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.”
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.
