Chapter 37

“Did anyone call Kevin?” Lenni asked, playing with her food. Felicia had fallen asleep, and after a heated ‘discussion’ with Denise, the others went to get their dinner at the cafeteria. But there’s a difference between getting dinner and actually eating it.

“Can’t. He didn’t give us a number to contact him,” Brian mumbled.

“Do you blame him?” Howie asked, pushing his food away.

“No, not really,” AJ said, resulting in a minimal amount of laughter. But soon after, it was silent.

After a couple minutes, Lenni stood up abruptly. “I’m gonna go to the nursery.”

“Why?” Nick asked, slouched in his seat.

Lenni just shrugged. “I like babies.”

“Mind if I come with you?” Howie asked. It’s not that he didn’t want to stay with the boys, but he was worried about her. After they saw Felicia the first time, she didn’t say more than one word in a sentence, until dinner.

Lenni shrugged. “Why not.”

Howie stood up and the two made their way to the nursery. They were going by the front lobby when Lenni thought she saw a familiar man. He brushed past them, head down, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. She thought nothing of it as they were almost at the maternity ward. Suddenly, it clicked. She turned around just as he took off his glasses off, which confirmed her suspicions. That son of a bitch, she thought before running towards him, leaving behind a very confused Howie. By the time he realized who she went after, she had already started to ‘beat him up’.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!! I CAN’T BELIVE YOU!!!!!” she yelled, forgetting there may be little kids around. “YOU PUT HER HERE, AND YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO COME!!!!” By now, she was sitting on him, trying to hurt him, and crying her eyes out. Howie came over and pulled her off, having her cry into him instead.

“I….I deserved that. I didn’t realize what I did until I got home,” Jono said, looking down at his feet. “I wanted to see if she was okay….”

“You son of a –“ Lenni said before Howie covered her mouth with his hand.

“I suggest you leave,” he said coldly. “Before we tell the cops you’re here.”

“They….they know its me?” Jono asked, paling. Sure, he was sorry he did it, but he didn’t want to get in trouble for it.

“Yeah, now leave, or else we will put your sorry as-, er, behind, in jail now,” Howie said, changing his words when he saw a child nearby.

Jono didn’t need to be told twice as he scrambled out of there, bumping into everyone he could.

Lenni was pissed, this time at Howie. “Why’d ya do that?!? We could have had his sorry self in jail now!”

Howie sighed and hugged her again. “I don’t want him near Felicia at ALL. And I don’t want the commtion to upset her or anyone else. They will find him at home, don’t worry.”

Lenni nodded. “Still wanna see the babies?” she asked, not wanting to dwell on this topic.

Howie nodded and the two headed over.

An couple hours later, Detectives Vinton and Gray came into the room. At this point, the only other people to know of Lenni and Howie’s encounter were the other boys and Denise. They all thought it would be too much for Felicia if she knew he was in the building, despite all of the security. Felicia got nervous when she saw their faces. She knew something was up, but was having a hard time telling what it was.

“Did you find Jono yet?” Nick asked, holding Felicia’s hand. She had regained some color, but was still fairly weak.

Gray sighed before looking towards her. “We went to his house, but he wasn’t there. He left in a rush though, everything is a mess, and some of his clothes are gone.”

If Felicia looked like a zombie before, now she looked like a sheet. “W-what? You mean…..you mean he’s out? On the loose?”

Vinton nodded his head slowly. “I’m sorry. We are putting every available agent on this case, including the Orlando Police Department. We even added some of our own security gaurds to this floor, to go along with the hospital’s and the groups,” he said, referring to the boys body guards. They were lucky none of the fans found out they were there, even if none of the boys themselves were admitted to the hospital.

“Did Jono try to contact any of you since the attack?” Gray asked, taking out a notepad.

Howie looked over at Lenni. “We ran into him here….on the way to the nursery…” Lenni spoke up, trying to avoid her best friend’s eyes.

Gray wrote this down, and Felicia gave Lenni a scared look. “He…he was here?!?!” she asked, breathing heavily.

“Sh….sweetie…take deep breaths,” Nick said, trying to coach her.

“Did he say why he was here? Or where he was going next?” Gray asked, writing something down.

“He…he said he wanted to see how Felicia was,” Howie said, leaving out the part of him being sorry, which he didn’t completely believe. How could anyone be truly sorry for something like that? “After he found out the police were onto him, he ran out the doors. We thought he was going to get caught at home, so we didn’t tell anyone here….” he said, feeling bad that they didn’t do anything at the time.

Vinton nodded and turned his attention. “We will update you once we have some more information. And don’t worry, we have our best men on this,” he said before he and Gray went to go find Jono.

Felicia was still very very pale from the news, and still grasping Nick’s hand. Everyone was silent until AJ spoke. “I’m going to get some water, I’ll be back,” he said, and before anyone could offer to go with him, he was out the door. He went to the nearby restroom instead, once he was sure no one else was with him, and started to make calls.

10 minutes later, he came back into the room. Everyone but Nick was asleep.

“Well, either you were really thirsty, or you weren’t getting water,” Nick said, giving AJ a look. “Now, since I doubt your bladder can hold that much liquid, what gives?”

“Wanna go on a road trip?” AJ asked, looking happy. Well, happy mixed with revenge.

“What? Why, of all times, would you want to go now?”

“Lets just say, I want to pay an old friend of mine a visit.” AJ smirked.