Chapter 3
371 Words
POV
The romance between them was a slow, delicate thing, built on a foundation of kindness and shared vulnerability. He taught her how to play chess on his old board, and she would watch him with an intense focus, her brow furrowed in concentration. He read her stories from the history books he used to write about, and she would listen with wide-eyed wonder. He had once been a man who chased secrets, but now he was happy with the simple honesty of her smile when she solved a puzzle or beat him at a game.
But the past was not so easily erased. Sometimes, in the middle of a peaceful afternoon, a car backfiring on the street would make her flinch, and she would instinctively drop into a defensive stance, her hands raised. One night, while sketching in a notebook, her hand moved of its own accord, drawing a series of intricate lines and circuits, the schematics for a device she had no memory of creating. When she saw what she had drawn, a brief flicker of terror crossed her face before her mind reset, leaving her confused.
They had been together for months when the knock came at the door. It was a man in a dark suit, his face unreadable, a faint scar visible under his left eye. Amelia opened the door, a cup of coffee in her hand. The man’s gaze swept over her, a flicker of surprise in his eyes that he quickly masked.
"Hello, Amelia," he said, his voice as smooth as polished stone. "It's time to come home."
Amelia's head tilted, her gaze just as blank as it had been on the night he found her. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice soft and polite. "I think you have the wrong person."
But as he took a step forward, the scar on his face seemed to trigger something deep within her. A flash of memory, violent and searing, exploded behind her eyes. A warehouse. A scream. Her hands flew to her head as a wave of pain washed over her, and for the first time since that night, she remembered who she was. She remembered him. The man who had taken everything from her.
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