Ripped from his own dying body and trapped inside the minds of four desperate strangers.

Alek Kovak expected to die in that freezing alley. Bleeding out on wet pavement felt like the logical conclusion to thirty-eight years of isolation and bad decisions.

But when a stranger kneels in the slush and takes his hand, death isn't what comes next. Instead, his consciousness is violently ripped away and shoved into the minds of people standing on the edge of ruin.

• A failing husband
• An abused girlfriend
• A terrified recluse
• A methodical serial killer

Alek feels every terrified heartbeat and every cut of the blade. He watches them choose destruction with the same certainty he chose that lonely bar, trapped as a mind screaming at controls that won't respond.

The only thread connecting the nightmare is the stranger from the alley, appearing in the periphery of every life. She sees the man trapped inside when no one else can. She knows what is happening to him. And she refuses to explain why.

Finding out means surviving the choices of strangers, carrying every wound, and confronting the one truth he has spent his entire life refusing to accept.