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** BRIAN **

There were too many things going on in my mind. My thoughts were competing with each other; pushing and shoving and bashing into each other as they jostled for position at the front of my brain. The day had started off just like every other day, and now we were sitting at the hospital being interrogated by the police and waiting to hear if whoever had tried to kill Howie had been successful. The situation was rapidly becoming too much for me to handle. I could feel the pressure building against the walls of my chest; testing the surgery that had saved my life all of those years ago.

There was a soft knock on the door and a young woman wearing pink scrubs stepped into the doorway. “Sorry for interrupting.” She was clutching a manila file folder and her eyes swept nervously around the room, finally settling on the two police officers. “Dr. Harrison told me to deliver this file to you.” She held out the folder to Officer Russell. “I was told that it was urgent.”

“Yes, thank you.” Officer Russell accepted the folder with a terse smile and immediately flipped open the cover.

The woman at the door hesitated for a brief second before hastily backing out of the room. “Dr. Harrison will be down in a little while to provide you with more details.”

Officer Russell’s face contorted in concentration as he scanned the first page of the file. His partner leaned over to see the information and his face immediately adopted the same expression. I was sweating profusely now from the sheer act of waiting, and I tried to subtly copy Nick’s lead by wiping my palms against the arms of the chair. Unfortunately, my movement was enough to capture the attention of Officer Barry.

“Is everything alright, Mr. …?”

“Littrell – Brian.” I offered. “What does it say in the file?”

“It says that your friend has ingested a startling amount of arsenic.” Officer Barry deadpanned. “It looks as though the hospital was right; we’re looking at an attempted homicide.”

“Attempted!” AJ practically leapt out of his chair. “You said ‘attempted homicide’. That means that Howie is okay!”

Officer Barry actually rolled his eyes at AJ’s emotional outburst. “He’s alive, but he’s far from okay.”

“What?” AJ shot me a desperate look. His eyes were searching my face as if I somehow had additional knowledge of Howie’s condition. “What does that mean?”

“Arsenic is, for lack of a better term, a slow-moving substance. It’s tasteless, odourless, and the symptoms come on gradually. That’s why we’re now certain that this wasn’t a suicide attempt. Anyone trying to kill themselves wouldn’t use arsenic. They would use something quick and relatively painless. Arsenic is the exact opposite.”

“So, you’re saying that Howie is in pain?” I clarified. “But Nick said that he had his stomach pumped …”

“Mr. Littrell, your friend is lucky that he’s still able to move. The fact that he’s in pain is actually a good thing. It means that he will likely be able to make a full recovery.” Officer Russell picked up the conversation. “When ingested in large quantities, arsenic has a numbing effect on the senses and the limbs. It’s likely that Mr. Dorough was conscious throughout the entire episode. He probably went through something similar to an out-of-body experience in which he was watching everything that was happening to him while being unable to respond. He really is tremendously lucky to be alive at this point.”

I opened my mouth, but immediately shut it again; my breath catching in my throat and creating a puckering sound. I didn’t know what to say. My thoughts were still fighting for space in my brain and I was on the verge of developing a massive headache.

“I don’t understand.” Kevin’s voice drifted out from somewhere beyond Nick’s profile. “Where did the poison come from? How did he ingest so much of it?”

“That’s what we’d like to ask the four of you.” Officer Russell’s face hardened and the atmosphere in the room changed almost immediately. “You’re all currently travelling together. Is that right?”

“You think that one of us did it?” AJ sounded as if he were getting ready to pounce. “Is that what you’re insinuating with that comment?”

“You’re the one who’s putting words in my mouth.” Officer Russell shot back. He may have said the right words, but the officer’s body language betrayed him. He definitely thought that one of us was guilty.

“None of us would ever hurt Howie!” AJ was on his feet and leaning across the table before the rest of us had time to react. He swung his hand out and grabbed Officer Russell by the collar of his shirt; the veins in his neck popping with anger. “How dare you accuse us of something like that!”

Shit! AJ had snapped. I propelled myself out of the chair and secured my hand around AJ’s wrist in an attempt to pull him away from Officer Russell. AJ refused to lessen his grip; his knuckles turning white as he dug his fingers into the fabric of Officer Russell’s shirt. The anger in his eyes was borderline terrifying. At that moment, I didn’t quite know what AJ was capable of doing and I sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

“AJ, let go!”

I clamped my other hand down on top of AJ’s and began trying to wedge my fingers underneath his. Officer Russell sputtered and choked at my movements as he was forced to rise from his seat. The poor man was practically lying across the table at this point. His face was turning a sickening shade of purple and his eyes were widening at an alarming rate. AJ wasn’t letting go and I was starting to panic. I was pretty sure that chocking a police officer to death came with some pretty hefty jail time.

“Let him go or I will shoot you both!” In the midst of all the commotion, Officer Barry had managed to extricate himself from his seat and withdraw his gun. He now had his weapon trained on me and AJ with expert practice. “Do you understand?”

“AJ, please, for the love of God, just let go!” I was pleading with him now, but I didn’t care. Officer Russell looked as though he were on the verge of passing out and Officer Barry looked more than ready to shoot us both in the head. “We’re not going to be of any use to Howie if we’re dead!”

Apparently, that was all it took for AJ to see sense. He released his grip on Officer Russell, who immediately began gasping for air as he dropped back into his seat. The colour was beginning to creep back into his face, but he still looked dangerously close to passing out. My fingers were still wrapped around AJ’s arm, and I could feel him shaking with rage and adrenaline as the two of us stared at a wheezing Officer Russell.

“Get on the ground!” Officer Barry still had his gun pointed at me and AJ, and he motioned frantically for us to lower ourselves to the floor. “You’re both under arrest for assaulting a police officer!”

“What?!” I let go of AJ’s arm and took a small step backwards. “I didn’t assault anyone! I was helping!”

“You’re not arresting me!” AJ was screaming above my pitiful cries. “If anything, I’m going to have you charged with making unfair accusations and interrogating us without giving us the right to a lawyer!”

“I think that everyone just needs to calm down!” Kevin was now on his feet with his hands in the air. “Everyone is clearly just a bit upset …”

“Upset?! Upset?!” AJ whipped around to face Kevin. “They just accused us of trying to murder Howie! Do you understand that, Kev? They think that we tried to kill him!”

“What is going on in here?”

The booming voice made everyone pause. Kevin lowered his hands to his sides, AJ stopped spraying spittle across the room, Officer Russell stopped wheezing, I stopped whining, Officer Barry lowered his weapon, and Nick stopped looking at everyone else in terror.

“Officer Barry, what are you doing?

The burly man stepped farther into the room. Beads of sweat were rolling down his bald head and his already squinty eyes were narrowed into slits. It was a miracle that the man was even able to see what was going on.

“Officer Barry, I asked you a question.”

“These men assaulted Officer Russell.” Officer Barry spat out his response. “I thought that they were going to kill him.”

“Is that so?” The heavy-set man crossed his arms over his chest and stared directly at me and AJ. “Do you two have anything that you would like to add to that explanation?”

“We were provoked!” AJ shouted. “He accused us of attempting to murder one of our best friends.” He jabbed his finger in Officer Russell’s direction. “And he interrogated us without offering us legal counsel.”

I nodded my agreement, deciding that I was probably better off not offering up my explanation of only trying to help. The additional information would probably just complicate things even further.

“I see.” The large man spoke again. He studied me and AJ for a few more seconds before turning to Officer Barry and Officer Russell. “I’ll take things from here boys. Thanks for holding down the fort.”

“What?” Officer Barry dejectedly lowered his weapon. “I was just about to arrest them.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The bigger man motioned for the two police officers to follow him outside. “They won’t be any good to me if they’re incarcerated.”

Officer Russell simply got to his feet and turned to leave. He didn’t look any of us in the eye as he exited the room. He simply massaged his neck and kept his eyes downcast. Officer Barry, on the other hand, shot us all looks of extreme distaste as he reluctantly re-holstered his gun and stalked out of the room.

“Excuse us for just a minute.” The mysterious man issued us a sincere smile as he wrapped his beefy palm around the doorknob. “I’ll be back in a little bit to introduce myself properly.”

“What the fuck just happened?” Kevin hissed as soon as the door closed. “AJ, have you lost your fucking mind? You just assaulted a police officer!”

I sank back down in my chair, ignoring the whispered shouting match that was currently taking place between AJ and Kevin. I felt as though I were in a state of shock. Howie had been poisoned, AJ had just tried to kill someone, and I had just had a gun pointed at my head. The whole string of events could have easily been lifted from a movie script. This kind of stuff wasn’t supposed to happen to us. We were in a boyband for Christ’s sake!

“Are you alright?”

I looked up at the sound of Nick’s voice. He was peering at me with a mixture of fear and concern. He looked so sad and wounded that I debated about lying and delivering a perfunctory ‘I’m okay’ in response to his question.

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I am at the moment, but I’m definitely not alright.”

Nick cast a quick glance at AJ and Kevin who were still heavily involved in their argument. “AJ’s right, isn’t he? They think that one of us did it. They think that one of us tried to kill Howie.”

I resisted the urge to close my eyes, to block out the sadness in Nick’s voice and the desperation in his eyes. “They wouldn’t have tried to interrogate us if they didn’t think that one of us was responsible.”

Nick’s face fell even farther. He opened his mouth to ask me what was likely going to be another soul-destroying question, but he stopped short as my phone began pinging loudly in my pocket. I stared down at the front of my blue suit pants in confusion. When had I grabbed my phone? I must have picked it up as Kevin, AJ, and I had been leaving the venue, but I couldn’t remember actually grabbing it.

“When did you have time to pick up your phone?” Nick voiced my question for me as I slowly withdrew the device from my pocket.

“I don’t remember.” I shook my head as I looked at the display. Of course, my wife had decided that now would be an appropriate time to send me a less-than-positive text message.

“Leighanne?” Nick deduced. “Let me guess, she saw something about us shutting down the show on the news?”

“Close.” I spun the phone around so that Nick could read the screen.

‘Husband – I’m being ravaged on Twitter because you guys stopped in the middle of a show?!?! Mind telling me what’s going on over there?? FYI - I would already know what was going on if you hadn’t made me stay home!’

Nick snorted; half in amusement and half clearly out of pity. “Nice. It’s good to know that she’s concerned about whether or not Howie is okay.”

I sighed and bit my lip to keep myself from spewing the nasty name that I was itching to call my wife. I had more important things to think about at the moment. I had no time for her theatrics. Knowing that the action would come back to haunt me later on, I did the only thing that I could think to do at that moment; I turned my phone off and stuffed it back into my pocket just as the sweaty, bald man stepped back into the room.