CHAPTER 1: THE THING INSIDE

I didn’t sleep that night.

Chloe lay in the guest bedroom, finally quiet after hours of pain, her small body curled under blankets that looked too heavy for her. I sat beside her, watching every breath rise and fall like it might be the last.

In my pocket, the plastic bag burned like evidence.

Tiny black fragments.

Not crumbs. Not dirt.

Something else.

I waited until the house fell silent. Then I took the bag to my office and turned on the desk lamp. The light cut through the darkness, harsh and surgical.

I poured the contents onto a clean sheet of paper.

They didn’t move.

But they weren’t dead.

Up close, they looked like thin, segmented shells. Not quite insects. Not quite anything I recognized. Too uniform. Too deliberate.

Manufactured.

My stomach turned.

This wasn’t an accident.

From upstairs, a floorboard creaked.

Celeste.

I quickly swept the fragments back into the bag and locked it in my drawer.

Then I did what I should have done weeks ago.

I checked the cameras.

We had them in every common area. Installed after a break-in last year. Celeste had complained about them constantly—said they made the house feel “cold.”

Now I knew why.

I scrolled through the footage.

Kitchen. Living room. Hallway.

Nothing.

Then I pulled up Chloe’s room.

And froze.

Celeste stood beside Chloe’s bed.

Smiling.

In her hand was the blue chocolate cup.

She stirred something into it.

Not powder.

Not liquid.

Something that moved.

I watched it twice.

Three times.

My hand tightened into a fist.

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