Blood Canvas, The Hunter’s Metamorphosis: The Bloody Tulip Part 19.5

In “Learning To Hunt,” Gabriel’s suspicion that his heart surgeon Ayuna attacked his friend Olivia triggers a terrifying metamorphosis. His once-artistic hands now demonstrate unnerving precision at the shooting range, while his apartment transforms into a shrine of methodical investigation. Dreams of operating theaters he never witnessed haunt his nights, and days reveal the chilling connection between his miraculous transplant and the Bloody Tulip—a killer who harvests hearts with surgical precision. As Dr. Talia discovers her sister monitoring Olivia’s brain activity, Gabriel’s investigation board forms a northbound pattern of paired murders. The question isn’t whether he’ll find Ayuna, but whether his stolen heart is turning him into something deadlier than imagined.

Shadows of the Heart

The pale glow of Gabriel’s laptop cast clinical shadows across his face as episode after episode of the UGC podcast unspooled through his headphones. Outside his apartment, rain drummed against the windows like impatient fingers on an operating table. Six hours of methodical consumption of the UGC archives, each episode adding another piece to the anatomical puzzle taking shape in his mind.

His living room had transformed into an autopsy of information. Sketchbook and printer paper covered every surface, filled with drawings and notes. The wall displayed a timeline of the Bloody Tulip’s activities, each date marked with surgical precision. Gabriel moved between these stations with economical steps, each motion unconsciously mirroring the efficient movements he’d once admired in Ayuna.

Episode 143 began with the hosts’ familiar banter.

“Welcome back to UGC, where we find the things truly happening in the Dark,” Phil’s voice erupted through Gabriel’s headphones. “Today we’re exploring a possible deviation in the Bloody Tulip’s methodology.”

“Yeah, Phil,” John interjected. “We received reports about that stabbing in South Florida, woman named Olivia Matthews, found with a precision wound to the fifth intercostal space caused by a scalpel.”

“This case was bizarre but doesn’t fit the Tulip’s signature. The victim survived, no heart removal, no painting, but the Tulip and surgical details are identical.”

“So what are we thinking? Tulip getting sloppy? A copycat?”

“Well, our contact reported seeing an arrangement of tulips at the scene. That, along with the surgical tools, the Tulip’s calling card. But here’s the weird part. After the victim was stabbed, someone performed emergency field surgery that likely saved her life.”

Gabriel’s pen pressed into the paper with such force it nearly tore through. Olivia had mentioned tulips in that final, desperate call. The emergency field surgery—that had to be Ayuna’s work. The podcast was connecting dots he’d already begun to assemble.

“I don’t know, John,” Phil continued with inappropriate excitement. “Maybe our killer was interrupted?”

“Or maybe,” John’s voice lowered, “this wasn’t about the kill. This victim was left alive deliberately. A message to someone.”

Gabriel pulled out Olivia’s journal, stolen from her apartment when the police investigation had concluded. Her looping, energetic handwriting contrasted with his newly clinical script.

“Medical background – check. Fascination with anatomy – check. Mysterious past – check. Arrives in town suspiciously before the killings – check. Artist or paints – check.”

Olivia had seen it. She’d tried to warn him. And now she lay unconscious while he followed the breadcrumbs she’d begun collecting.

Gabriel returned to the podcast.

“—and that’s why the paintings are so disturbing,” John was saying. “Each Bloody Tulip crime scene has a painting done with the victim’s blood mixed with oil pigments. What’s chilling is the technique, surgical tools used along with brushes.”

“At first glance, they all look like variations of the same image: a tulip sprouting from the victim’s chest. But experts say no two are exactly alike.”

Gabriel grabbed his sketchbook, flipping to pages where he’d copied descriptions and reconstructions of the artwork. Something tugged at him, a pattern he’d seen before but hadn’t placed.

His eyes widened.

“They’re not random,” he whispered. “They’re not just veins of a flower. They’re…”

He traced the fine, looping lines in one sketch, then pulled out a faded journal Olivia once gave him on cardiac electrophysiology.

It matched.

The lines mirrored cardiac electroanatomical maps, real diagnostic images used to study the electrical activity of the heart. Each tulip’s “root system” followed the victim’s unique heart rhythm signature.

“It’s like someone mapped the life out of them,” Gabriel muttered. “A personalized fingerprint of their heart… hidden in plain sight.”

He compared another murder sketch—the tulip had one petal twisted and darker, its lines tangled. He saw it: a rhythmic echo, but also a decline, like a dying heartbeat.

For the first time, the paintings weren’t just grotesque tributes or warnings.

In their moral depravity, they were brilliant recordings of something beautiful and horrific.

Each brush stroke a conversation.

And Gabriel had just learned to read the language.

She was documenting the hearts she took.

By dawn, Gabriel had compiled a systematic database from all seventy-three podcast episodes. His sketches displayed perfect anatomical accuracy, knowledge that was once beyond his artistic training now flowing naturally from his hands. His stolen heart seemed to guide his fingers, providing a heightened calm that purified his focus.

The city remained cloaked in pre-dawn darkness as Gabriel reviewed his surveillance logs. Today, unlike every other Wednesday, Dr. Talia Hartman wouldn’t be performing surgeries. The third Wednesday of each month belonged to her personal rituals—a 9:30 AM massage at Serene Waters Spa, followed by a facial, lunch alone at Café Solstice, and errands that followed an almost perfect geometric pattern through the city.

Gabriel rose from his desk with deliberate efficiency. His closet, once filled with an artist’s colorful wardrobe, now contained precisely organized tactical options. For today’s surveillance, he selected dark gray chinos and a forest green pullover that would blend seamlessly in the affluent areas of Talia’s day.

In the bathroom mirror, he barely recognized himself. Something had changed in his eyes, a cold calculation had replaced the creative spark. With surgical precision, he applied fragrance-free deodorant to control his scent profile.

The Glock 19 and his blades remained locked in his desk drawer. “Not today,” he whispered, massaging the scar above his heart. “We’re still in the diagnostic phase.”

His logbook showed the optimal surveillance position at Serene Waters was the coffee shop across the street. Gabriel arrived twenty-three minutes before her scheduled appointment, positioning himself at a corner table behind a decorative fern.

At precisely 9:25 AM, Talia’s silver Lexus pulled into the lot. Gabriel felt his stolen heart adjust its rhythm, a strange calming effect spreading through his system. His hands remained perfectly steady as she collected her gym bag from the trunk.

Today was different. Talia moved with heightened awareness, twice stopping to scan her surroundings, eyes sweeping across the coffee shop windows where Gabriel sat motionless. The prey was beginning to sense the hunter.

When she disappeared into the spa, Gabriel moved to the bookstore adjacent to the spa, which shared a courtyard with the spa’s relaxation area. Through the ornamental bamboo, he could observe the back exit.

At 10:45 AM, Talia emerged in a white robe, her hair wrapped in a towel. She carried her phone, checking it with furtive movements. Gabriel remained motionless behind his book, capturing every micro-expression crossing her face.

Something was wrong. Talia’s usual post-massage serenity was absent, replaced by tense vigilance. She typed something quickly, then glanced around with such intensity that Gabriel felt his heart skip. He turned away at the precise moment her gaze swept past him.

Talia’s phone buzzed. Her entire demeanor changed as she read the message, shoulders dropping as she exhaled with visible relief.

When Talia returned inside, Gabriel retreated to his car. His notebook appeared in his hands automatically, documenting the morning’s observations with notation that mirrored surgical documentation.

He paused, struck by the clinical detachment of his analysis. When had he learned to read breathing patterns from a distance? These weren’t artistic skills, they were military reconnaissance abilities that had emerged from seemingly nowhere.

At 12:06 PM, Talia emerged looking refreshed but alert. Gabriel tracked her to Café Solstice, maintaining a distance of forty-seven meters—close enough to observe but beyond the range where peripheral vision typically detects focused attention.

Again. Nothing.

Weeks of surveillance had yielded no direct contact with Ayuna, but Gabriel’s patience remained resolute. His stolen heart continued its steady rhythm, a metronome counting toward an inevitable confrontation. His hand unconsciously traced the scar on his chest, feeling the pulse of the organ that was transforming him hour by hour into something new, a hunter designed to track the very predator who had created him.

Echoes of the First Cut

The investigation board in Gabriel’s apartment had become a grotesque gallery. In the center hung his sketch of Ayuna, surrounded by red threads that pulsed like arteries across crime scene photos and timeline markers. Gabriel discovered episode 143 of the UGC podcast—an installment that would shatter his understanding of what he was truly hunting.

“Welcome back to the Dark, folks,” Phil’s voice carried inappropriate enthusiasm. “We’ve got a developing situation with the Bloody Tulip. John, tell the listeners what we’re seeing.”

“Four new victims in the span of two weeks, displaying a pattern forensic psychologists are calling unprecedented.”

Gabriel’s fingers hovered over his keyboard, the search for Ayuna momentarily forgotten as something in his stolen heart quickened with recognition.

“Our first new victim appeared in Tampa,” John continued. “Male, early thirties, heart surgically removed with textbook precision. The killer left a painting done in the victim’s blood mixed with oils, a tulip sprouting from his chest cavity.”

“Classic Bloody Tulip signature,” Phil added, “except this victim had his hair freshly cut. He had dreads and the sides were shaved in an undercut style that wasn’t consistent with his previous appearance.”

Gabriel’s hand moved to his own hair, styled in the exact undercut described. His fingers trembled as they traced his hairline, a chill spreading through him.

“But then,” John continued, “just three days later, a female victim appears with identical surgical wounds but with a completely different artistic signature, a painting showing a withering tulip rather than a flourishing one.”

Gabriel opened his sketchbook with mechanical precision, drawing the contrasting images—a vibrant tulip erupting from a male chest, a withering tulip drooping from a female torso.

“And this exact pattern repeated in Orlando a week later,” Phil said. “Another male victim with the same physical type and haircut, followed by another victim with a withering tulip. But the fourth painting showed something new—fallen petals scattered around the base of the stem.”

Gabriel stared at his sketches, his artistic training identifying what the podcast hosts had missed. The underlying messages were fundamentally different. The flourishing tulips showed aggression and control, with obvious signs of passion. The withering tulips displayed cold indifference, a finality.

“So what are we looking at here?” Phil asked. “Serial killer having some kind of mental breakdown?”

“Or,” John replied, “we’re looking at two different artists having a conversation in blood. These are two conflicting motifs.”

Gabriel’s borrowed heart thrummed with confirmation, knowledge flowing through his veins that couldn’t possibly be his own. His hand moved to the scar bisecting his chest as understanding bloomed.

Two killers. Two signatures. One conversation written in blood.

With practiced efficiency, Gabriel searched for news footage covering the first Tampa murder. His vision caught something in the background, a blonde woman observing from a distance, posture rigid with surgical awareness. The camera angle prevented a clear view of her face, but Gabriel recognized the precise way she held her shoulders.

Ayuna was there, watching. But she wasn’t watching police, she was scanning the crowd. Hunting.

Gabriel pulled up footage from the second crime scene. The victim, Elaine Morris, had been found in her home two days after the first murder. Security footage from Harbor Lights restaurant showed her final evening. Morris had three altercations, the last with a blonde woman whose face remained turned from cameras but whose posture carried the same situational awareness.

He zoomed in, enhancing the reflection in a decorative mirror. For a fraction of a second, Ayuna’s profile was visible. Her expression displayed not anger but clinical assessment, like a surgeon evaluating tissue for excision.

But if Ayuna was responsible for the withering tulips, who was creating the flourishing ones? Who was killing men who looked like him?

Gabriel spread the evidence across his desk, reconstructing the timeline:

Day 1: Olivia attacked, possibly by Ayuna Day 3: Attempted break-in at Gabriel’s apartment Day 5: First victim (Gabriel look-alike) in Tampa (flourishing tulip) Day 7: Second victim (restaurant woman) in Tampa (withering tulip) Day 12: Third victim (Gabriel look-alike) in Orlando (flourishing tulip) Day 14: Fourth victim in Orlando (withering tulip with fallen petals)

“There’s someone else,” Gabriel whispered. “Someone from Ayuna’s past.”

He returned to his notes from Olivia’s last phone call:

“Ayuna is hiding something… I think I got it all wrong… someone else there… female voice…”

A third player in this deadly game. Someone with the same surgical training, someone who wanted Gabriel dead badly enough to murder substitutes?

His borrowed heart pounded with recognition, as if its cellular memory contained knowledge of this unknown threat.

“They’re heading north,” he whispered, tracing the path on his map. “Tampa. Orlando. They may be there now.”

Gabriel cleared his schedule and packed with precise economy, no wasted motion. The weapon came last, nestled in a hidden compartment of his luggage. His fingers checked the loading mechanism without conscious thought, muscle memory guiding actions he’d never learned.

Bag in hand, he headed for his car. He could be in Orlando in three and a half hours. Gabriel studied his reflection, eyes calculating and cold. He was entering a deadly game without understanding all the players or rules, guided only by a borrowed heart that seemed to intuit more than he did about what awaited him.

“Who are you?” he whispered, his question directed not at Ayuna’s ghost but at the unknown killer leaving victims who looked like him. “And why do you want me dead?”

Petals in the Dark

Gabriel sat in his car outside the Orlando hotel, rain drumming against the roof as he rewound the UGC podcast for the third time.

“—the precision of these incisions is identical across all four victims,” John was saying, his tone clinical. “But the artistic expressions couldn’t be more different.”

“It’s like watching two different painters working on the same canvas,” Phil agreed. “The flourishing tulips are almost hopeful, while the withering ones are embracing death.”

Gabriel’s fingers traced the printouts spread across his passenger seat, crime scene photos obtained through methods he wouldn’t have considered possible six months ago. His artist’s eye studied the blood paintings with professional detachment.

“The message is in the contrast,” he murmured. “Life versus death. Creation versus destruction.”

The first and third paintings depicted tulips sprouting directly from the chest cavities, new growth emerging from death. The second and fourth showed withering blooms, petals falling, life force draining away.

“It’s a conversation,” Gabriel whispered, the realization settling with terrible certainty. “Two killers communicating through their victims.”

His stolen heart beat steadily, neither accelerating in fear nor rejecting this conclusion. Instead, it seemed to pulse in agreement, as if recognizing a familiar pattern.

The rain intensified as Gabriel entered the Hilton Garden Inn. At the front desk, he produced Ayuna’s professional headshot from the hospital website.

“My client,” he explained to the clerk, the lie flowing with disturbing ease. “She asked me to bring her some important research, but she’s not answering her phone. I’m a bit worried.”

The young woman studied the image, recognition flickering across her face. “Oh, yeah. She checked in three days ago. Paid cash, which isn’t common.”

“Has she checked out?” Gabriel interrupted.

“Not officially, but I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning. Room’s paid through tomorrow.”

Gabriel retreated to a lobby chair positioned with optimal sightlines to both the entrance and elevator bank. His notebook appeared in his hands automatically, fingers documenting the exchange with surgical precision.

The hotel’s security cameras were visible in the ceiling corners. Gabriel’s eyes assessed their coverage with tactical precision, identifying blind spots instinctively. The knowledge emerged fully formed, as if accessed from some hidden database in his mind.

At 11:42 PM, Gabriel reentered the lobby with a different approach. Three hundred dollars in cash and a convincing story about a potentially suicidal client created the necessary access. By midnight, he sat in the small security office, eyes fixed on grainy footage scrolling backward through time.

Ayuna appeared on screen at 7:17 AM the previous day, emerging from the elevator with surgical grace. Her hair was different—shorter, darker—but her movements remained unmistakable, each step precisely measured. She carried a single overnight bag and moved with purpose toward the side exit, never glancing toward the cameras, one hand absently tracing a red bracelet on her wrist.

Gabriel’s breath caught, memories flooding through—Ayuna’s laugh, her captivating passion, the way her fingers had traced his chest scar with professional pride and personal tenderness.

His new heart accelerated beneath his scar, whether in recognition or warning remained unclear.

Gabriel forced his attention back to the footage. She’d stayed only two nights, minimizing exposure. Her room had been selected for its proximity to emergency exits, her movements timed to avoid peak hours. Everything about her behavior displayed tactical awareness.

She was hunting. But hunting what… or who?

Back in his car, Gabriel relistened to the podcast segment about the Orlando killing. The male victim, another Gabriel look-alike, had been found in an abandoned medical clinic. The flourishing tulip painting had been more elaborate than previous versions, the brushstrokes charged with frenetic energy.

The prickling sensation at his neck returned—that familiar feeling of being observed. Gabriel’s body responded before his conscious mind registered the threat, muscles tensing, senses sharpening.

A dark sedan parked three spaces back, its windshield reflecting light in a way that obscured the driver. The positioning was too perfect for coincidence.

Gabriel started his engine, pulling out with calculated normalcy. He took the first right, then the second left, entering a quiet residential area. After the third turn, Gabriel confirmed his suspicion—the sedan had followed, maintaining optimal pursuit distance. Not Ayuna’s style—too obvious. Someone else then.

With surgical precision, Gabriel executed his response, accelerating around a curve, then immediately turning into a narrow cul-de-sac. He killed his lights and pulled into a driveway, positioning his vehicle to block potential exit routes while maintaining cover behind a parked SUV.

The sedan appeared seconds later, slowing as it realized its quarry had vanished. As it passed Gabriel’s position, he engaged his engine and pulled out, sealing the only escape route.

The sedan stopped. For twenty-three seconds, nothing moved except rain sliding down windshields. Then the driver’s door opened, and a man emerged with careful deliberation.

“Frederico Bogotá,” the man introduced himself. “I know Olivia.”

Gabriel’s borrowed heart recognized the name before his conscious mind made the connection. Olivia’s notes had mentioned this man, a former detective she’d consulted.

“You’ve been following me,” Gabriel stated.

“I was working with Olivia. Before everything. Before she got hurt. She trusted me because no one else believed her.”

“How long have you been watching me?”

“A few weeks,” Frederico admitted. “For your own protection.”

The timeline didn’t match Gabriel’s experiences—he’d felt eyes on him months prior. Which meant…

“Did Ayuna hurt Olivia?” The question emerged with aimed directness.

Frederico’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Olivia suspected her. But she didn’t have solid evidence. Just intuition.”

“What exactly were you doing with Olivia?” Gabriel asked, rain now soaking through his clothes.

“I specialized in serial homicides before leaving the force. When Olivia and I connected, she shared the patterns she had discovered in the Bloody Tulip killings—patterns that matched Dr. Hartman’s movements.”

“And you believed she was on to something?”

“Not at first. But Olivia had compiled a compelling case. When we started digging into Dr. Hartman’s past, certain inconsistencies emerged.”

“What inconsistencies?”

“Records that don’t quite add up. Gaps in her history. And something about a sister.” Frederico paused. “But you know some of this already, don’t you?”

Gabriel ignored the question. “Why follow me?”

“Because you’re the variable that changed everything. After your transplant, the killings stopped for months. Then when Olivia got close to the truth about Ayuna, everything escalated. Now the victims in Tampa and Orlando—”

“Look like me,” Gabriel finished.

Frederico nodded. “Whoever is doing this, they’re fixated on you, Gabriel. Or perhaps on what’s inside you.” His eyes dropped briefly to Gabriel’s chest.

“You think someone wants my heart.”

“I think someone wants you. And someone else is trying to stop them.” Frederico extracted a business card. “I’m staying at the Baymont Inn, room 217. If you want to compare notes, I’ll be there until tomorrow noon.”

“I have one more question. This other person, is that who attacked Olivia? Is it a woman, did she have a name…?”

Frederico’s expression shifted minutely. “Olivia mentioned a second woman, but only in passing. Her suspicions were targeted towards Dr. Hartman.”

“And just so you know,” Frederico added quietly, “I wasn’t the only one watching you.”

Gabriel’s borrowed heart skipped a single beat—not in fear but in recognition.

Back in his hotel room, Gabriel spread his evidence across the bed. The UGC podcast played softly as he arranged crime scene photos in chronological order, creating a visual timeline of the deadly conversation playing out in blood.

His artist’s eye recognized the pattern now with terrible clarity—the flourishing tulips weren’t just symbols of new life, but of possession, of claiming. The withering tulips weren’t just death, but rejection, denial, protection.

“The paintings are speaking to each other,” he whispered. “They’re fighting over something.”

Was Ayuna at war with herself, some fractured part splintered into violence? Or was this the return of someone she’d buried in silence, someone who had once shared her darkness?

Flourishing strokes in blood. The message–I’m coming for him next. Wilting petals in defiance. The response–Not while I exist.

A deadly exchange, painted in flesh and pigment, with Gabriel caught in its silent, brutal dialogue.

He was no longer just an object of obsession. He was part of the story now. Maybe he was always meant to be.

Darkest Evolution

The storage unit door rolled open with a metallic groan. Inside, what had once been a simple artist’s storage space had transformed into something cold and clinical—a makeshift laboratory illuminated by surgical-grade LED lights.

Gabriel moved through the space with economical grace, setting his newest acquisitions on the stainless steel table. The supplies had been difficult to acquire, requiring separate purchases across three states to avoid detection patterns. Surgical scalpels arranged by blade size. Precision forceps and retractors. Suture materials. Medical-grade betadine, isopropyl alcohol and ketamine.

Each item matched those used in the recent Bloody Tulip killings.

Gabriel opened the refrigeration unit, checking the temperature with unusual expertise. Inside, medical training materials awaited—porcine tissue samples that mimicked human anatomy, purchased through a medical supply company under the identity of Dr. Gabriel Walker, Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellow.

He selected a Number 10 scalpel, the same model used in Olivia’s attack. The weight felt familiar in his hand, like reuniting with an old friend.

The first incision into the practice tissue was tentative, his artist’s sensibility still present. But by the third cut, something shifted. His grip adjusted automatically, fingers repositioning with muscle memory that wasn’t his own. The blade moved with surgical precision, parting tissue layers with textbook accuracy.

“Perfect intercostal approach,” he murmured, the terminology flowing naturally as he executed the same wound pattern described in the Tampa victim’s autopsy. “Clean entry through the fifth intercostal space, avoiding unnecessary tissue damage.”

Hours passed as Gabriel practiced, his technique refining with each incision until the precision matched what he’d seen in Ayuna’s surgical videos—the same controlled economy of movement, the same respect for anatomical structures even in destruction.

When he finally straightened, the clock showed 3:17 AM. Instead of exhaustion, he felt energized, his mind operating with crystalline clarity.

Next came the chest extraction technique.

He’d found anatomical diagrams online, studied cardiac extraction protocols, yet the knowledge seemed to flow not from these external sources but from something cellular, something primally instinctive. His stolen heart guided his hands through motions he’d never been taught, yet executed with disturbing proficiency.

By dawn, Gabriel could perform techniques that should have required years of surgical training. His practice materials showed clean, precise work that could have been performed in an operating theater rather than a storage unit.

This evolution wasn’t just technical. Something fundamental was changing within him, a transformation beyond skill acquisition. He was becoming a different predator altogether, neither fully Gabriel nor whatever Frank had been, but something new emerging from their cellular union.

In the unit’s small bathroom, Gabriel studied his reflection. The face looked foreign—cheekbones more prominent from weight loss, eyes holding a detachment that had replaced artistic sensitivity. But his hair still marked him as the man he had been, the artist’s long locks a final remnant of his former identity.

With surgical precision, Gabriel lifted the scissors. No hesitation, just the mechanical efficiency of removing what no longer served. The first lock fell to the floor, dark against the gray concrete. Then another. And another.

The electric clippers came next, reducing the sides to a clean, military precision while leaving enough length on top to maintain the appearance of normality.

When he finished, Gabriel swept the fallen hair into a plastic bag, sealing it with meticulous attention. No evidence left behind. No traces connecting present to past.

The mirror revealed the completion of his external metamorphosis. Without the softening effect of his artist’s hair, his face displayed its new purpose—all angles and intent, eyes calculating and cold.

Back in his practice space, Gabriel stripped down to his boxers, beginning the physical conditioning routine he’d developed. His body moved through exercises designed not for aesthetic improvement but functional strength, movements that mimicked combat scenarios and evasion techniques.

The muscles now visible across his torso and arms hadn’t existed six months ago. The artist’s lean frame had hardened into something weapon-like—each movement controlled, each motion economical.

Even his breathing had transformed, no longer the deep inspirations of someone experiencing emotion, but the measured inhalations of a predator conserving energy.

As dawn broke, Gabriel completed his transformation ritual. Clothing selected for tactical advantage rather than expression. Dark colors, multiple pockets, fabrics chosen for silent movement.

The final element waited on the stainless steel table—a newspaper folded to display the article that had appeared that morning. A new Bloody Tulip victim discovered in Savannah, Georgia. Male, early thirties, heart extracted with surgical precision. A flourishing tulip painting left at the scene, executed with increasingly frantic brushwork.

The geographic pattern continued its northward progression. The pattern unfolded with chilling clarity—each execution a calculated stroke in a broader masterpiece only the killers understood.

The murders came in pairs, each more elaborate than the last. Not random, but choreographed—two killers locked in a violent duet.

Every killing played like a dance where both partners fought for the lead—one leaving blooming tulips, the other responding with their withering mirror. A macabre dialogue, painted in blood and surgical detail, where every body became a message, every canvas a challenge.

And Gabriel watched from the shadows—compelled, horrified, unable to look away. It was more than vengeance now. It was obsession. He wasn’t just tracking killers. He was studying them. And with each step of their dance, he drew closer to the stage himself.

The artist was gone. What remained was something new—a predator designed with cellular precision to hunt its creator.

The Triangular Hunt

10:47 PM – Savannah, Georgia

In a rented room illuminated only by a single desk lamp, Dima spread photographs across a meticulously arranged workspace. Her movements carried the efficient precision of a surgeon preparing an operating field, each image placed at precise angles to the others, creating a gallery of death that told a story only she fully understood.

The centerpiece—a man in his early thirties, beard neatly trimmed, hair styled in the now-familiar undercut—bore an uncanny resemblance to Gabriel. Not perfect, but close enough to serve her purpose. Close enough to send her message. Her fingers traced the photograph’s edge with almost tender precision, nail following the contour of his jaw with clinical appreciation.

“You were a beautiful surrogate,” she whispered, voice carrying the intimate tone of a doctor speaking to a patient under anesthesia. “But nothing compared to the original.”

Her attention shifted to a second photograph—Gabriel himself, captured from a distance of him at the entrance of his apartment building talking to that same neighbor who interrupted her appointment. The image quality was poor, taken hurriedly from a concealed position, but captured exactly what she needed–the face of the obstacle that stood in the way of her recapturing a past she hungered for.

Her fingers drifted to the tools arranged beside the photographs—scalpels of varying sizes, suture needles, syringes of ketamine, specimen containers, and a small watercolor set designed for field use. The implements of both medicine and art, positioned with the same care a surgeon would arrange instruments on a Mayo stand.

A phone buzzed, screen illuminating to display a police update she’d intercepted through carefully cultivated channels: 

“VICTIM #5 – WITHERING TULIP SIGNATURE – RICHMOND HILL – CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION TEAM DEPLOYED”

Dima’s lips curved into a sinister smile that enveloped the lower half of her face. “So close. That’s it, my little flower. Come for me… I guess I’ll send you my response.”

Her finger traced a map displaying pins showing the trajectory of the killings pointing north. Dima calculated the optimal position for her next masterpiece. The next point in their deadly passionate chase.

“Virginia,” she whispered, anticipation coloring her voice with almost sensual pleasure. “We will reunite in Virginia.”

10:47 PM – Richmond Hill, Georgia

Just 25 miles southeast, Ayuna stood before a hotel bathroom mirror, water dripping from hands freshly scrubbed with surgical thoroughness. Six minutes of washing, methodical attention to each finger, each nail bed, each crease and line. Just as father had taught them.

The room behind her showed no evidence of the night’s activities—no blood, no tissue, nothing connecting her to the “withering tulip killing” discovered across town eighteen hours earlier. Just a small medical cooler on the counter, sealed and decontaminated with hospital-grade protocols.

Ayuna’s reflection showed a woman transformed by purpose—hair now dark and cropped short, eyes carrying the focused intensity of a surgeon approaching a high-risk procedure. Only the blood-resin bracelet remained unchanged, its dark beads catching the light as she raised her wrist.

From a concealed pocket, she withdrew a new bead—slightly darker than the others, its surface catching the light with crimson depth. Her fingers worked with practiced efficiency, threading it onto the bracelet between two existing specimens.

“Manners,” she whispered, the word carrying weight beyond its syllables—a memorial, a justification, a reminder of standards upheld through surgical intervention.

Her phone illuminated with a notification from the surveillance program monitoring hospital records. Talia had accessed Olivia’s medical file again, noting anomalous patterns in the latest EEG readings. Patterns that suggested increased neural activity during specific visiting hours.

Gabriel’s visiting hours.

Ayuna’s fingers traced the edge of her phone, unconsciously mirroring the precision of a scalpel tracking an incision line. The motion stopped as another notification appeared, a message from a front desk attendant she paid to text her if he saw Gabriel.

The screen displayed a covertly taken picture: Gabriel standing at the hotel desk in Orlando, his appearance transformed, posture carrying the predatory readiness that reminded her of her father. No longer the passive artist, but something evolved, purposeful, dangerous.

“You’re changing,” she whispered, voice carrying complex emotions. “I wonder. Are you the same man I’m fighting for or someone completely different?”

Her gaze shifted to the map on her phone, the dot patterns of killings highlighted in red and blue—her withering tulips responding to Dima’s flourishing ones, their deadly conversation drawing both toward the next logical point.

“Virginia,” she murmured, already calculating travel routes and tactical approaches. “We’ll finish this in Virginia.”

10:47 PM – Orlando, Florida

In a nondescript hotel room 90 miles from Ayuna’s position, Gabriel knelt before an open duffel bag spread across the floor. The bag’s contents were arranged with surgical precision—compartments created through custom modifications, each holding specific tools organized by function and sequence of use.

His hands moved with methodical efficiency, assembling what his mind recognized as a “hunting kit” though he’d never created one before. The knowledge emerged fully formed, guided by his stolen heart.

Medical supplies occupied the central compartment—scalpels selected for specific tissue applications, hemostats, suture materials, antiseptic solutions in precisely measured quantities. Not tools for healing now, but for tracking, for understanding surgical signatures.

Surveillance equipment filled the left section—miniature cameras, directional microphones, motion sensors. Each device checked with the thoroughness of a surgeon confirming equipment before a complex procedure.

The right compartment contained items whose purpose Gabriel’s conscious mind preferred not to examine too closely—restraints, pharmaceutical compounds in precisely measured doses, a custom-modified Glock 19 with suppressor attachment.

His fingers traced each item with tactile recognition, muscle memory guiding movements he’d never learned. His stolen heart maintained its steady rhythm beneath his scar—just the metronomic certainty of an organ fulfilling its designed purpose.

An underground news channel played softly in the background, describing the latest Bloody Tulip killing:

“—what experts are calling an artistic nightmare. This latest victim, marked with the ‘withering tulip,’ bears striking similarities to murders that occurred further north a few years ago. If it’s the same individual, this is an even more disturbing evolution in their pattern—”

Gabriel’s focus shifted to the desk where cell phone photographs of the recent killings lay spread across a map. He had obtained these images by breaking into police databases through methods his former self would have found unimaginable.

The evening light cast clinical shadows across the crime scene photos as Gabriel arranged them chronologically. His artist’s eye cataloged details others would miss—brushwork techniques, compositional choices, color applications. The oldest Bloody Tulip killings showed remarkable consistency—a unified artistic vision expressed through blood and surgical precision.

“Same hand, same mind, same purpose,” he murmured.

But the recent killings told a different story. Where the earlier works carried a singular vision, these newer paintings displayed conflicting narratives—flourishing tulips versus withering blooms, life versus death, creation versus destruction. The artistic cohesion had fractured into warring visual languages.

Gabriel pinned the images to the wall, creating a timeline that tracked the evolution from unity to discord. When did this single artistic voice divide into two distinct signatures? Why? And what did he have to do with it?

His fingers traced the scar bisecting his chest as understanding bloomed. Two killers with identical medical training but divergent artistic signatures. Two predators engaged in deadly conversation, using surrogate victims to communicate their intentions. And at the center of their dispute—himself. His heart. His transformation.

“They’re moving north,” Gabriel concluded, studying the progression with surgical detachment. Each killing pair crept along the eastern seaboard—not in haste, but in a slow, deliberate advance. He wondered where one of these predators would send up their next flare, another murder marking an ominous “I’m here” for the other to find.

Gabriel accessed the UGC podcast on his laptop, scrolling to the latest episode.

“—what people don’t realize about these Bloody Tulip paintings,” John was saying, “is that they’re not just signatures. They’re communications. The earliest ones show a consistent technique and theme, but these recent ones? It’s like watching two different artists fighting over the same canvas.”

“Artistic differences taken to a whole new level,” Phil joked. “But seriously, our source sent us something interesting—these killings are forming a geometric pattern, moving steadily northward. The question is: where does it end?”

With mechanical efficiency, Gabriel began packing his hunting kit—clothes selected for tactical advantage, supplies organized by potential need, weapons positioned for optimal access. Each item found its place with surgical precision.

The final item to be packed was his sketchbook—once filled with artistic expressions, now containing meticulous drawings of anatomical structures, wound patterns, and tulip variations. The progression of pages documented his evolution from artist to hunter as clearly as the crime scene photos tracked the killers’ northward journey.

Gabriel closed the bag with ritualistic care, each zipper secured in sequence, each strap adjusted to precise tension. The motion carried the same finality as a surgeon closing an incision.

His reflection in the darkened window showed a man transformed beyond recognition—eyes carrying the calculated focus of a predator, posture coiled with potential energy, expression set with surgical determination.

The hunt continued.

10:47 PM – Cleveland Clinic, Weston, ICU Room 420

The night shift nurse paused outside Olivia’s room, attention caught by an anomalous pattern on the monitoring station display. After six months of flatlined consistency, the EEG readout showed unmistakable spikes in activity—delta waves giving way to theta patterns consistent with increased neural function.

Inside the room, machinery continued its electronic vigil as it had for twenty-three weeks. The ventilator hissed with mechanical precision, delivering measured breaths to lungs that couldn’t function independently. The IV pump administered carefully calibrated medications through multiple ports. The heart monitor tracked cardiac function with rhythmic consistency.

Except tonight, something had changed.

The nurse approached the bedside, checking connections and sensor placements with professional thoroughness. Nothing appeared disturbed, yet the monitoring equipment continued registering anomalous patterns—heart rate elevated 7% above baseline, blood pressure showing minor fluctuations, EEG displaying activity in regions long dormant.

“Ms. Matthews?” she said softly, more from habit than expectation of response. “Can you hear me?”

No visible reaction came from the still form on the bed. Olivia remained motionless, eyes closed, body position unchanged since the morning shift’s standard repositioning to prevent pressure ulcers.

Yet something was happening beneath the surface—neural pathways activating after months of silence, consciousness stirring from its enforced hibernation. The nurse made detailed notes in the electronic chart, flagging the anomalies for Dr. Hartman’s attention in the morning.

As she turned to leave, the heart monitor registered another unexpected spike—brief but distinct, like an electrical impulse seeking connection. For 1.7 seconds, the cardiac rhythm aligned perfectly with a pattern documented elsewhere in the medical records system.

With Gabriel’s current heart rhythm, recorded a year a when his new heart was transplanted in his chest and started beating again for the first time.

The nurse didn’t notice this correlation, of course, nor would anyone else. But the hospital’s automated analysis system flagged the general spike for review, adding it to a growing file of anomalous data points surrounding Room 420. A file that Dr. Talia Hartman reviewed with increasing frequency and growing concern.

As the door closed behind the departing nurse, the monitors settled back into their consistent patterns—heart rate returning to baseline, EEG activity subsiding to normal comatose levels. The moment of synchronicity passed, leaving no evidence beyond digital records that would be reviewed, analyzed, and ultimately noted as positive potential changes in a patient.

But what these records really represented was a connection persisting beyond surgical intervention. A shared trauma creating neural bridges. A heart recognizing its rightful partner across impossible distance.

The instruments continued their electronic vigil in the darkness as midnight approached, counting down the hours until all players in this surgical game would converge in Virginia. Until the final incision would be made, revealing what lay beneath the surface of their intertwined existences.

The heart monitor beeped its steady rhythm like a metronome, a countdown to confrontation.

» The Bloody Tulip Part XX pulses closer with crimson fingertips. In “Crimson Reflections,” some mirrors reveal monsters.

In coastal Georgia, a predator leaves breadcrumbs from a buried past while hunting for the perfect reflection. When Dima discovers Draven—Gabriel’s artistic doppelgänger—her surgical seduction begins with calculated perfection. As twisted intimacy spirals into unexpected emotion, memories of shared trauma bleed through clinical detachment, contaminating her deadly purpose. “The best part hasn’t started yet,” she whispers ominously at her temporary lover, lips brushing his ear as the ritual begins. Meanwhile, Gabriel’s stolen heart races with unexplained recognition as he analyzes her latest blood canvas, booking passage to Savannah and unknowingly completing the deadly triangulation. 4/20 – In the game of hearts and hunters, the most beautiful art often hides the deepest wounds.

Subscribe now. Some patterns, once begun, must play to their bloody conclusion.