Chapter 3 - The Secret in the Stitching
“Mr. Starks.”
Maeve’s voice cut through the chaos of the nursery like a blade of ice.
Rory was kneeling on the floor, sweat beading on his forehead as he tried to calm the twins, whose screams were beginning to turn into breathless, horrifying gasps.
“Not now, Maeve! Get an ice pack! Get the medical kit!” Rory roared, his voice cracking with a desperate panic that broke his terrifying facade.
“Mr. Starks, look at the bear.”
Rory snapped his head up, his dark eyes flashing with fury. “It’s a toy! Susan bought it! Leave the damn bear alone and help me hold them—”
“Mr. Honey hasn’t moved an inch from that spot in two months,” Maeve interrupted, stepping past him into the room. Her movements were swift, deliberate, and entirely calm. “Even when the girls throw everything else off the bed during their night terrors, that bear remains upright. Perfectly centered.”
Rory froze. The raw, primal terror in his chest suddenly gave way to a cold, razor-sharp realization.
He looked down at the teddy bear. The golden-brown fur was pristine, untouched by the chaos around it. The blue ribbon tied around its neck was neat, perfectly knotted.
“What are you saying?” Rory whispered.
“I’m saying the doctors were looking for a medical problem, and you were looking for an external intruder,” Maeve said, her eyes locked on the toy. “They aren’t being haunted. They’re being targeted.”
Before Rory could register the weight of her words, Maeve did something unthinkable. She reached down, snatched the teddy bear off the mattress, and pulled a small, silver sewing scissor from her apron pocket.
“Stop!” Lily screamed, lurching forward with super-human strength. “Don’t hurt Mr. Honey!”
“Give it back!” Rose sobbed, clutching her head.
Rory lunged to stop Maeve, thinking the maid had lost her mind, but it was already too late.
With a single, fluid motion, Maeve drove the tip of the scissors into the thick, golden-brown seam of the teddy bear’s chest and ripped the fabric wide open.
A cloud of white polyester stuffing burst into the air.
And then, tumbling out from the dark, synthetic fluff onto the white sheets, came something that made the blood run cold in Rory Starks’s veins.
It wasn’t stuffing.
It was a compact, militar-grade micro-transmitter, wired directly to a custom digital soundboard and a high-frequency acoustic emitter, powered by a lithium-ion battery no larger than a postage stamp.
A tiny green LED light blinked rhythmically in the center of the circuit board.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
The high-pitched, silent-to-adults ultrasonic frequency was still pulsing from the device, vibrating at a pitch specifically tuned to target the sensitive inner ears of young children—driving them to the brink of insanity every single night at precisely three in the morning.
The room went dead silent.
The twins’ screams stopped instantly, their breathing heavy and ragged as the pressure in their heads suddenly lifted.
Rory stared at the device on the bed. His face drained of every drop of color, leaving him looking like a corpse carved out of marble. The tattoos on his hands stood out in stark, dark relief against his pale skin.
When Rory slowly raised his head, his eyes were no longer those of a desperate, frightened father.
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They were the eyes of a monster.
“Who,” Rory whispered, his voice shaking the very windows of the nursery, “put this in my house?”
