Guilt Ridden and Anger Driven
Ariana stared down at the young unconscious blonde and felt saddened by what she had done. She placed her hand under his neck as she yelled to Howie and Kevin once more. She couldn’t let her feelings get in the way of what she needed to do. These people were nothing to her…nothing except pawns to get to her biggest target, her father.
If she let every little thing she did get to her, she would have never accomplished all that she had done over the years and she had gone too far to let a few little bad feelings about a stupid boy get in the way. She glanced down at him once again as Kevin came frantically running out of the tent, with Howie close behind.
“Oh my God!! Nicky!!!” He screamed as he fell beside his brother.
“I think he’s breathing normally now…” She said as Kevin pulled his little brother up onto his lap and lightly taped at his face.
“Nick…please wake up…I can’t find the phone!!” His whole body was shaking from being in a total panic and once again Ariana had to press her nails into her hand to try to get rid of the guilt she was feeling.
“Why isn’t he waking up? What happened?” He asked as tears started to fall from his cheeks. Howie and Ariana exchanged helpless glances just as Nick finally stirred.
“Nick?” He asked as he lightly brushed back the blonde’s hair from his face.
The teenager looked slightly confused for a second as he gazed up at his big brother before starting to cry hysterically, something that no one expected. “I want to go home.” He said as if he was eight years old again.
Kevin tightened his embrace on his brother, “We will buddy…are you okay? Can you breathe okay?”
“I want to go home.” Was all he got in exchange.
“Is that okay?” Kevin asked glancing over at Howie who still stood there unsure of what to do.
“Yes, of course it is.”
“I mean I know we are so far out, I feel bad.”
“Kevin…” Nick cried once again.
“Shh, its okay buddy…we’re going to head home right now, okay?”
“What do you need from your tent?” Howie asked his friend.
“Maybe a blanket and his backpack…I’m going to go put him in the car and then I’ll help you take our tent apart.”
“Don’t’ worry about that. Riri and I will handle that. You just get that little guy to the car and I’ll go grab his stuff. Do you need anything?”
“Yeah my backpack. Thanks D; I’m sorry about all of this.”
“No need to apologize…” Howie answered looking down at the obviously distraught teenager.
Kevin nodded and then moved Nick off his lap long enough to stand and try to get his brother to do the same. It was a struggle but he managed to get Nick to a standing position. He was still very shaky on his feet, “Do you want me to carry you?” he whispered into his brother’s ear. Just in case the kid was already embarrassed about passing out and crying.
Nick nodded without giving much of a fight and Kevin pulled him into his arms. He was surprisingly light for his age. “Wow I haven’t held you like this in a long time kiddo.”
Ariana watched the brotherly exchange with a mix of awe and envy. Why couldn’t she have that? Howie brushed past her and covered Nick with the blanket as he swung one of the backpacks over his shoulder and offered the other one to his wife. Instead of getting love and attention from her brothers she was their roadie, carrying their stuff for them just as she had to carry everything all her life for her ‘other’ family. She was always the gopher, never the golfer.
She managed to walk slightly behind everyone else and carefully watched the exchange the boys were having. Kevin kept whispering to Nick that everything would be alright as the teenager continued to whimper like a puppy dog. For a few minutes she was nervous that in his own panicked state, her threats would go ignored and he might blurt out all that really happened. All it took was one glance over towards her to realize that he knew not to say anything. It was a look so slight and small that no one would have even noticed it, except for her. Nick’s baby blue eyes looking for some sense of understanding in her dead brown ones.
She didn’t realize that her husband saw it as well.
After noticing the odd, silent exchange that Nick and his wife had, Howie ran past everyone and to the car to open the door for his friend. “Thanks D.” Kevin said as he gently led Nick into the backseat, quickly getting in and letting his baby brother rest his head on his leg.
“Shit…my wallet is back in the tent.” Frustration lined Kevin’s voice as he moved to get up.
“No, please don’t leave me Kevin.” Nick begged, grabbing onto his big brother’s arm.
“I’ll go get it Kevin.” Ariana offered. She was standing outside the car and looking into the backseat.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“No, not at all.” She smiled at the agent and then at her husband, quickly getting annoyed when neither of them looked her way because they were too focused on Nick. She was hoping Howie would have offered to go instead of her or with her, but no. He was willing to let his wife walk all the way back to the camp alone. He didn’t care about her safety as long as precious Nicky was okay.
“I’ll be right back then….” She said as she made her way back to camp, deciding to take a little longer than she had planned. If they didn’t care about her, she would make them wait.
“Everything is going to be okay Nicky.” Kevin said to his baby brother, looking down at him as he gently stroked the boys arm.
“What do you think caused that?” Howie asked from the front seat as he started the car and turned on the heat to keep the teenager warm. “Do you think it was an allergic reaction or something?”
“I don’t know, but once I get him to a hospital I’ll know better.”
“No!” Nick said as he struggled to sit up.
“Lay back down.”
“No doctor or hospital, I’m okay.”
“Nick you couldn’t breath and passed out! You’re not okay.”
“I am okay…no doctor…please!” He started to cry once again. This was all too much for him. The stress of it all was overwhelming. All he wanted to do was tell his brother everything, including the fact that this horrible woman who was married to his best friend, had killed their mother. He couldn’t though, because she wouldn’t hesitate to kill Kevin or any of the others and he had lost too much to begin with. He couldn’t bear to lose one of his brothers.
He knew that if he ended up in the hospital and they ran tests, chances were good they would find traces of that poison in his system and then Ariana would go after his family. He couldn’t take that chance.
“Please Kev…I just need to sleep, I haven’t been sleeping well and I think it just caught up with me or something.”
“That wouldn’t explain the not being able to breathe thing though Nicky.” Howie added from the front seat.
Once again Nick made a move to sit up, only to be pushed down by his brother, “I’ll tell you what, let’s see how you feel come the morning, okay?”
Nick nodded at that, knowing that even if he felt like crap, he was going to act like he was one hundred percent better. “Thanks Kev.”
Kevin smiled at his brother and then handed him a tissue, “Now get some sleep, I’ll wake you when we get home, okay?”
Nick nodded as once again a feeling of utter despair came out of nowhere. He felt as though in that one instant with Ariana, he had lost his mother all over again. He started to cry silent tears. He hated how much all of this was affecting him. All he wanted to do was fall asleep, which he finally did just before Howie’s wife made her way back to the car.
“You look guilty about something.” Stacey said as she eyed her boyfriend suspiciously, “What did you do?”
“I did nothing.” AJ confessed as he stood up to leave his brother’s room.
“Did you break his computer?”
“No…” He walked over and grabbed his fiancé in a hug, “Why do you always think I’m guilty of something?”
“Because you just have this naturally guilty look on your face.”
“Maybe you like bad boys…do you like bad boys Stacey?”
“I am marrying you, aren’t I?”
“Do you think Nicky will mind if we have sex on his bed?”
“AJ!” Stacey let go of her fiancé and slapped his arm.
“What? And that hurt by the way!”
“We are not having sex on your 15 year old brother’s bed!”
“Okay fine, be that way. He will never know.”
“Good Lord, I’m going home…”
“Stace…” She rolled her eyes at him as he shut the door to Nick’s room and followed her down the stairs. “You know I was only joking.”
“What do you have in your hand?” She asked as he finally managed to catch up with her as they hit the bottom of the stairs. “Are you stealing your brother’s homework now too?”
“Oh this, no just something I wanted to read more closely.” He folded the paper containing Nick’s hand written notes and placed it in his back pocket. Something was bothering him about them. They looked normal enough except for the fact that Howie’s wife’s name was all over the place.
He made a mental note to tell Stacey about it later, but not now and in front of Brian and his father who had just come home from work. It was so weird how the mood of the house changed once his father was home. At first he always blamed Nicky for that, saying it was the blonde’s hatred of their dad making things so uncomfortable, but this time Nick was nowhere around and yet, it still felt as weird as ever.
“Hey dad.” He said smiling over at his father who was just standing there staring into the fridge. “I brought home some Chinese if you want any, the leftovers are in the microwave.”
“Why are they in there and not in the fridge?”
“Because there was no room left in the fridge. You should really empty that thing out. God knows how long some of that stuff has been in there.”
Kevin senior finally closed the door to the fridge and opened the microwave instead, “Yeah I’ll get on that eventually.” He seemed to be deep in thought or worried about something. It was times like these that AJ took having a place of his own for granted. He had forgotten how intense their father could be. It was always so easy to just say ‘see ya later!’ and head home.
He couldn’t help but feel for his baby brother just then. It must have been so hard for the little guy once AJ had made the decision to finally leave home. Just being there for this short time, he already felt like he was nothing more to his father than a big inconvenience. That’s probably how Nicky felt all the time.
He watched as his dad sat beside Brian who was busy reading the paper and wasn’t taking in any of the observations he had. Stacey was though, she placed her head on his shoulder as she whispered, “I’m going to get going.”
“I love you.” He whispered back to him.
“I know….Have a good night guys!” She said to both Kevin senior and Brian.
“You too!” Brian said looking up from his paper and winking at her.
“Night.” Kevin senior simply stated, taking a sip of his coffee and spooning some fried rice onto his plate.
AJ grabbed Stacey’s hand and walked her to the door. “I really can’t wait until we can be together all the time.” He told her as he moved in for a goodbye kiss.
“Same here, is everything okay? I saw the way you were looking at your father in there.”
“Yeah, just thinking about how hard it is for Nicky to live alone with him, that’s all.”
“You know what I think? I think Nick is very lucky to have you in his life AJ.” She placed her hand on his chest and them moved it up and grabbed at his chin, “And so am I.”
He watched her as she got in her car and drove away before heading inside. He was just about to open the door when he got the sense that someone was watching him, so he turned to look towards the street once again. Seeing no one he turned and moved inside.
Ariana sat with her head against the cool glass as they drove in darkness, back towards their home. She was still having pangs of guilt every so often for putting Nick through all of this because out of all of them, that kid pretty much had the least to do with how things went in her life. Yet, he seemed to be the one that was punished the most.
When she had concocted her original scheme, she had been so meticulous about it all. She wanted her father to come out of hiding so she planned that kidnapping to the day that her own family was killed. Those stupid people who actually carried it out were just her pawns. They did the dirty work for her, but as far as the planning went, it couldn’t have gone any more smoothly.
When she got word that Nicky had been abducted successfully, she went home and cried. She thought it would bring her some degree of happiness but she was wrong. All it did was make her miss her own mom and dad. She was only eight when they were taken away from her so it seemed fitting to wait until Nick turned eight before he was taken away from them.
They weren’t supposed to get him back. That was never part of the plan. Originally, she had planned to disappear without a trace, take Nicky and Jack and go somewhere tropical to start `a new life together as a family. Kevin ruined all of those plans though when her ‘family’ got sloppy. It was the only hitch but it was also the biggest one.
So she got mad and killed Jackie.
It wasn’t her fault; it was Kevin’s and her fathers! If they had just let her be, none of that stuff would have happened. Eventually Nicky would have ended up being happy and forgetting about his life with the Richardson’s. She wouldn’t have had to kill anyone else or do anything else to harm anyone except her father.
She should have killed him instead of Jackie, why she did that she will never understand.
“You okay?” She felt Howie’s hand on her shoulder. Why couldn’t he ever just leave her alone?
“I’m okay…just worried about Nick.” She said this time with a hint of truth behind her statement. “How’s he holding up back there?” She asked, turning her head to see Kevin.
“He’s asleep; he sounds like he’s breathing normally. I wish I knew what happened.”
“Seemed like an anxiety attack to me.” She said, going back to work.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, he just looked panicked, like maybe something had been on his mind all day. Didn’t you think so too honey?” She asked, trying to coax the right answer out of her husband.
He seemed nervous by that, which brought her a small degree of pleasure, “Uh…yeah maybe a little I guess.” He said after a few seconds.
“I wonder why?” Kevin said as he glanced down at the sleeping teenager with worry lining his eyes.
“Maybe he’s being bullied in school or something.” She answered just as the sound of a cell phone ripped through the air.
“Jesus, Nick had it this whole time!” Kevin said in disgust as he tried to figure out where on the boy it was. He found it buried in Nick’s left back pocket, which he found odd, and flipped it up to see that the call was from home.
“Hello.”
“Hey Kev!”
“Hi AJ, what’s up?”
“You sound like you’re in a car, are you guys freaking out because of bugs or something?”
“No, actually we’re on our way home.”
“What? Why?”
“Nick passed out.”
“Oh my God! What the hell?”
“I have no idea but he scared the crap out of us, so we’re coming home.” There was a tired quality to Kevin’s voice. He was stressed and it was very easy to tell.
“Can I talk to him? I mean is he okay?”
“He’s sleeping now AJ.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you call? Is everything okay at home?”
“Oh…yeah, I was just calling because I missed the little shit.”
“I’m sure he misses you too.” Kevin said, concealing a small smile as he pat his little brother’s hair.
“Passed out huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Was Ariana there when it happened?”
“Why would you ask me that question?” Kevin asked suspiciously, now sitting himself more erect causing the blonde to stir slightly.
“Uh…just wondering…that’s all.” The way he stammered through that answer made Kevin even more curious. Maybe AJ knew about this little infatuation Nick seemed to have with Howie’s wife. He would make sure to get to the bottom of it later; for now he thought it best to drop it since the subject was sitting right in front of him.
“Well, I’m going to go but we’ll be there probably in about thirty minutes, give or take.”
“Kay man…see ya then.” When Kevin clicked off the phone he took one more long look at it before putting it at his side.
Why on earth would the phone be in Nick’s left back pocket when he was clearly right handed? He always held the phone with his right hand. Why would he just randomly go out of his way to move it to his left? And when had he taken the phone in the first place? He didn’t have the phone when they went on their little walk to the lake, Kevin was sure of that. So when did he take it and better yet, why?
He rubbed at his temples, sure he was just starting to over think things a little too much, but the move didn’t go unnoticed by Ariana who was watching meticulously from the rearview mirror. She didn’t like the pondering look on the agent’s face. Not one bit.
When AJ got off the phone with Kevin he rushed into the living room to tell his brother and his father about Nick. He was surprised to see that his dad had already gone upstairs to bed for the night, without even so much as a goodnight or anything. Brian was lying down on the couch doing his all too familiar flipping of the channels.
When he explained what had happened, the look on Brian’s face matched what he was sure he had looked like when he had heard the news. They were both confused and worried about their little brother.
AJ found himself reaching for that note in his back pocket, the one with all the information about that poison and Ariana’s name circled. He decided against it though. He was paranoid about showing it to anyone besides his girlfriend knowing that Brian and especially Kevin would overreact and try to analyze it a little too much.
He was eager to ask Nick about it though. “Should we wake dad you think?”
Brian shook his head, “I don’t think so. My guess is Nicky is going to head straight to bed as soon as he gets here. We’ll just let him know tomorrow.”
“Kevin sounded stressed out.”
“Kevin is always stressed out AJ.”
“I know but still…I just hope there’s not more to the story.”
“They should be here any second…” Brian said, ignoring AJ’s statement and looking at the clock.
Sure enough just as he said that a pair of headlights shown into the living room windows and the two brothers stood up and walked to the front door.
Howie was quick to offer his assistance to his best friend, taking his and Nick’s bag from the backseat as Kevin climbed out of the car. AJ and Brian came down the steps and were quick to help, a move which once again sent a ripple of jealous feelings through Ariana as she quietly sat in the front seat.
Nick was awake but zoned out as AJ peered into the car, “Hey buddy…need some help getting out of there?” He asked as he gently coaxed his brother out of the car, not even acknowledging Ariana’s presence.
“Thanks for everything D and again I’m really sorry about ruining your camping trip.”
“It’s okay Kev…you didn’t ruin anything. I just hope he’ll be alright.” Howie said glancing at Nick as he was being assisted by both AJ and Brian up the stairs. The teenager still seemed unsteady on his feet but Kevin wasn’t sure if it was because of his fainting spell or just because he was overwhelmed.
“I’ll call you.”
“Thanks…we are going to head back out there tomorrow morning, you guys take care.”
“Tell Ariana I said thanks for everything.” Kevin said as he ran up the stairs to attend to the youngest in the family.
As Howie entered his car, he had the same feeling that AJ had experienced earlier. He felt like there was someone watching him. “I’m sorry about everything. I owe you big time honey.” He said as he reached over and kissed his wife.
She pretended it wasn’t a big deal, but inside she was a mess of emotions. Part hatred, part love but mostly anger. She was so angry sometimes she could barely control herself; in fact this sudden rage was almost too hard to conceal. How easy it would be to just reach over and break his neck just like her ‘family’ had showed her countless times, using animals and baby dolls as examples. Both things she had loved and attached herself to only for them to be taken away.
Instead she shoved those feeling aside and smiled at her husband, “It’s not a problem.” She insisted as she dug her nails into her palms once more.
As they drove away, Charlie came out of the bushes. He found out two disturbing things tonight, two things that just about drove him over the edge. Number one, his girlfriend went running to this place. He followed her there because he wasn’t sure he could trust her with everything he said.
At first he had no idea who belonged to this place until he got close enough to read the mailbox. She had run to him, and most likely told him everything.
When she left, he almost followed her but decided he would wait until he got Nick alone. He was going to teach that kid a lesson finally, but the stupid ass never came out. Day had turned to night and he was about to give up, curling himself into his jacket for another night on the street when he saw the car pull up. He knew it looked familiar but he had to be sure. It was the same guy who had taken the skateboard away and of course who else popped out of that car but Nick!
That’s when disturbing thought number two came into play. When he was given the information about who killed his sister, he was also given a description and this guy matched it almost perfectly. Could it be possible that by following his girlfriend, he had been led to his sister’s killer? And if so, was it possible that punk ass Richardson had something to do with it?
As he was thinking this through, the car slowly drove away so Charlie decided to get on his bike and follow. From now on his life was about revenge and seemed like his list was getting bigger and bigger.
