one of Avery from the gas station’s footage and a barely distinguishable one of Marty from footage at the Starbucks where he’d met Megan. “While we don’t have much information about the female suspect, the male suspect has been identified by an anonymous witness as a 5’11 male with dark hair and dark eyes. Going by the name Marty, he was last seen earlier this evening at a hotel not far from the crime scene, wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, and construction work boots. He is considered armed and dangerous and police do not recommend approaching the suspect, but urge anyone who may have spotted him to call the information hotline immediately.”

Marty stared at the TV screen, his sweaty palm holding the remote out in front of him. “Fuck,” he whispered.

There was a knock at the door.

He looked at the door, panic rising up in his throat.

“Room service,” called a voice, knocking again.

Marty had ordered food, but still, it could be a ruse to get him to open the door. He pressed his eye to the peep hole. Outside was a guy holding a tray with a covered plate, wearing a goofy hotel uniform. He kicked off his boots and tossed his t-shirt on top of them, answering the door in just his jeans. “Thanks,” he said, dropping a couple crumpled bills on the tray and reaching for the plate, “I got it from here.” Quickly he ducked back into the room and shut the door.

Carrying his prize of food back to the bed, he wondered what he was going to do. The only good thing was his picture was even blurrier than Avery’s, so there wasn’t really any distinguishing features to go by, other than his wardrobe. He needed to get some new clothes, that was for sure, and they still thought he was in Cincinnati, so that was a break.

He was eating one of the teriyaki sticks he’d ordered when his cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. He rolled over, picking it up to look at it, and saw Avery’s text.

Where does it end?

He wiped his fingers on his pant leg.

where does what end

He chewed thoughtfully until she responded.

This… us.. what we’re doing. The stealing, the killing, the kidnapping. Where does it end? We go to Europe or wherever and then what? Are we criminals there, too?

He swallowed and took another bite as he read the note. He took a deep breath.

naw new start once we go, he typed, saying what he knew she wanted to hear.

But we’ll need money there too.

thats y we got to be patient now we can get alot from the ransom from this fucker we wont need money ever again if we just b patient n wait for it the pay off is goin to be better then ur wildest dreams

He pictured himself sitting on a paradise-like beach in Spain, served hand and foot by the sexiest women that money could buy.

Avery wasn’t exactly a part of his vision.





Avery took a deep breath and stood up, swiping the last of the tears from her face. She washed up in the sink and pulled her hair into a ponytail. The thing was, she wasn’t sure what her wildest dreams entailed anymore. Not even twenty-four hours ago, they’d been about her and Marty and great European cities and living big on the payoff. But now she wasn’t sure. She stared at herself in the mirror.

What did she want?

She wanted to be treated right - better than she’d ever been treated. She wanted gentle caresses and reassurances that she was beautiful. She wanted all the stuff Nick was doing.

“Avery, are you okay in there?” his voice came through the door.

“I’m okay,” she said. Her voice was still thick with emotion.

“Do you want me to go back to my room?” he asked, “I can leave you alone if you want me to.”

She opened the door and found him leaning against the frame. She shook her head, “It’s not that. I don’t really want to be alone.”

Nick stared at her a moment, “Okay.”

They stood there awkwardly.

“I’m hungry, are you hungry?” Nick asked. Because she wasn’t sure what else to do, she nodded. “C’mon,” he said, and he led the way down the hall to the kitchen.

Avery followed.

Nick grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard and a couple bowls, dumping Fruit Loops into each as she got some spoons and sat down. He pulled milk out of the fridge and poured it over the cereal, then sat, too. She handed him a spoon and they started eating. Nick watched her chew slowly as he shoveled the cereal into his mouth. When he’d finished his first bowl, he poured more cereal into the milk.

“When I was a kid, I ate so much cereal my mom used to put a lock on the pantry door,” he said between crunches. “We were kinda poor, so it was a problem that I’d eat, like, a whole box of cereal in one sitting.” He laughed, “Sometimes, when I feel shitty about my family and stuff, I eat a whole box of cereal just because I fucking can.”

Avery breathed a laugh, looking down at her bowl, “How rebellious,” she said.

Nick laughed, “Right?”

“I’m sorry your family was shitty to you,” she said.

Nick nodded. He chewed for a moment. “What about yours? I mean you talked about your gramma, but what was your family like?”

“Well my Grandmother left the house to a cat for a reason,” she said. “She didn’t want my father to have it.”

“They didn’t get along?” Nick asked.

Avery shook her head. “My father’s… a piece of work.”

“Mine, too,” Nick said.

“He’s in jail now,” Avery continued. “Has been for awhile. My mom had all us kids to deal with and she’s not the best at mothering, either. She’d rather smoke than take care of any of us kids, so we kind of fended for ourselves all the time. The only time I ever felt safe was here.” She looked around the room and it occurred to her that it wasn’t at all a coincidence that when Marty had said they needed a safe house she’d thought of this place immediately.

“So your grandparents were your refuge,” he said.

Avery nodded.

“We have a lot in common,” he said.

“I guess we do,” she agreed.

“So is that why you became a cop? Because of your dad?”

Avery’s mind paused to connect the dots between what was real and what was a lie. She nodded slowly, “Yeah.”

“That’s cool,” he said.

Avery watched as Nick scooped more Fruit Loops into his mouth, the milk dripping from the bottom of the spoon. She thought about the way he’d looked at her, how he told her she was beautiful… For some reason that she could not explain, she suddenly felt like she wanted to tell him the truth about why they were there. She shifted in her seat, pushing the bowl away, her heart rate rising with the nervousness of what she was about to do. “Nick,” she started, “I --”

He looked up.

Avery caught his blue eyes - the exact and only shade she could see - and instantly lost her nerve. “Thanks, for the cereal.”

“No problem,” he said, munching on the last of his second bowl.





“I hate the way Officer Flynn is playing with this ransom payment. Just give him whatever he wants to get Nick home safely,” Mike said, pacing. He was wringing his hands as he walked the length of the hotel room. “He doesn’t understand how fricking annoying Nick can be. He doesn’t think this guy’s gonna get sick enough of him to pop him off.” Mike shook his head.

Eddie was lying across the bed, staring at the blurry images of the two suspects on TV as the morning news encouraged the people of Cincinnati to be on the look out.

“Sometimes I want to pop Nick off myself just sharing space on a tour bus with him,” Mike muttered. “They just don’t get it. And he’s probably ten times worse than usual just because of nerves. He gets so much worse when he’s worked up. How they haven’t shot him already is beyond me…”

Eddie sighed. “I know, dude, we all hate it, but Officer Flynn knows what he’s doing, he’s dealt with these situations before. We haven’t. We have to trust the police department to do what they gotta do to get him home. That’s all there is to it.”

Mike rolled his eyes.

“They doubled the offer,” Eddie pointed out, “It’s not like they’re refusing the up the ante.”

“It’s not enough,” Mike said. “These guys have to know that Nick’s worth serious money. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have bothered kidnapping him. If this was about keeping from being outed by a witness they would’ve just shot him to begin with.”

Eddie took a deep breath, “I agree. But the department --”

“Fuck the department!”

“-- has dealt with this before and they know what they’re doing,” Eddie finished, despite Mike’s loud interruption.

“What if they get sick of waiting and they kill him and we could’ve saved him by just giving them what they want, huh?” Mike demanded. “Nick could be home now if we’d just give them the money. I can’t stand this wondering if he’s okay. I swear to God, I never let him out of my sight again. No matter how much that pisses him off. Assuming he doesn’t fire me, of course, for being the worst bodyguard in the world.”

“You aren’t the worst bodyguard in the world,” Eddie said.

But Mike wasn’t listening. He’d stopped and was focused on the TV. Suddenly, with gusto, he turned and grabbed his jacket from a chair and his cell phone and headed for the door.

Eddie scrambled to his feet. “Where are you going?” he asked.

Mike was in the doorway, “I’m gonna go find Nick.”

Eddie stared at him, “Mikey, how in hell do you think you’re going to do that?” he asked.

Mike shrugged, “I don’t know, but I can’t just sit here on my ass anymore.” With that, he quickly ducked out of the hotel and let the door close behind him with a resounding, final click of the lock.

“Damn it,” Eddie muttered, running his hand over his face.





Billy pulled his truck up to the house first thing in the morning. He climbed out of the truck and walked up the steps of the porch, his boots clunking on the old wood, and knocked on the screen door with a few solid raps of his fist, then waited, his hands looped over his utility belt. It took several minutes before Avery came to the door, her hair disheveled, but eyes alert with concern. “Billy?” she sounded surprised and relieved at the same time. She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the porch. “What’re you doing here at six in the morning?”

“I needed to have a talk with you,” he said. Billy glanced over her shoulder at the empty hallway beyond. “Where’s Chad this morning?” he asked.

“In bed. What’s going on?” Avery questioned.

Billy reached up and slid his sheriff's hat off his head. “Come, let’s walk a spell,” he suggested.

Avery sighed. She was in her underwear and tank top still, a thin bathrobe tied around the waist to cover up, but that’s about it. She stepped out into the lawn in bare feet, hugging the robe tightly closed and Billy led the way down the walkway to the backside of his truck. He leaned against the fender and waited until Avery had caught up and leaned against it, too.

“Spill the beans, Billy,” she snapped.

“Look, I got a funny feelin’ somethin’ ain’t right here,” he said lowly, keeping his eyes diverted at the house. “Somethin’ about you and this Chad feller.” Billy paused, then looked her in the eyes, “I don’t trust him.”

Avery blinked up at Billy. “You don’t trust him?” she repeated. The irony that she was the kidnapper and Billy didn’t trust Nick was almost too much for Avery to bear.

“Yeah,” Billy answered. “Look, there’s just somethin’ strange ‘bout him. You said y’all are engaged? How long have you known him?”

“Awhile,” Avery replied.

“Who’s the guy in your Facebook profile picture?” Billy questioned.

Avery’s face turned hot. “Just a friend.” She paused, Billy’s eyes still questioning, “A… a gay… gay friend.” She shook her head, “Not a big deal.”

“Why’s Chad not on Facebook?” Billy asked.

“He’s… against social media.” Avery stammered.

Billy studied her a moment. “You know you can trust me, Avery,” he said lowly. “Are you involved in some sort of sex slavery deal?”

“Oh my God, Billy, no,” Avery answered, rolling her eyes. “Look, Billy, me and Chad, we’re fine. You need to stop worrying about it and just leave it be, okay?” Billy might be way off track for now, but she needed to keep him from sniffing around for all the wrong reasons and accidentally stumbling upon something real.

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, “Are y’sure Avery? I just got this gut feelin’ and I’m worried bout’cha, y’know?” he eyed her carefully with truly caring, concerned eyes. “I ain’t forgotten them times when we was kids, you know, I still got your back, just like I did back then.”

Avery smiled. As annoying as Billy had been the last couple days and as big a threat as his nosiness posed for her in the current situation, he was still nothing but a sweetheart underneath it all. She nodded slowly, “I know, Billy, and thank you for checking in on me. But I promise you, I really am fine.”

“Alright,” he nodded.





Nick and Avery had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, talking and playing a really old deck of Uno on the coffee table. When Avery got up to see who was knocking on the door, Nick had woken up and sat, dazed, on the couch, waiting for her to come back, Uno cards balanced on his chest as he laid, splayed across the arm of the sofa.

Suddenly, there came the sound of Avery’s cell phone vibrating on the table as it lit up with a text message.

Nick stared at the phone, every muscle in his hands tingling like a druggie jonsing for a hit. He sat up, the Uno cards falling every which way at his feet, and glanced at the window. She was walking out to that cop guy’s truck, hugging a robe around herself. He reached across the table and snapped her phone up in his palm. It felt light and heavy and hot and cold and everything all at once in his hand and he bit his tongue in concentration as he slid his thumb to unlock the screen. “Please no passcode, please no passcode,” he whispered and then, “Yes!” The screen lit up with a hot pink background for the wallpaper. He kept glancing out the window as he pulled up the text message app. He needed to see what was happening in his case, see what sort of stuff the chief was relaying to her.


Where does it end?
where does what end
This… us.. what we’re doing. The stealing, the killing, the kidnapping. Where does it end? We go to Europe or wherever and then what? Are we criminals there, too?
naw new start once we go
But we’ll need money there too.
thats y we got to be patient now we can get alot from the ransom from this fucker we wont need money ever again if we just b patient n wait for it the pay off is goin to be better then ur wildest dreams


It was a message with some guy named Marty.

Nick stared at the words, his heart rate increasing.

There was a creaking on the porch and he knew she was coming. Quickly he shut the screen down and put the phone back on the table, sliding it across. He threw himself back against the arm of the couch, closed his eyes, and pretended he’d never woken up at all.

This story archived at http://absolutechaos.net/viewstory.php?sid=11331