"Black-Dove January"
Chapter 4

      "Marie!!", Kevin shouted. Where was she? She couldn't have gotten too
far. Brian came jogging over to Kevin, soaked from the rain. "I don't see
her, Kev." "Maybe we should just go back inside", Howie suggested, coming up and
putting a hand on Kevin's shoulder. Kevin shrugged his hand off. "No. She's
around here somewhere. I'm going to look over there", he said, pointing to
the area of woods behind the house next to theirs. The guys watched as Kevin
disappeared into the trees.
          Kevin wasn't going to give up until he found her. But he had to
ask himself why finding her meant so much to him? What WAS it about her?
Suddenly, he passed by something lying on the ground. Stopping to get a closer look he
discovered it was Marie. "Marie!", Kevin exclaimed, kneeling next to her.
She was  almost crumpled like a rag doll. Reaching out to pick her up, he
realized she was soaked to the bone. If he didn't take her home and get her out of
these wet clothes she would catch a cold, or something worse. "Marie", he
said, gently shaking her. Her eyes fluttered open. "My name's not Marie",
she told him, coughing. "What is it then?" "Raegan". Her eyes closed and she
shivered. Kevin picked her up and carried her back home.
                    The guys saw Kevin come out of the woods with someone
in his arms. "Found her", he said, hurrying into the house. Once he laid her on
the bed he noticed she had a big bruise forming on her forehead. "Where was
she?", Brian asked. "Passed out by a tree. It looks like she ran into the
tree I found her by. We have to get her out of these wet clothes." "Kev...do you
really need our help with that, man?", Nick asked. "Nick, now is not the
time to be immature. If she doesnt get out of these clothes she'll catch
something if she hasn't already", Kevin told him sternly. "Alright. Alright." Howie
volunteered to make some hot tea for her when she woke up, and Brian said
he'd get a warm compress. AJ stayed in the room to help Kevin and Nick.
                  Raegan awoke to find herself back in Kevin's room. She
wasin his bed....and not in her own clothes! She assumed they were Kevin's
since they were about 4 sizes too big for her, but where were her own clothes? She
panicked and tried to get up, but was met with a wave of dizziness.
Attempting to get up once again, she grabbed onto the nightstand for support and in the
process knocked something down. Picking what had fallen back up, she
realized it was a magazine. But not just any magazine. This one had Kevin, Brian,
Nick, and their two other friends on the cover! It said "Backstreet Boys" under
the picture of them. "The Backstreet Boys..", she whispered to herself. She
remembered hearing them on the radio a lot lately. So she was staying with 3
Backstreet Boys....not bad. At least now she knew they didn't have bad
intentions.
                "I'm telling you, she has them almost all over", AJ said to
Howie. "How do you think she got them?", Howie asked. He was referring to
the many bruises Raegan had on her body that they had discovered while changing
her clothes. "My guess is someone gave them to her. A few were in the shape
of a fist. She was really hit hard", Kevin said, his heart breaking at the
thought of someone hurting her. "So you think that's why she ran away?",
Brian asked. "Seems like it", Nick replied. "What type of person would do that?
Poor Marie." "Her name's not Marie. It's Raegan", corrected Kevin. "What?", all
the guys asked. "I don't know why she lied, but she told me her real name is
Raegan. I guess she was scared before." "If we can't trust her to tell us
her real name, how do we trust her to stay here?", Howie asked. Kevin glared at
him. "Alright. Alright. I told you I'd stick by you and I will...but I'm
just sayin', that's all."That's when she remembered running in the woods, and then crashing into that tree. God, that was so stupid of her. So what was going to happen now that she had been taken in by the Backstreet Boys? There had to be a problem with this somewhere.

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