Layla James wakes up in a foreign country with little to no memory of her life for the past 8 years, afraid and unsure of who to trust she heads to the one place she feels she might find answers without sounding alarms. New York City. What happens w...
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The light shining through the window was blinding as the sun rose over Hell's Kitchen New York.
Blinds, I have to get blinds. Layla thought as she rolled away from the window covering her eyes with her arm.
Everything was still so new, the last few months and even before that felt like a whirlwind nightmare, things moving so quickly they were hard for even her to keep up with.
Roughly six months ago she had woken up in a strange bed in a small home in a small village just outside of Munich Germany, with no memory of the last several years of her life, let alone the last week. The little old lady who had found her was the only person in the home, she had apparently been taking care of Layla for several days when she found her wandering through town one early morning exhausted and gravely injured. Her body was littered with injuries and bruises she had no explanation for or memory of.
Once well enough to travel, Layla thanked the elderly lady and worked to put as much distance between herself and that house as possible. She had no idea who she was running from, but a note in the pocket of the pants she arrived in told her enough. Written in her own handwriting was a small scrap of paper that said "Run. Trust no one. You know everything." She had no idea what the note meant seeing as most of her memories of the last few years were fuzzy at best, many of them seemingly plucked from her mind completely. Her head hurt constantly, which had become a part of her new normal, along with bouts of confusion and severe dizziness. It took over a month for her to work her way from Germany down to Italy, zig-zagging across countries as she went, then over to London, a city she didn't really want to leave but had to. London brought on the worst of the headaches and other symptoms she had experienced, even bringing about a scary nosebleed she feared wouldn't stop at one point, and nearly causing her to pass out more than once.
Once in the states, she made her way to Iowa, a place she called home once upon a time, before joining the military and all the complicated things that brought with it. She hadn't physically visited the bank there in ages but had set up an automatic deposit when she enlisted hoping to save enough for a future she always dreamed of, looking at the statement though she was so confused as to why her balance was so high. There were several deposits made within the last few months all with the initials F.D.C as the only description, there was no one else on the account not even her brother who had also used the bank at one point.
Draining the account it took a few more weeks to safely make her way around North America in an attempt to shake anyone who may have tracked her home, gaining a new identity and papers in the process, before she found herself in the only other city she felt at peace in, New York. She couldn't actually remember ever visiting the city but felt drawn there non the less. Layla James' story may have ended in that run down house in Germany, but Mia Castiglione's was just beginning, in a small apartment on the edge of Hell's Kitchen New York.
