The threat had been circling through Olivia's head the whole week. She couldn't get her mind off it. The part she didn't understand was that only two people knew what really happened that night and one of those people couldn't have anything to do with the threats, because, well, he was in jail. So that only left...

"It can't be him. There's no way it can be him...", she yelled at herself for even allowing the idea to enter her head. She had been growing extremely frightened over the past week and it scared her even more when she realized that she couldn't figure out who these threats had come from. She had recieved two in two days, but then they stopped for the rest of the week. It was so confusing, and it was making her insecurity envelope herself all over again.

Justin and the rest of the guys had flown to Europe two days before to record a Christmas CD. He had told her that they'd be there for awhile, practically living in the recording studio, since they had to get the album finished before Thanksgiving. She could tell that he was worried about her, which made it even more ridiculous to think that he could be the one that was doing the threatening. He had no motive behind it either.

"There, see, Liv, there's no possible way he could be doing this. No need to worry.", she tried to comfort herself. She sighed and ran her fingers through her long brown hair, putting the thoughts away for now. Olivia grabbed a basketball and jogged outside to throw a ball around, even though it was getting bitterly cold. It was only three o'clock in the afternoon so she had four hours to kill before she had to go to work at American Eagle.

While dribbling the ball up and down her driveway, a car pulled up against her curb. She looked over at it curiously, backing up in fear it could be her "stalker". The engine shut off and the car door opened.

"Hey, Liv!"

She sighed in relief when Brian walked up her driveway. "Hi, Brian. What's up?", she smiled and continued bouncing her basketball.

"Well, I just got home from Massachusetts with Bridget. We were there an extra week, with her family.", he said and took the pass from Liv. "What have you been up to?"

Not wanting to worry him by telling him about the threat notes she had gotten, she just shrugged. "Nothin' too much. I've been hanging out with Justin a bit."

He looked up abruptly at Justin's name. "With who?"

"Justin."

He looked as if he had just been socked in the stomach. "Why? Are you getting involved with him, Liv?"

"No, we're just friends Brian. What's so wrong about that? I probably don't even have a chance with anyway."

"I heard that he's a real player and that he treats women like dirt."

"WHAT!?"

"Well, you know how all those superstars get to be... conceited jerks."

She took major offense to that, but she didn't know why she was getting so protective of him. Maybe because she felt that he was one of her real friends, one of whom she could trust. "Justin's not like that, Brian..."

He put his hands up in defense. "Hey... sorry, but listen, I've told you this once already. Just be careful around him, ok?"

"I don't know why you're getting like this, Brian. He's a great guy, even though you may not be able to see it. You're acting as if you're insanely jealous of him!"

He bounced the basketball and shot it through the net. "I'm not jealous, I'm just looking out for you."

She put her hands on her hips. "Well stop. I can take care of myself."

He stopped playing and let the ball bounce barrenly on the black pavement. They were both quiet, just looking at each other and for a minute, the only thing that could be heard was the noise of the dribble on the driveway. He finally spoke up. "Fine. Just don't come slinkering back to me if something happens to you because of him." Then he spun around, with a hostile glare in his eyes and jumped in his car, leaving Olivia in a cloud of exhaust fumes. She watched as the car drove out of sight, with her eyebrows merged together in frustration.

"Hi, is that everything?", Liv smiled tiredly at her customer.

The teenager grinned giddily. "Yep, that's it!!"

She rang up the articles of clothing, consisting of a namebrand longsleeved shirt, dark clunky shoes, a grey hooded sweatshirt, and a beaded necklace. "That will be $152.50"

The young girl handed her a credit card and Liv rang everything up, charging it to the card. "Thank you for shopping at American Eagle, come back soon."

She smiled and took the bag from Olivia, skipping out of the store. Liv watched her, amused. "Someone's in a good mood."

A few minutes later, Karen, one of the girls that Olivia worked with called to her that she had a telephone call. "A phone call? At work??", she thought. "That's weird."

"Hello?"

"Hi my little angel. Did you miss me? I'm still watching you...", a cold voice snarled on the other end.

Her blood ran cold. "W-who is this?"

The caller hung up after an evil laugh. Olivia stood there for a minute staring at the phone. Who could have called her at work? Who WAS that?

"KAREN!"

"Yeah?", the twenty something woman looked over at a pale Liv.

"Did the person who just called say who they were?"

"No, he wouldn't tell me, who was it?"

She swallowed. "I-I don't know..."

"Why don't you try calling *69 to find out?", Karen suggested.

*69!! Of course! Why hadn't she thought of that before? With a still shaking hand, she dialed the call-back service but only got an ERROR message, saying that the call couldn't be traced.

This was getting creepy, and Olivia was getting more and more scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Sure, she had gotten threats, but not constant ones. This was actually like she had her own personal stalker that knew how much he was torturing her. As much as she didn't want to bother Justin, she really wanted to call him. She needed to call him. His voice was so soothing to her, and it seemed like he'd always make things be okay. He had this control over her and she didn't know why; but she liked it.

"No, stop right there.", JC pulled off his recording ear phones. "Justin, man, what is up with you?"

Justin sighed and rubbed his eyes. They had been in Europe recording their Christmas album, Home for Christmas , for only a few weeks. Their record company executive, Lou Pearlman, expected the CD to be finished before Thanksgiving, which was only in a couple more weeks. They only had three songs fully recorded.

"Justin, are you aware that we've been here, practically twenty four hours a night, for over TWO WEEKS and only have THREE songs finished. THREE. We have to put FOURTEEN on the record! What is wrong with you? You're not giving it all you've got, and that is SO not like you."

"Look, I'm just not in the Christmas mood." Justin snapped.

"Do you think any of us are? People are hustling about getting Thanksgiving TURKEYS for the love of God and we're in here doing Christmas songs. But please, man, try to focus on it. We've only got a few weeks left to finish it."

He grabbed a bottled water and tossed it at Justin. "Do you need to warm up your vocal cords again?"

Squirting the clear liquid in his mouth, he shook his head. "I'm fine, I just have a lot on my mind and it's really bothering me, that's why I'm not on my usual level of strength."

Lance signaled for the moderators to turn the mics off and looked at Justin. "Is this about Olivia?"

Justin's head snapped over to look at Lance. "Just what do you mean by that?"

"She's the thing you keep thinking about, man. Something is going on either in her life, or your friendship with her, and it's gotta be pretty big because you've been in this whole other world ever since we left the Orlando airport."

For the past two weeks, Justin HAD been a little out of it. He couldn't get his mind off of her -- the threats she had told him about, the night she told him everything that happened, and for some reason he kept seeing her face in all his dreams at night. He had last talked to her about a week ago, and she sounded so scared and insecure. She told him about the two latest threats and even about the little conversation she had had with Brian about him. One thing was for sure, he didn't like that Brian character at all. There was just something about him... Maybe it's jealousy? No, it's not, it can't be. Who are you trying to fool Justin? He had repeated that line to himself thousands of times, and he still couldn't pinpoint the reason why he disliked Brian so much. Another thing that was floating through his mind, lurking around like a bandit in the night, was the task of keeping everything to himself like Liv had asked him to. He wanted to tell the guys badly about what she had told him, but that would almost be like decieving her -- and that was something he NEVER wanted to do.

He looked at Lance, who, along with the rest of the guys, were looking at him expectantly, waiting for a comment. "Look, it's just something I need to figure out for myself ok? I'm sorry for spacing out...let's get this song finished."

The guys were obviously satisfied, so they put their attention back to the song and Justin struggled to push Olivia out of his mind.

It was now setting in on one o'clock in the morning, and the men of *NSYNC were just finishing up their fourth song, "Love's In Our Hearts On Christmas Day". They had been working on it ever since they got into the studio the previous morning.

"... Love's in our hearrrts, on Christmas Daaayy...", Justin forced out for the last line of the beautiful song. The microphones switched off and the guys all took off their headphones with a unanimous sigh.

"I cannot believe it took SIXTEEN HOURS to record one stupid song. If that's not ridiculous, than I don't know what is.", Chris groaned, rubbing his tired eyes.

"I know, seriously. Justin, I hate putting the blame on you but man, you gotta go home, get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow because you're our lead vocals and the CD's not going to go across well if you don't get them to be where they usually are.", Joey sighed.

Justin squirted some water in his mouth, letting it cool down his dry throat, and quietly mumbled to his band mates: "Whatever."

As soon as Justin unlocked his hotel room door, he threw his jacket on the chair and flopped onto the plush bed. "Man, what is wrong with you? Why can't you get her out of your head?", he yelled at himself out loud. "I just need some sleep... that's it. Everything will be fine tomorrow...", he yawned and immediately fell into a deep slumber, still in his clothes.

Two trembling arms threw themselves around Justin's neck, holding him close to the shaking body that the arms belonged to. "I'm so scared, Justin..."

He wrapped his hands in her soft brown hair, pulling her in a tight hug. "I know... shhh, don't cry, sweetheart. I'm here..."

A pair of watery blue eyes looked up into his and he could distinguish the pure terror that was in need of a protective encourager. The excruciating amount of fear present in her eyes made his heart break into a million pieces, and he held her closer. "Don't worry, Olivia, I'll never let you go..."

Her flooding eyes looked at him, suddenly getting faraway. Her slender body, that seemingly fit perfect into his arms, began to disintegrate...like a worn out video tape that only left fuzzy lines when being played in a VCR. Much to Justin's dismay, he couldn't grab onto her and she completely faded out of his sight, calling out his name for help.

"Justin!!... justin please, don't let go of me... justin... help me..."

"OLIVIA!", he yelled, as his body jolted into an upright position, sweat drenching his clothes and face. He looked around his room, confused, while breathing quickly trying to piece together what just happened. He swallowed, took a deep breath and went to the bathroom to wash his face.

"What am I supposed to do now?", he sighed, looking into the mirror watching the water droplets trickle down his cheeks like tears. "It's almost five o'clock in the morning and you're standing in front of a mirror thinking about a girl that is thousands and thousands of miles away... but is so close to your heart..."

Justin sighed and went back to his bed. For the bulk of the morning he laid there, staring at the white ceiling before falling back asleep at seven o'clock for a maximum of two more hours.