Haunteds

Chapter 34

It was a girl's scream but I don't know whose. I ran out of my room. Everyone must have heard that because we were all up, standing in our doorways.

"What's going on?" I asked Leo. His hair was still hard with wax so he probably wasn't asleep too.

"I don't know," Leo said.

Harmony ran past in front of me. "It's Cana." We all rushed after her, to Cana's room.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Hey, Cana," Harmony said. "Can you hear me? Is everything okay?"

For a moment, there was no reply. There was tension in the air around us as we waited.

We've heard people marching up the stairs. "What happened?" Major Coleman said. He and his men had searchlights with them.

"We don't know..." Leo said.

Then we've heard shuffling on the floor on the other side. The door opened.

"Hi..." Cana said with a weak, croaky voice. Her face was white and beaded with sweats. "I'm fine...it was just a stupid nightmare."

We breathe a sigh of relief. The tension disappeared.

"You," Major Coleman said to one of his guy. "You're on guard duty. Stay with her."

Cana cleared her throat. "Major Coleman please..." she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, her voice back to normal. "I'm fine, really. Just a bad dream."

Major Coleman studied her for a bit. "Very well," he said. "If you kids need anything..."

We nodded and thanked him. Then he ordered his men down.

"Can I get you some water?" Indigo offered Cana.

Cana waved her hand again. "Thank you...but I'm all right. I'm sorry for waking you up."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Scarlet said. "I couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I try."

"Do you want me to stay with you?" Caprice said to Cana. "Just until you sleep."

"Thanks but I don't think I'll be going back to bed anytime soon."

"They say that the nightmares are more frequent when you're alone." Cato said.

"Dude," Leo said. "Not helping."

"Then we shouldn't be alone." Harmony suggested. "What do you think about having a pajama party, right now?"

Indigo beamed. "I think that's great."

"Me too." Caprice added. "But I don't think any of the room will fit all of us, especially with the mattresses."

"How about downstairs, on the floor?" Leo said. "We'll help with moving down the beds, right, guys?"

"We'll take you up on that offer. Thank you." Harmony said. "Of course, you guys are welcome." But we all just looked at each other, as if daring one another to say yes to the invite.

After moving the mattresses, we all went to our room to change out of our sweaty clothes. I didn't have any pajama so I wore a plain white shirt and black shorts. I wasn't sure of going down. I kind of feel weird about it. But I'm also not sleeping alone tonight. So I joined them downstairs.

The girls were sitting down on the mattresses pushed together to make a giant one on the floor. There was a pile of branded cupcakes and snack cakes in the middle. Everyone had steaming cups.

"Hey," Cana called out. She was wearing gray shorts and a white shirt with a print of a cartoon Pug in a birthday hat puking rainbow over a cake.

"I thought we were sleeping." I said, sitting beside her. We were sitting in front of Caprice, who was sitting like a mermaid in her long, white night gown—sitting on her hip, one hand propping her up, with her feet tucked on one side.