“I know. I know.”
“Sarah, we only have five weeks to find this guy and/or find his next victim before he strikes again. Now I’ll be joining the tour as the kidnap date gets closer and you find more information.”
“OK.” They airline made the last call for the flight. “I’ll see you in a few weeks Jeff.”
She walked to the gate entrance and gave the ticketer her ticket. In a matter of minutes she was sitting in her first class seat, waiting for what the next five weeks would bring her.
“Hey Ry! Wait up!” Aaron called as he ran across the US National Car Rental Center parking lot after his brother’s friend. She looked back at him and laughed.
“Hurry up AC!” Ryleigh yelled back, slowing down until the 13-year-old was walking next to her. “We’re gonna be late and I wanna see this.“
“Why? All they are doing is a semi final dress rehearsal. They aren’t gonna do the final one until tomorrow and the show isn’t until Monday.”
“I know, but I love watching them practice and you seem to forget they are having a new dancer start today cause Shannon broke her leg. I wanna meet her.” The 20-year-old girl said as she walked past the rather bulky security guard standing outside the door to the backstage section of the arena.
“Oh yeah! Gonna check out the competition?” Aaron teased, opening the door to the building and letting her walk in before following her.
“I don’t think so! If she really wants the goon then she can have him, but we all know that he only has eyes for me!” She laughed. Aaron only smiled as they started down the now familiar halls.
“You just may be right on that point Ry.” Aaron said as they made their way to where everyone was suppose to meet. They finally made their way to the room where everyone was suppose to be. They were surprised to find the room empty, except for a thin girl with dark brown hair down just past her shoulders. They looked at each other. Neither of them had ever seen her before.
“Um, excuse me?” The girl turned around to face them. “Hi, um, can I help you?”
“Um... yeah, I’m Sarah Walsh. I’m here because I’m suppose to start practicing today.”
“You’re the new dancer. OK, sorry, it’s just not often that we meet new people around here.”
“That’s OK.” Sarah smiled at the girl in front of her and made a mental note to find out as much as she could about her. “It’s nice to meet you. I just met up with Fatima... she went to get the guys. I guess they started practice early.”
Ryleigh walked across the room and sat down on one of the couches. “You’re kidding me! They actually got off their lazy asses and started early? Ya hear that AC? I think there is hope for them yet.” Aaron just laughed at her and walked over to Sarah.
“Hi Sarah, I’m Aaron.”
“Hi Aaron. It’s nice to meet you.”
Suddenly a phone started ringing. Ryleigh fished her cell out of her pocket. “Hey Aaron, I’m gonna go find Jill... if anyone asks how you got here tell them that your mom dropped you off, k?” Ryleigh got up from where she was sitting and walked back to the door that she had come in from. As soon as that door shut the one on the opposite side of the room opened and Fatima walked in with five Backstreet Boys trailing behind her.
“OK, Sarah... I see what you have met Mini-Nick.”
“Hey!” Both Nick and Aaron protested at the same time, causing snickering among the other Boys.
“Anyway. Don’t get too used to the cutie, after we leave Florida he won’t be hanging around. He’s got his own fans to torment.” She smiled sweetly at the youngest boy and then turned back to Sarah. ”These are the Backstreet Boys. Brian, Kevin, Howie, AJ and Nick.” She pointed to each of them as she said their name they each waved at Sarah from where they were standing. “Boys, this is Sarah Walsh, the newest addition to the dance team. Be nice to her and remember that you didn’t get the dances all at first either.”
“Yes Ma’am.” They all answered in unison.
“OK, you have ten minutes until we are going back out there and starting over.” The all agreed and dispersed across the room.
“So, AC, if you’re here, then that means that-“
“Nope she didn’t. Mom dropped me off.”
“I thought that she had an appointment.”
“Nope, she dropped me off and then went to her appointment.” Nick nodded and sat down on the couch where Ryleigh had been siting on a few minutes earlier.
In those ten minutes each of the Boys made their way over to Sarah and introduced themselves and welcomed her to the team. She thought that they were all nice, and was actually looking forward to working with them, even if it wasn’t really something that she was very good at. She was talking to AJ when Fatima came back into the room and told them all to get their butts in gear.
Ryleigh was sifting through the racks of clothes in front of her. She couldn’t believe how much stuff they took with them on tour. “Jill...” She didn’t get an answer. She turned around to find that the Head of the Wardrobe crew wasn’t behind her anymore. “Jilly, this isn’t funny.” Just then someone came up from behind her and placed a large hand over her mouth.
“What’s up?” The hand was removed and Ryleigh turned to find Marcus, one of the security guards that had been standing outside standing behind her.
“That was so not cool.”
“Well what are you gonna do about it?”
Ryleigh just rolled her eyes and went back to going through the clothes in front of her. She was trying to help Jill figure out what they boys should wear for the first night of the show. “So where did Jill go?”
“She went to grab a water bottle.”
“I see....” Her phone rang again. She grabbed it out of her pocket and pressed the send button. “Hello?”
“Hey Ryleigh! Can I talk to Nick?”
“Why do you keep calling? The answer is still no and I have no idea who gave you the number but when I do someone’s getting hurt.”
“Nick gave it to me a long time ago, why? I just wanted to talk to him. By the way, did you know that he told the press that you were his cousin?”
“Mandy, don’t ever call it again.” She pressed the end button and turned the phone off, knowing that the girl would call back.
“The ex?” Marc asked, with his arms crossed across his chest.
“Yes. I’m gonna kill him! I told him not to give my number to her and what did he do? I’m gonna kill him.” She started out of the wardrobe room and down the hall, with Marc right behind her. He wasn’t going to try to stop her from what he knew she was going to do. In fact the only real reason he was tagging along was to see what she was going to do this time. True it was his job to keep Nick, or any of the Boys, from being attacked.... By fans. And this girl was a far cry from that. Besides, he wasn’t about to get in her way when it came to making a point to the most popular Streeter.
Ryleigh walked into the area where the fans would be seated in two days. Without thinking twice walked up to the stage, ran up the stairs in the middle of “Shining Star” while Nick had his back to the rest of the room. Without hesitation she jumped on his back. “Holy shit!” Nick yelled, taken by surprise at having an extra 115 pounds on his back so suddenly.
“That’s not the only thing Holy you’ll be seeing soon if you don’t tell that brain dead ex of yours to stop calling my phone!” By then the music had been turned off and everyone was watching the small girl yell at her friend.
“Would you get off of me so that I could, I don’t know, talk?” Ryleigh thought about it for a second before loosening her grip around his neck and sliding down to the floor. Nick turned around to look down at her, rubbing his neck. “Now what the hell are you talking about?”
“Mandy has called my phone 5 times in the past 2 days! She said that you gave her the number. Not only that but she told me that you told everyone that we were cousins?!?!? What the hell did you do that for?”
“It was when my phone was dead and we went out on the boat. She wanted a number that she could call to contact me, so I gave her your number and told her to only call it when there was an emergency.”
“Well apparently your dumping her ass qualifies as an emergency that she feels the need to talk to you about. SO you better tell her to stop calling me before someone gets hurt. I’m not sure which one of you it will be, but someone will get hurt. And COUSINS?!?!?!...”
Sarah watched the battle of words from the floor where Marc was standing. The bodyguard started laughing when Ryleigh attacked him again as the singer tried to stop her from jumping on him. Sarah looked around her. No one was trying to help Nick get the girl off of him. She walked over to the large man who stood there and laughed at the two young people. “I saw her this morning, when she was with Nick’s brother, and now she comes in and attacks him. Who is that girl?”
“Oh that’s just Ryleigh. This is something that happens all the time. And I think that he probably deserves this one.”
“Is she some kind of...?” She couldn’t think of anything that described what she was trying to say.
“She’s his best friend, believe it or not. They have known each other forever. And as hard as it may seem to believe she would do anything for him. That just means that she’ll kick his ass every once in a while as well.”
“Ahh... I see...”
Just then Fatima ran up the stairs to where Ryleigh and Nick were still arguing. “Ry, are you done yet?”
“No, he’s still breathing.”
“Well, killing him is gonna have to wait until after practice because we have to get through this so that everyone can go and enjoy the last few days of freedom.”
“Fine.” She turned back to Nick. “You got off easy Carter... I’m not done with you. Cousins? I wouldn’t be your cousin if you paid me too!”
“None of us would be related to him if we got paid. Now, please let us finish rehearsal so we can go home.” Brian said as Nick shot him a dirty look.
The younger girl smiled and walked off of the stage and sat down in the fifth row as ‘Shining Star’ started up again. She stayed there and watched the rest of the rehearsal in silence.
