Vinnie cocked his head at his friend. “What kind of fun?”
“Well I was thinking about going to a certain hotel tonight and paying a visit to a certain Littrell. Just to stir some shit up. Give him a scare ya know?” Marcus cackled, his voice dripping with malice.
Vinnie grinned back. “That could be fun. Got any ideas yet?”
Marcus took another swig of beer. “Nope, I figured I’d let you come up with something good.”
“Marc, you are turning into one lazy bastard you know that?” Vinnie shook his head. “But since I am such a nice guy, I’ll do just that. That little punk’s gonna be pissin his pants after what I come up with.” He boasted.
“That’s my boy.” Marcus knocked fists with Vinnie as they plotted their plan.
“So?”
“So how did therapy go? What did the note say?” Lizz chirped as we walked out of the building.
“Therapy sucked and all Brian said in the note was that he was thinking about me and praying for us, that’s it. How did he seem to you?” I opened the passenger door to the jeep, I knew there wasn’t any way I wasn in the shape to drive yet.
“Brian looked lost Nick, absolutely lost. He misses you so much. I wish this whole Marcus thing was over,” her voice trailed off in thought. The last nightmare sprung into her head and chills quickly ran through her body.
I picked up on the chill thing instantly. “Something wrong?”
Lizz raked a hand through her hair and then quickly fired the engine up. “Nope, I’m fine but there is something I have to ask you.”
“I know what you’re gonna ask me, it’s about the meds, isn’t it?”
“Why Nick? Why did you skip some of the pills?”
“I was feeling better,” I replied, the guilt was pretty evident in my hoarse voice. “I know now that I can’t play with the doses, god it could have been worse.”
“Hell yeah it could have been worse. Let me tell you about someone I know that was on meds for seizures---”
“Spare me the details Lizz, I won’t skip anymore,” I interrupted.
“No, listen to me, I want you to hear about this. I knew someone that was on the same type of meds that you’re on for seizures. She was following them faithfully day after day and then suddenly she started to skip a dose here and one there, then one day she had a full blown seizure, it lasted close to five minutes. When the seizure ended, she wound up with brain damage. She can’t talk or walk anymore and she is in a nursing home because of it. Nick, she was only thirty-four when she had it. That could be you if you don’t watch it.”
The reality of the med situation hit me like a ton of bricks. That was all I needed. I didn’t want anything like that to happen to me.
“I’ll never skip again, I promise.”
“God, would you look at that Marc? All those girls standing by the doors waiting for one of them Backdoor wusses to come out,” Vinnie commented as they drove past the hotel where the guys were staying at.
Marcus laughed quietly as he eyed the roughly forty or so young girls standing outside the hotel doors. “Vincent my friend, this is going to be so damned easy! You are a genious!”
“I know,” Vinnie chuckled.
After parking the old dark blue 1983 Ford Econo van around the corner, Vinnie and Marcus walked towards the cluster of girls and went into the hotel.
“How much for a double room for the night?” Marcus asked the woman at the desk.
Looking the obviously unkempt man over, Phyllis shuddered slightly. The mixture of alcohol and heavily sprayed on deodorant made her gag slightly. She wanted him away from her counter and fast. “It’s $89.95 a night.”
“God, that’s pricey,” Marcus sighed. He pulled out his wallet and thumbed through his small collection of stolen credit cards. Tossing the Visa on the counter, it slid over the edge and onto desk in front of Phyllis. “We’ll take a room for the night.”
The woman looked at the card suspiciously. It looked like a newly issued Visa. The name that was printed on it definatly didn’t match up with this man. “Double occupancy,” she narrowed her eyes as she read the card and looked back at Marcus, “Mr. Rodriguiez?”
“Yeah.”
She scanned the card and to her surprise, it was accepted. Holding the forms out for him to sign she still felt uncomfortable with it. “I need you to sign your full name here,” she stated as she watched the heavyset man pick up the pen and scrawl the name ‘Enrico Rodriguiez’ across the dotted line. Once he filled the papers out, Phyllis reluctantly handed the room card to the man. “You’re in room 428, enjoy your stay.”
Marcus smiled sickly. What incredible luck he was having that night. He would be on the same floor as Brian and the rest of his group. This was going to be a fun night.
“Now what?” Vinnie asked his friend as they boarded the elevator.
“I need to find out how far away Littrell’s room is from ours and then we can go scope the front lobby and find a cutie to have some fun with. You got the stuff, right?”
Vinnie grinned as he patted his front shirt pocket. “Right here.”
Jennifer Thelen waited outside of the Radisson Hotel alone. Her friends had grown tired of hanging out waiting for the impossible dream of maybe seeing Brian Littrell or any of the other members. She clung to the hopes that she would either see Brian or someone that could lead her to Brian. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall, fat man with greasy hair trudge out of the building with a shorter, skinny man tagging along.
“I still can’t believe Littrell wants theatre popcorn at this hour of the night!” Marcus broadcasted as they filed past the group of girls.
Jenny held her breath, this was the break she had been waiting for! She boldly approached the man and his friend.
“Excuse me, I... I couldn’t help but overhear, but are you with the Backstreet Boys security or something?” Jennifer stammered.
Marcus stopped and turned to face the voice. He was pleased at what stood in front of him. “Well, aren’t you the pretty little thing. I’m Mr. Littrell’s personal manager Nick,” Marcus stated with a grin. He was pleased to have chosen the name out of thin air.
“Nick? Gosh that must be hard for him to say your name,” Jennifer replied.
Vinnie grinned at Marcus. “So you from around here?”
“Yes. I just want to see Brian. I felt so bad about what happened with Nick and I just hate the man that did that stuff to them. I would like to see him suffer,” she added quickly.
Marcus pushed the remark aside. “Would you like to see Brian?”
Jennifer’s eyes lit up. “Oh, god, do I ever!”
“Okay, I have to get that popcorn for him, but you can come with us to the store and then that way you can just blend in with us and we can take you to the fourth floor,” Marcus laid his plans out to her.
Jennifer eyed him wearily. “I dunno, I really shouldn’t.”
“Oh come on, I’m Brian’s personal gopher, I’m harmless! Ask Vinnie.”
Vinnie threw a dirty look at Marcus for using his real name. He quickly focused his attention back on the girl and flashed a grin exposing his gold capped front tooth. “Yeah, we’re completely harmless.”
She weighed the situation and then decided it would be okay. There were people around that saw them and she figured they would be returning to the hotel so nothing bad would happen. “Yeah, okay, sure let’s go.”
“Good deal, come on!” Vinnie replied, gesturing for her to follow him towards the panel van.
Once they got into the van, Marcus pulled out the bottles of Mountain Dew he had prepared before they had arrived. He handed a bottle back to Jennifer nonchalantly. “Here, you must be thirsty.”
With trust that could only be possessed by a young woman, Jennifer accepted the bottle of soda. “Thanks, I really am.”
Marcus and Vinnie exchanged glances and a smirk. They uncapped their sodas and thristily chugged them down, encouraging Jennifer to do the same.
She immediately followed suit, wiping some of the soda from her cheek that had trickled off to the side. The soda tasted odd to her, but she passed it off as nerves and drank almost half of it before she started feeling “rubbery.”
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” Marcus asked in mock concern.
Her eyes grew heavy with each blink and the words she wanted to say stuck in her throat. It was like she was slowly becoming paralyzed. She could hear them talking but it was in a slow motion type talk.
“Let’s take her in,” Marcus stated to Vinnie.
“Come on honey,” he grunted as they pulled her body out from the backseat of the van and each of them wrapped an arm around their shoulders. Jennifer wasn’t able to walk, her feet were dragging behind her as they paraded her past the small crowd of girls in front of the hotel. Once they got onto the elevator, Marcus shoved her body into the corner as Vinnie pulled out the note they had written ahead of time.
As the elevator jerked to a stop on the fourth floor, Marcus roughly grabbed the girl causing her head to flop forward and then backward. He was pleased to see that no one was in the hallway as he and Vinnie dragged the girl towards Brian’s door and propped her against the door, pinning the note to her sweater.
Brian lazily tossed a magazine across his bed. He had paged Nick ten minutes ago and he hadn’t responded yet. He looked at the computer that was set up in the corner of his room, a smile spread across his face. God, how Nick loved the internet. Acting on impulse, Brian picked up his pager.
“Buy a laptop,” he keyed and then hit send. He figured that would stimulate some type of response from Nick. Although he didn’t fully understand the mechanics of a computer, Brian was thinking that this would be good therapy for the both of them. He debated on grabbing some chips out of the vending machine on the floor. He needed to walk and use his fine motor skills so a short walk down the hall wouldn’t be that bad. Brian looked at the phone.
“Nope, I’m not calling Steve, I’m doing this myself,” Brian announced to an empty room. He grabbed the room card off the dresser and slid it into his front pocket.
As Brian opened his door, a girl’s body slid backwards onto the floor. Brian yelped and then dropped to his knees to help the girl. She was conscious, but barely. He gently laid her head to the floor and jumped up and dailed the hotel operator.
“I need an ambulance NOW!”
He threw the phone down onto the table and rushed back to the girl. It was then as he looked her over did he see the note pinned to her:
I’ve been dying to meet you. A mutual friend set us up.
Brian’s eyes narrowed. Marcus’ voice flashed back into his head. He was no longer in the hotel room but in Nick’s ICU room from several weeks back:
”Remember, Nick dies and everyone is okay, Carter lives and I start taking people, fans, family, friends. It don’t really matter who gets it.”
His eyes flashed in anger.
