Chapter 3
Present day
“Who are you?”
The man stared at me in horror, his expression shifting so rapidly that I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. His eyes searched my face, darting over every feature with desperate intensity. His lips parted, a word already forming—
The door behind him swung open.
Another man strode into the room carrying a ridiculously vibrant bouquet of flowers, his cheerful blue eyes sweeping across the space before landing on me.
“Alessia!” He shouted my name with enough enthusiasm to make me question whether he understood the concept of indoor volume.
I winced and squeezed my eyes shut, the sound sending another vicious pulse through my already pounding head. My whole body felt heavy and sore, my thoughts sluggish and scrambled, and now a complete stranger was yelling loud enough to fill a football stadium.
I had no idea who he was.
And judging by the volume he’d chosen, I wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.
He hurried toward the bed, nearly knocking the first man aside in his excitement. “You’re awake!”
For fuck’s sake, was this his normal volume?
The first man’s earlier shock was replaced by an expression that suggested he was equally overwhelmed by the sudden arrival.
The newcomer leaned so close that I could see every bit of concern written across his face.
“Do you have any idea what happened to me when I found out you were in the hospital?” He demanded, his expression cycling rapidly between horror, guilt, and relief.
“And then I found out I’d missed your party.
I’m so sorry. You know how I am with dates.
My brain sees a calendar and immediately gives up.
” He shook his head with such dramatic despair that the bouquet bobbed in his hand. “Forget it. You’re awake now!”
He practically shouted the last sentence directly into my face.
My head throbbed harder. Each word seemed to hammer against my skull, and I had to resist the urge to cover my ears. Whatever pain medication the hospital had given me clearly had no chance against this man’s enthusiasm.
Felicity was safe for now.
This man, however, was rapidly becoming my first murder candidate.
I opened my mouth, fully prepared to tell him to back away before I decided the hospital could deal with one more patient.
Before I could get the words out, the first man finally moved.
He stepped forward and placed a firm hand on the loud man’s shoulder, pulling him away from the bed with enough force to put a reasonable distance between us.
“Stop shouting in her face,” he said.
His voice was low and controlled, a welcome relief after the relentless volume that had been hammering against my already aching head.
I looked at him properly for the first time.
At least this stranger possessed basic human decency.
The loud one rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking sheepish. “I wasn’t shouting.”
The other man gave him a look.
He lowered his eyes. “Okay. I was shouting.”
The first stranger’s eyes remained fixed on me, searching my face with an urgency I couldn’t understand. I narrowed my gaze at him in return, irritation rising beneath my confusion.
The door opened again.
A man in a white coat stepped inside, a tablet tucked against his side. He gave the two men a brief glance before turning his attention to me. “Good to see you’re awake, Mrs. Quinn. I’m Dr. Reed, the neurologist looking after you.”
I froze.
“Miss Quinn,” I corrected immediately.
The doctor paused, his brows drawing together as he glanced toward the first man. He studied him briefly before turning his attention back to me.
“Of course. My apologies, Miss Quinn.” The smile returned, though there was a flicker of caution in his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“I have a splitting headache,” I told him, offering my sweetest smile, “and two strange men have apparently decided my hospital room is a perfectly acceptable place to loiter.”
He blinked, his gaze sweeping around the room in genuine confusion before returning to me. “What strange men?”
My eyes darted between the two strangers standing beside my bed. “These two!” I pointed toward them, then looked back at Dr. Reed. “Wait… can you not see them?”
A wave of dread washed over me.
“Are they ghosts?” I asked, lowering my voice as the absurd possibility suddenly seemed disturbingly plausible. “Is this one of those hospitals?”
Dr. Reed’s brows shot up as his eyes moved between me and the two men. “Oh, these two! They’re—wait, what do you mean by ‘one of those hospitals’?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the loud stranger launched into another outburst before I could get a single word out.
“You’re so mad about the party that you’re going to pretend you don’t know me?” he demanded, staring at me in disbelief. His brows drew together, his mouth falling slightly open, hurt flickering across his face. “Seriously, Alessia? That’s what we’re doing now?”
The headache behind my eyes pulsed harder.
I planted my palms against the mattress and tried to push myself upright. A vicious wave of dizziness rolled through me, followed by a surge of pain that made the room tilt sideways.
“That’s it.” I sucked in a breath and glared at him. “I’m killing him.”
The first man was beside me before I could get fully upright. He leaned closer, alarm flashing across his face as he watched me sway. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
His hand hovered just above my shoulder, close enough to catch me if I slipped, but he never touched me. With the room still spinning and my head throbbing, fighting him felt impossible. Exhaustion won, leaving me sinking back against the pillows.
His gaze held mine for another second. “I’ll take care of it.” He turned toward the loud man, his entire posture going rigid.
The loud man immediately raised both hands in surrender, his eyes widening as he took an uncertain step backward. “I wasn’t even doing anything.”
“You were shouting at her.”
“I will be quiet,” he promised quickly, lowering his voice to an exaggerated whisper. “See? Practically silent.”
The first man stepped forward and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, guiding him toward the door before he could launch into another speech.
“But I still have her flowers,” the loud man protested, clutching the bouquet protectively to his chest.
“Keep them.”
The first man ushered him into the hallway and shut the door in his face.
A muffled, “This is incredibly rude,” came from the other side.
He stood by the door with his back to me, shoulders rigid, head bowed, his hand resting against the handle. When he finally turned around, his expression was carefully composed, every trace of emotion tucked away behind an unreadable calm.
His eyes betrayed him. Those dark, bottomless eyes held fear, pain, and a desperation that made me uneasy.
Dr. Reed broke the silence. “Miss Quinn, I need to ask you a few questions. Some of your answers may seem obvious, but they help me understand what you remember and what you don’t. Do you recognize this man?”
My gaze shifted toward the silent figure near the door. I searched his features, hoping some buried memory would surface.
There was nothing.
I looked back at Dr. Reed. “No. I’ve never seen him before.”
The man’s expression faltered.
Dr. Reed caught it, but he kept his attention on me. He made a brief note on his tablet before continuing. “All right. Can you tell me where you are?”
“In a hospital.”
“Do you know which hospital?”
I frowned. “No.”
“That’s fine. Can you tell me what year it is?”
“2023.”
Dr. Reed stopped writing.
His brows drew together, and he exchanged a quick glance with the man by the door. The man’s entire expression changed, a flicker of alarm crossing his face before he carefully concealed it.
Dr. Reed turned back to me. “And do you know what month it is?”
“January.”
He nodded slowly. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Felicity and I were at a New Year’s party.” A smile slipped onto my face before I could stop it. “We got completely hammered. We got into the car, and then…”
The rest of the sentence vanished.
I frowned and closed my eyes, trying to reach past the throbbing pain behind my eyes and find whatever came next. I searched through every fragment I could remember, following the memory backward, then forward, hoping another detail would surface.
Nothing came.
I could see Felicity in the back seat, slumped against the window, her shoulders shaking with laughter over some ridiculous joke I couldn’t remember. I could hear the faint echo of her giggling. I could picture the passing lights outside the window, sliding across the glass in brief flashes.
Then the memory simply ended.
A blank stretch of darkness took its place.
I opened my eyes again, frustration creeping into every word. “I can’t remember anything after that. I’ve been trying, but there’s just… nothing.”
Dr. Reed’s expression remained calm, though his attention sharpened.
“That’s okay. Don’t force yourself to remember.
Pushing too hard can make the headache worse.
Based on what you’ve told me so far, it sounds as though you may have a gap in your memory surrounding the accident.
We’ll run the appropriate neurological assessments and imaging, and we’ll take this one step at a time. ”
“Accident?” My eyes widened as the word sank in. “Did we get into an accident?”
Dr. Reed didn’t answer immediately.
Neither did the man by the door.
My heart sank. “Where is she?” I tried to push myself up, but the sudden movement sent a wave of nausea through me, and the monitors erupted into frantic beeps.
The man was beside me in an instant. His hands caught my shoulders, gentle but firm, easing me back against the pillows as I tried to push myself upright again.
“She’s fine,” he said, his expression strained with worry. “Felicity is fine. She’s in the cafeteria having lunch.”
The relief hit so hard that my entire body went slack against the pillows. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath. “Fuck,” I whispered. “I almost had a heart attack.”