My chest caved in as I sprinted across the room to her, throwing myself onto her bed as I wrapped her up, whispering his name over and over, trying to break her free of her nightmare.
“Baby girl,” I cooed, trying to hide the fear in my voice. “It’s okay, it’s Mama. I’ve got you. You’re safe, baby. You’re safe.”
But she wouldn’t stop screaming, even as she clung to me like she would drown if she let go. Her tiny voice hiccupped through the sobs, broken words spilling out. “I—I saw him. I saw the monster. He was here.”
The room was silent except for her cries.
I felt Travis’s presence at my back, solid and steady as Eli crouched on the other side of the bed, turning the light on. His face was tight and pale in the warm light as he held Emmie’s hand in his big one.
The word monster hung between us, heavy and sharp.
I brushed Emmie’s hair back, kissing her damp forehead as I rocked her against my chest. But my mind raced, cold dread trickling down my spine until it felt like my heart was going to burst through my ribs.
“Who baby? Who did you see?” I whispered, praying for some fictional villain to be the star of her nightmare.
“Him.” She sobbed, “The man who locked me in the closet.” Her chest rattled as the memories assaulted her. “The man who made you scream from the other side of the door.”
My blood ran cold, and I could feel every single molecule in the air around me as time stood still.
Danny. Her father.
One of the last nights I spent with him before I had Toby was one of the worst nights of my life.
The night I thought he was finally going to kill me for good. He had locked Emmie in the closet when she wandered from her bedroom and found him on top of me, choking me. I had been so pregnant I couldn’t fight back, even if I was stupid enough to try.
But then he locked her in our closet, and I couldn’t get to her as he beat me. I couldn’t ease her fears and cries as she clawed her little fingers under the door, screaming for me.
What if she didn’t just dream it?
What if somehow, someway, Danny got close enough for her to see him?
It didn’t fit.
That wasn’t how he worked. He was a coward who slithered in the shadows and played games. But the way she screamed sounded like recognition, not just fear.
“I’ve got her,” I whispered, holding Emmie tighter as I looked from Eli to Trav. “I’m staying in here.”
Travis didn’t move, standing over us with his sweatpants on and his big bare chest rising and falling with power and strength. Eli’s soft voice was low but lethal. “Lockdown starts right now.” He held my stare. “The kids don’t go anywhere without us. Ever again.”
I looked at him and shivered from the fire in his stare. It matched the power radiating off Travis’s hot skin. They meant it.
Finally, Travis spoke, his voice quiet like a growl. “This isn’t just some bad dream, Frankie. We can’t keep brushing this off. If that bastard is circling closer, we need to put this on record. We need to go to the authorities and tell them what’s happening.”
I wanted to argue, to tell them they’re overreacting—but Emmie’s cries broke through my skin again, raw and terrified. My little girl saw something, maybe someone.
Even if she doesn’t remember her father, she could have recognized him in person if she had seen him.
Silently, I tucked her against me, laying back on her pillow as my heartbeat stuttered, rocking her through the echoes of her fear. One thought clawed its way through the chaos, one I didn’t have the bravery to say out loud.
If Danny really showed himself, then he wasn’t just after me anymore.
He was after all of us.
I worked on autopilot,stuck in my head, the same way I had been since Emmie woke up in the middle of the night, screaming about the monster in her nightmare. Eli had gone to work for a half shift to cover someone else, and Trav stood at the front door at six thirty in the morning, like he couldn’t quite convince himself to leave, to leave us.
But we couldn’t live like that.
I had to be strong.
