“Man, I miss my Monkee so much” AJ said as they travelled in the elevator up to the fifth floor where all of their rooms were located “I wish she was here with me”.

“Believe me, you’re lucky to have some alone time. I love my wife, but I just know she’ll have me doing Wylee stuff when I walk through that door, when all I really wanna do is collapse into bed and watch a bit of TV” Brian told him, envious of the two younger Backstreet Boys who’d left their girlfriends behind.

“Dude, you are so whipped” Nick laughed “aint never happening to me”

“We’ll see” Howie smiled.

“No fucking way man” Nick protested.

“Whatever” Howie smirked. He felt sure that Nick was indeed on his way to being tamed, his friend had never had a relationship last as long as the current one, so she must be doing something right.

“See you in the morning” Brian said to the others when he reached his hotel room door.

“Yeah, see ya” they all said to him and carried on towards their own rooms whilst Brian walked in to be bombarded with scarves, bags and Leighanne waving a camera in his face. He sighed and then dutifully did as he was told.

“Night D” Nick and AJ said to Howie before he disappeared into his room where his wife and son (hopefully asleep) would be waiting. Luck was on Howie’s side that night and he and Leigh were able to enjoy some adult time for the first time in days.

“What do you say we play a bit of Xbox? That’ll get your mind off of missing Rochelle” Nick asked, thinking they could play two players for a change and maybe order some pizza.

“Not in the mood for Xbox…but we could go down to the bar for a couple of beers” AJ suggested as he quickly tapped away at his phone, no doubt sending a text to his Monkee.

“Now you’re talking” Nick smiled “meet you out here in five?”

“Sure” AJ replied and they went into their own rooms to do what they needed to do before going to the bar.

Although there were a few fans staying at the hotel, the two Backstreet Boys managed to evade them for a while whilst they unwound with a couple of bottles of Bud.

“I need a smoke” AJ announced and stood up to go outside. That was it then, they’d been spotted and unless they wanted to spend the next however long answering questions and posing for photos, they’d have to call it a night.

AJ finished his cigarette and stubbed it out with his foot, said goodbye to the girls who’d decided to join him, and then went back inside to find Nick.

“Goodnight girls” Nick said “nice talking to y’all”

“Night” they all gushed in return and the two Backstreet Boys walked away.

“Xbox?” Nick asked as they took the elevator up to their floor.

“Why not!” AJ responded “you never know, I might even kick your butt”

“In your dreams dude” Nick laughed.

~*~

“Damn, we’re too late” Dean banged his hand against the steering wheel in defeat when they arrived at Jackson Troy’s house the following morning to find a couple of police cars outside and the vicinity buzzing with activity. Jackson had been one of the unlucky people to have gotten his hands on the trial game through a friend of his father’s who worked for Ubisoft.

“Could be something else?” Sam suggested “a robbery maybe”

“I don’t think so” Dean replied as a body bag was wheeled out of the property and loaded into a van with blacked out windows.

The brothers climbed out of the car and walked across to where a few of the neighbours had congregated, hoping to find out what had happened.

“I heard screaming” one woman was saying to another as she stood there with her arms folded.

“I heard gunshots” another said.

“Always knew there was something about that family” another gossip contributed.

“Oh come on Emma, that’s a bit harsh, just because they’re new in town doesn’t mean a thing” defended the woman with folded arms.

“What happened?” Dean asked the group of women.

“We don’t know” folded arms woman replied.

Dean and Sam walked out of hearing of the rest of the crowd “we need to get inside that house” Dean said.

“How? The place is crawling with police” Sam replied, gesturing towards the officers coming and going.

“Since when did that ever stop us?” Dean smirked.

While Sam created a diversion, Dean managed to get inside the house and retrieve the game, which was still in the Xbox. With the body already taken away, he had no idea what the cause of death had been, but it had been bloody. Splatters of blood coated the walls and the carpet was drenched.

“Did you find anything?” Sam asked when Dean was safely back outside with the rest of the onlookers.

“I got the game. Man, whatever did this was a sadistic son of a bitch. There were finger nail scratches in the desk, as if the guy had been trying to claw his way to safety or something. And the blood…it was like something out of Nightmare on Elm Street, it was even on the ceiling” Dean replied “but I don’t know what he died of. You hear anything?”

“No, and I hope you’re not suggesting a trip to the mortuary” Sam warned “because it’s not going to change anything, the guy is dead and we still have more games to find before more people die”

“Which one is next on the list?” Dean asked

“Tiffany Simpson, in Greensburg, about fifty miles away from here” Sam replied as he looked at the map.

“Then let’s get going!” Dean announced and got into the car and started the engine.

There was nothing much else they could do for Jackson, except put an end to the game before anyone else suffered.

A little while later they arrived at the address they’d found for Tiffany.

“Man, I hope we’ve made it in time” Sam said as he looked at the house.

They got out of the car and walked up the path to the front door. After ringing the doorbell, they waited anxiously for a reply. No one was home, or at least no one was answering.

“Time for a bit of breaking and entering I think” Dean said as he picked the lock with the ease of a professional thief “anyone looking?”

“Not that I can tell” Sam replied, looking around.

“Good” Dean muttered and slipped inside.

Treading carefully and quietly, the Winchesters made their way into the living room first. There was no sign of an Xbox in there so they went on to the next room.

“Nothing downstairs” Sam acknowledged and they quietly made their way upstairs.

They struck gold in the first bedroom that they came across. The game wasn’t in the Xbox though; it was stacked with a bunch of other games, books and DVDs on the bookcase. Sam shoved it in his jacket pocket and they made sure they left the room exactly as it had been before retreating down the stairs.

The brothers had just managed to get out of the house and close the front door when they were surprised by someone walking up the path.

“Can I help you?” asked a woman in her late teens to early twenties. They couldn’t just ignore her and had to do a bit of fast thinking.

“We’re looking for Justin, is he in?” Sam asked, hoping no one called Justin lived there also.

“Sorry, you must have the wrong address, there’s no Justin here” she replied and her eyes lingered just a bit too long on Dean.

“Well, sorry to have bothered you” Dean smiled at her.

“No trouble at all” she smiled back and bit her lip seductively.

They walked away and Dean shook his head, grinning. “Dude, for a geek she was HOT”

“I can’t believe you were checking her out!” Sam chastised his brother.

“No harm in looking” Dean shrugged.

“Come on Casanova, we’ve got work to do” Sam reminded him as they reached the car.

“The dude is on tour…six hundred miles away in Colorado, that’s some distance away” Dean remarked, a print out of the Backstreet Boys tour dates in his hand “and if we don’t catch him in Broomfield then we’ll have to drive to Salt Lake City. Man, that’s another four hundred miles! Would the world really miss this Nick Carter dude?”

“That’s not the point Dean and you know it. We’ve got to stop this thing before it claims any more lives” Sam told him, closing the trunk of the car.

“Let’s get going then instead of standing around talking about it” Dean said as he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.