Biting his lip, Kendall held his four friends back before they could round another spooky, dark bend in the road. Honestly, the idea that someone was following them was too absurd to belive, and too freaky to bear.
"Hey guys, do you think..."
...that someone's following us?" Carlos interjected? Kendall swallowed and nodded.
Carlos shrugged. "A little, but, come on. We're a block away from the Palmwoods. Just keep going!"
Kendall scowled. The only thing he hated more than how well Carlo sang, was his optimism.
Looking ahead, he saw Logan and James on the corner, looking at what should be the Palmwoods- but by the looks on their faces, it must not have been, because they soon came running back toward him, scared.
"Um, hey, Kendall? Yeah, um, big problem." Logan started. "We, uh..."
"...took a wrong turn." James butt in, smiling, but then the three boys turned to look at him, frowning. He looked down at the ground to hide his blush.
"Great!" Kendall shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "It's ten o'clock at night, we're lost, and I'm hungry!" He slammed his hands to his sides and looked at his friends for support. "Any ideas?"
"Oh, well, we could call Kelly. She'd be more than glad to give us a ride." Logan offered, smiling. "Or your mom, Kendall."
"My mom's car is in the shop, remember? And Kelly is probaby home, sleeping, like the rest of society." Kendall snapped.
"Sorry." Logan snapped back. He whipped out his iPhone, punching random numbers in.
"Who are you calling?" Carlos asked him.
"411." Logan answered gruffly. "They have directions, right?"
Carlos shrugged. "Hopefully."
Carlos looked back up at Kendall, who looked at James, who looked back at Logan, who stared him down like James was a child molester.
"Okay! I give up!" James shouted. He turned on his heel and stormed back down the dark road, headed back toward Rocque Records.
"James! Wait for me!" Carlos shouted, running after James. Kendall watched as Carlos disappeared around the corner, and was soon out of sight. He turned around and looked back at Logan, who was punching more numbers into his phone.
"Who are you calling now?" Kendall asked him. Logan hung up on the beeping inbox on the other end, and punched more numbers in.
"Camille." Logan answered sternly.
"I thought you guys were...done." Kendall asked him, feeling the air grow awkward. Logan looked up at him and shook his head.
"Oh." Kendall said, looking down at his feet. He noticed how ugly his Air Jordans looked in the dark, and wished that he was home. Why did they have to stay after so late? Why couldn't they just go home at five? Weren't there laws that protected that right?
Just as Kendall began to ponder the more judicial portions of his mind, he felt his Droid vibrate in his pocket. It was either another adoring fan wishing to talk to him, or his mother. He was fifty-percent right either way.
So Kendall pulled his phone out of his pocket at looked at the bright screen in the dim light of the streetlight. The little image of Carlos being bashed into the wall during hockey practice last year was gleaming up at him, as well as the words, CARLOS CALLING right underneath it.
"Hello?" Kendall asked into the phone.
"Yeah, Kendall, you there?" Carlos asked. He sounded breathless.
"No, Carlos. It's an alien." Kendall answered sarcastically.
"Okay cool. So, um, could you come here, please? Like, now?" Carlos asked pleadingly.
Kendall pulled away from his phone to see where Carlos was calling from. It said, EAST RIVER STREET.
East River Street? Kendall throught. Shouldn't we be on Rodeo?
"Okay, Carlos. We'll be there in a bit."
"We?" Carlos asked. "Logan's there too, right?"
Kendall looked over at Logan, who was still waiting for Camille to pick up her phone.
"Yeah. Hold on for a few minutes. Don't die, alright?" Kendall quickly hung up the phone, but he could hear the last words Carlos had said: "I'll try."
Kendall put his phone back in his pocket, then looked up at the weak sign hanging off of the streetlamp. It read, MAIN RIVER CROSSING.
"Main River Crossing?" Kendall asked. "How did we get here?"
Logan slammed his phone shut and shoved it into his pocket as he began to talk.
"It's that one road two blocks west of Rocque Records, and one block behind the Palmwoods. So, ideally, If we just go in the direction Carlos and James went in and just kept going, we should be there, right?"
Kendall nodded as Logan started to walk. "Of course. But, the thing is, well..."
"Spit it out!" Logan snapped.
"Carlos' phone was on East River Street." Kendall told him. "Where's that."
Logan stopped walking abruptly at the corner. A passing car splashed water from a nearby puddle onto them as it raced around the corner.
"That's...six blocks east of Rocque Records." Logan told him.
"Okay, did you like, swallow a map or something, because you have L. like it's nobody's business." Kendall shouted. He cringed at the sound of his voice's echo throughout the dirty neighborhood.
"Well, you know, I figured it would come in handy sometime, and look where we are now!" Logan told him.
"Okay, sorry." Kendall looked down the road. Maybe Carlos had come running back toward them, but he hadn't.
"Let's just keep going." Logan said gruffly. He stormed down the road, looking for something unapparent.
"Hey, could you slow down a bit?" Kendall asked. "You're pretty fast."
"Thanks." Logan answered, hurrying up.
Kendall crossed road after road, watching for a street sign that was, hopefully, somewhat familar. He was scared, and wished that he was home. He wondered why his mother hadn't texted him, asking where he was. He pulled out his phone to check the time- it was almost ten-thirty, and they had left Rocque Records around ten. His mother had to be worried, right?
Kendall bit his lip again. His mother always used to scold him about his nervous habit, but she wasn't one to talk, always messing things up and fixing them and messing them up again whenever she was nervous or anxious. So she had tried several times to break his habit. And it didn't work, obviously.
Kendall had just rounded another corner when he realized that Logan wasn't in front of him anymore. Ten seconds ago- or was it ten minutes?- Logan had been right in front of him, clear as day, and now he wasn't.
Kendall stopped in the middle of an unmarked road, realizing that he was officaly lost in the middle of the dirtiest parts of Los Angles. He stopped and looked around, peering into the broken windows of the vacant high-rises, where squatters were busy hiding from the police.
Kendall looked around to see if anyone was around. He was alone, in the middle of nowhere. He pulled out his phone to see if anyone had texted him, but the battery was dead.
Just like in the horror movies. Kendall thought. He walked slowly across the rest of the street, his only companion now was the echo of his shoes against the pavement. He kept walking, and heard a weak voice begin to sing, and realized that it was his own, singing "Please Don't Go" by Mike Posner.
I just keep beggin', beggin'
Baby please don't go
If I wake up tomorrow will you still be here?
I don't know
If you fuel it I do, if you leave I'll come find you
Baby please don't go, go, go, go
Realizing how pathetic he sounded, Kendall stopped singing to start running. He heard laughter, splashing, and the popping of soda cans.
Carlos! Kendall thought, he tricked me!
Kendall started to laugh as he ran in the direction of the party. Carlo must've heard about an impromptu party at the Palmwoods, and dragged James along too. And they held Kendall out of it?
"He's soooo dead." Kendall laughed, picking up his speed. He saw the Palmwoods, at the end of the block, and he swore he saw Jo, looking for him.
"Jo!" Kendall shouted, waving. But Jo must not have seen him, because she looked in the other direction- at Katie and Kendall's mom.
"Mom! Katie! Over here!" Kendall shouted. But they didn't see him either, because the three headed back into the main hotel. Even Mr. Bitters looked worried.
Wierd. Kendall thought. He slowed down his pace as he reached the more congested parts of East River Street, (that's where he had heard it!) and headed toward the gated enterance into the pool area. But he felt two clammyhands on his shoulder before he could.
"Where do you think you're going?" The voice asked. Kendall swallowed hard when he realized who it was.
"Hawk." He said softly. "What-"
But before Kendall could finish his question, he got his answer. Faster than Mr. Bitter's car could reach 60 mph, Hawk had thrown Kendall into a beat-up BMW.
"Ew." Kendall said as soon as he landed on something hard. It smelled like a really bad cologne.
"Wait, Carlos, is that you?" Kendall asked the unknown figure below him.
"Yessh." Came Carlo's voice from somewhere below Kendall. "Now get your butt out of my face."
"Oh, please Carlos." Logan's voice came from somewhere in the trunk. "You know you like it."
"Ha!" James' voice snorted from the bottom floor of the car.
"Shut up, you dogs!" Hawk barked. "This isn't fun!"
"You're right." Carlos snipped at him, crawling out from underneath Kendall. "You promised me candy."
Kendall burst out into laughter, despite the life-or-death-but-possibly-death situation.
But Kendall stopped laughing as soon as Carlos' body fell limp onto the floor again. He saw a little needle sticking out of his back as his body lay, motionless, on the dirty floor of the car.
"There." A British accent proclaimed from the back of the car. "Take that, you nasty hobknocker."
"Haha." Logan's voice laughed from the trunk. "Carlos is a hobknocker."
"Do you even know what a hobknocker is?" James asked.
"No." Logan said softly. James whispered something into Logan's ear, and he burst into laughter.
"That's sooo bad." He said.
"Yeah. That's why it's 'dirty and illegal'" James laughed.
"Shut up!" The British voice snapped. Kendall turned around to see that Hawk's assistant, Stephanie, sitting along the back on the car seat, right above the trunk but still in the car. She had a tranquilizer gun in her manicured hands, her tipped nails tapping the barrel rather seductively.
Hawk slammed on the gas pedal, and the car burst forward. As it passed the Palmwoods, Kendall saw Jo on her phone. Kendall reached for his pocket, but remembered that his phone was dead.
"Shit!" He screamed. He lunged forward and began to hit the glass windows of the car, but with no results. All he got for it was an odd look from Jo in his direction and a nice little shot in the neck of tranquility.
