As I walked alongside Mandy, my mind was racing with questions of what I
was going to do. Was giving up my life and my freedom the right choice?
There weren’t any options, I thought to myself. This was something I had to
do, Brian’s and Lizz’s lives depended on what I did.
“Okay Nick, you can sit there,” Mandy pointed to a hard chair in front of a
small wooden desk. She placed a thick folder down and walked over and
closed the door behind me. I noticed my name was printed in the upper right
hand corner of the yellow folder.
The room was plain, white walls, dark navy carpet and no decorations on the
walls at all. A white office phone hung by itself on the wall furthest from
the desk.
As Mandy shuffled through the papers, occasionally marking things with her
pen, I swallowed hard, as if it was going to give me the courage I needed to
do what needed to be done.
“I want to make a confession.”
My voice sounded too shaky to me. I cleared my throat and spoke the
sentence again, this time with a touch of confidence to make it sound more
believable.
Mandy looked up from the paperwork, setting her pen down and folded her
hands together. “Okay Nick, what is it you’d like to tell me.”
I made sure my eyes locked directly onto hers. “I intentionally wanted to
hurt Terri. I wanted to see her dead, but my aim wasn’t so damn hot so I
ended maiming her instead. I would have done something to the rest of them
too if I had the chance. I wanted to shoot and kill Marcus but he was a
little stronger than me and he ended up shooting me in the shoulder.”
“What about Kurt, they found dead outside of the plane,” Mandy asked.
I tried to remember that person before I spoke. I recalled Terri kneeling
down by his frozen body, weeping and I remember accusing Lizz of
strangling him with a seatbelt.
“I got sick of his mouth and I took a seatbelt after the crash, and I choked
him. He was a little too hard to kill because of his size. I know you’re
wondering why I’m confessing to you now and why I didn’t say anything to
anyone sooner.”
Mandy didn’t speak, she only nodded.
“I thought I could skate through the system. Play insane and get off of jail
time with mental instabilities and serve a short time here and then be off
scott free. It was only after spending the night here I realized that I
couldn’t stand living here for another hour. Jail has to be far better than
this place.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying Nick?” Mandy asked.
“Yeah, that I’m a murderer and I need to be locked up for the rest of my
life,” I stated quietly. Deep inside of me I was scared to death. Deep inside
of me I wanted to cry out.
Mandy calmly got up and walked over to the telephone and punched in a
three digit number.
“Scott, I need you in conference east. Transfer to ISO nine for a d/c to
county. Thanks.”
“Okay those were all codes to me. I figured we were in conference east, but
the rest went over my head.
“What’s an iso nine and county?”
Mandy answered me and as she wrote notes in my chart. “ISO nine is
isolation unit number nine and county is county jail.”
My heart dropped. I was going back to the county jail. She bought my story.
My life was now officially over.
Brian was happy to see AJ’s face as he rounded the corner. He was starting
to feel sick to his stomach, which he remembered from back when he had his
heart surgery, it was his body’s way of telling him that he had done a little
more than he should have.
“That was a short walk,” AJ commented as he walked alongside Brian.
br>
His physical therapist was holding onto the strap that was around Brian’s
waist. “Just a little further to go, do you think you can still make it?”
Marilyn, the therapist asked.
Biting his lower lip in concentration, Brian nodded. His legs felt like he was
dragging chains behind him.
Brian appeared a little unsettled to AJ. He decided to fish a little to see if
Brian would break and tell him what happened.
“Meet up with autograph seekers in the hallway?”
AJ rushed to Brian’s side to help the therapist guide him back into bed. He
sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. As Brian lifted his legs to get back
into bed, his face contorted with pain.
“You did good Brian, I’ll be back later this afternoon,” the PT stated as she
left the room.
Brian waited until the girl had left before he told AJ what had happened.
“I ran into Lizz while I was out,” Brian stated.
“Oh god, what was she doing out of her room? She’s too sick to be wandering
the halls and besides, she isn’t on this floor. Was she alone?”
“Kinda sorta,” Brian replied. He was vague in his reply because his nurse came
into the room with a syringe.
“Boy Brian, Marilyn was right, you do look like you’re hurting,” the nurse
observed. “Okay, pain scale time. What do you rate it right now?”
“Probably a seven,” Brian sighed.
“Okay, I need you to face your visitor for a sec please.”
AJ winced when he figured Brian was getting the shot. He hated shots,
always had, especially when he saw someone else getting them.
AJ waited until the nurse left the room. “So, kinda sorta meaning she wasn’t
alone?”
Brian straightened his blankets, pulling them up to his chest. “Well, that
woman was....,” he trailed off, not sure what to tell AJ. He remembered the
look in Lizz’s eyes when he was going to tell the crowd outside of the
elevator about Agnes.
“That woman? The one that is always hanging around and stuff!? She was
with Lizz?”
“Agnes,” Brian stated.
“That nasty bitch! She threatened to do something to you guys if she felt
that things weren’t going the way she intended them,” AJ spat.
Brian started feeling drowsy from the pain medication. “AJ, go down to her
room, I don’t trust her and I want Lizz to be safe. Make sure she’s safe,
okay?”
“But what about...” AJ stopped in midsentence when he saw that Brian had
fallen asleep. He stood up and pulled the blankets up to Brian’s chest and
turned the lights off that were shining from the back of the bed. He walked
quietly out of the room towards the elevators.
Agnes stood in the doorway to ICU room number 18. The patient was fast
asleep, no doubt from all the medications that had been given. A slight
smiled played across her lips as she clutched the small white paper sack she
held in her grip.
‘This was going to be far too easy,’ she thought to herself. ‘Way too easy.’
It didn’t take long for the scene to be swarmed with police, state troopers, a wrecker, a fire truck, and an ambulance. Emergency lights flashed and commotion was wild. The obese man in the front seat of the suburban was immediately determined dead on the scene. Pictures were being taken of everything and glass from shattered windows was being swept off the road.
Kyung sat inside the ambulance, a thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She slowly rocked back in forth, not comprehending anything around her. Any attempt to get through to her had proven futile. She had retreated within herself like she had done before. It was a form of protection. After being terrorized and watching her friends be terrorized for that long, she simply couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Sweetie, I need to see your arm. I think it might be broken.” Lisa gently spoke to Kyung. She started to reach for her arm under the blanket and Kyung started to get upset.
“It’s okay, we’re here to help you. No one is going to hurt you anymore. We need to take a look at you okay?” Rick added soothingly.
Kyung wouldn’t have any of it though. Without knowing what she was doing, she fought against the paramedics. Worried that she was going to cause further physical damage to herself, the paramedics had no choice but to tie her down to the stretcher. They were unsure of her injuries and her violent struggling could cause her more injuries. It didn’t matter anyway because almost immediately she passed out from exhaustion. It was then that the medics were allowed to put her arm in a splint and see to the rest of her injuries.
“Is she going to be okay?” Lisa asked anxiously. She had only been a paramedic for a couple months and she was slightly overwhelmed.
“She should be. It looks like she’s got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s no wonder with what they’ve been through.” Rick explained.
“Are we taking her to the same hospital that everyone else is in?” Lisa had been following it all and knew of the chaos that surrounded the hospital that was treating Brian, Lizz, and Terri. And previously Nick.
“No. First off, too much chaos. Secondly, Memorial is closer.” Rick glanced outside the ambulance to see what the sudden commotion was. “Shit! How did the press get wind of this already?”
AJ stepped off the elevators outside the ICU. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that something wasn’t right. His conversation with Brian was unsettling. He knew that Brian was holding something back. Brian had started to tell him what had happened in the hallway when he had seen Lizz, but stopped, unsure of himself.
He buzzed into the ICU and they let him go right on in, recognizing him. AJ pushed softly on the door to Lizz’s room and stepped around the curtain.
Agnes heard the door and whirled around.
AJ froze in his steps, seeing Agnes standing by Lizz’s bed. She was holding Lizz’s IV line in her hand and the sick feeling in AJ’s stomach grew.
“I wouldn’t make a sound if I were you.” Agnes stated quietly. She held up the IV line where she held a syringe in one of the infuser ports.
“What the hell are you doing?!” AJ hissed. “If you put air in her line you are going to kill her!”
Agnes shook her head and smiled tightly. “No no, dear AJ, I said I was going to put air in Brian’s line. This isn’t air.”
AJ glanced at the door behind him then back at Agnes.
“Oh it’s okay, no one will be in here for another 15 minutes. I have it timed perfectly. And you had better just cooperate with me.” Agnes addressed AJ’s thoughts smugly.
“What is that?” AJ nodded at the syringe. He was trying to stay calm. If he got upset then she might and then she might inject that stuff into Lizz.
“Do you know what it was that got Lizz into this mess in the first place? A medication called Albuterol. People take it in breathing treatments, much like Brian is getting right now. In fact, I happened to get this bottle out of his room while he was sleeping earlier today.” Agnes’ voice was slow and calculated.
AJ took in a sharp breath. She had been in Brian’s room?!
“See, the first time Lizz swallowed slightly more than three quarters of the bottle. Unfortunately this is merely a quarter. It isn’t enough to kill her, but it will definitely make her very very sick. She needs to suffer for what she and Carter did to my Terri.” Her voice was strangely calm.
“She did suffer. So has Nick. None of this is going to help your daughter.” AJ tried to reason with her.
“Yes it will. It makes me feel better already to think of what this is going to do to her. Even though it is only a quarter of the bottle, it is going to go straight into her bloodstream. She won’t die. But she is going to wish she would.” Her voice was flat.
“Lady, you are going to go to jail for this! You are going to leave your daughter all alone in here if that happens. Is that what you want?!” AJ tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.
Agnes ignored him. “Isn’t it ironic that the same drug that landed her in the first place is going to teach her a lesson now? This is only a fraction of what is going to happen if she opens her big fat mouth.”
AJ raised his eyebrows. This had something to do with what had happened earlier. Whatever had made Brian so uneasy. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to leave your kid in here by yourself do you? That’s what will happen if you get caught. She’ll be here all alone.”
Agnes let her eyes soften. “She can’t be alone. She is afraid of hospitals. She is hurting so bad and I can’t leave her.”
“Then put the needle down and walk out of here right now. I’ll make you a deal. You leave this room and stay the hell away from Brian and Lizz, and I won’t tell anyone you were in here.” AJ tried to bargain with her. He let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding when Agnes pulled the needle out of the infuser port.
“I can’t leave Terri.” She mumbled.
“That’s right. Go be with her.” AJ said, trying to keep his voice calm. He was livid, but if he blew up at her, that would not help. Then to his dismay, Lizz’s eyes began to flutter open.
I blinked and looked around. There was someone standing over my bed, but I couldn’t tell who it was at first. When it registered, my heart skipped a beat. I looked frantically around and AJ was standing a few feet from her. He was looked shaken.
“AJ?” I whispered.
Agnes whirled around to face me, eyes hardening. “Little bitch, you should have stayed asleep.”
“It’s going to be okay Lizz.” AJ tried to reassure me. I glanced at what Agnes was holding in her hands and my eyes widened, my chest growing tight. A syringe. She was going to kill me.
“Breaking news from the Backstreet Boys kidnapping case! I am here live at the accident scene. This white suburban you see here was the vehicle that carried the final missing victim and the last two kidnappers. The cause of the accident has not yet been determined...“
All three of us stared at the television, none of us moving. All I could think about at that moment was Kyung and if she was okay.
“The accident was fatal. One of the kidnappers, this man, was killed instantly when the vehicle rolled before it came to it’s final stop.“
The same picture that had been flashed all over the news since this whole mess started was shown. It was Dale. Dale was killed. Agnes gasped, tears forming in her cold eyes.
“The final victim in the kidnapping is alive, but her condition has not been released. It has also been stated that the deceased’s son, one of the kidnappers, has escaped and it still at large.”
Agnes turned to me, tears running down her face. “You. Will. Pay.” With that, she plunged the needle into my IV line pushed the liquid in.
When he saw that Agnes injected the contents of the syringe into Lizz’s IV
line, he didn’t stop and think about his actions, he just reacted by diving at
Agnes, throwing her onto the floor and ripping the IV line out of Lizz’s hand.
AJ was fine until he saw the blood running off of her hand and pooling onto
the sheets. He suddenly became nauseous and fainted.
Agnes scrambled to her knees. “You’ll pay now, I’ll make sure you pay!”
With that said, she quickly darted out the hospital room’s door.
“Lizz? What’s all the commotion going on in here---oh my god!”
Lizz watched helplessly as her nurse rushed over to an unconscious AJ,
slumped against a wall.
“What happened here Lizz?”
At first, Lizz didn’t want to tell the nurse anything, worried about putting
Brian at risk. Then she quickly decided that Brian was probably already in
trouble.
“Brian Littrell, he’s in trouble and you’ll find her there,” Lizz choked out.
“Find who Lizz?”
“Agnes, she said she was going to kill him, make him pay,” Lizz cried out.
Her nurse didn’t move from AJ’s side, waving smelling salts under his nose.
Lizz grew more upset and impatient at the way the nurse was purposly
avoiding her statement.
“Please, you have to get someone to help Brian, please!”
