Blind Rage

Part 4

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!”

~*~*~*~



“Mr. Carter, you realize that this isn’t in your best interest, we can build a defense, but it’s going to take a little time, you don’t have to do this!”

I looked directly into my attorney’s steel blue eyes. “I have to do this, you don’t understand.”

“All I understand is the fact that you’re figuratively putting a loaded gun to your head. I have no other choice than to resign from your case. I can’t stand by you and let you ruin your life.”

“It’s already ruined, believe me, there’s nothing more left of it, this is something I have to do to save my friends and my family.”

“Are you being blackmailed Nick? Is that’s what’s going on?”

My attorney hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t make eye contact with him, I couldn’t look him in the eyes and lie. I shrugged my shoulders.

“I never said that, did I.”

Marshall Spencer closed his briefcase and stood up. As he was patting me on the shoulder, an old man in a uniform entered the small holding cell. “The judge is ready for you.”

I nodded slightly and clenched my teeth. This was going to be hard to do but I had to stay strong.

Strong for Brian.

Strong for Lizz.

After the guard checked the chains on my wrists and the shackels on my legs, I was led to the judge’s chambers. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the clanging sound of the chains as I walked.

There wouldn’t be a court hearing, I was confessing my guilt, there wasn’t any need for any courtroom production.

Guilty as charged. Period.

~*~*~*~



Breathing heavily, Agnes hid in a small linen closet on the eighth floor - Brian’s floor. She managed to steal an ID badge from a nurse and the dark blue scrubs were readily availble in the closet. She wasted no time dressing in the scrubs and attaching the hospital ID badge to the front left of the top.

Adjusting the uniform, she casually walked down the hall towards the room that was heavily guarded by a large black uniformed guard.

Agnes had a slight smile cross her lips as the guard glanced up at her and then nodded her in. Upon slowly entering Brian’s room, her eyes swept the perimeter and was not happy upon seeing a young man sitting in a chair next to Brian’s bed. She was happy to discover that Brian was asleep.

Howie looked up from the television screen when the woman with blue hospital scrubs entered the room. He didn’t give her another look and went back to watching the television program.

Agnes leaned against the sink, her back to Brian’s company. She placed her hand inside the scrub pocket, grasping the empty syringe. Agnes knew that she couldn’t risk injecting air into Brian’s IV line with that man sitting there. That would be an instant clue that she was the killer. As she glanced up at the clock above the cabinets, she noticed that the cupboard that held all of his prescribed narcotics was carelessly left unlocked.

She opened the door farther and pulled the yellow plastic mesh box that contained the vials of medications for Brian. Fishing around she found one that looked lethal enough and pulled it out and plunged the syringe needle into the vial.

~*~*~*~*~

“Please! You have to help him!” I cried out desperately. I was starting to feel dizzy, but I didn’t care. My main concern was Brian. My nurse continued to ignore me and kept her attention on AJ. I reached my hand up to the bedrail, and started to pull myself up. I barely even noticed the dark bruise and the blood that oozed from the hole that was in place of where my IV was ripped out of. The dizziness turned into a pulsating pain. I felt like my heart was pounding in my head and the alarms started to ring. Still, I tried to get out of the bed. I had to get to Brian.

“Lizz? Oh my...” My nurse’s head shot up when the alarms sounded. They grew more and more shrill as I started to lose my grip on reality. Everything was spinning and it hurt to breathe. It was like de vu all over again. My nurse jumped up and grabbed me before I slipped to the floor. She leaned me back in the bed, her face growing pale.

“I need some help in here!” She shouted over her shoulder. “What’s wrong dear?”

“Brian...he’s in...trouble...” I panted. Did it hurt this bad before?

The room started to fill with people and I thought I heard AJ’s voice. He sounded so far away. The beating of my heart seemed to grow louder. My vision was going out on me. The dizzy mess that I was seeing was fading into blackness.

“Shit! She is going to go into cardiac arrest! What the hell brought this on? What happened to her? Who was that woman that I saw run out of here?”

“Young man, are you okay? You have a good sized knot on your forehead.”

“BP’s falling.”

It was so far away. “Brian.” I whispered.

“What?”

“What did she say?”

“AJ?” My voice was so weak. “Get to Brian.

“What the hell is going on here?! People, we are going to lose her if we don’t...”

~*~*~*~

AJ raced down the hall, his head pounding from the fall. When he had come to, the effects of the Albuterol had already taken their effect on Lizz. She frantically pleaded with him to get to Brian’s room since no one else took notice that he was in danger. It took a moment for the cloudiness in his head to clear, but when it clicked, AJ hauled ass out of Lizz’s room so fast that no one had a chance to stop him.

He flew by the elevators and down the steps. People jumped out of his way and some even yelled at him as he almost barreled them down. The guard in front of Brian’s door, jumped in shock as AJ slammed through the door.

Howie looked up, startled, as did a woman in blue scrubs.

“You bitch!!” AJ seethed at her.

The commotion woke Brian up and he looked around, unsure of what was happening.

“Get the hell away from him or so help me...” AJ snarled.

Agnes smiled. “Too late again huh AJ? I think you best stay where you are. The second you move and this shit goes straight into his veins.” She held Brian’s IV line just how she held Lizz’s.

Brian’s eyes widened and Howie looked from AJ to Agnes. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean ‘too late again‘“ Brian whispered.

“I just shot Lizz up with the same shit she tried to kill herself with the first time. Now you are going to get a shot of this shit, whatever the hell it is.” Agnes smirked. Then her eyes clouded over. “My husband is dead and I will make all of you pay.

Brian paled.

“Over my dead body.” AJ glared at the woman that held his friend’s life at her mercy.

“That can be arranged.” Agnes said sweetly.

“Let’s think about this. You don’t want to do this. Is your revenge worth going to jail for?” Howie tried to reason.

“Don’t waste your breath.” AJ spat.

“Oh no, I really do want to do this. See, we don’t really need Brian and Lizz. It’s a liability to have them both around. Only one of them needs to be here in order to secure Carter’s future.” Agnes explained.

“What do you mean?” Howie narrowed her eyes at Agnes. AJ looked horrified and desperately hoped what he was thinking wasn’t true.

Brian gasped when it dawned on him. That was what Agnes had just said to upset Lizz so bad. Lizz knew. And now, so did Brian.

“If you kill us both, then what?” Brian shot at her, trying to keep the tremor out of it.

“Oh I didn’t give her enough to kill her. You on the other hand...” Agnes smiled to cover up her nervousness. On one hand, no one was going to move when she had this needle stuck in Brian’s IV. On the other, she was trapped. Unless she came up with another way out of this...

~*~*~*~*~

I could barely hear their voices anymore. I was slipping out of consciousness and it seemed like the harder I tried to hold on, the harder it got. I could feel the blood rushing through my veins, my erratic heartbeat in my chest, filling my ears. God it hurt so bad. Was this it? Was I going to die this time? How did I make it last time? How did I survive this?

Nick.

Nick was there last time. We didn’t know it at the time, but we had a link. We still do. In a sense, we were affecting each other from the beginning. Almost from the very beginning we understood each other. Sometimes too well. We would say all the time that we could get through anything. And we always had. We helped each other and took it a day at a time. We can do this. We said it all the time. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t imagine him ever not being there and I couldn’t do it to him either. I can’t do this alone though. Was he feeling this? I wasn’t going to let go. I couldn’t.

Nick!!

~*~*~*~



The judge was sitting behind a large oak desk. He was leaned back in a burgandy colored leather chair, his glasses were slid halfway down his nose, looking over a file. The guard led me to the front of the desk, the judge barely looked up at me.

“Sit down,” he mumbled.

I really didn’t want to sit, I wanted to stand and get this overwith, but the guard pretty much forced me to the chair. I watched the judge as he laid the folder on the desk, took his glasses off and folded his hands together. He sighed heavily.

“They tell me you’d like to make a confession and Marshall Spencer resigned from your case,” the judge began.

Yessir,” I replied, I was trying to be as polite as possible.

“You realize that what you say to me here in the chambers sticks as much as if you told me out in a courtroom. That is why I have our court recorder here. She will record your confession. Do you completely understand what I am telling you?”

Yessir,” I again replied.

“Go ahead then,” the judge urged me on.

I nodded and took a deep breath in. “I wish to confess my g-g-g....,”

I couldn’t take a breath in, it was suddenly like someone was sitting on my chest. I started gasping for air, it was like I was breathing through a tiny straw. It must have been evident that something was wrong because the judge stood up from his seat.

“Are you alright? What’s wrong? Can you speak?”

Clutching my throat, I couldn’t even shake my head yes or no. Funny thing about this was the sound was going away and all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating in my ears. It was going really fast and the faster it went the dizzier I got. My legs were feeling rubbery and suddenly without warning, they gave out from under me as I was making an attempt to grab the desk only to be hindered by the chains around my wrists and waist.

~*~*~*~*~



Brian tried desperately to think of a way out of this mess. He knew in his weakened condition he was no match for Agnes. He, AJ and Howie were each privately trying to think of a way to foil Agnes before she injected the medication into Brian’s IV. They each knew that if one of them made a quick move towards her, she would panic and react.

Agnes looked at each of the men in the room, sweating out the situation she was in. Her mind was calculating the different scenarios in trying to get out of the sticky mess she was in.

“Oh shit,” Agnes mumbled as she looked towards the door.

AJ and Howie turned towards the door to see what Agnes was staring at. They saw the security guard enter the room with another uniformed guard.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” Agnes demanded.

The guards hesitated at first and then started rushing towards her.

“NO DAMMIT, stay back!” AJ pleaded with the guards. His eyes shifted from them to Agnes. He gasped when he saw her empty the contents of the vial into Brian’s IV line.

The guards pushed Agnes away from Brian’s bed and pinned her up against the wall.

“AJ, find out what she put in my IV,” Brian pleaded.

“You’ll never find out, I put it back in the box,” Agnes laughed.

“Oh shit,” Brian softly commented. All he could do was wait for whatever was going to happen, happen. He could feel his heart start to flutter but he wasn’t sure if it was nerves or the medication Agnes had used against him.

The guards led Agnes over to the corner of the room, away from Brian, Howie and AJ. They had to wait until the state troopers came to relieve them of their burden. Agnes just stood there, staring at Brian, a smirk on her face.

As AJ hit the nurse button above Brian’s bed, Howie noticed that the wavy flowing lines on the monitor were now becoming more erratic, growing closer together and then far apart. It was no longer consistent. He looked at Brian’s face and could see that he was pale, his face soaked in sweat.

The pains in his chest were more than he could stand. He wanted to cry out in agony, but didn’t want to give Agnes the satisfaction. A soft sigh escaped his lips and the heart monitor’s alarms started their shrill ringing.

Howie and AJ looked on in horror as the ringing kept up but the wavy lines were now flat and a long beep permeated the air.

updated: 12-19-00

Doctor Doug MacMasters raced into the room. He was just finishing lunch when they paged him stat to Lizz’s room. When he reached it, it was already full of people.

“What the hell is going on?” He snapped some gloves on and began assessing the situation.

“I was on my way to check on Lizz and I heard a loud crash. Some woman almost ran into me running out of the room and when I got in here, there was a young man unconscious on the floor. I saw to him, meanwhile Lizz kept repeating to ‘help him.’ I assumed she was talking about the guy on the floor. Then the alarms sounded and I saw that she was trying to get out of bed. She was drenched in sweat and her pulse was very erratic. Meanwhile that guy tore out of here like a bat outta hell.” Lizz’s nurse explained while the team worked on her.

Before Doug could answer, another alarm started to sound. “Shit! She’s not breathing. Intubate!” He worked furiously and with precision. He was not going to lose this girl. They got the tube in and began to rhymthmically bag her. Her heart was still beating, although it was very unsteady. Doug was afraid that if it stopped, he would have to use the paddles, and it would be too much for her body.

“Something caused this and I want to know what it is. What the hell is all the blood from?” He demanded.

“Somehow her IV was ripped out.” Came the reply.

“Alright, I want a CBC, BUN and creatatinine, calcium and phosphate levels, potassium level, and a hematocrit level. I want to know what happened here.” Doug ordered.

~*~*~*~*~

AJ and Howie stood outside Brian’s room as the nurses and doctors worked furiously on him. The two guards had already led Agnes away. She wasn’t so calm anymore. The realization of the trouble she was in finally sunk in and she had put up a fight. More security had met her at the elevators and they had taken her away. Outside the room, AJ and Howie could still hear that long, steady beep, even through the closed door. He had gone too long without breathing or his heart beating.

“Charging...200...Clear!” A doctor shouted.

AJ’s breath caught in his throat when the line didn’t even flicker a response.

“Charging...300...Clear!”

The line still didn’t budge and AJ barely heard Howie murmur a frantic prayer. AJ held his breath. He couldn’t bear watching them shock his friend, yet he couldn’t turn away. A sob caught in his throat. AJ saw one of the doctors shake his head and without thinking, he slammed through the door.

Dammit, don’t you give up on him! You make him breathe again! Please, don’t let him die!” AJ cried, tears now streaming down his face.

Howie was immediately behind him, steadying him.

That same doctor gave a short nod to the one holding the paddles.

“Again...charging at 360...Clear!”

Beep...beep...beep...

AJ wanted to go over to Brian, but a nurse came and gently ushered them out. “The doctor will come and talk to you in a minute.”

“It’s my fault. My fucking fault. I didn’t stop her.” AJ slumped against the wall, his face burried in his hands. Howie put a hand on his shoulder, his own tears falling.

“There wasn’t anything you could do.” He said softly.

“AJ? Howie?? What’s going on?”

Both guys looked up to see Kevin walking quickly towards them, his face scrunched in concern.

AJ could only shake his head.

“Agnes, Terri’s mother, shot something into Brian’s IV. He stopped breathing and they had to shock him.” Howie said quietly.

Kevin gasped and all the color drained from his face. At that moment the door opened and the first doctor stepped out. He wore a grave expression on his face. Before he could continue, a young nurse came running down the hallway.

“Mr. McLean?” She asked breathlessly as she held a portable phone out to AJ. He gave an irritated look, but took the phone.

“Hello?...What?! What happened?...” Howie and Kevin tried to ask what was going on, but AJ waved them off. “Okay, I’ll be right down.” He disconnected the phone and handed it back to the nurse. “Thanks.”

“What’s going on?” Kevin demanded.

AJ rubbed his eyes. “Nick is in the ER.” He stated flatly.

“What?! Why?” Howie exclaimed.

Apparantly he was in the courtroom, talking to the judge and he had a panic attack. We gotta go down there.” AJ explained.

“Shit.” Kevin closed his eyes for a moment. He turned his attention to the doctor that had come from Brian’s room. “How is he?”

The doctor let out a sigh, dreading what he was going to have to tell these young men. “Well we got him breathing again, but I’m afraid there are some complications. He went without oxygen and he has slipped into a coma. There is no brain activity at all.”

Jenna's update 12/19/00

 

~*~*~*~*~



I woke up and the first thing I saw was AJ’s face, his eyes looked bloodshot.

“What the hell are you doing here, AJ?”


“You’re not crying, are you?”

AJ quickly wiped his eyes with a knuckle, and then blinked quickly, as if to wash any remaining tears away.

“You were! What’s going on? I know damn well it wasn’t about me,” I urged.

All he could do was shrug his shoulders and shake his head.

“What! What the hell’s going on?” I jerked my arm that was attached by a handcuff to the bedrail. The policeman that was assigned to me, stood up quickly.

“Carter, calm down,” he ordered sternly.

“This is crazy,” I spat as I pulled against the restraint. “AJ, what the hell’s going on?”

“I can’t...” his voice trailed off. Before I could say anything else, he turned away from me and darted out of the room I was laying in.

“AJ PLEASE! SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?”

~*~*~*~*~



“Okay Kyung, I need you to drink you medicine now,” an elderly woman requested.

Kyung flinched when the cup met her lips. She inched away from the woman.

“Sh-h-h, honey, it’s okay,” the woman soothed.

Kyung’s dark brown eyes looked into the woman’s green eyes. Kyung’s gaze softened and then she slowly nodded, she understood the request and she accepted the medication. She wanted to get better, she needed to get better for Lizzie. She hated the psychiatric sessons that they led her down to, three times a day, but she went willingly, she had to.

~*~*~*~*~



AJ ran into Kevin, not looking where he was walking.

“Whoa, AJ, what did you find out about Nick?” Kevin asked as he grabbed AJ by the shoulders.

“I didn’t,” AJ replied in a rhaspy voice, thick with emotion.

“Could you please follow me down this hall?” a young nurse asked the guys as they stood out on in the hall outside of Brian’s door.

The nurse led them to a small office that had a desk, two chairs and a white upholstered couch. There were pictures of children, a dog and some diplomas that covered the walls. The men assumed that they were in Brian’s doctor’s office.

Sure enough, the tall man that they had seen working on Brian an hour ago, entered the room and softly closed the door behind him. He was holding a thick chart and he slowly set it on the desk as he pulled his chair out and sat down.

“I’m Doctor Greg Carter, chief of trauma and surgery,” he started out as he leaned forward and placed his hands ontop of the folder.

“How is he doing?” Kevin rushed the question, dreading the answer, but wanting to know.

“He’s stable right now, I don’t know how but he’s stable. We’re doing a few more tests, but I need to be straight up with you, the prognosis isn’t very good, in fact it’s grave. Do you know if his family wishes organ donations?”

Kevin drew a quick breath in. Howie swallowed hard. AJ jumped up from his seat causing it to fly backwards.

“How can you sit there and talk about Brian like he’s dead? Do something dammit, he’s still alive his heart’s beating!” AJ yelled.

“His heart is only beating because his brain hasn’t shut it down yet. He’s on life support and once that’s discontinued, his heart will cease,” Dr. Carter replied.

“YOU SONOFABITCH!” AJ yelled as he started to reach for the doctor’s chest. Kevin jumped up and grabbed AJ’s arm, restraining him.

“I’m sorry but I can’t lead you on and give you false hopes, we’ve tried to contact his parents without success. Organs have to be harvested within a time window and the quality is diminished the longer the donor is kept alive by artifical means,” Dr. Carter stated.

“You asshole, you’re talking about a human being not some damn freak in a lab, it’s Brian, not a donor!” AJ spat as Kevin held him down in the chair Howie had quickly set back up.

“I just want the necessary papers filled out, we’re not going to disconnect life support until all efforts have been exhausted. This is something you must think about,” the doctor replied as he stood up and opened the door to his office. “I’m leaving a copy of the request on my desk, please look it over within the next day and make your decision. It would be easier if you had his driver’s license because if he had wished this, he would have made it known on the license.”

The doctor left his office leaving the three men in the room, numb. The tears flowed and there was no stopping them.

~*~*~*~



Doctor Doug McMasters took a chair from the corner of the room and swung it around, with the back facing him and straddled the chair, holding Lizz’s chart.

“Lizz, you gave me quite a scare this morning, how are you feeling right now?”

Lizz swallowed as she thought. Her throat was sore from the tube they had removed 30 minutes ago when Dr. McMasters determined she could be on oxygen again, breathing on her own.

“Like shit,” Lizz replied with a slight smile.

“Ah, just what I wanted to hear,” Dr. Doug replied with a grin. His face then grew serious as he looked into his patient’s eyes. “I found out from your labs that somehow there were high amounts of Albuterol in your bloodstream.”

Lizz nodded slightly. It was that damn Agnes.

“You will be happy to know that she has been arrested, she won’t be hurting you anymore.”

Lizz smiled, feeling relieved that they had stopped her before she got up to Brian’s room and harmed him.

“Now, as for you, kiddo, we have some serious problems, are you ready to hear or do you want to rest for a bit until you’re less groggy?”

“Tell me,” Lizz replied weakly. She already had most of it figured out in her head but she needed his confirmation.

The George Clooney lookalike sighed. “Okay, the kidneys you got in that transplant have failed you. You will have to go back on dialysis until your name comes back up with a matching donor.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek. Dr. McMasters pulled a tissue out of the box that was on her bedstand and gently wiped it from Lizz’s cheek.

“Sweetie, you’re a strong girl and I have no doubt that you’ll pull through this.”

“What about Brian?” Lizz asked. She worried about him and wanted to make sure he was doing okay.

Dr. McMasters smiled lightly at her question. Here this girl lay in a hospital bed, her kidneys shut down putting her in critical condition and all she could worry about was that Backstreet Boy that was in a private ICU room. “I don’t know, you want me to find out again, right?”

Lizz’s eyes brighted. “Oh yes, please.”

“Figures,” Doug teased as he eased his tall frame out of the chair. “I have to go and---”

“Finish my rounds,” Lizz interrupted.

Dr. McMasters winked. “I’ll be back with a report as soon as I can, just don’t go anywhere okay? No walking the halls or doing things that will make your nurse freak out, okay? I have to pick up the pieces when you pull those stunts missy!”

“Yes sir,” Lizz replied.

~*~*~*~*~



I laid on the bed in the emergency room for hours, worrying and wondering why AJ had been crying and then took off on me before he would answer my questions. A nurse had come in twice to give me a shot of Ativan so now I was feeling a little floaty, but my head was still clear.

“Mr. Carter?”

I turned towards the voice to see my nurse and a police officer standing side by side.

The officer went over and took his keys from his belt and unlocked my handcuff. I was waiting for him to slap the open end onto my free arm when he unlocked the other cuff. I looked at him, confused.

“Charges have been dropped. You’re on your own,” the guard remarked as he took the handcuffs and placed them into a box that was attached to his belt.

The nurse laid a pair of dark green hospital scrubs on my bed. “I’m guessing you don’t want to put the bright yellow prision garb on, so I’m letting you have these. Do you have family or friends you can call for a ride home?”

I was about to say no when I remembered that Brian was still in the hospital and that one girl too. “No, what floor is Brian Littrell on, is it still eight?”

“Yes,” the nurse answered.

“Good, I’ll just go up there then,” I replied as I grabbed the scrubs.

“How about I place a call to the nurse’s station on the floor and one of your friends can come down and get you, you’ve had a couple of Ativan injections and I don’t need you falling and hurting yourself. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She pulled the drapes around my bed. I seized the opportunity to get out of the hospital gown, sliding on the scrubs with the legs falling down on the floor.

“Shit, too long,” I mumbled as I cuffed the pant legs up over the tops of the jail issued sandals.

“Nick?”

“Yeah, in here.”

Kevin greeted me with the biggest hug I had ever gotten in my life. Bigger than even from the most spastic fan. It took my breath away.

The ride up to the eighth floor was the longest in my life. Kevin had told me all that had happened with my best friend and my heart was in my throat as we walked down the hall towards the room. We pushed past the security guard that was situated in a chair beside the door. I already hated that bastard, he didn’t do his job, in fact I pretty much hated anyone in uniforms lately.

It hit me hard at the sight I witnessed.

Brian Littrell laying in a hospital bed, monitors and machines on each side, two IV poles stacked with IV’s, and the tube in his mouth, his chest rising and falling with every hiss the machine was making. His face was a ghostly pale color, the lids on his eyes were a pale blue-ish purple. I felt my knees get rubbery. Kevin held me up.

Kevin helped me as I slowly walked up to Brian’s bedside. I gently touched his cheek, stroking it with the back of my hand. His skin was clammy. I looked at Howie and AJ through my tearfilled eyes. No one said a word. No one dared to.

~*~*~*~


Doug McMasters held his identification badge out for the security guard to verify. After the guard placed a call to the nurse’s desk and they described the young doctor, he was allowed to enter the room.

Doug knew as soon as he opened the door that this was not a good sign. He saw the pale faces of four young men, holding a vigil over their brother. He remembered that one with the tatoos and the bleached hair running past him when all the chaos was happening in Lizz’s room.

“I’m Dr. Doug McMasters, Lizz’s doctor,” he carefully introduced himself to the men.

Narrowing my eyes, I stared at the doctor. It took me a second and then it clicked.

“How’s Lizz doing?” AJ asked quietly.

“You were the one they said had fainted in her room, right?” the doctor asked.

AJ smiled sheepishly. “I get queesy over the site of blood.”

“She asked me to check up on Brian’s condition. I gather she’s not aware of this change in his status.”

AJ shook his head. “She was worried about Brian and that Agnes was going to come up here and make him pay for all that happened to her daughter. I was too late, she had the needle in his IV and was threatening to use it when I got to the room.”

Oh god, Agnes..... Terri? Shit, it was coming back to me. That girl that was black mailing me and Lizz about our attempted suicide pact. I looked at Brian’s body laying in the bed. This was my fault. All my fault.

“How is Lizz?” I nearly yelled.

“That woman injected her with Albuterol. The stain proved too much on her system. Her new kidneys have failed her and she has to go back on dialysis until a new donor is found,” Dr. McMasters explained.

Shit, this was definately all my damn fault. I needed to fix this.

“What if I donated a kidney, would that help her?” I rushed the question.

“She needs a kidney,” the doctor slowly replied. “You would have to go through medical and mental testing before we could do this.”

“Then let’s do this, I want to do something,” I replied.

“Nick, whoa, back up here, they are going to run some tests on Brian and they could just as easily use his kidney as well as yours,” Kevin reasoned.

“They won’t be taking anything out of my brother, he is going to live,” I argued.

~*~*~*~



Terri laid in her bed at the Laurels Prison Infirmary. She had been transferred there two weeks ago. A television set was on in the corner. She looked away from it. She was sick of crying. Her life had been ripped from her. All in a year she lost her job, her money, her father, a boyfriend and her mother. It was because of one person, Nick Carter. The police were still searching for her brother Marcus and he was yet to be found.

The blaring on the television set broke her from her thoughts:

Nick Carter from the boyband group, The Backstreet Boys is in stable condition following surgery where he dontated a kidney to a good friend who they had met in an online chat over a year ago. The receipient of the kidney, whose name was not disclosed was in serious but stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.

Brian Littrell, Nick Carter’s bandmate remains in a coma and the prognosis is bleak for a full recovery.

When we return, the trial is now beginning on Agnes Miller who has been charged with attempted murder of Brian Littrell and several others.

Terri screamed and threw her bedpan at the television screen.

The End

***

 

 

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