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** KEVIN **

I adjusted my position for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past five minutes. The cement floor was not exactly comfortable and I was beginning to lose all sense of feeling in the lower half of my body. To make matters worse, the cable ties were really starting to irritate my wrists. Every once and a while, I could feel a trickle of blood escape from my ravaged skin and begin its slow decent towards the tips of my fingers.

“I can’t feel my ass.” Howie announced. “You think that they would at least have the decency to throw us a cushion or two.”

I laughed in spite of myself. “This isn’t the Ritz.”

“The cushions don’t have to be fancy.” Howie played along. “They just have to be soft.”

My laughter continued as I dragged my eyes around the empty room. I wasn’t positive, but my gut instinct was telling me that I was going to die. There was no way out of the windowless box that Howie and I had been occupying for the past hour. We didn’t have a hope in Hell of being able to escape unless someone managed to find us. I figured that the chances of us being found were slim to none, so I forced the laugher from my lips for the simple reason that I didn’t want to die feeling miserable and afraid. If I was going to go, I wanted to go with a smile on my face.

“We’re so fucked!” Howie also began to chuckle softly to himself. “It should be Brian and Nick sitting here, not the two of us. We’re supposed to be the old, smart ones.”

“They’re never going to let us live this down.” I cocked my head in Howie’s direction. “You know that, right?”

Howie’s smile intensified. “The two of them will start every story with the same line for the rest of their lives: ‘remember that time when Kevin and Howie were kidnapped …’

I opened my mouth to add my two cents to the scenario, but stopped when I heard a rustling sound on the other side of the door. All traces of my smile vanished, and Howie’s face went sickeningly pale. Our eyes locked in paralyzing fear as the scuffling sounds intensified; so much for dying in a good mood.

A few seconds later a thin and painfully sharp looking knife slid underneath the small space between the floor and the bottom of the door. I stopped the knife’s movements with my shoe and once again turned my eyes to Howie. This time, his expression was one of confusion and surprise. Had these people really just supplied us with a weapon?

“Use the knife to cut the cable ties.” The television in the corner sprang to life and the blonde woman’s face filled the screen. “When you’re finished, slide the knife back under the door.”

Neither Howie nor I moved to retrieve the knife. We were both fixated on the TV. The blonde woman was staring directly into the camera with an expectant look on her face. It was unnerving to say the least.

“Can she hear us?” Howie dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. “She must be able to see us.”

“I can see AND hear you, Howie.” The woman’s face dragged upwards into a sickening smile. “Now, do as I say and cut your cables.”

There was something about the woman’s tone of voice that told me that it was probably in our best interests to follow her instructions. I used my foot to pull the knife along the floor before shuffling around on the cement and grasping the handle between my bloody fingers.

“Turn around.” I motioned for Howie to position his back against mine. “I’ll cut yours and then you can cut mine.”

Howie nodded, but I could see the fear flash in his eyes. I would be attempting the cut behind my back with my hands tied together. It was a risky move, but it was really our only option. There was no way that Howie or I would be able to cut our own ties.

“Ready?” I asked, my neck craning painfully over my shoulder.

I could see that the knife was in the proper position, but I had no idea how much wiggle room I had between the blade and Howie’s skin.

“Ready.” Howie announced with a distinct lack of certainty.

I took a deep breath and held it as I jerked the knife upwards. The blade sliced easily through the plastic and Howie scooted away from me as soon as his cable ties hit the ground. I slowly let out my breath and dropped the knife to the floor, thankful that Howie still had all of his fingers.

I could hear Howie scrambling to retrieve the knife, and a few seconds later the ties fell from my wrists. The sense of relief was immediate, and I quickly raised my hands to my face to inspect the damage. Like I had feared, there were tender looking cuts from where the plastic had dug into my skin and my hands were caked in dried blood. I instinctively began to massage my wrists; wincing as my fingers connected with the raw skin.

“Slide the knife under the door.” The woman’s impatient voice invaded the small space.

Howie hurried to comply with her request. He shot the knife back under the door, the blade scraping menacingly against the cement floor. The scraping noises stopped once the knife vanished from sight; a clear indication that someone was standing immediately on the other side of the door.

“Good boy.” The woman smiled again, revealing two rows of perfectly straight, white teeth. “It’s good to know that you can follow instructions.”

Howie sat back against the wall and began gently massaging his own bloodied wrists. “What do you want?”

“I want you.” The woman laughed softly. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

I wanted nothing more than to exchange a quick look with Howie, but I figured that any kind of movement might send the woman into a tailspin. So, I kept my eyes firmly locked on the television as I responded. “What do you mean? Which one of us do you want? Howie?”

The woman laughed again, louder this time. “I mean the collective you. I want all of you.”

“You want all of us?” I repeated, stalling for time.

I had no idea what I was supposed to say to our clearly unstable captor. All I knew for sure was that I needed her to keep talking. I needed her to give us as much information as possible.

“I can’t believe that this is happening!” The woman seemed positively giddy with excitement. “I can’t believe that I’m actually having a conversation with you guys. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this moment?”

That was it, I couldn’t hold back anymore. I exchanged a perplexed look with Howie. This lady was clearly a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

“What’s your name?” Howie struggled to make his voice sound as normal as possible. “You know our names, but you never told us yours.”

“Sarah.” The woman supplied, but her eyes darkened. “I’ve told you my name before. Do you really not remember me?”

“Of course we do!” I interjected when I saw that Howie was beginning to sweat. “Howie’s just really bad when it comes to names. Right, D?”

“Right.” Howie nodded vigorously. “That’s why I give everyone a nickname.”

Sarah continued to stare directly into the camera that was feeding into the television. Even though she wasn’t in the room, her unrelenting gaze was making me uncomfortable. It seemed as though she was going to shoot out of the TV and strangle us at any minute.

“Where do you remember me from?”

The blood rushed from my face as soon as the words left her mouth. I should have known that she would ask a follow-up question. My brain scrambled to come up with an acceptable answer as I struggled to keep the smile on my face.

“You’re a fan.” Howie jumped in with a generic response. “Probably one of our biggest.”

“You were at the latest show in …” I paused, trying desperately to think of where we had stopped during the first leg of the tour that was close to Tennessee. “… North Carolina.”

“Which show?” Sarah prodded, her eyes softening ever-so-slightly.

Shit! Now, I was starting to sweat. I could feel Howie’s stare drilling into the side of my face as my artificial smile began to wobble. “Both.” I decided to go for broke. “You were at both of the North Carolina shows; Raleigh and Charlotte.”

Sarah beamed her approval. “What was I wearing at the Charlotte show?”

Was this girl serious? Did she have any idea how many women we saw on a daily basis? Did she have even the slightest concept of how many people we met at every show?

“White.” Howie offered. He checked to make sure that Sarah was still smiling before he continued. “I think that you were wearing a white dress.”

I was so happy with Howie that I could have kissed him. Of course the nut-job had been wearing white. She had probably bought a platinum VIP package, and we had told everyone who was going to come on stage with us to wear a white outfit.

“You do remember me!” Sarah squealed. “I knew that the two of you wouldn’t forget!”

“We never forget a fan.” I lied, eliminating the wobble from my smile. “You guys are too important to us.”

“Nick will have forgotten about me.” Sarah’s expression immediately became one of anger and contempt. “Nick likes to pretend that he doesn’t know who I am. He thinks that it’s funny to ignore me and to make me look like a fool.”

I shook my head in a way that I hoped looked sympathetic and natural. “Nick meets so many people that he sometimes has trouble keeping everybody straight. He would never intentionally forget about you.”

“Don’t try to protect him!” Sarah exploded. “This is why I’m doing this! It’s time for Nick to see how it feels when everyone turns against him!”

I tensed, pulling myself up straighter and tighter against the wall. Sarah’s face was turning red and she was visibly shaking. Her eyes were flashing with pent up rage as she continued to stare into the camera, unblinking. Howie stiffened beside me, his breath catching in his throat.

This woman had a grudge against Nick, and she was clearly using the rest of us as pawns. As far as she was concerned, we were nothing more than disposable playing pieces that she needed to manipulate in order to settle her vendetta. We were the bait and Nick was her prized catch.

“You killed Dan!” Howie blurted out. “You killed him because you mistook him for Nick. You killed an innocent man and you don’t even care!”

Sarah laughed, only this time it sounded hallow and sadistic as opposed to soft and melodic. “Killing Dan wasn’t a mistake. I knew all about him and his obsession with Nick. I befriended Dan at the Charlotte show, and I set up a fake meeting with him that night at the bar in Franklin. I planned Dan’s murder knowing that the police would mistake him for Nick. I had been keeping a close eye on his physical transformation, and I knew that he was in possession of Nick’s identification. Dan’s death was an integral part of my plan.”

Howie and I were both staring at Sarah, transfixed. This woman was more than just off her rocker. She was a cold blooded killer who clearly felt no remorse for her deplorable behaviour.

“I used Dan to bring the five of you together. I killed him to ensure that your names would be brought back into the media spotlight.” Sarah continued her chilling admission as Howie and I looked on in silence. “Nick has humiliated me in public too many times for me to count. I’m going to make sure that he knows how it feels to lose the things that are the most important to him. By the time I’m finished, Nick’s going to know how it feels to have his heart ripped out and stomped on in front of the entire world. In the end, he’s going to experience the worst pain of his life.”