"Hey, Mercedes. How are you today, girl? You are looking fine."
"Thanks Wes. " Mercedes said as she was let in through the crowd.
"You hold onto that pass, you hear? That thing is valuable." Wes grinned.
"Lady, hey!"
"Do you know Justin?"
"Why does SHE get to go in?"
"I think Lance’s parents are behind me, let’s wait for them, okay?" Mercedes tells him. She spots a younger fan in the crowd who is overcome with sorrow,
"I had it right here! Here in this compartment!"
Mercedes motions to Wes, "Some body’s very upset."
"It’s gone. O M G "
"Are you okay?" Mercedes calls over to her.
"I lost my ticket. I lost my TICKET! I‘m suppose to meet my friends inside." she cried.
"Wes, can we do anything for her?" He gave Mercedes a doubtful look.
"Please?" she implored.
"Mercedes, this might just be a scam. Ya know, I’ve seen it before."
"But, then again, this kid might really have lost her ticket and she’s devastated." Mercedes offers.
Wes got on the two-way and then told Mercedes the kid could come through and they’d get her to her friends, some how.
"How much you wanna bet her friends have front row seats?" Wes chuckled.
"I’ve seen it all Mercedes."
In the meantime, Jim, Diane, Stacey and Ford meet up with them at the gate.
"What’s going on Wes?" asked Jim.
"Mercedes wants us to try and get this young lady inside to her friends. She says she lost her ticket."
Another security guard meets them as they walk towards the backstage dressing rooms.
"Can you help this kid get to her friends, man." asked Wes. "There are people waiting on my people here."
"Sure. You wanna good seat, sweetheart? Freddie’s gonna get you what you want. I know what all the little girls want."
The younger girl looked scared. Mercedes got a funny feeling from what the security guy said. "Wes, you know this guy?"
"He’s been with us a few weeks, right Fred...a month?"
"Yeah. Having a ball."
"You’re going to take good care of her, get her to her friends?" asked Mercedes.
"Sure, Ma'am. You don’t worry. "
Mercedes looked at the kid, "Now, you have fun. Enjoy the concert, it‘s awesome!"
"Yeah, thanks."
Mercedes hesitated, but then went on with Stacey and Ford in the lead. The group rounded the corner and Mercedes stopped. "Something’s just not right."
"What’s wrong, dear?" asked Diane.
"I can’t put my finger on it. But, I think I want to go back and make sure that girl gets to her friends."
"Now, Mercedes, Lance will skin me alive if you don’t stay with me and I have to bring his family back stage, too." Wes said.
"I’ll only be a minute. Go ahead, I’ll find my way."
With that Mercedes slipped around the corner and out of sight.
"Man, I’ll be dead meat tonight." said Wes.
Lance couldn’t wait to see everyone and was grinning from ear-to-ear when he saw his sister and brother-in-law. "Hey!" he hugged them. Then, he saw his parents with Wes.
"Mercedes was right behind us, but she went to make sure this girl got in to the show." said Diane.
"Wes?" Lance looked at him, "What’d I tell you?"
"Your lady is head strong, Lance. She wanted to help this kid out." Wes told him. "If you want I’ll go back now and get her."
"Don’t worry, Son, she’s with another Security guard." Jim said. Lance followed behind Wes and to his surprise his Father came along as well.
Mercedes wasn’t at all sure where she was going, but she figured she’d run into somebody soon. ‘They weren’t THAT far behind us.’ she thought.
There was a muffled noise and Mercedes heard crying. She noticed a door slightly ajar and slowly, quietly opened it. Mercedes gasped. There was Fred
standing over the young fan, with his pants unzipped. He was holding her head to his crotch. "Come on Sweetness." he coaxes her.
"Get away from that girl!" Mercedes screams.
"Oh shit. What the fuck are you doing here?" The girl jumps up when she notices his attention is diverted.
"RUN." Mercedes tells her and the two of them take off as the Security Guard struggles to get his pants zipped back up.
Lance, Wes and Jim make their way down the corridor to where Wes and Jim remember last seeing Mercedes. Like a bat out of Hell, the young woman they had last seen going off to meet her friends at the concert ran smack into them.
"Help!" she yelled. She was a mess, she was still crying and she was frightened. Worse of all, she had no idea why Mercedes wasn’t right behind her. "She was right behind me. She told me to run."
Lance took off like a shot.
Fred had Mercedes’ foot and was pulling on her. They had both stumbled in the hallway. He dragged her up and slammed her. "Bitch."
As soon as he heard someone was coming, he took off, leaving her in a heap on the floor.
"Oh Lord!" Lance screamed and fell next to her. "Mercedes!" He picked up her head and held her. Wes paused briefly, then took off after the guard yelling into his two-way. Jim knelt next to his Son. Lance was inconsolable,
"Mercedes, Mercedes."
"Alright Johnny, we need to know. Could this kind of thing have happened before? Did we have a security guard coaxing sexual favors from fans in order to get into our shows? " J.C. demanded an explanation.
"Was it only one?" Chris asked. "How do we know this hasn’t happened to other kids by other guards?"
"Calm down guys! We will look into this." Johnny told them.
"Calm down my ass." Justin said. "We should be able to trust these guys. Even though they don‘t provide direct protection for us one-on-one like Wes, Mike,
Andre and the rest do, they have to be a trusted part of our team...our FAMILY!"
"I know that J. There will be an overhaul. We will check into their backgrounds more." said Johnny.
The guys turned in unison when they saw Lance. He had to leave the dressing room so the doctor could examine Mercedes.
"Is she okay?" Joey asked.
Lance was barely composed. "What in the HELL is going on around here?"
He was hot for blood. "We can’t even trust a member of our own security staff?" J.C. put his arm around him. Johnny placed his hands on Lance’s shoulders.
"We’ve been venting on Johnny already, Man." Chris said.
"This isn’t Johnny’s fault. I want to talk with TIM! Isn’t Tim our tour manager? Where the hell is he?"
"Tim is talking with Mike." Johnny said.
"They’re taking that young girl to the hospital, Johnny. To the HOSPITAL to talk with a rape crisis counselor! " Justin said.
Lance looked over to his family sitting on a couch against the far wall. He left the guys and made his way over to them.
Lance sat down and put his head down into his hands.
Diane tried to console him and Stacey kept telling him that Mercedes was going to be alright, but it was his Dad that reached Lance.
Jim put his arm on his son and spoke to him, "I’m sorry Lance. I’m so very sorry."
Lance looked up at him, with red-rimmed eyes, "What are YOU sorry for?"
"For not going back with her when she had this feeling she needed to help that girl. For not giving her a chance, when you obviously knew her better than we did. I’m sorry I prejudged her without getting to know her. For not realizing that you’re a man now and capable of seeing things that I didn’t see. Is that enough for now?"
Lance hugged his Father and thanked him.
"I don’t know what you’re thanking ME for." his Dad said.
"Maybe for showing me that a man shouldn’t be afraid to admit when he was wrong. You’ve taught me many important lessons Dad."
"I’m sorry I didn’t trust you to know that Mercedes was a good person. She was very brave tonight."
Lance struggled to keep composed. He really didn’t want to cry in front of all these people. He rubbed the tip of his nose and his eyes were painfully expressive as he tried to keep from breaking down.
Mike, the head of *N SYNC’s security team, and Tim Miller, the tour manager, came into the room. Lance jumped up and pushed his way over to them.
Chris and Joey saw Lance coming and held him back. "Whoa, man. Stay cool."
"What do you guys have to say for yourselves, huh?" Lance screamed pushing against his friends. "You better say something before we fire your ass!"
J.C. was steaming enough, but when Lance started to explode he figured someone better try and stay calm. "Ok, ok...what do you guys know?"
"We checked into this guy’s background. There wasn’t anything there to send up a red flag. Nobody had any concerns about him. His references all checked
out. We couldn’t have seen this coming." Mike said.
"What are we going to say to this girl’s parents, Mike?" Justin asked.
"We’re looking at a lawsuit for sure." Tim said.
Lance was disgusted. "Are you serious, Tim? Am I hearing you right? The first words out of YOUR MOUTH at a time like this is about a fucking lawsuit?! That’s all you give a damn about?"
To say that the guys were aware at this point that Lance was losing it, is an understatement. Lance normally would avoid swearing. He definitely would
never lose it in front of his family, or if there was a woman in the room. That was not his style.
"Don’t you realize what’s happened? This CHILD has been traumatized, she’s been exposed to sexual abuse and all because she wanted to get tickets to an *N SYNC concert? What the hell, Tim? Only an asshole would be worrying about covering his own ass at this point. Furthermore, one of the people YOUR security team is hired to protect, because they’re with us, has suffered an injury by a guard that the two of you are ultimately responsible for...do you UNDERSTAND?"
"Of course I understand the seriousness of the situation, Lance."
"Then, perhaps the best way we can avoid this lawsuit you’re so worried about is by firing your ass and this guy’s ass and let the vultures take over from
there!" Lance pointed at them to drive the message home.
"Do you want my fucking job over this?" Mike yelled.
"Damn straight I do!"
"Lance, you’re not really mad at Tim or Mike. There comes a time when we have to admit that we cannot control everything that goes on in this tour. They
DID their job, they checked this guy out. It wasn’t there to be found, Lance. There was no way we could’ve foreseen this." J.C. told him.
Lance wasn’t about to back down, "Fire the bastards."
Johnny shook his head, "Lance. J.C.’s right. I’m looking over this application and the profile, the references, everything checked out. Everything. Some things are just beyond our control, Lance."
"Don’t give me that shit. There must’ve been something they could’ve done. Things like this can’t happen backstage. It’s suppose to be safe back here
for our guests and the kids at the show."
Joey griped Lance’s arm, "Come on, man. You know Mike and Tim, they feel bad about this. You don’t want to take this out on them anymore."
"Lance, let’s be cool and wait and see what the doc says about Mercedes’ injuries. OK? Come on, let’s sit down." said Chris. Soon the door to the dressing room opened and the Doctor motioned for Lance.
"She’s going to be fine, Lance. Probably a little sore tonight and tomorrow. A nice lump on her head, but just bumps and bruises, nothing significant.
She’s worried about YOU though."
"Are you sure she‘s okay? She was knocked out don’t you think we should be taking her into the hospital for x-rays?" Lance was wringing his hands together nervously.
The Doctor put his hand on Lance’s shoulder. "Honest. She’s going to be fine. Go on in and see for yourself."
Lance wasn’t able to hold back his concern for Mercedes as he approached the dressing room sofa she was lying on. She had an ice pack on her head, but
wanted to sit up when she saw Lance. There were tears in his eyes, "Mercedes. No, stay still. Don’t get up. You scared me, Darlin’" He reached for her free hand and kissed her.
Mercedes smiled at him. "You scared me! I could hear you yelling at those boys from here. You know it wasn’t their fault."
"That’s where we disagree. It was their job to protect you."
"I’m the one who walked away from Wes. Why don’t you yell at me?" she said and slyly smiled at him.
"Now, don’t think I won’t, only not today. Not when I’m just so relieved to see you’re okay." Lance kissed her hand. He helped her hold the ice pack back on her head.
