Chapter 1
“Step away from my daughters.”
Declan Shaw’s voice stopped men twice Emma Reed’s size.
But Emma did not move.
Six-year-old Grace and June were sitting upright in their shared bed, clutching their ears while tears streamed down their faces.
Their screams had awakened the entire Hamptons estate for the fifty-sixth night in a row.
Every specialist Declan hired had given him the same answer.
The twins were physically healthy.
Their pain came from grief, anxiety, or the way frightened twins could intensify each other’s nightmares.
Declan had paid for scans, sleep studies, blood tests, therapy sessions, and private consultations.
Nothing stopped the attacks.
Every night at exactly 3:00 a.m., the girls screamed about a buzzing monster inside their heads.
Every morning, the doctors told their father there was nothing in the room.
Emma had almost believed them too.
Then she noticed how the twins behaved around the pale-gold teddy bear lying between them.
The toy had arrived eight weeks earlier in a white box tied with a silver ribbon.
Declan’s sister, Meredith, claimed it had been handmade in Belgium especially for the girls.
She told Grace and June that the bear would protect them after their mother’s death.
She also insisted they sleep with it every night.
But the twins did not hold it like children holding a favorite toy.
They recoiled whenever their fingers touched its fur.
Then they pulled it back between them as though they were afraid of what might happen if they disobeyed.
That evening, Emma quietly asked Grace why they kept the bear so close.
“Aunt Meredith checks,” the child whispered.
“Checks what?”
“Whether he slept with us.”
Before Emma could ask another question, June grabbed her sister’s sleeve and begged her to stop talking.
Now, standing in the nursery at 3:00 a.m., Emma saw something no doctor had noticed.
A tiny red light flashed behind one of the bear’s black button eyes.
She reached toward it.
Declan caught her wrist.
“I told you to step away.”
“The bear is doing something.”
“It is a stuffed animal.”
Emma pressed her palm against its stomach.
The fur was warm.
Not warm from being held.
Warm like a machine that had been running for several minutes.
Beneath the fabric, something vibrated against her hand.
Grace screamed that the monster was getting louder.
June curled into her father’s chest, begging him to make it stop.
Emma pulled away from Declan and grabbed the pink safety scissors from the twins’ craft table.
His expression hardened.
“Touch that toy again, and you are finished in this house.”
Emma looked at the two children no one had believed.
Then she looked at the faint red light pulsing inside the bear.
“I may be finished anyway,” she said.
She pushed the scissors into the seam along its back.
The stitching resisted as though someone had reinforced it to keep the inside hidden.
Declan lunged toward her.
Emma pulled harder.
The seam began to split.
May you like
White stuffing spilled across the bed.
Then her fingers struck something solid.
