Rushing towards room 113, Howie's mind was racing over the possible outcomes of this disaster. He knew he should have called an ambulance. They would know more of what to do for her than he would ever, but then again, something told him that it was going to be alright, that Nick was just over exaggerating over the phone, and no extra attention needed to be brought in.
"Either way, we don't need another funeral," he said to himself as he came to the door.
Knocking on it, the door fell open and sounds of sobs reached his ears.
"Nick?"
No answer
Louder, as he walked into the room, "Nick, are you in here?"
"Howie, please help her," he heard a soft, tear-soaked voice cry.
Walking further into the suite, he noticed a lanky, dark-haired boy crouched in the floor near a couch, holding a pale brunette in his arms.
"Nick?" he questioned again.
The boy looked up with pleading eyes. "Please help her."
Recognizing Nick's crystal blue eyes, he rushed towards his side in hopes to get a better view of the entire situation.
Angel was extremely pale, and her hair and clothes seemed to be disheveled a bit. There was, however, color to her lips, an almost crimson color. When he reached down to touch her face, his hands were met with an eerie coolness.
"Nick, you said you saw the bottle of pills right?"
Nick stared at Howie with a look of deep thought on his face.
"The bottle� the bo�" Nick mumbled to himself before his face lit up. "Yes! They were spilled all across her bed. I picked them up and put them back in the bottle." He looked up into Howie's eyes before his gaze pulled back to Angel.
"Could you go get them for me? I need to know what she took before I can do anything."
Nick started to get up, but stopped and looked towards Angel, fear etched into his face.
"She'll still be here when you get back. I promise," he said, giving Nick a sympathetic pat on the back.
Nodding, he pulled his arms from Angel and walked backwards towards the bedroom, never once taking his eyes off of her until he left the room.
�The poor kid. It's almost like he's losing his best friend all over again�.
Until then, the only sign that she might still be alive was the brightness of her lips, but now that Nick had let go of her, Howie noticed a slight rise and fall of her chest every few moments as she took long, deep breaths.
"Least she's breathing. But why is she so pale?" he questioned out loud. He reached towards her wrist and found a steady pulse.
"Here," Nick said, holding the bottle towards Howie before returning to his place beside Angel.
He took the bottle from Nick's hands and read the prescription label.
Take two pills at first sign of migraine. No more than
eight in a 24-hour period. Side effects may include
drowsiness, fatigue, lack of strength, dizziness, and
stomach aches.
Opening the bottle, he realized that it wouldn't have been full even with all fifty M&M sized pills that were included in the prescription.
Howie breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled Nick into the kitchen area.
"Nick, she's going to be fine. She's just sleeping. Now, I want you to count these pills and tell me how many there are," Howie told him as he spilled half the bottle's contents on the counter in front of Nick. He was confident that he was right, but he wanted to be positive.
"She's all right? Just sleeping?" Nick asked slowly, almost as if his brain was having a hard time processing this new information.
"Yes, Nick. She's all right. Just let her sleep." With that, Howie poured the rest of the pills out on the counter near him and began to count them. Nick followed suit, and they were soon done.
"Twenty six," Howie said under his breath. "How many do you have?"
Nick looked up. "Nineteen."
Smiling, he placed his hand on Nick's shoulder, making the taller man face him. "That's 45 pills, meaning only five are gone. She's had the prescription for a week, and if she has a prescription for migraines, she must have them a lot. We don't have anything to worry about Nick."
A smile was on Howie's face. He didn't really know this girl, but still, she had him worried. Knowing she was completely fine, just in a medicine-induced sleep, made him happy with relief.
His relief was contagious as Nick's fear and tension left his body and a small smile crossed his face. "She's all right."
~
Slowly, Leslie opened her eyes. Her headache was gone, but a cloudy drowsiness filled her.
"Damn, I need to get a new prescription that doesn't turn me into the living dead," she said to herself.
Looking at her watch, she noticed that she had been asleep for a few hours. Deciding that Nick had probably left after his shower, maybe still mad, she walked towards the bedroom to sleep off the rest of the medicine before talking to Nick in the morning.
Thinking that she heard voices, she deviated towards the kitchen, and, seeing the room door cracked open, kept quiet. Peeking around the corner, she saw the newly dark-haired Nick standing there, a slight smile on his lips and a look of relief in his eyes.
Stepping towards him, she said, "Nick, I thought you would have left already."
Spinning around, Nick grinned and for the first time she noticed Howie. "Hey, Howie," she said shyly.
"Angel!" Nick exclaimed right as the door swung open, hitting the opposite wall with a loud crash.
"Where is that bitch?!" a drunken A.J. exclaimed as he stumbled into the room.
*
A.J. had found Angel's room easily, as Nick and Howie's voices floated into the hallway. To his delight, he found that the voices came from behind an open door, and as he leaned over and peeked in, he saw Howie walk into the kitchen, talking to someone. There were no signs of the alleged Angel.
"They must have found out what a fake she was and tied her to the bed so she wouldn't get away," A.J. said to himself, chuckling as memories of the last time he'd been tied to a bed crept into his head. " That reminds me. I need to call Amanda."
Looking closer, he saw her peeking around the corner into where Howie had gone. If A.J. hadn't had the urge to kill her at that second, he would have probably jumped her instead.
"She even looks like a whore�" he mumbled, looking from her silver painted toe nails, up her leather pants to her pale face with it's dark red lips and big green eyes.
At that moment, she walked towards the other room and said something so quietly he couldn't decipher it.
"I can't let her pull both of them into her sticky web."
As he stumbled to an upright position, and fueled with fury, he slammed open the door and stumbled into the room.
"Where is that bitch?!"
~
Leslie turned abruptly as A.J. stormed into the room, placing his hand on the wall to steady himself.
Anger filled his eyes as he walked towards her. "You! You are trying to ruin us aren't you?? Tear us apart!"
Leslie was frozen with fear as he stared down at her, his breath reeking of alcohol.
"What? Are you not going to answer me, bitch? You know I'm right, don'tcha?" he spat into her face as he pushed her to the floor. Leaning over, he pulled her back to her feet by her shirt.
"What the fuck are you doing A.J.?" Nick yelled, trying to pull A.J. away from Angel.
He succeeded just enough that A.J. let go of her to punch Nick across the face and push him across the room. He hit the wall and slid to the floor with his hands covering his newly blackened right eye that would soon match his left.
"What, Nicky-boy? You don't want to share your whore??" he spit into Nick's face. "You make me sick man. Brian dies and you spend the next few days getting blown by a slut you MET at the funeral! If you get to have some fun, then so do I."
Turning back to Leslie, he began to unbuckle his pants.
"Get on your knees whore," he growled.
As he heard those words, a red-hot anger ran through Nick's body, replacing his pain. He climbed to his feet and rushed towards A.J., knocking him to the ground.
"Keep your fucking hands off of her," he yelled as he directed punch after punch towards A.J., tears of pain and frustration pouring down his face.
A.J., receiving a burst of strength, pushed Nick off of him, and catching him off guard, punched him across the face causing blood to spill from his lip. A.J. charged him, pushing his head up against a table repeatedly. Nick continued to fight back, punching A.J. square across the face, before one last hit against the table cause his sight to go black and turned his body to lead as he fell to the floor. The last thing he heard before everything turned dark was Angel screaming.