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“Bro, Laurie just sent me the Dead 7 trailer, and it’s the fuckin’ shit!” AJ waved his phone at Nick for emphasis. “When is it being released to the world?”

“The trailer?” Nick, who was sprawled out on the couch and almost half-asleep, barely looked up from his own phone. “Or the actual movie?”

AJ shrugged. He sat down in one of the two massive wing chairs and flung both of his legs across the armrest so that they were dangling in Nick’s face. “Both.”

Nick swatted AJ’s feet with the back of his hand and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He dropped his phone into his lap and sighed; so much for taking a nap. “Remind me again why we decided to share a room?”

“Because you left things until the last minute and couldn’t get a room of your own.” AJ smirked. “I distinctly remember you begging me to share my room with you.”

“Fuck off!” Nick frowned. “I’ve got a pregnant wife at home, man! How am I supposed to remember that I need to book a hotel room?”

“You could have stayed with Brian.” AJ’s smirk intensified. “Although your sorry ass would’a been on the couch considering Kevin called dibbs on his guestroom weeks ago.”

“I’d rather deal with your rotten-smelling feet.” Nick grumbled. “Staying with Brian and Leighanne is not my idea of a good time.”

“Leighanne isn’t even around this week.” AJ pointed out. “She and Baylee flew back to Georgia for her mom’s birthday or something like that.”

“Whatever.” Nick rolled his eyes and checked his phone for the tenth time in the past two minutes; still no message from Howie. “I still prefer your dirty feet to stupid, ugly Brian.”

AJ snorted. Nick tried to be tough; to pretend like he didn’t give a shit about Brian, but AJ could see right through him. The animosity between Nick and Brian had become almost comical. The two of them hated each other, but only in principle. When they both let their guards down and didn’t over-think their relationship, they acted like the best friends that they had been in the beginning. As far as AJ was concerned, the whole situation was getting old and tiresome. What was it going to take for the two of them to smarten up?

“Speak of the devil ...” AJ pulled his phone out of his pocket as it started to ring and glanced at the display. “It’s Brian.” He thrust his phone at Nick’s face for good measure. “You wanna answer it?”

Nick scrunched up his face as if he had just tasted something sour. “Not a chance!”

“Hey, B!” AJ rolled his eyes as he accepted the call. “Nicky and I were just talking about you.”

“Oh ... you’re with Nick?” Brian paused; his voice sounded off, strained. “That’s good. Real good.”

“Is it?” AJ swung his feet off of the armrest so that he was sitting properly in the massive, overstuffed chair. There was something about Brian’s tone that was making him uneasy. “Everything okay over there with you and Kev?”

“Ya’ll haven’t heard from Howie, have ya?” Brian ignored AJ’s question. “Like, since we left the studio?”

“We haven’t heard anything from Howie.” AJ leaned forward in the chair and shot a quick glance at Nick. “I’m gonna put you on speaker.”

“Kev and I talked to Leigh.” Brian’s voice blasted out of the small speaker; filling the room with its eerily tinny quality. “We did some searching and found out that Howie’s car has been in a wreck.”

“Howie was in an accident?” Nick shoved his face forward so that it was only inches from the phone. “Where is he? In the hospital? Is he okay? Why didn’t the call us?”

“We – we dunno where he is.” Brian’s voice grew softer, more worried as he addressed Nick’s questions. “Kev called the dealership that’s currently holding on to his car, but the lady who answered the phone said that Howie didn’t come in with the tow truck driver.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Nick looked to AJ for confirmation. He could feel the contents of his stomach starting to swirl. “Why would Howie just abandon his car like that? Where is he?”

“I – we – nobody knows where he is.” Brian stumbled through a response. “Leigh’s calling the police as we speak.”

“Fuuuuck.” AJ let out a low groan and ran his fingers through his hair with his free hand. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. He dropped his eyes to his darkened phone screen. He couldn’t look at Nick; the sight of his pale face was making him feel uneasy.

“We should come over there.” Nick suddenly announced. “Right?” he nudged AJ in the ribs, forcing the older man to look at him. “Do you want us to come over there, Bri?”

“Yeah, Nick.” Brian answered after a brief pause. “Ya’ll should come over here. Leigh is supposed to call us back when she’s done talkin’ to the police anyway.”

“Okay.” AJ sighed. He didn’t want to go over to Brian’s apartment. Going over there would make the situation real. Going over there would force him to think about all of the bad things that could have possibly happened to Howie. Going over there would make him feel sick. Too bad he didn’t really have a choice. “We’re on our way.”

“We should get a cab.” Nick was already shoving his arms into his jacket as AJ disconnected the call. “Or should we walk? It’s-snowing-really-hard. Maybe-walking-would-be-faster. What do you think?”

“I dunno, Nick. Whatever you want.”

AJ struggled to make sense of what his friend was saying as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and picked up his own jacket. Nick was slurring his words; stringing his questions together into an almost unintelligible mess. It was easy to tell that he was agitated; that he was working himself up in his own head.

Nick forced himself to take several deep breaths as he watched AJ search for his toque and then his room card. He had a bad habit of jumping to the worst possible conclusion. In his mind, Howie was dead; lying in a ditch somewhere while the snow piled up on top of his body and hid it from the world. One of these days, he was going to give himself a heart attack.

“Let’s go!” AJ jammed his hat down over his ears and dangled his hotel card in Nick’s face. “And stop looking so nervous. You’re freakin’ me out.”

Nick narrowed his eyes at AJ’s back as he followed him out of the room. He had every right to be nervous. Howie was missing. He was probably clinging to life and waiting to be rescued...

“Nick?” AJ snapped his fingers in front of the blonde’s face as the elevator doors popped open. “Are you still with me?”

“Huh?” Nick’s expression was eerily vacant as he stepped into the elevator after AJ. “Sorry. What?”

“I asked if you had made a decision about a cab.” AJ spoke slowly, purposefully drawing out every word. Nick looked as though he were completely lost in his own world.

“Oh.” Nick shook his head as the elevator arrived on the ground floor. He trailed after AJ as the older man began striding quickly across the lobby. “I guess we can just walk until we find one.”

Nick instantly realized that his idea of hailing a random cab would be next to impossible as he stepped through the hotel doors and into the night. The snow was worse than he had expected. There was no way that they were going to be able to find a ride in this type of weather.

AJ followed Nick’s lead and immediately hunched his shoulders against the wind as they stepped outside. The snow was coming down faster than he had ever seen; the flakes were thick and heavy and they were coating everything in their path. The glow from the streetlights was barely visible beyond the swirling snow as the wind whipped giant piles of wet snowflakes into the night.

The two men fell into step next to each other; heads bowed against the wind as they pointed themselves in the direction of Brian’s temporary New York accommodations. The building was less than two blocks away, but the blowing snow slowed their progress. The wet flakes invaded their shoes with every step and the wind whipped at their faces, obscuring their sight. The streets were all but deserted, and their hopes of hailing a cab diminished with each treacherous step.

“This wouldn’t have happened if we had recorded in L.A.. Stupid Brian and his stupid ...”

Nick cut himself off mid complaint as his feet hit a patch of ice and suddenly shot out from under him. He let out a small yelp of surprise and grabbed for AJ’s shoulder to steady himself; nearly taking the smaller man down with him as he landed hard on his backside in the middle of the snow-covered sidewalk.

“Smooth.” AJ couldn’t help it; he grinned as he held out his hand to help Nick off of the ground. “You okay?”

“Do I look like I’m okay?” Nick demanded. “My ass is fucking soaked.” He accepted AJ’s outstretched hand and got gingerly to his feet. “I hate snow!”

“Says the guy who goes snowboarding on vacation.” AJ smirked. “You can put on some dry pants when we get to Brian’s.”

“I won’t fit into Brian’s hobbit sized pants!” Nick threw his hands into the air and nearly lost his balance for a second time. “I’m not twelve!”

“I meant that you could borrow some of Kevin’s pants.” AJ resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He wasn’t sure if Nick could see his face clearly through the snow and the darkness, but he didn’t want to make the situation worse. He knew that Nick’s little outburst wasn’t about his wet jeans; it was about Howie and about the fact that he was worried and imagining that the worst had happened to him.

“Right.” Nick dropped his hands to his sides. “Yeah, okay.”

“Let’s just go.” AJ turned and began to, once again, shuffle his way through the snow drifts. “I would like to get to Brian’s before my balls freeze and fall off.”

Nick snorted and hurried to catch up with AJ. His friend might not have been the most sensitive person in the world, but he was definitely perceptive. Nick knew that AJ was trying to lighten the mood for his benefit; that he was trying to draw his mind away from the fact that Howie was, for all intents and purposes, missing.

“Hey! Look!” AJ suddenly slapped Nick’s shoulder and gestured towards the street. “I think that’s a car! Maybe it’s a taxi!”

Nick squinted in the direction that AJ was pointing, struggling to determine if he was looking at a pair of headlights or simply a reflection of the streetlights in the snow. After a few seconds, it became clear that the lights were indeed getting closer. Nick’s heart surged with relief at the prospect of a cab. He was pretty sure that he had already contracted frostbite on all ten of his toes.

“It is!” Nick’s voice rose in excitement as he caught sight of the glowing ‘TAXI’ sign on top of the approaching vehicle. “Thank, God!”

“Taxi!” AJ immediately shot both of his arms into the air and began waving them obnoxiously above his head as he hustled towards the curb. “Taxi!”

“Relax, J.” Nick laughed as he watched the SUV begin to slowly make its way towards them. “It’s not like we’re competing with anyone else. We’ve seen, like, maybe three other people this entire time.”

“Well, one of those other people might want our cab.” AJ lowered his arms as the vehicle slowed to a stop in front of them; its tires crunching on the fresh snow that lined the side of the curb. “We could always continue walking if you want.”

“You guys need a ride?” The passenger side window lowered quickly, interrupting their bickering. The driver, a large burly man, was leaning over another, even bigger, man who was sitting in the passenger seat. “I just picked up this gentleman, and I forgot to turn my light off. He said that he’s willing to split the fare if you’re going in the same direction.”

“We’re just going a block and a half east.” AJ motioned in the direction that they had been walking. “We’re willing to pay the whole fare if it’s out of your way.”

“Yup. We’ll pay the whole thing.” Nick nodded in agreement; his teeth were starting to chatter from the cold. “Whatever it is.”

The driver shrugged and looked at his passenger. “You okay with that?”

“It’s a free ride!” The bigger man laughed. “Who wouldn’t be okay with that?”

“Okay.” The driver shifted the vehicle into park and undid his seatbelt. “Hang on. I’ll come around and open the door for you. The stupid thing always sticks in the cold.”

AJ’s heart-rate inexplicably quickened as soon as the driver stepped out into the snow. Something suddenly seemed off. He glanced at the vehicle; a newer model SUV with no cab decals aside from the ‘TAXI’ sign on the roof. He quickly flipped his eyes to the open passenger window. The man in the passenger seat was taking off his own seatbelt. There was no meter box on the dash.

It was a trap.

“RUN!”

AJ grabbed Nick’s wrist and dragged him away from the curb just as the man in the passenger seat jumped out of the car. AJ’s wet sneakers struggled to grip the icy pavement and he fell to his knees as the driver came around the side of the vehicle. Not knowing what else to do, AJ grabbed a handful of wet snow and flung it in the direction of the driver’s face as he got back on his feet.

“Son of a bitch!” The ice-filled snowball nailed the driver directly in the forehead, causing him to stumble backwards. “Get ‘em, Angelo!”

“Let’s go, Nick! Let’s go!”

AJ checked to make sure that the blonde was right behind him before he took off down the lonely, snow-covered street. He wasn’t sure why two large, angry looking men were trying to attack them, but he definitely didn’t want to stick around to try and figure it out either. The winter air burned his lungs as he ramped up his speed; his shoes crunching through the thin layer of ice that coated the freshly-fallen snow. AJ couldn’t remember the last time that he had run this fast, but the adrenalin made it easy for him to keep going. He could hear the men shouting as they gave chase, he could hear Nick’s laboured breathing a few paces behind him as he struggled to keep up, and he could definitely hear the single gunshot that rang out through the stillness of the night.

“Shit!” Nick hit the ground hard. He slid several feet on his stomach as he threw his hands up to cover his head. The bullet whizzed by the side of his face; he could see the little cylindrical hole that it carved into the snow as it lodged in a snow-bank that lined the street corner.

“Got’cha!” The man who had been sitting in the passenger seat clamped his beefy hand down on Nick’s ankle and yanked him backwards.

“AJ! AJ, shit! AJ, help me!” Nick dug his fingers into the snow and clawed frantically at the slippery sidewalk as the man dragged him backwards on his stomach. He kicked his free leg wildly in an attempt to get the man to let go, but he could tell by the sheer strength of the man’s grip that he was fighting a losing battle.

AJ skidded to a stop and whipped around at the sound of Nick’s voice. His friend was being dragged backwards on his stomach by the bigger of their two assailants. The second man was rapidly coming up behind them; gun still drawn and at the ready. AJ hesitated. He was far enough ahead of the men to be able to escape, but he couldn’t just leave Nick. He didn’t know what to do. What if the man fired a second shot? How was he going to fight off two men who were clearly bigger than he was, especially when at least one of them was armed?

“Forget it!” Nick was still screaming and motioning hysterically for AJ to keep going. “Leave me! Don’t let them take both of us!”

AJ watched helplessly as the man who was pulling Nick along the ground managed to grab hold of Nick’s other leg, further reducing his ability to fight back. The man was now pulling Nick backwards at an accelerated pace; widening the gap between him and AJ. The man with the gun was now walking backwards as well. Although the barrel of the gun was still pointed in AJ’s direction, it was clear that the men weren’t going to come after him.

Making a split-second decision that he knew he was going to regret, AJ turned and continued to run. He knew that he was no longer being pursued, but that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop the tears from running down his face and freezing to his cheeks as he listened to Nick’s frantic screams fade away into the snow. What if he had just left one of his brothers to die?