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A couple days passed, and both Howie and Nick were discharged from the hospital. The doctors decided to keep Brian in a little longer, due to the fact that they wanted to keep an eye on his heart.

“So… where are we going now?” Howie had asked.

Nick shrugged, “I don’t know… where you do you want to go?”

“Well, my parents are flying in tomorrow to come and see me… I won’t be going with them, but at the same time, I want to stay somewhere near here… and must I need to tell you the reason why?”

Nick shook his head and sighed, they weren’t going far away from their brothers, knowing that their killer was still out there, looking for them. “Well, we can rent a place or something… we’ll think of something later, right now I gotta make a call.”

Nick began to walk towards the payphones that were in the hallway of the hospital waiting room, Howie following close behind. Nick patted his pockets, looking for spare change, but he came out empty handed. He looked over to Howie. “What in the hell happened to all our stuff on the bus?”

Howie shrugged, “They might’ve salvaged what they could…”

Nick shrugged as well and picked up the phone, deciding to call collect. He waited as the phone continued to ring and ring, soon an electronic recorder came on. “Please say your name in which you want the caller to identify you by after the beep.”

“Nick Carter.” he replied after he heard the beep.

Once again, everything fell silent as the phone continued to ring. Finally after what seemed like minutes, someone picked up the phone. “Nick? Is that you?”

Nick could only laugh as he heard his sister’s voice. “Yes Angel, how are you baby girl?”

The phone fell silent and he could hear sobs wrack his sister’s body. “God Nick, we were all so worried about you… mom hardly got any sleep, and dad came back to help her out. We’re sorry we couldn’t fly down there to see you, there’s just been so many things that were going on at the same time…”

Nick tried to calm her blabbering down. “Sweetie, sweetie… it’s okay, honestly… I know you all were going through a lot. I just called to say that I was discharged from the hospital today… is mom around by any chance?”

“No, she and dad is at the funeral home…”

Nick’s face twisted in confusion. “What would she want at the funeral home? Did somebody die?”

Angel fell silent. “Nick… you don’t remember what happened?”

Nick was starting to get scared now. “No Angel, I don’t remember what happened… I don’t even know what your talking about. Just explain to me what this is all about, because your starting to scare me.”

Angel began to cry hysterically, she couldn’t get a word out of her mouth. Nick pulled the phone away from his ear and just stared at it as if it had bit him. “Angel.” he called out. “Angel, c’mon now… calm down and tell me what happened.”

“Aaron is dead Nick…”

Nick’s heart stopped, the world began to spin around him. “Funny Angel… now really, give the phone to mom, I’m not in the mood to play games.”

“It’s no f***ing joke Nick, Aaron is dead!” she shouted.

Nick could only stand there, frozen to the spot. “When… when did this happen?” he stuttered.

“The accident… your bus accident. He was on the bus with you guys… he died instantly.”

Howie could only turn to look away, he knew that Angel had just told him that Aaron was dead, has been dead for a while now. Nick’s chest began to heave, there was so much emotion running through him at that moment, he didn’t know if he wanted to cry, yell, scream, or get angry. The phone simply fell out of his hands and he began to hyperventilate.

“Nick…” Howie whispered, slowly making his way over towards Nick’s trembling form.

As soon as Howie got by his side, he immediately dropped to the floor, Howie darting his arms out to catch him. He began to do everything at once, yell, scream and cry. Howie tried to hold him, but Nick kept pushing him away.

“Get the f*** of me D.!” Nick shouted as he pushed Howie away and shot up from the ground. He picked up the dangling phone and began to slam it into the wall, not caring that people were staring at him as if he was crazy. Howie rose as well and tried to grab the phone out of his hands, but Nick kept pushing him away.

Once Howie was able to take the phone out of his grasp, Nick began to punch the wall, wanting to feel physical pain to take away his emotional pain.

“C’mere Nick…” Howie said as he grabbed him in a tight embrace, trying to calm him down.

“No!” Nick shouted, shoving Howie roughly away. “You told me no one died… you f***ing told me that no one died Howie… you f***ing lied to me, how the f*** could you not tell me that my own f***ing brother was dead?” Nick screamed in his face.

Howie felt tears prick his eyes, but he refused to let it fall before Nick. “I… we were gonna tell you Nick, but we didn’t…”

Nick put his hand up to stop him from talking. “Save it… just f***ing save it D., cause I don’t want to hear what you f***ing have to say. You lied to me… that’s that… you all f***ing lied to me.” and with that, he resumed punching the wall again, letting out his anger, sadness and frustration.

It wasn’t long till a security guard and a doctor approached them, but Howie waved them off. “Your gonna have to pay for that damage, you know.” the doctor retorted.

Howie only nodded and grabbed for Nick again, and this time, Nick didn’t fight him off. Instead, he melted within his arms, crying hysterically and letting it all out.

“I’m so sorry Nick…” Howie apologized. “Both Brian and I…”

But Nick cut him off by pushing him away. That name hit his heart hard… his very best friend didn’t even bother to tell him that his younger brother was dead when he knew this whole time. He began to walk towards the elevator, leaving Howie behind. As soon as he got on the elevator, he thought of what he was going to say and do once he got to Brian’s room.