“Let’s go look in our room,” says Kate. “Maybe she went there.”

I was right. She doesn’t like the look of this either. I follow Lucas and Kate.

Linnea must be in the room. She has to be. I bet she’s sitting on the bed, her grin spreading across her face because she’s just outsmarted Claus. She’s probably found out his room number—the right one this time.

Maybe she’s already making a plan to surprise him.

It’s four against one. We have to win.

Kate opens the door. There’s no one on the bed, but in the corner there’s something big covered in a white sheet.

Kate puts her hands over her mouth. Lucas swears.

Linnea! That’s the first thought that shoots through my mind.

I hurry over and take one corner of the sheet between my thumb and index finger. With a feeling of dread, I give it a tug.

But it isn’t Linnea. It’s the bear. Claus has brought it back.

First its paws emerge and then its stomach. Finally I pull the sheet off the head, which leans lopsided against the wall.

Then I’m startled as something black rises to the ceiling—a helium balloon tied to the bear’s paw.

And that’s when I see the damage. There are rips in the bear’s head. Its white stuffing is bulging out. The biggest tear runs the entire width of its forehead.

It’s lost an eye.

There’s a card attached to the balloon, and I recognize Claus’s handwriting.

An eye for an eye.

“No…” Kate’s breath catches in her throat.

“Why?!” Lucas says, pounding the wall with his fist.

I look at the bear again, which looks back with one eye.

Claus has wounded the bear in exactly the same way she was injured last year.

An eye for an eye.

Claus has Linnea.

Too bad about the cute stuffed bear, though.

Linnea

Where am I?

I feel nauseous.

There’s a stabbing pain in my head.

I reach up to touch it.

Bad idea.

I groan.

“You were out of it for a while there. I even had time to run a little errand while you were asleep.”

I recognize that voice, but who is it again?

“Here, drink up.”

I feel a glass with something cold in it on my lips.

Don’t drink it.

But I drink it anyway.

It’s hard to swallow.

My head is pounding.

I try to open my eyes, but the light hurts.

Where am I?

“There, that’s better.” That voice again. “Take your time.”

The name surfaces from somewhere inside my memory.

“Claus…”

“You got it,” he says.

I remember the hand on my mouth and being pulled backward. I was out in the hallway when it happened.