“Vinnie, up for some fun?” Marcus asked suddenly in the middle of the sitcom they were watching.
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.