Dylan Carter was the kind of man people trusted without thinking twice. He held doors open. He smiled softly when someone apologized for bumping into him. He remembered baristas’ names and tipped generously. If you asked anyone who knew him, they’d say he was “a little quiet, but very sweet.” What no one knew was that Dylan lived two lives. The second life was meticulous. Ordered. Controlled. In his apartment, everything had a place — labels, schedules, notebooks filled with precise handwriting. He told himself it was organization. The therapists he stopped seeing years ago had called it something else. Obsessive tendencies. Dissociation. “Unresolved violent ideation.” He preferred the word clarity. Because in his mind, what he did wasn’t chaos. It was correction. All the murders he did. They were for good. That afternoon, Dylan stepped into the small neighborhood bookstore, the bell chiming softly above the door. The place smelled of paper and dust and vanilla candles. He liked bookstores. They were quiet. Safe. Predictable. He wandered through the psychology aisle, fingers brushing over spines. He selected three books — one on criminal profiling, one on human behavior, and a classic novel he had already read twice. “Interesting choices.” The voice made him pause. He turned. She stood behind the counter, leaning slightly forward — name tag simply reading Teli.