Getting Kevin out should have been easy. He was the least hurt, although he'd been thrown from his bunk and was on the floor no, ceiling, Nick reminded himself. A.J.'s singing had woken him right up, so he was fully conscious and all Nick had to do was act as a link to the outside teleports. Somehow though, it had been just too much. For the first time, he bothered to open his eyes... the world swam before him. Breathing hadn't been the easiest for a while, either.
His sense of Brian's presence suddenly flared. Something was wrong. Brian was scared. He tried to reach out and reassure him. "Bri? Brian?" The effort was draining, and Brian's mind just wasn't open enough. He was calming down though. Someone else was there for him. "Mindi? Thank whoever for taking care of Brian."
The wall next to him began to buckle - he could hear the aluminum begin to tear. Good; they were cutting him out. He wouldn't have to do anything. Wasn't sure he could anymore.
"Nicky?" Lina's worried tones sounded far-away. He toyed with the notion of answering her. Too much effort, he decided. Much easier to just lie here and go back to sleep. His eyes closed.
"Nickolas!" she called again, barely audible. What did she want? Couldn't be important; the guys were safe. He ignored her and began to drift off to his safe place, away from the real world. The connection between them fell away.
"I'm losing him! I'm LOSING HIM!" Lina meant to ask for more power but it came out in a panicked broadcast. The end result was the same though. Energy surged into her from various sources, giving her enough to dive right into Nick's sub-subconscious, the place he'd retreated to. "Nicky don't you DARE leave me."
He could hear her, she knew he could. Realising it wasn't just lack of strength, it was lack of will which kept him from responding, she bit back a sob and slapped him around with her own energy. "Wake up, dammit. Wake up so I can rip you the hell out of this bus."
The only response was a slight feeling of further retreat. "You can't leave me alone, Nick." she pleaded. "Don't you care? Don't you care about anything?" Even as she said it, she knew what the answer was. He didn't care what he was doing to her, but she knew who he cared about. Lina freed up a little energy and nudged Mindi. Soon, the voices of the Backstreet Boys filtered in to her.
"What about them? You saved their lives just to destroy them? You're going to kill their careers, break their hearts, because you're TIRED?" That got a reaction. A tiny one, but a reaction nonetheless. Just enough for Lina to pounce on, enhance, and hope to God the teleports could lock on to. She supplied all the other information, and held on tight
If it had been anyone but Lina holding on to him, the teleportation wouldn't have worked. As it was, all eight of the psychics still in the area, including Mindi, had to pull hard to bring Nick out. He was still unconscious when they succeeded. The paramedics looked at each other helplessly. Without some indication of consciousness there really wasn't anything they could do.
Ambulance and fire truck sirens wailed in the distance; time was running out. Lina was nearly unconscious. As head of search and rescue, Mike stepped in. Deciding the non-psychics needed to know what was going on, he barked his instructions out loud. "Somebody get Fred to send us blood from his ambulance, and try your darndest to fix Carter's spine."
"Howie's awake? Ok just keep him on that stretcher. Brian, Kevin, I need you on your stretchers too. One ambulance is ahead of the pack, driven by one of us. We're gonna pretend the EMTs here came with that one and are just dealing with you now. Abair? Wake up the other bus, give them some idea of what's going on. Alex, you can stay down here, you found them, you're their friend... you're trying to help out and stay out of the way."
"Marge? You on the fire truck up there? Send us down the jaws of life. All right people let's go! The Backstreet Boys just had a lucky escape, let's make it look real!"
Kevin tried to protest, but A.J. and one of the psychics, a big, burly guy, pinned him down and strapped him into the stretcher. "Later, bro." A.J. insisted.
"If he says anything they'll think he's in shock. Which he is." he was assured. Seconds later the first ambulance and fire truck arrived, quickly followed by two more ambulances, a second fire truck, and a police cruiser. Finally, lights and sound were everywhere, and things moved quickly. A.J. was bundled into an ambulance with Howie, partly to keep everyone together, partly because the paramedics suspected A.J. was in shock himself. Mindi managed to swindle her way onto the ambulance dealing with Nick.
"The noise and everything's waking him up a little." Mindi relayed as they moved off towards the hospital. "I should be able to get it down to a case of whiplash with some luck. Thank God diagnosis of a broken neck takes a little time."