Chapter 3: Petals in the Blood

The apartment smelled like rain and takeout grease when Amelia woke. She lay still for a long minute, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The burgundy throw was tangled around her legs, its soft weight both comforting and confining.

Her hand moved automatically to the notebook tucked beneath her pillow. The pages felt thicker now, swollen with ink and questions. She flipped it open under the weak morning light filtering through the blinds. Blue facts. Red lies. Green for the treacherous maybe.

The entry from last night stared back at her in careful red: Hair. Months old. Why keep it? Her stomach tightened at the memory of that sealed bag, the lock of her own straight black hair caught like a trophy.

She pressed her palm flat against her chest, feeling the rapid flutter there. The scar at her hairline itched. Everything itched this morning, as if her skin no longer fit the version of her life Dominic kept presenting.

The scent hit her before the sound of his footsteps. Sweet. Cloying. Lilies.

Amelia sat up too fast. The room tilted, but she forced herself steady, notebook clutched like a shield. Dominic appeared in the doorway holding a crystal vase. White lilies bobbed gently in the water, their petals pristine and terrible.

"I thought these might help," he said. His voice carried that measured calm, the one that always seemed to wrap around her ribs and squeeze. "You used to love them. Before."

She couldn't speak. The smell flooded her nose, and suddenly the apartment wasn't the apartment anymore.

The flashback slammed into her with physical force. She was in her old place, standing in the kitchen with Daniel. His face was flushed with anger, tie loosened like he'd been yanking at it. Papers were scattered across the counter. Files. Thick folders marked with her design firm's logo.

"You can't keep digging, Amelia," Daniel hissed in the memory. His voice cracked with something close to fear. "This isn't some corporate thing you can redesign away. Dominic's people at the precinct are already circling."

She watched herself in the vision—smaller, sharper. Her past self had crossed her arms, chin lifted. "Then maybe they should look closer. Those patterns in the designs don't add up."

The argument escalated, voices rising until the air felt thick enough to choke on. Daniel grabbed her wrist, not hard but desperate. "If you meet with that detective again, we're done. He's not who you think."

Then the scene fractured. A sharp crack split the air. White petals scattered across the floor, turning red at the edges. The metallic smell of blood filled her nose.

Amelia gasped back to the present. The vase slipped from Dominic's hands and shattered on the hardwood. Water and broken glass spread across the floor, lilies floating in the mess. The metallic smell wasn't just memory anymore. A shard had nicked her foot.

She pressed both hands to her chest now, hard enough to bruise. Spanish spilled from her lips without thought. "Maldito sea. No puede ser verdad."

Dominic was beside her in an instant, tall frame folding down despite the glass crunching under his shoes. His hands hovered near her shoulders, not quite touching. The restraint in that almost-contact made her want to scream.

"Amelia. Breathe." His baritone was low, persuasive, the same tone he'd used in the hospital. "It's just flowers. Tell me what you saw."

She looked up at him through the curtain of her black hair. Those intense eyes searched her face. The scar on his knuckles stood out white against his skin as he clenched one fist.

"We were arguing," she whispered. The words tasted like betrayal on her tongue. "About files. Daniel said you were circling something. That I shouldn't meet with you."

Dominic's expression didn't change, but his eyes tightened for a fraction of a second. He finally touched her then, one large hand cupping her cheek with a reverence that felt practiced. Her skin flushed hot under his palm despite the dread coiling in her gut.

"Baby, that wasn't how it happened." He spoke slowly, each word chosen like evidence for a jury. "Daniel was in deep with some bad people at his firm. Your design work accidentally uncovered patterns that put you both at risk. I was trying to protect you. He got paranoid."

The lilies floated in the spreading water between them. One petal had torn, its edge darkening where it touched the faint red from her cut foot. Amelia couldn't look away from it.

She wanted to believe the steadiness in his voice. Her body already did—the way she hadn't pulled from his touch, the subtle lean of her petite frame toward his larger one. But the notebook under her pillow burned in her mind. Red ink. Lies?

Her free hand moved without permission, fingers brushing the faint scar at her hairline. The gesture grounded her enough to speak again.

"Why would my own memory make you the villain then?" The question came out raw, accented with the Spanish that thickened when she was frightened. "Why does it feel like I was part of it?"

Something flickered across his face—exhaustion, or the briefest flash of pain. He rubbed his knuckles against his thigh, the old habit surfacing. For a heartbeat he looked less like her protector and more like a man drowning in the weight of what he'd built between them.

"Memory isn't reliable after trauma," he said finally. "It twists things. Protects us from what we can't face yet. Daniel wasn't the man you thought. I swear to you, I was the one trying to pull you out of it."

She nodded because the alternative felt dangerous in this moment, with glass at her feet and his hand still warm on her skin. Inside, the dread deepened. Who had she been, six months ago? The woman in the memory hadn't seemed like a victim.

Dominic helped her up carefully, avoiding the worst of the shards. His movements were economical, controlled, but she caught the way his gaze darted to the bedroom where her notebook waited. Did he know? The possibility sent ice down her spine.

"I'll clean this up," he murmured. "You should rest. Dr. Hale is stopping by later for a check-in."

The name landed wrong. Amelia tucked her hair behind her ear, the nervous gesture automatic. She added him mentally to the green column. Maybe.

While Dominic swept up the mess, she retreated to the office nook. The laptop sat closed on the desk. She pulled out her notebook and began cross-referencing dates with shaky hands. The timing of their supposed first meeting? Red. The Barcelona paint story? Red again.

She drew a careful line connecting Hair to the lilies. Her handwriting grew smaller, tighter, as if making the letters tiny could contain the growing horror.

A soft knock at the apartment door pulled her from her thoughts. Dominic answered it before she could stand, his broad shoulders filling the entryway like a living barrier. Dr. Hale stepped inside, salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed, glasses catching the gray light from the bay windows.

"Amelia," the doctor said, voice smooth as always. "How are we feeling in our new environment?"

Our. The word grated. She stayed in the nook, notebook hidden beneath a magazine, and watched the two men exchange a look that lasted a beat too long. Familiar. Almost collegial.

"The lilies triggered something," Dominic supplied before she could answer. His tone was carefully neutral, but his hand adjusted his watch twice in quick succession. Stress.

Hale hummed under his breath as he set down his medical bag. The melody was classical, precise. The same four bars from her nightmares. Amelia's pulse spiked so hard she felt it in her throat.

"Memory is a fragile thing," Hale said, steepling his fingers in that clinical way. His eyes held hers a moment too long, pale and assessing. "Sometimes the mind creates barriers for a reason."

The condescension landed like a pat on the head. Amelia's cheeks burned. She was twenty-eight years old, not some fragile patient to be managed between these two. Yet here she was, trapped in this apartment with its bay views that felt like painted scenery.

While Hale checked her vitals—blood pressure elevated, he noted with a knowing look—she studied them both. Dominic hovered close, positioning himself between her and the door out of habit. Protector or warden? The question looped endlessly now.

"Any other fragments?" Hale asked, peering at her over his glasses. His breath carried the faint trace of something medicinal.

She shook her head, lying without deciding to. The ease of it frightened her. Her stomach turned as she forced her face to stay blank. This wasn't her. Or was it?

Hale packed up his things after twenty minutes of careful questions that revealed nothing. At the door he paused, hand on Dominic's shoulder in a gesture too familiar for doctor and patient's fiancé.

"Keep things calm," he murmured. "The department appreciates your... discretion on this."

Department. Not hospital administration. Amelia filed that away in red ink mentally. The door closed behind him, leaving her alone with Dominic and the lingering scent of crushed lilies.

She waited until his footsteps moved toward the kitchen before retrieving her notebook. New entries flowed faster now. Hale—humming from nightmare. Precinct connection—fact or spin? The dates didn't line up cleanly no matter how she rearranged them.

The realization brought a wave of nausea. What if her past self hadn't been a victim at all? The thought made her small athletic frame curl inward on the office chair, black hair falling forward to hide her face.

Her phone buzzed on the desk. Unknown number again. She answered it quickly, keeping her voice to a whisper.

"Mija, it's me." Elena's words came rushed, laced with that vibrant urgency. "I can't talk long. That proof I mentioned—I'm sending it through a friend. But you need to get out of there. He's watching everything."

Amelia's grip tightened until her knuckles ached. "Elena, wait. The lilies—did I ever talk to you about—"

A crash sounded in the background of the call. Glass shattering. Elena's breath hitched sharply.

"Shit. Someone's here. Don't trust the—"

The line went dead.

Amelia stared at the phone, heart hammering so violently she could taste copper. She deleted the call log with numb fingers, then stopped. Her hand shook as she set the phone down. The woman who could lie this easily scared her more than Dominic did.

When she looked up, Dominic stood in the doorway. His expression wasn't tender this time. The calculation was bare, exhaustion mixing with something darker in the set of his jaw. In his hand he held the evidence bag—the one with her hair sealed inside. The label faced her like an accusation.

He rubbed his knuckles once, eyes tightening again with what looked like real pain before the mask slid back into place.

She pressed her palm harder against her chest, trying to steady the breath that wouldn't come. One final detail from the flashback crystallized: Daniel's last words before everything went red. Before the crack that might have been a gunshot or her own skull meeting the floor.

"Dominic was right about you."

The words echoed in her head as she met Dominic's eyes across the room. He didn't speak. Neither did she. But in that silence, Amelia realized she'd already begun lying to him without conscious decision. The performance had started, and she wasn't sure anymore which of them was the better actor.

The bag crinkled slightly in his grip. Rain began to patter against the windows again, sealing them in together. Whatever came next, she understood with sick certainty that one of them wouldn't survive the truth when it finally broke free.