I sat at my lap-top, opening up my email account. I was hoping to find an email from my
parents or brother Sean, or maybe from one of my friends.
My father had been right – being a pop star was not easy.
I had gotten a record deal two years earlier, during my junior
year of college. I had finished college
while recording my first album, which had been released at the beginning of
summer.
I was on my second single now and doing great. I had rose to stardom, or at least
popularity, quickly. It might have just
been because I was Brian Littrell’s daughter, but I was hoping it was actually
because of my talent.
I had always loved singing and had been doing it nearly all my
life, since my dad was such a talented singer.
I inherited his beautiful voice and had perfected it from years of
singing in church and in the school chorus.
It wasn’t until college when I actually thought seriously of
making singing a career. But once I had
decided, it wasn’t hard to get started.
JIVE, the label of the former Backstreet Boys, had signed me right away,
knowing I would be a hit with not only the younger crowd, but even with the
middle-aged woman, the old Backstreet fans.
And true to their predictions, I had been accepted into the industry
with open arms.
I was now on tour with PIV, a female trio similar to the
pop/r&b group, Destiny’s Child, who had been popular three decades
earlier. And although touring was fun,
I missed my family and friends back in my hometown of Lexington.
Luckily, I would not have to wait much longer to see them. I would be back in Lexington the next
evening for a concert, and my whole family would be there, naturally.
I smiled as I got into my inbox.
There was a short email from my mother, telling me she couldn’t wait for
me to get home. But other than that, my
inbox was mostly filled with fan mail.
I had my own official website already, and on the website was a
fan mail form that people could fill out to easily send me mail without
revealing my email address. Most of
these emails came from that form.
Tucking my wavy blonde hair behind my ears, I clicked on the first
one. I read through it, smiled, and typed
back a quick reply to the little girl who had written it.
But when I opened up the next email, my smile quickly faded. My eyes widened as I read the poem inside.
You’ve
gotten real hot
And grown
up a lot
Since you
were only five
But, my
pretty pop queen,
That still
doesn’t mean
I’ll let
you stay alive
I was
inexperienced
When I took
you that once
And you
were rescued and set free
But now I’m
a pro
And just so
you know
Chills ran through my body as I read it over and over again. Vague memories of the experience mentioned
in the poem came back to me. It was
hard to remember some of the events of my kidnapping, eighteen years earlier,
but some of it was very clear and very frightening. I still had nightmares about it sometimes,
about the evil man and woman who had yelled at me, beat me, and killed both
Sonny, Heidi’s first husband, and Sammy, Nick’s wife.
I hadn’t understood it all at the time, but my parents had
explained it to me years ago, informing me of all that had happened to them and
their group of friends. It was
something I hated to think about, but until that moment, I had always though it
was something of the past. Now, it
seemed, it was coming back to haunt me.
Who sent this? I wondered, but the email had been
sent through the form anonymously.
My hand trembling slightly, as I grabbed my cell phone and punched
in the number to my parents’ house. It
was only nine at night, and I could only hope they hadn’t gone to bed yet.
My brother answered the phone.
“Sean?” I said, my voice coming out shrill and shaky.
“Is that you, Hope?” Sean asked.
“Yeah, it’s me. Is Daddy
there?”
“Uh, yeah, hang on a minute,” he said, after a moment’s
hesitation. I figured he probably
expected me to talk to him for a little longer than that. But I would see him tomorrow night. I had to talk to Dad now.
“Hope? Something wrong,
honey?” came my father’s familiar voice, immediately bringing me comfort.
“Well, I got this weird email,” I started and went on to read the
poem to him. “What should I do?” I asked
when I had finished.
Dad sighed. “Honey, there’s
not much you can do. I know this is
hard, but you have to understand that not everyone will like you and that there
are some freaks out there. You always
get good and bad mail. Hopefully more
good than bad, but there’s always the occasional prank meant to freak you out.”
“You mean it’s just a joke?” I asked, feeling pretty stupid, but
relieved all the same.
“Oh, of course it is, honey.
Now that you’re a star, people know all about you. They know about what happened back then. And so it’s a given that you’ll get emails
like this from time to time. Just don’t
worry about them.”
“Okay. Thanks, Daddy,” I
said, feeling much better.
“Anytime, sweetheart. So,
how is everything? We can’t wait to see
you…”
We chatted for almost an hour, before Dad finally reminded me what
a huge phone bill I was going to have and that we would have plenty of time to
talk the following night. So, we said
our goodbyes and hung up.
***
“Hey, Jess, Abby,” I said to the girls as I passed by Jess’s
locker, where they were standing, like they always did before school.
“Hey, Sean,” they both replied.
“Did you get any more notes, Jess?” I asked, stopping to talk to
her for a minute.
Jess had shown me the weird note she had gotten in her locker the
previous morning. Abby was really
freaked out by it, but Jess thought it was just a joke. She had actually accused me of doing it! I wasn’t the one who had put it there, but I
had to agree with Jess – it was probably just some sick joke.
Maybe Derrick had put it there.
After all, he was the only other one at the séance. Abby had gotten all mad at me when I brought
up that suggestion though. I think she
has some kind of crush on him or something cause she acts really weird whenever
he’s around and she defends him anytime I say something bad about him. Not that I do that very often; Derrick seems
like a pretty cool guy. I just like to
annoy Abby.
“Nope,” Jess replied.
“You’d think if someone was trying to scare me, they’d keep putting them
in my locker, but I haven’t gotten anything yet.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it was
just a one-time deal.”
“I guess so,” Jess said, shrugging as well. “Oh well; who cares.”
“I can’t wait for the concert tonight,” Abby said, changing the
subject.
“Oh, I know, me neither,” Jess agreed. “It’ll be so awesome.”
PIV, one of the hottest girl groups around, was coming to Lexington
for a concert that night. My sister Hope
was one of their opening acts, so my family had gotten free, front-row
tickets. We’d even got two extra tickets
so that Abby and Jess could come along.
We didn’t even have to worry about coming home from the concert
and going to bed either because there was no school the next day or Friday
because of parent-teacher conferences.
We had a four-day weekend, and this concert would be the perfect start
to that.
Just then, the bell for first hour rang.
“See you guys at lunch,” I said to the girls, as we separated to
go to class.
***
“Hey, Erik,” I said, setting my lunch tray down beside him.
“Hi, Hallie,” he greeted, smiling as I sat down next to him. “What’s up?”
“Not much.”
“So, you doing anything fun tonight?” he asked.
“Nope, not really. My
sister and her friends are going to the PIV concert tonight, but I’m probably
just gonna go visit Sonny or something,” I replied.
“Oh, that’s cool. How is
Sonny doing anyway?”
“He’s getting better. He
had an allergic reaction to his pain medication yesterday and had to go back to
the hospital, but he was discharged last night and is just hanging out at home
today.”
“That’s good. Will he be
back at school Monday?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Well, tell him I
said hi,” Erik said.
I smiled. “I will.” Suddenly, I thought of something. “Oh, I was meaning to ask you – do you know a
Dr. Randall that works at St. Joseph’s hospital?”
“Yeah, that’s my dad,” Erik replied. “Why?”
“He was Sonny’s doctor. I
was just wondering cause of the last name,” I said, deciding not to mention
that he had given Sonny the wrong pain medication. It wasn’t that big of a deal anyway; doctors
make mistakes sometimes, just like anyone else. I would know; both my parents were
doctors. My dad, who was an ER
attending, had even been involved in a lawsuit before, involving the death of
one of his patients. Erik’s dad had just
made an honest mistake. Or, at least,
that’s what I thought.
***
Eight hours
later
Hope’s POV
I couldn’t help but smile as I sang, looking out into the
crowd. It was a very diverse group,
both girls and boys, all the way from toddlers to grandparents. And for the most part, they were all feeling
my performance.
The lights in the arena weren’t dimmed for the opening acts, which
was actually a good thing, because then I could see out into audience farther
than just the first few rows, which was all you could see when the arena was
dark, except for all the spotlights shining on you.
But, as my eyes panned the crowd, I suddenly wished the arena was
dark after all. For, up high in one of
the upper bowls, I caught sight of poster, made out of a white bed sheet. It didn’t have any glitter or pictures or
anything like that on it. It was simple,
with just three words written boldly across it in red paint: DIE, DIE, DIE
I almost gasped, but held it back and kept on singing. Like my father had told me last night, there
would be some people who would like me, and there would be some that
wouldn’t. But I sure wasn’t expecting a
death threat like that to be held up at a concert. Maybe it was just a joke, but I definitely
didn’t think it was funny.
I closed my eyes, trying to block the big red words out of my
mind. And not until the ballad I was
singing had ended, did I tentatively open them again. And when I did, I saw that the poster was
gone. But now there was another
one. It read, I WANT YOU BACK.
That’s weird, I thought in confusion. What the heck was that supposed to mean?
Shrugging it off, I went into my next song, taking my eyes off of
the poster and focusing it on the rest of the crowd. But I couldn’t help but look back a few
minutes later, and when I did, I saw that the second poster had been replaced
by yet a third one. This one had
more words, and I squinted to make out what they said.
NEXT TIME YOU WON’T BE SO LUCKY.
The words of the poem in my email from the night before came back
to me.
But now I’m
a pro
And just so
you know
Next time you won’t be so lucky
It was the same person. Whoever was up there, holding up that poster,
was the one who had sent that email.
Freaky.
Trying to stay calm and
swallow back my fear, I kept going. I
only had one more song left after this one.
As I sang, I stared up at the poster, memorizing about where it was in
the crowd.
As soon as I got offstage a
few minutes later, I went to the nearest security guard.
“Excuse me, sir?” I asked and
hurriedly told him about the posters I had seen and about where they were in
the crowd.
“I’ll have someone go check it
out, Miss Littrell,” he replied and spoke into his walkie-talkie thing, while I
went to go change out of my sweaty outfit and take a shower.
***
Sean’s POV
I frowned as I watched my
sister hurry offstage. Something wasn’t
right; she had been acting weird. I had
seen her perform tons of times, and she always seemed very comfortable and
charismatic. That night, however, she
was acting strange, not like her usual self.
Maybe she was just nervous, I
told myself, as I glanced around the arena.
After all, it was a huge crowd, and this was her first tour. But I had seen her on tour before, on her opening
night, and even then, she had looked perfectly at ease. I might have just been overly-concerned, but
it seemed like something wasn’t quite right.
If I had looked back into the
crowd minutes earlier, I would have seen what was troubling her. But by the time I did, the posters that had
scared Hope had disappeared.
***
As soon as I had showered and changed, I left my dressing room and
went to find the security guard I had talked to earlier. I spotted him right away.
“Did you find out who it was?” I asked.
“Well, I had security go check it out, and they couldn’t find
anything. They questioned a few people
up there, and some said they had seen some boys with big, rolled-up sheets, but
that they had left when you were done performing.
“Oh,” I said, rather disappointed.
“Don’t worry, dear, this kind of thing happens. They’re probably here for PIV and decided to
cause some trouble while they were waiting.
I wouldn’t be too concerned.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied.
But I didn’t feel much better about it.
There was this little gnawing feeling inside me that told me it wasn’t
just a stupid joke.
***