Chapter
16
As soon as Howie put the vehicle into park in the hospital parking lot,
the two back doors and the passenger's side door opened and Brian, Kevin, and
AJ stepped out of the car waiting only momentarily for Howie to get out. As
soon as Howie got out, all four young men broke into a fast paced walk making
it to the entrance of the emergency room in what seemed like only about a
minute.
They entered the emergency room and looked around briefly for a
hospital employee. When Brian spotted a young woman behind a desk, he quickly
walked over to where she was and calmly asked where Nickolas Carter was. She
typed in Nick's name and waited for a few seconds and told Brian that he was
still in the ER but to go on up to the ICU floor and wait in the waiting room
for a doctor to come speak to them. Brian thanked her and ran for the elevator
before the others had a chance to react and they sprinted for the elevator,
whose doors Brian was leaning against to keep open. The guys made it to the
elevator and Brian stepped inside and the elevator doors tightly shut. He then
reached over Howie and pushed the button for the ICU floor and leaned against
the wall with his head in his hands and he waited patiently with the others for
the elevator to stop on their floor. Brian cringed as the elevator made a loud
DING noise indicating they was on their floor and stepped out with the others
as soon as the doors opened.
Brian started to make his way towards the information desk but felt a
sudden tugging on his sweatshirt. He turned around to face the source of the
tugging and found himself looking at Kevin. Kevin shook his head at Brian and
gently pushed him towards the waiting room, and before Brian had a chance to
respond, Howie and AJ both led him to the waiting room and sat him down while
Kevin asked for information about Nick. A few minutes later Kevin came back
with a stony expression on his face and shook his head before anyone could ask
what the woman behind the desk had told him. "She said he might be up here
within the half hour, they are still working with him and then they have to get
him settled in his room before he can have visitors." Brian let out a
frustrated sigh, he wasn't in the best of moods because he didn't feel well and
he was extremly worried about Nick and he didn't feel like waiting; he wanted
to see his best friend and he wanted to see him NOW.
Kevin looked at his cousin in concern and when Brian met his gaze he
mouthed "I'm fine" and picked up his bookbag getting out the notebook
he put in earlier and a pen. He put his bookbag in his lap to use it as a type
of writing surface and drifted off to somewhere where he was lost in his
thoughts and poured his feelings into writing a journal entry about the murder
and what has happened the past few days.
Journal, I just don't know where to start, so much has happened in such
little time. I haven't told any of the guys yet what has happened. Last night I
snuck out of our hotel and went down to the park. Now I wished I would have
never gone. I witnessed the horrible murder of three young women. They were
tragically murdered just for some stupid money. The three guys that did it
didn't show any mercy at all. I feel like such a coward, I ran away from the
murder scene when I could have helped. Someone else must have witnessed it also
because they let out a scream and that was my cue to run. I crawled to the row
of bushes behind the tree where I was and got up and ran, never looking back.
But dumb old me, when I came back to the hotel I discovered my wallet with my
room key was missing. Luckily, the lady at the desk remembered me and gave me
an extra key to get in. When I got there everyone was asleep except for someone
I suspected was Nick in the bathroom. Nick *sigh* I can't believe this has
happened to him. I guess I should tell what happened first. Well we woke up
this morning and after we were awake almost an hour, AJ discovered we were
missing a certain 15 year old blond. We looked everywhere and found nothing,
and that is when the worry started to kick in but was temporarily relieved when
Mike told us Nick was probably playing a joke on all of us and he would
probably be in our suite when we got back. Against our better judgement we all
left to go to some promotional stuff Mike set up for us. We were told when
asked about Nick to say he is sick and he couldn't come. I wish it was that
simple. We searched the whole town for him and found no trace of Nick. About an
hour ago, Kevin was called by the Police and they said they found Nick beaten
in an alley on 7th street or somewhere like that. And here is the weird part,
the kid had my wallet in his pocket. I have no clue how it got there, but right
now I don't care. All I care about is Nick getting better. I really worry about
that poor kid. Well I better sign off now.
Brian jumped with a start when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder as
he wrote the last few words of his journal entry. He looked up and gazed at his
cousin again. He then looked around the room and noticed there was a person
there who wasn't there before. He sat up in the seat with a start and shoved
his notebook and pen in his bookbag and listened as the doctor working on Nick
introduced himself as Dr. Marx and explained that they could see him now and he
would explain what was wrong with him when they got there. The four remaining
Backstreet Boys followed him into the ICU unit hoping the news they would
receive wouldn't be as bad at they thought it would be.
***
