Page 3 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

The ache in my head, the sour twist of nausea in my stomach, even the fog clouding my thoughts faded beneath the sudden awareness of what was happening. My mind scrambled for an explanation, but every possibility felt equally absurd.

I was in a hospital bed, barely able to remember how I had gotten there, and somehow a complete stranger was sitting beside me, holding my hand.

Clearly, I had made some questionable life choices before losing consciousness.

I must’ve shifted or made some kind of sound because the guy stirred.

His fingers loosened around mine. He shifted on the stool, dragging a hand over his face before blinking awake. Sleep still clung to him, leaving his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. His hair was mussed, a faint crease marked his cheek from the mattress, and exhaustion softened every line of his face.

His eyes found mine, and whatever sleep remained in them vanished.

He froze for half a heartbeat, surprise flashing across his face. Then he lurched upright so quickly that the stool scraped against the floor. His hand slipped from mine with the sudden movement, and he caught himself against the edge of the mattress, his shoulders pulling tight.

His brows drew together as he studied my face, his fingers curling into the mattress until his knuckles whitened. He searched my face with an intensity that made me hold still. Then his shoulders finally loosened, and a trembling breath slipped from his lips. Relief softened his features, easing the strain that had carved itself across his face.

The pale hospital light moved across his face, catching in his eyes.

They were the darkest brown I’d ever seen. At first glance, they looked almost black, swallowing what little light reached them. Then he shifted, and the light caught his irises, drawing out a fleeting touch of amber.

I found myself waiting for it.

Every small movement of his head changed the colour again, and each time, my eyes followed without permission.

It was ridiculous. I had woken up in a hospital with a stranger sitting beside my bed, yet I couldn’t stop studying his eyes.

“Alessia.”

My attention finally broke from his eyes.

His voice was so soft it nearly disappeared beneath the monitor’s steady beeping. He pushed himself up from the stool, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before looking at me again.

There was a strange familiarity in his expression, a softness I couldn’t understand. My eyes moved over his face, searching for something that would make this make sense. How did he know my name? Why had he been sitting beside my bed? Why did he look at me with an expression that suggested I should know him?

The longer I studied him, the more convinced I became that I’d never seen that face before. I searched through my memory for anything that might connect him to me, but nothing surfaced. His face remained completely unfamiliar, no matter how long I stared.

My confusion only deepened.

I was still trying to understand what he could possibly want from me when his hand lifted toward my head.

A cold jolt tore through me.

My shoulders locked, and I recoiled into the pillow far harder than I’d meant to. Pain burst through my skull, stealing the breath from my lungs. A strangled sound caught in my throat as my fingers twisted into the sheets, gripping the fabric until my knuckles ached.

His hand stopped halfway to my head, his fingers curling inward before he could touch me. Surprise crossed his face, replaced almost instantly by concern. His brows pulled together, his expression tightening as he took in my reaction.

He lowered his hand completely and stepped back from the bed, putting distance between us without taking his attention off me.

My mouth was parched enough to crack. I swallowed, my throat scraping painfully around the effort, my tongue thick and clumsy against the roof of my mouth. I drew in a shallow breath, gathered what little strength I had, and forced the words out.

“Who are you?”

Chapter 1

5 Days Earlier

He was late.

My eyes kept finding the clock, no matter how many times I told myself to stop looking. Five minutes had passed. Then another. The second hand crept around the face with maddening patience, each little tick marking another moment of his absence.