Nick
thought for sure that he was dead, and maybe his captors did, too, or maybe
they just didn’t care. If he wasn’t dead
already, he would be soon. When he
regained consciousness, they were tying a cinder block to his feet.
He couldn’t
see a thing; he was wrapped in a sheet, just as the body he’d seen them dumping
had been. Wonder if that guy was still alive, too, Nick thought, feeling a
sick sense of déjà vu as he listened to them drag the heavy brick across the
wooden bridge. He lay perfectly still,
letting them work. There was no use
trying to get away now; he was cocooned in the sheet, and if they realized he
was still capable of running, they would surely correct their mistake.
But maybe
it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe they planned
to torture him further by weighing down his unconscious body, so that he would
come to underwater and slowly drown. If
that were the case, he’d rather go the way Kevin had. He had never dreamed he would die in the
water. He’d always loved the water.
Just as he
had the night before, he could smell the water as he came near it – carried,
this time, by the two, murderous thugs.
Without his eyesight, his other senses seemed heightened. He could hear it, too: the gentle trickle of a creek, rather than a
river. With any luck, it wouldn’t be
deep.
As they
carted him to the edge of the water, he kept himself as limp as possible and
thought about what to do. There wasn’t
much time. With a collective heave, they
swung him out over the creek and let him go.
Nick held
his breath as he hit the water with a stinging splash. He was immediately tugged down by the weight
of the cinder block, and he felt himself freefall until he hit the soft
bottom. He waited a few seconds, long
enough for them to turn away. Then he
began to work, twisting and writhing inside the sheet that swaddled him.
First, he
managed to kick off his waterlogged shoes.
This allowed him to wrestle his feet through the loop of rope that kept
him anchored to the cinder block. He
kicked off of the ground and flailed his body around like a fish, still
fighting with the sheet. The effort
drained him of his precious remaining air supply, and his lungs began to scream
for a fresh gulp of air. His fingers
scrabbled blindly to find the edges of the sheet, but his movements were
growing clumsier by the second as he weakened.
At the last
second, dizzy from lack of oxygen, the black edges of oblivion rapidly closing
in on what little vision he had, Nick freed his upper body. In one, powerful stroke, he propelled himself
upward, his bound legs flapping frantically beneath him like a mermaid’s tail. He broke through the surface of the water
with a breathless gasp and sucked in a lungful of air, ignoring the protests of
his battered ribs.
His timing
couldn’t have been more perfect. Hearing
a rumble overhead, he looked up and saw that he was directly underneath the
bridge. The wood creaked as two pairs of
tires rolled over it. Staying low in the
water as he swam to the far side of the creek, Nick peeked around the base of
the bridge and watched as his captors’ car pulled away from the bridge and sped
off, tires squealing on the pavement.
He waited,
out of sight, until the taillights had faded into the darkness. Then he waded through the shallows until he
found a bit of bank onto which he could climb.
Limbs trembling with exhaustion, he struggled to pull himself out of the
water and rolled gratefully onto the dry grass.
He collapsed onto his back, his injured chest heaving, his head
spinning, and promptly passed out again.
***
It was
raining the next morning when Gianna got up.
She went
about her morning routine in her usual stupor, turning on the TV in the
kitchen, starting a pot of coffee, and fixing breakfast for herself and
Luci. She woke up little by little, as
the scent of fresh-brewed Folgers wafted through the apartment, and by the time
she’d finished her first cup, she was dancing around the kitchen to the morning
block of music videos on MTV.
“Can you pay my bills… can you pay my telephone bills… can
you pay my automo’ bills... then maybe we can chill…” she sang along
with her TV, sprinkling shredded cheese over a pan of scrambled eggs. “I
don’t think you do… sooo you and me are through…”
When the
Destiny’s Child video ended, she checked the microwave clock; it was ten till
seven, almost time to wake Luci up for school.
She couldn’t believe her daughter had been in second grade for a whole
month. How time flew… it didn’t seem so
long ago that she’d been a scared teenager, still in school herself, wondering
how the hell she was going to raise the kid she’d gotten knocked up with. And now here she was, seven years later,
doing a pretty damn decent job of it, all things considering…
Hell, she
was even making her daughter breakfast, like a regular Martha-freakin’-Stewart.
Gianna
smiled to herself as she dished the eggs onto two plates. She was scraping the last bits of egg out of
the pan when she heard the familiar intro to an MTV News brief on the TV behind
her. “Hi,
I’m John Norris with MTV News. Less than
a month into the U.S. leg of their sold-out Into the Millennium Tour, The
Backstreet Boys were rocked with tragedy late last night-”
At the
mention of her daughter’s favorite group, Gianna spun around, the spatula
falling from her hand with a clatter.
“-when an attack on the multi-platinum-selling boyband left
one of its members in critical condition and another still missing. The Boys had just finished the first of two
consecutive concerts in Philadelphia when oldest member Kevin Richardson was
found unconscious in his hotel room with a gunshot wound to the head.”
Gianna
gaped at her TV, picturing the tall, dark-haired one she’d been admiring just
yesterday, when she’d picked Luci up early from school and taken her down to
First Union in hopes of meeting the group.
She hadn’t told Luci yet, but she’d been considering trying again that
afternoon; she’d push her way to the front of those barricades if she had to,
anything to get Luci a freakin’ autograph…
Guess I won’t be headin’ down there after all, she thought
grimly, watching the rest of the report in disbelief.
“Richardson was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he’s
said to be in critical condition. No
other details on the extent or treatment of his injuries are known at this
time. Richardson was sharing his hotel room
with the group’s youngest member, Nick Carter, who went missing sometime before
Richardson was discovered.”
“Aw crap,
not the blonde one too,” Gianna muttered to herself, shaking her head at the
image on the screen. The face was the
same one plastered all over her daughter’s walls.
“Carter’s whereabouts are still unknown, and
as of this morning, the Philadelphia police department has launched a
full-scale search and investigation.
When asked of Carter’s status in the investigation, Police Commissioner
John Timoney made it clear that, at this time, Nick Carter is not thought to be
a suspect and is instead considered a possible victim of foul play. A tips hotline has been set up; if you have
any information regarding the attack on Kevin Richardson or the whereabouts of
Nick Carter, call the number on your screen.
We at MTV News will keep you updated on this breaking news story as more
details unfold.”
“Mama?”
Jumping,
Gianna quickly shut off the TV, as Luci came padding into the kitchen,
bleary-eyed, her black hair in tangles.
“Is it time
to get up now?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“Just
about, babe. Perfect timing!” Gianna forced a smile and a chipper tone into
her voice. “How about some breakfast?”
Luci
nodded, sliding into her spot at the tiny kitchen table. As Gianna set a plate of scrambled eggs down
in front of her, she wondered how her daughter would react when she inevitably
heard the news.
***
It had been
the worst night of their lives. Sitting
in a private waiting room at the Philadelphia hospital where Kevin had been
taken, Brian, AJ, and Howie were ready to drop.
None of them had slept all night.
Brian was
running on coffee and adrenaline, but they weren’t the only things keeping him
awake. Whenever he closed his eyes, he
saw Kevin the way he’d found him, lying lifelessly in a puddle of his own blood,
a bullet hole in his head. Whenever he
started to drift off, he thought of Nick, wherever he was, alone and scared,
possibly hurt, if he was even still…
Don’t think it, he urged himself, sitting up
straighter in his chair, alert once more.
Of course he’s still alive. He’s alive, and they’ll find him.
The police
detectives had been in and out all night, asking questions, taking their
statements, updating them on the search for Nick and whoever had attacked him
and Kevin. They’d conducted a thorough
sweep of the hotel and had found nothing; now their search had extended
throughout the city of Philadelphia.
In between
their visits, members of the hospital staff came to fill the three of them in
on Kevin’s condition. They had started
out in the emergency department, where they’d waited around in shock while the
emergency room doctors and nurses worked on Kevin. Eventually, a doctor had come to talk to
them, using phrases like “skull fracture,” “bleeding in the brain,” “bullet
fragments,” and “intracranial pressure,” as he described Kevin’s injuries.
“I’m not
going to lie to you,” the grim-faced doctor had said. “He’s suffered a severe traumatic brain
injury. Ninety percent of people who
suffer a gunshot to the head don’t survive it.
Kevin’s lucky to have even made it to the hospital. The good news is that, although he’s
unconscious, he’s been able to breathe on his own, and his blood pressure has
remained steady. Those are good signs;
that means his brain stem, the part of the brain that controls vital functions,
is intact. But it’s not all good
news. The MRI and CT scan show
significant damage to the two upper lobes of the brain. There are signs of bleeding and swelling in
the back of the brain, where the bullet hit the back of his skull. Surgery is the only way to repair the damage,
but there’s no guarantee Kevin will survive it.”
AJ had
asked the question they’d all been thinking.
“Is there any chance of him surviving without it?”
“No,” the
doctor replied. “I just don’t want to
give you false hope. Even if he makes it
through surgery, his chances of a meaningful recovery may be slim.”
“But
there’s still a chance, right?” Brian
admired AJ for his defiant optimism. “So
you have to do the surgery.”
He and
Howie had agreed, and when Kevin was whisked into brain surgery, they were led
to a different part of the hospital, the surgical waiting area. There they had waited, all night, into the
morning. It had been hours since the
woman who’d introduced herself as Maggie, the surgical support nurse, had come
to tell them the operation had started.
They’d had no word from her since.
“I’m sure
this is normal,” Howie repeated from time to time. “I mean, it’s brain surgery! It’s got to be a pretty intricate procedure.”
“Yeah…”
sighed AJ. “I guess no news is good
news, right?”
Brian
wasn’t so sure. He knew Howie and AJ
were probably right, but that didn’t stop him from worrying that something had
gone wrong, that the reason the nurse hadn’t come back to talk to them yet was
because they were scrambling to save Kevin’s life.
They
weren’t the only ones desperately waiting for updates. Brian had made the hardest phone call of his
life when he’d woken his Aunt Anne in the middle of the night to tell her what
had happened to her son. Now he wished
he’d waited. Like them, Kevin’s mother
had sat up the rest of the night, helplessly waiting and worrying, until the
airports in Kentucky opened in the morning, and then she had boarded the first
flight she could get to Philadelphia.
Brian hoped he would have good news to give her by the time she arrived.
“Anyone
want anything?” Brian looked blearily at
AJ, who had gotten up. “Coffee… soda…
shot of whiskey?”
Brian
forced a humorless chuckle and shook his head. “I’m okay,” he muttered. He was anything but.
Howie also
declined, but AJ said, “I’m just gonna walk down the hall. I can’t take this sitting still.”
“More
caffeine isn’t gonna help that,” Howie pointed out, but AJ ignored him and
strode toward the door. He nearly
collided with a tall man in a pair of blue scrubs who walked in at the same
moment.
“Oh, excuse
me,” the man apologized, looking flustered.
“Are you Mr. Richardson’s friends?”
“Yeah,”
said AJ, going to sit back down. “How’s
Kevin?”
Brian’s
heart hammered in his chest as he stared up at the doctor, trying to read his
expression. The man had a good poker
face, stoic and blank. “I’m Dr. Whitby,
the neurosurgeon,” he introduced himself.
He didn’t extend his hand.
“Kevin’s out of surgery and stable in recovery. He’ll be monitored there for a few hours and
then moved to the Neuro ICU.”
A chorus of
relieved sighs went around the room, and Brian’s pulse slowed a tad. It was certainly good news to hear, though he
knew Kevin wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“How did the surgery go?” he asked.
“We were
able to remove the bullet and most of the fragments, as well as a large
hematoma – a clot – caused by the bleeding in his brain. Our biggest concern at this stage is
swelling. The brain can be further
damaged by too much intracranial pressure; as the brain swells, it gets
squeezed against the skull. To give it
room to ‘breathe,’ so to say, we did a craniectomy – we removed a piece of
skull that was fractured by the bullet.”
“Wait…” AJ looked repulsed. “You’re saying you left his freaking head
open?!” He was staring at the surgeon as
if he were a raving lunatic.
For the
first time, a hint of a smile cracked Dr. Whitby’s solemn expression, but just
as quickly, he was back to business. “It
sounds extreme, I know, but it’s necessary to prevent further trauma to the
brain. Once Kevin heals, we’ll do
another operation to close his skull.
For now, the opening’s covered by scalp, and we implanted a drain to
remove access fluid. He’ll be receiving
IV antibiotics to prevent infection.”
Brian
didn’t want to picture his cousin with a drainage pipe sticking out of a large
hole in his head. “When do you think
he’ll wake up?” he asked, eager to move the conversation ahead.
“That’s
impossible to know. The effects of the
anesthesia will begin wearing off soon, and we’ll be able to measure his level
of consciousness then, but it’s likely he’ll remain comatose, at least for
now,” said the doctor. “When or if he’ll
come out of the coma remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, it’s a ‘wait and see’ situation at this point.”
The three
of them nodded, exchanging worried glances at the surgeon’s sobering
words. It was hard for any of them to
imagine Kevin never waking up. Just
hours ago, he’d been singing and dancing with them onstage, in top physical
shape, and now he lay recovering from brain surgery, in a coma.
This has to be a nightmare, thought
Brian. How could this have happened for real?
He wished
he would wake up and find out it really had been a terrible dream. But for him to wake up, he would have to have
slept, and he knew he hadn’t done that.
Kevin was still in critical condition, Nick was still missing, and Brian
was still wide awake with worry, wishing he could sleep.
***
Nick had slept
for a long time. He knew it when he
awoke to birds singing and the sound of raindrops on the roof and window.
Opening his
eyes, he found himself staring up at a wooden ceiling. He sat up quickly, ignoring the pain in his
ribs and his head as he looked around in confusion. He was lying on a bed, in the center of a
tiny room. The floorboards were made of
wood, and the walls were whitewashed and bare.
The only pieces of furniture, aside from the bed, were a small, plain
dresser pushed up against one wall and a wooden rocking chair in the
corner. It was a far cry from his lavish
hotel room, with its gleaming mahogany desk, large flatscreen TV, and
gold-framed wall paintings.
Where the hell am I? he wondered. How did
I get here?
The last
thing he remembered was pulling himself out of the creek, as the men who had
abducted him were driving away. Surely,
if they had come back for him, he wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t even be alive. But who, then, had brought him here, wherever
he was?
He tried to
get out of bed to investigate, but the movement made him dizzy and caused so
much pain that he was forced to lie down again.
The single, soft pillow was a welcomed relief to the back of his head,
where he’d been pistol-whipped twice. As
he lay there, the room seeming to spin around him, Nick thought back to the
previous night. It seemed distant and
dreamlike to him now, but his aching body and strange surroundings were
evidence enough that it had not been just a nightmare. He really had been attacked in his hotel
room, held at gunpoint and forced to get into a car driven by the two men who
had beat him and then left him for dead, his body anchored at the bottom of a
creek.
That also
meant that Kevin was really dead.
Tears
filled his eyes, and he rolled over on the bed, burying his face in the musty
pillow. His shoulders shook with the
effort of stifling his sobs, as the flood of emotions shock had kept him from
experiencing the night before began to pour out.
It was a
delayed reaction, but no less intense.
He cried as he thought of his old brother, lying there on the floor of
their hotel room, shot to death for no reason, other than that he, like Nick,
had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nick knew the bullet had been intended for him, and if he had been first
into the room, it would have hit its target.
Kevin was
dead because of him.
The guilt
was as strong as the grief, and he sobbed not only because his brother was
dead, but because he had killed him. He
had killed him with his disobedience, killed him with his silence, killed him
with the string of bad decisions that had led him to this tiny room.
He didn’t
even care to know where he was anymore; he shouldn’t have been there,
anyway. He should have been in the
creek, the bullet that had killed Kevin lodged in his own brain instead. He wished he were dead; he didn’t think he
could live while drowning in such guilt.
He gripped
the edges of the pillowcase, which was damp with his tears, so distraught that
he didn’t even notice the creak of the door opening, nor the scuff of footsteps
over the hardwood floor, as someone came into the room.
***