Chapter 2

When Joey awoke he was lying on a bed in the hotel with three forlorn faces hovering above him, and he sighed when he saw them. He sat up and watched as the three young men backed away, and he remembered what had happened.

“You guys, I had the most terrible dream…Justin was dead…murdered. Oh God, I know how unbelievable it sounds, but it was just so lucid.” He stopped speaking when he noticed that they were all staring at their shoes uncomfortably.

“No. No, guys, it can’t be true. It just can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, man.” JC was unwillingly speaking, and had not looked up from the ground when he began his comment. Joey broke down, and cried while the others crowded around him trying to comfort him as much as possible with their own sorrow in check. Finally Lonnie and Mike walked in the door, and just stood by the wall watching the sobbing mass of bodies in front of them. It killed Lonnie to see one of the people that he supposed to be protecting die, and it hurt him even more to see the other guys as a blubbering mess afterwards. How could he have let such a terrible thing like this happen? Neither of the two bodyguards could figure out what they had done wrong. They were at the only entrance to the hall for the entire night and had never seen anyone enter or leave. They both sat down on a bench in the hallway, and cried in their heads without letting out any emotion on the outside. They had been told that they were still good at their jobs and there was nothing that they could’ve done, but it just didn’t register. Justin had been like family to them and you just didn’t let things like that happen to family. You didn’t let that happen to anyone, but especially not family.

The media rushed down the hallway toward the two men and began firing questions at them.

“Excuse me, but exactly how did this happen?”

“What precautions have you been taking?”

“How are you protecting the rest of the group?”

“Do you see *NSYNC going down after losing their front man?” Lonnie and Mike pushed through the crowd toward JC’s room and Lonnie let out one comment before shutting the door behind him.

“No comment.” For the entire day everyone stayed in their rooms and away from the public eye, not even suspecting what would come later that night, even with all of the extra security surrounding the young vulnerable group of singers.

Chris slept soundly as a familiar black figure quietly crept into his room and sat in the chair beside his nightstand. With gloved hands he pulled two bottles from a plastic bag in his pocket and sat them on the nightstand. He opened the first that had nothing but a large sign proclaiming HCL on the front, and he let five drops of the yellow liquid drop into the glass of water beside the lamp. He then quickly closed it and dropped it back into the bag before opening the second bottle that boasted solid strychnine. He picked up the bottle of aspirin from beside the water and dumped the little white pills into his bag replacing them with the strychnine. The man in black then, placed a pair of heavy-duty headphones over his friend’s ears, and put all of the incriminating evidence into his plastic bag pushing it back into his pocket. He then plugged the headphones into the nearby radio and turned the volume control all of the way up. With everything in place the man covered Chris’s mouth and flipped on the radio watching in laughter as Chris’s eyes shot open and he attempted to scream against the sturdy grip. Chris yanked off the headphones, and the hand was pulled away from his mouth as he reached for the aspirin bottle and popped two of the deadly pills into his mouth. The young murderer stared in awe as he downed the strychnine with the HCL laced water. Within seconds Chris was choking and trying to scream without hurting his burning throat, but all that came out were hoarse whispers. He looked up at the man next to him, and questioned who he believed to be one of his good friends.

“Help…me…?” He attempted to pull at the other man’s sleeve but was weakened by the deadly pills that he had just swallowed down in an attempt to rid himself of the horrible headache that he had awakened with. The awe full man simply pushed away Chris’s hand and pointed toward the open window, grabbing the headphones and Chris’s college ring from the nightstand while Chris glanced over toward the sky.

“Fresh air.” Was all that the man said to get Chris to go leaning over the window frame gasping for a welcome breath, but before that ever came his deadly companion walked up behind him and silently pushed him over the edge of the tenth story windowsill. He glanced gracefully out the window as Chris landed on the narrow sidewalk, barely missing an elderly couple, and then he left the room in total silence before anyone could get past the confusion and up to the room.

About ten minutes later Lonnie came running into Lance’s room, and closed the drapes to prevent the young man from looking out on the body of his friend. Lance shot up in the bed, and searched around the room until his eyes landed on the frantic bodyguard.

“What’s wrong, Lonnie? What happened?!” Lonnie paused for a moment to look over at the young man in the bed before walking over to give him the bad news.

“I’m sorry, Lance, but Chris is… gone.” Lance’s eyes began to tear up, but he asked his defiant question, hoping that he had misunderstood.

“Gone where?” Lonnie stared into his watery eyes and simply pointed up. With that Lance began whimpering and tried with all of his willpower to hold back the hot stinging tears that he had been able to keep back when the same news came about Justin, but Lonnie pulled him to his chest and wrapped his arms around the shaking form to try and comfort him.

“You can cry. It’s alright.” Lance frowned and tried to pull away from the heavy arms around him. He wanted to talk, but found it very strenuous because of the huge lump in his throat.

“No, it’s not alright.” He pulled away, and stared up at the ceiling, attempting to center himself, and then let out one more sentence before pulling himself into the fetal position.

“I have to be strong.” Lonnie backed away from the shivering lump on the bed and left the room to let him grieve privately.

Chapter 3