He was dying. A high school English teacher with a failing heart, he'd spent six months watching his life shrink to the size of a hospital bed. Then the call came—a donor heart. A match. A miracle.
But when he woke from surgery, something was different. The nurse's throat. The way her pulse fluttered beneath her skin. Why couldn't he stop staring at it?
The doctors said the dreams were normal. Anesthesia nightmares. They'd fade.
They didn't fade.
Every night, he returns to a basement he's never seen. A woman bound to a chair. A knife in his hand. And a satisfaction so pure it terrifies him.
He was a teacher. He taught children about right and wrong. He'd never hurt anyone in his life.
So why does he know exactly how to follow the woman in apartment 3C? Why has he memorized her schedule, her patterns, the gaps in the building's security cameras?
And why does the heart beating in his chest feel so hungry?
