Chapter One

He sat staring at the screen of the little Mac Power Book for longer than he should. His eyes were beginning to ache but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from the email that was in front of him. His inbox was littered of emails of the same nature, though each one seemed a little more unsettling than the one before it.

They had started innocently enough, seemingly from an overzealous fan who was excited to have his or her favorite pop star’s email. The only problem with THAT, however, was that no fans HAD his personal email address. So how did this person stumble upon it?

He hadn’t paid much attention to it, though he hadn’t responded. After all, he had replied, it would give away that he was in fact who this person THOUGHT he was and he didn’t want his fans getting this email. He’d had it for years and wasn’t looking to change anytime soon.

He had thought that his failure to respond would deter the person from sending more, but it didn’t. In fact, they began to come more frequently, the content growing more and more disturbing as he continued to ignore them.

It had become an obsession for him, despite the uneasy feeling that the messages gave him. He often found himself clicking on his email several times a day. Even when he wasn’t near a computer, he continuously thought about what he’d find once he returned to the bus and logged on.

The sound of the knob turning brought him out of his stupor as he quickly shut the lid to his laptop. He glanced up when the door to the back area of the bus opened up and there stood both Chris and Lance, the former looking goofier than normal and the latter looking slightly agitated.

“Are you on that damn thing again? I guess I’m going to have to hide it from you again,” Chris mused as he stroked his goatee thoughtfully. JC forced a laugh that didn’t sound natural as he pushed himself to his feet. He hadn’t even noticed that the bus stopped.

“Where are we?” He asked, bringing his hand up to rub his tired face. He looked more sleep deprived than usual.

“We’re at the hotel,” Lance responded. “What are you doing back here?”

JC shook his head. “Nothing important. Um… why don’t you guys go on in? I think I’m going to take the back entrance. Not really up to meeting with the fans and all today.”

Lance furrowed his brows together. This wasn’t like JC at all. He never missed an opportunity to greet his fans, to take pictures, to sign autographs. “Are you sure everything is o—“

“Everything is fine, Lance,” he snapped, not wanting to be questioned further. “I said I will be inside soon,” he growled, reaching for his laptop and snatching it off the table. He pushed through the two men, leaving both of them pretty dumbstruck over what had just occurred.

JC was always such an easy going guy. Sure, he had a temper, but it always took quite a bit to push him over the edge. They had noticed, however, that he hadn’t been sleeping quite as well as usual. They often heard him tossing and turning through the night. Perhaps that had something to do with his foul mood.

Lance and Chris looked at each other and they both thought the same thing: something was going on with their friend. Something he didn’t want to share with anyone but it was definitely something. They were just going to have to get to the bottom of it, with or without his help!

~*~

JC stepped into the hotel room later that night, drenched in sweat from the show that evening. He had been one of the last ones into the building, again opting to take the back entrance to the hotel with his guard. He just didn’t feel safe in a big crowd. He flipped on the light switch immediately and glanced around, doing a mental check in his head to make sure everything was as he left it before the show that night. When he was certain that it was, he made his way to his bag and pulled out a fresh pair of clothes before heading towards the shower.

It wasn’t long before he was out and on his way to bed. He was exhausted. He just hoped that he had exhausted himself to the point that sleep would come naturally and he wouldn’t have to lie awake for hours on end, staring at the ceiling.

His wish was granted as he felt his eyes closing. He let out a deep breath and shifted on the standard hotel mattress when he heard it. It was the distinct ringing of his cell phone. He let out a frustrated growl and got up before he trudged tiredly across the room to yank it out of his bag. He didn’t even bother to glance down at the caller ID before he flipped it open and held it to his ear.

“Yeah?” He growled angrily, unable to believe that someone would be calling at this hour. It had better be an emergency or else someone was going to pay!

He frowned when he didn’t hear a response.

“Hello?” He grumbled. He pulled the phone away from his ear and flipped it over in his hands, seeing that the number was coming up restricted. Who the hell—

He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck as the silence continued. “Hello?” He demanded, this time a little louder. What kind of a sick joke was this? He was just about to ask that of the caller before the line went dead.

Although nothing had been said on the phone, it didn’t stop the uneasy feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. If something like this had been an isolated incident, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. He would have chalked it up to a wrong number and left it at that. But could he really just forget about this and hoped whoever it was didn’t call back? No. They had his personal email address and now this person had his phone number.

He shook his head. He was man. A stubborn man, at that. And since when did men go and complain about little things like this? They didn’t. He let out a deep sigh and laid back against the blankets on his bed. He had to just push it out of his mind. It was something he needed to just forget about. But why was he finding that so hard to do?

~*~

The sunlight filtered into the hotel room, reflecting harshly on the television that was still blaring. From his place in the bed, JC let out a soft groan and stretched. He had lost track of time somewhere around two a.m. and he hadn’t realized that morning had broken.

He let out another groan and leaned over to get a better look at the clock beside the bed and let out a sigh when he realized it was nearly seven. He had only an hour before they would head out for the next city. Where had the night gone?

Part of him wanted to head into the bathroom and take a nice hot shower. He knew, however, if he did that, then sleep would be impossible once he was on the bus. They had a show later that night and he needed to be well rested in order to give it his all.

He didn’t know, however, if sleep would even be possible. Because unfortunately, all that had been on his mind were the emails. And the phone call.
It had been weighing heavily on his mind all night. Normally, things like this wouldn’t bother him. But he couldn’t help himself from thinking about it. Even after deciding that the emails were real and not a practical joke, he didn’t find them to be anything that he needed to be concerned about. But when they had continued, growing more and more urgent… and then, the phone call. Was it just a wrong number, as he had originally thought? Or was the phone call connected with the emails?

If they were, he could possibly be in a bit of trouble. Well, in a lot of trouble. This person knew how to find him. They knew his personal email address, and they knew his personal cell phone number. The last time he had checked, that information was not public knowledge. Whoever this was had dug deep for the information. And that scared him more than content of the emails itself.