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Chapter 27
"No, no, please, don't. Please, just leave me alone, no, no, NO!" Colleen sat straight up, covered in sweat as she awoke from her nightmare.
"Colleen, are you okay?"
Colleen heard Kevin whisper to her as she realized that she and the gang had fallen asleep in the living room.
"Colleen?"
She nodded her head. "Yeah, Kevin, I'm fine, fine. I'm just going to get some water." She slowly got up and took a look at her watch as she did. She stopped.
"Kevin, it's 9:30 am, you guys need to get going to rehearsal," she told him.
Kevin swore and then stood up and Colleen almost started laughing as she saw he was wearing only boxer shorts with lips on them.
"Nice shorts Kevin," she said with a grin. Kevin smiled, happy to see her laughing and then looked down.
"Yeah, a present from AJ." He turned and kicked the aforementioned boy. "AJ, guys, we need to get up and go to rehearsal. Come on, get up!"
Slowly guys started waking up and were soon leaving for rehearsal.
They stopped at the door.
"We're going to send Lonnie and Bill over to make sure you guys are safe," AJ told them.
Colleen's face became white again as she remembered the night before.
"Yeah, but don't send them till after you guys are okay and safe," Shannon said. "I mean, you have thousands of people after you, we um, only have . . . one," she finished softly, making sure Colleen didn't hear.
AJ nodded and then they left with Lonnie and Bill. Shannon closed and locked the door behind them.
The four girls turned to Colleen who stood quiet, off to the corner. She looked up, feeling their eyes on her. "What? I'm fine. In fact I need to go to the hospital today and look at some stuff," she said.
Shannon started to protest but Colleen ignored her and headed up to her room to shower and get dressed.
An hour later, Colleen was at the hospital, looking at some patients charts that she would be taking over from the doctor she would be replacing and making some notations. It was helping her take her mind off recent events and she was thankful for the hectic, ordered pace of the hospital. She soon lost herself in paper work and research.
Hours later, Colleen stretched and looked at the clock, and realized it was 7:00 PM and she hadn't eaten since that morning. She looked outside and saw that the sky was dark and gray and it looked like it was going to rain, so she decided to go home.
She stopped on the way and got some Taco Bell and ate by herself, quietly, trying not to think about the night before. But without the paper work, she couldn't keep it out of her mind and her insides twisted up into a knot.
She got in her car and slowly drove home, hoping that the guys were home already. She pulled into her garage and as she walked to the house, she wondered why Shannon hadn't turned the outside lights on.
She fumbled for her keys and finally opened the door, setting her bag down on the chair.
No lights were on inside the house and Colleen wondered if anyone was home. "Shannon? Morgan? Guys, are you here?" she called out. She wondered slowly through the house, looking in each room, turning lights on as she went.
"Ryan? Kevin?" She walked up the stairs, trying to ignore the chills that were starting to travel up her spine. She finally saw a light on in the workout room and she smiled in relief.
They probably are just in the middle of their workout and didn't want to stop, she thought as she reached for the door.
"Guys, didn't you hear . . . me?" she said. "Oh my god." Her eyes widened as she saw what was inside.
Shannon, Ryan, Morgan, and Kendall were tied and gagged to chairs lined up in a row in the middle of the room.
Colleen stared at her sister, whose face was stained with blood tricking from a cut on her forehead. She saw Shannon's eyes widen as she looked past Colleen's shoulder and Colleen turned. And came face to face with her stalker, came face to face with Caine.
"Hello Colleen."
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