The rain had stopped by morning, but the storm hadn't.
It lingered — in the air, in her chest, in the silence between the steady beeps of the heart monitor.
Amara stared at the ceiling, the same square tile she'd been counting since dawn. Her wrists were still cuffed, but the metal felt colder now, heavier — like it carried a story she wasn't allowed to know.
She'd tried to remember.
All night, she had clawed through her thoughts like someone digging through fog. Faces. Voices. A burning building. A man whispering her name — Leon.
Every time she reached for the truth, pain struck behind her eyes.
It was like her own mind had decided she wasn't ready to know.
---
Footsteps echoed outside the door. A nurse peeked in — younger than the first, kind eyes, but her hands trembled when she adjusted Amara's IV.
Amara caught the fear. "You act like I'm going to bite."
The nurse froze. "Sorry. It's just… they said you were dangerous."
"Did they?" Amara's voice was quiet but sharp. "Do I look dangerous to you?"
The nurse hesitated, then whispered, "Sometimes it's the ones who don't."
And then she left.
Amara's gaze drifted toward the window. Beyond it, the city looked indifferent — people rushing, cars honking, life moving on without her.
She wondered what it felt like to live a life you couldn't remember.
Was she really the villain they said she was?
---
Leon Voss sat in the observation room, elbows on the metal table, eyes locked on the monitor.
The live feed showed Amara sitting by the window, her expression unreadable.
Two years.
Two damn years since she vanished.
And now she was back — alive, handcuffed, and claiming she remembered nothing.
His partner, Detective Marlow, leaned back in his chair, chewing on a pen cap. "You sure it's her? You've seen the DNA results?"
Leon's jaw tightened. "I don't need results. I know her."
Marlow raised a brow. "Yeah, that's what worries me. You knew her. Past tense. Now she's a suspect. Don't let your history screw the case."
Leon didn't reply. He'd heard that warning a dozen times.
But Marlow didn't know what it felt like to bury someone you loved, only to see her walk back into your life — wearing the same face but not the same soul.
He'd spent two years trying to hate her.
Two years convincing himself that the woman who sold their operation out, who got his brother killed, wasn't the same one who used to fall asleep in his arms.
But now she sat in that hospital room, trembling and confused, and part of him — the part he thought was dead — was awake again.
He turned off the monitor. "I'm going to see her."
Marlow sighed. "Against protocol, as usual."
"Yeah," Leon said quietly, grabbing his coat. "That's kind of my thing."
---
Back to Amara
The door clicked open.
She didn't turn at first. She knew that voice, that measured breath behind her. She could feel his presence before he spoke.
Leon.
He didn't wear the coat this time. Just a black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing the faint scar along his forearm — a scar that somehow made her chest ache though she didn't know why.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, her tone cautious.
"I could say the same to you," he replied, voice low. "You were supposed to be dead."
Her eyes flicked toward him. "Sorry for the inconvenience."
A faint smirk ghosted his lips — there and gone in a second.
He pulled a chair closer, sat across from her, his posture controlled, his gaze unwavering. "Do you really not remember anything?"
"I remember rain," she whispered. "And running. And your voice."
He froze. "My voice?"
"You were calling my name." Her fingers tightened around the blanket. "And then there was a gunshot."
Leon leaned back slowly, studying her face. "You think I shot you?"
"I don't know."
Her voice cracked on the word, a mix of frustration and fear. "I just know you were there."
He stood, walked to the window, and looked out at the city below. The glass fogged slightly from his breath.
"You think memory loss erases guilt?" he said finally.
She frowned. "You sound like you want me to be guilty."
He turned toward her, his expression unreadable. "Maybe I do. It's easier to hate someone when you don't love them anymore."
The air between them shifted — thick, sharp, and electric.
---
Silence.
Only the heart monitor dared to speak.
Amara swallowed. "Tell me what I did."
Leon hesitated, then crossed the room, pulled a file from his coat, and dropped it on her lap.
Inside were photographs — grainy security footage, crime scene snapshots, classified reports.
Her own face stared back at her from one of the pages.
Cold. Calculated. A woman in a black jacket walking out of a burning lab with a briefcase.
"That's not me," she whispered.
"It's your DNA. Your prints. Your face."
"It's not me."
Her voice rose, trembling between fear and anger. "I don't even remember that person!"
Leon's gaze softened for the briefest moment — so quick she almost missed it. "Then maybe that's the problem. Maybe the version of you I fell for was the lie."
Amara's throat tightened. "If you really believed that, you wouldn't be here."
He looked away, unable to answer.
---
Hours later, the hospital wing was quiet. Visiting hours had ended.
But Leon came back.
He stood in the doorway, watching her sleep — or at least pretending to. Her fingers twitched occasionally, like she was fighting something in her dreams.
Marlow's words echoed in his head: Don't let your history screw the case.
He knew he should walk away. But something about the scene — the way she looked fragile yet dangerous — pulled him back into the past he thought he'd buried.
He moved closer. On the bedside table sat a silver chain, tangled with a small ring — her ring. He remembered slipping it onto her finger in a different world, a lifetime ago.
She stirred suddenly, eyes opening.
"Couldn't stay away?" she murmured.
Leon didn't flinch. "You kept this."
"I don't remember why," she said softly. "But it feels… important."
He picked up the ring, studied it in the dim light. Inside the band, faint engraving: L.V. + A.C.
His initials and hers.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she asked the question he'd been dreading. "Were we in love?"
He hesitated. "Once."
"What happened?"
"You betrayed me."
She looked away, voice trembling. "I don't believe that."
He met her eyes. "Then prove it."
---
The storm outside returned — wind howling through the half-open window, lightning flashing against the curtains.
Leon set a small device on the bed — a photo chip. "These are from the last mission you were part of. Maybe it'll trigger something."
She nodded hesitantly.
The screen lit up — video feed. Her face again, but younger, confident. Standing beside Leon. Laughing.
Then the laughter vanished as explosions roared. Static. Screams. And her voice — older, colder — saying: "The deal's done. Get rid of the witnesses."
The clip ended.
Amara's pulse spiked. "That's not me."
Leon's jaw clenched. "Your voice, Amara."
"No! That's not—" she gasped, clutching her head as the pain returned, blinding.
Images flickered behind her eyes:
A gun. A warehouse. Leon shouting her name.
Then — a woman's face she didn't recognize handing her a briefcase.
She groaned, gripping the sheets. "There was someone else—"
Leon leaned forward. "Who?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "But she looked like me."
His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean looked like you?"
"She had my face."
---
The words hung in the air like thunder.
Leon's heartbeat quickened. He wanted to dismiss it — another amnesiac delusion. But something about the way she said it, the terror in her voice, told him this wasn't random.
"Amara, listen to me," he said quietly. "Are you saying there's someone out there pretending to be you?"
She nodded weakly. "Or maybe I was pretending to be her."
Lightning flashed, and for the first time, Leon didn't see a criminal or a liar. He saw a woman trapped in someone else's story.
He stood, pacing. "I'll have the tech team recheck the footage."
She looked at him — eyes wide, voice barely a whisper. "You believe me?"
He stopped at the door. "I don't know what I believe anymore."
He paused, hand on the handle. "But if someone's out there with your face, we're already too late."
---
The door closed behind him.
Amara lay back, trembling. The pain in her head was worse now, but beneath it, something else had started to stir — a memory, faint and fragile, pushing its way to the surface.
A mirror.
A bloodstained reflection.
And a woman smiling — her smile — but colder.
"You can't run from yourself forever," the reflection whispered.
Her eyes snapped open.
The heart monitor screamed.
And outside, Leon's phone buzzed — an encrypted message flashing on the screen.
Unknown Sender: She's awake. You shouldn't have gone back