Chapters (48)
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT PAGE
- DEDICATION
- CONTENTS
- START READING
- I
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- II
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- CHAPTER 22
- CHAPTER 23
- CHAPTER 24
- CHAPTER 25
- CHAPTER 26
- CHAPTER 27
- III
- CHAPTER 28
- CHAPTER 29
- CHAPTER 30
- CHAPTER 31
- CHAPTER 32
- CHAPTER 33
- CHAPTER 34
- CHAPTER 35
- CHAPTER 36
- CHAPTER 37
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Dylan in front of me squeezed the trigger. The bullet blew out the back of his skull, spraying the Dylans behind him with bone, blood, and brain matter. They didn’t react; they just kept walking with their clothes and faces covered with the remains of another man’s head. Tragic Dylan crumpled to the floor in front of me. The others walked on top of him as if he wasn’t there at all. Blood spread into a pool on the museum’s wooden floor, getting on everyone’s shoes.
I shoved through the crowd, because I had to get away from here. I needed air, but my surroundings grew claustrophobic as the room filled with more Dylans. I had to fight my way forward, wrestling people aside. All the Dylans around me did the same thing, each one seemingly oblivious to the others.
Finally, in the atrium near the museum’s grand staircase, I found a railing where I could lean and catch my breath. The marble statue of Samson and the Lion loomed immediately behind me. Blinding sunshine poured through the skylights overhead. The atrium was filled with a strange sound, a susurrus made up of tiny noises—clothing brushing together, heels tapping on stone—that combined into a deafening assault on my senses. I wanted to shut it out, because it was simply so loud, but covering my ears did nothing to quiet the tumult.
Eve had warned me about this part of the experience, too. The first time was overwhelming.
I was tempted to say it. Infinite. Say the word, and this chaos would be over. I’d go back to my version of reality, where there was only one of me. But it was a reality where Karly was dead and I was wanted for murder.
Then I looked down.
I saw him.
Where the four staircases from the museum’s top floor converged on a square landing below me, I saw a single Dylan among a thousand others, standing absolutely motionless. The others yielded to give him space. The sea of doubles parted around him.
He wore my father’s jacket.
As I stared down at him, he looked up and saw me. His sea-blue eyes were clear and cold. His lips formed a smile of cruel, violent intent as he recognized me. We knew each other. A wave of sadism engulfed me, and I knew this was the man who’d whispered to me near the river, who’d hidden inside my bedroom closet and confessed his crimes to the police, who’d stabbed the hearts of at least four women who looked like Karly.
Not an endless number of killers named Dylan Moran.
Just one man. This one. The man who’d figured out how to break the rules.
I shouted. “Stop him! Hold him!”