I heard myself moan as I struggled to wake up. The voice sounded so far off in the distance. My head was pounding, it felt worse than any of the migraines I had ever had.
"Nick! Come on buddy, wake up!"
Although I wanted to wake up, I felt the need to sleep was more important. I moaned a reply, hoping that the voice would just leave me alone and let me go to sleep, but much to my dissatisfaction, the voice was persistent.
And louder.
"Nick, you've been in an accident, you hit your head pretty hard, you can't be sleeping on me right now!"
My eyes sprung open when I finally realized why Brian's voice was so insistent on my waking up.
I had been in an accident? This didn't make any sense to me at all.
"Huh?"
Brian's eyes locked onto mine. "Nick, your bus crashed, you got hit in the head, do you remember?"
I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping it would help me to remember, my mind was a total blank. "No, I don't remember," I replied, surprised at how weak my voice was.
Suddenly, I realized that I wasn't laying in a hotel room or even on my bus for that matter. Things were slowly starting to connect.
"We were on our way to Boston. Your bus was last, something ran out and spooked the driver, I think it was an animal, we're not sure---"
"Where's Lizz?" I interrupted Kevin's slow, detailed description of the accident.
I could tell by the way Brian and Kevin exchanged glances that this wasn't a good thing.
"Where is she?" The panic must have shown through my voice.
"Nick, calm down," Brian said in a calm voice.
I started to sit up, ignoring the pounding in my head. I only made it halfway, Brian and Kevin's hands each pressing back on one of my shoulders.
"Lay back down, the doctor wants you to stay put," Brian stated.
I clenched my jaw. "Where the fuck is she?"
Kevin sighed. "We don't know."
"Wha--"
"Calm down!" Brian urged as he glanced warily towards Kevin.
They were avoiding my question and I was damned if I was going to stick around waiting for their answers. I tried to sit up again, and again I was met with their resistance.
"TELL ME NOW!"
"S-h-h-h-h, Nick calm down," Kevin and Brian tried to calm me down at the same time.
"The only way to tell you anything is if you calm down and let me tell you from the beginning, alright?" Brian said as his blue eyes focused on me. I nodded my head, ever-so-slightly, trying to keep the headache from intensifying. I listened to Brian as he recalled the events that led up to where we were now, my heart stuck in my throat, fearing the worst possible scenerios:
"Okay, your bus was roughly ten miles behind mine. AJ's was a little less than a mile ahead of your bus. Mike got a radio call from AJ's driver, saying that there was trouble with your bus and that help was needed and to turn around."
Brian paused for a moment before he continued.
"When we got there, we found your bus laying on it's side and AJ's bus stopped on the edge of the road. His driver was laying on the ground roughly twenty feet from the bus, dead."
I was feeling dizzy, but I willed my head to ignore it, I needed to find out answers. "How?"
"Mike went to check on the driver and I took off to your bus," Brian continued, ignoring my question. "I don't know how I managed it, maybe it was adrenaline or something, but I got into your bus---"
Brian going on and on about stupid things were more than I could handle. I interrupted him and asked him point blank, "Where the hell are Lizz and AJ? Are they okay?"
"I'm getting to that--"
"You're fucking there! Tell me now! Please!"
I don't know if the tears of desperation that flooded my eyes or the look on my face did it, but Brian finally stopped with the stupid narratives of the accident and his heroism on the scene.
"We.. we don't know," he replied as he kept eye contact with me.
"What do you mean? You mean you lost them? What? Are they here and you don't know how they are?"
"Nick.. Nicky settle down," Kevin soothed.
"No, I need to know what's going on, just tell me," I begged, wiping the tears that had already fallen away from my cheeks.
"We think Lizz and AJ were kidnapped," Kevin stated in a monotoned voice.
"Fuck.... Agnes," I whispered when I realized what had happened. I immediately started pulling the IV out of my left hand, tearing the bandage that was wrapped around my head off.
"Nick, what are you doing, stay still," Brian urged.
"I don't have time to sit in a fucking hospital! We have to find them!"
"You, buddy, have had a pretty hard hit to your head and you need to be here for twenty-four hours observation, like it or not," Kevin stated in an authoritative voice.
"Fuck that noise, I'm outta here," I stated as I shakily stood up and then fell back onto the bed as my feet disobeyed my intentions.
"Yeah, sure you are. You just need to sit tight and take it easy. You're no good to Lizz or AJ if we have to babysit your ass when we search for them. Besides, the FBI are working on it right now, so I'm hoping that they will be safe and sound by the time you get out of here tomorrow. Now, lay back down and I'm calling your nurse so you can get your IV put back in and your bandage fixed."
With that being said, Kevin stood up and calmly walked across the room toward the door. "Oh, and if you think you'll get a chance to check out before you're ready, rest assured you won't be getting a chance because Brian or I will be watching you."
"Momma, AJ wasn't in my plans, I wanted Carter and only Carter, now we have this excess baggage that we will have to tend to," Terri moaned as the van sped down the highway.
"Baby, sometimes things do work out as planned. If that skinny punk hadn't showed up, things would have been different. This will work out, you'll see," Agnes grinned as she reassured her daughter.
Vinnie sat across from his hostages, taking pleasure in looking at the two of them, huddled together on the floor of the panel van.
"Bet you wished you had ran out of your fricken ride with your sunglasses on, pretty boy," Vinnie taunted.
"You fucking---"
"Ah.. hey we have ladies present!" Vinnie interrupted AJ's comment. He stood up and backhanded AJ across his face. "I'll have to teach you some manners."
AJ spit out the blood that flowed when his teeth had connected with the inside of his cheek and cut it.
"Leave him the fuck alone!" Lizz hissed.
Vinnie rose his hand up ready to strike. "Looks like you need to learn some manners too, bitch!"
Before he could bring a hand down onto Lizz, AJ kicked Vinnie's feet out from under him. He landed on the floor of the van, momentarily stunned when the wind was knocked out of him, gun skidding across the floor towards the seats between Agnes and Terri.
"Vincent!" Agnes spat, "You concentrate on watching them and stop playing with them!"
"Well, we wouldn't have this problem if you had waited for me to tie their asses up," Vinnie defended.
"God, then tie them up, better yet, tie them up and gag them, I can't stand listening to her whiney voice anymore," Terri suggested.
"Good idea, we have to stop and get some supplies anyway, I have the place figured out where they are supposed to be staying in Boston, so we can play with them for awhile," Agnes agreed.
"Don't get any funny ideas yet little man," Vinnie smiled, revealing the gold cap on his front tooth. "We will be taking care of you very soon and have pictures to prove it, the blood in your mouth is only the beginning!"
