The rain in Silvercity didn't pour. It wept. A cold, grey drizzle that slicked the neon-lit streets and made everything smell of wet concrete and distant exhaust fumes.
Elara Vance stepped out of her black sedan, the umbrella held for her by her driver doing little to stop the mist from clinging to the edges of her tailored ivory coat. She was a silhouette of sharp edges and calculated poise in the soft gloom of the parking garage. CEO of Vance Horizon at twenty-eight. A queen in a castle of glass and steel. She was thinking about quarterly reports, about a hostile board member, about the silence that waited for her in her penthouse.
She was not thinking about the man slumped against the damp wall next to the service elevator.
Her heels clicked a steady, impatient rhythm on the concrete. She passed him. Three steps. Then she stopped.
It wasn't a sound that made her pause. It was the absence of one. He wasn't shivering. He wasn't begging. He was just sitting there, soaked through with the garage's drip and drizzle, wearing clothes that were clean but simple—a grey sweater, dark trousers—and looking at the puddle forming near his worn shoes with the profound, empty focus of a scholar studying the universe.
"This is private property," Elara said, her voice the temperature of the rain.
The man looked up.
Elara Vance, who had stared down seasoned investors and ruthless competitors, felt a bizarre, fleeting jolt. His eyes. They were the color of a calm sky. But they were… blank. Not empty in a stupid way. Empty in a clean way. Like a new whiteboard. There was no fear of her, no recognition of her expensive clothes, no calculation. Just a mild, polite curiosity, as if she were a mildly interesting tree.
"I am sorry," he said. His voice was quiet, calm, utterly devoid of panic or guile. "I do not know where this is."
"It's the Avalon Tower parking garage, Level B2," she stated, her business logic taking over. "Are you lost? Do you need me to call someone?"
He thought about this. The process was visible on his face—a slow, careful consideration. "I do not know," he answered truthfully. "I do not know who to call. I do not know where I should be."
A homeless person. A mental case. A problem. Her schedule screamed at her to walk away. To let security handle it. But something about that absolute, placid blankness held her. It was so… uncomplicated. In her world of layered agendas and hidden motives, it was almost shocking.
"What is your name?" she asked, against her own better judgment.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. A faint ripple of something that wasn't distress, but pure cognitive effort, passed over his features. "I… do not remember."
Amnesia. Great.
Her driver, Carl, shifted uneasily by the car. "Ms. Vance, security is on the way. We should go."
Elara looked at the man in the rain. He looked back. He didn't plead. He just waited, as if her decision was as natural and inevitable as the next drop of water falling from the ceiling.
A bizarre thought struck her. He was like a lost, wet piece of art. Completely out of place. Potentially worthless. Potentially priceless. And currently, a problem on her property.
"Get up," she heard herself say.
He did. He unfolded himself with a natural, unthinking grace that was at odds with his situation. He was tall, lean.
"Come with me."
"Where?" he asked.
"Somewhere dry. To figure out what to do with you."
He nodded, as if this made perfect sense. "Thank you."
He fell into step beside her, not too close, not too far. He didn't ask where they were going. He just walked, his empty eyes taking in the fluorescent lights, the lines on the floor, the sleek elevator doors, with the same detached wonder.
In the private elevator to the penthouse, surrounded by reflective brass and soft music, Elara finally asked the other burning question. "If you don't know your name, what should I call you?"
He watched the floor numbers ascend. "A name is a sound that points to a person," he said slowly, as if recalling a fact from a distant dream. "You may use any sound you like."
Elara Vance, master of multi-billion-dollar mergers, was stumped by a nameless man with amnesia. A flicker of irritation sparked. This was ridiculous.
"Leo," she said abruptly. It was the first name that came to mind. The lion on the Vance family crest. A name of strength. It felt like a cruel joke to give it to this empty slate.
"Leo," he repeated. He tasted the word. A small, utterly genuine smile touched his lips. It was like the sun breaking through the Silvercity gloom for a single second. "It is a good sound. Thank you."
The elevator doors opened to her penthouse—a vast, minimalist space of floor-to-ceiling windows, cool tones, and expensive art. It was a showroom. A beautiful, cold cage.
Leo stepped in. He didn't gawk at the view of the city skyline. He walked to the large, spotless white sofa and stared at it. Then he looked at his wet clothes, and carefully, precisely, sat on the very edge, on the floor, leaning his back against the sofa frame, to avoid getting it wet.
The action was so instinctively, absurdly considerate that Elara's breath caught in her throat.
Who was this man?
"Wait here," she commanded, her CEO mask slamming back down. She went to her bedroom, changed out of her damp coat, and called the only person she half-trusted with bizarre situations.
Her brother, Liam, answered on the second ring. "Lara? What's up? Board giving you hell?"
"There's a man in my living room."
A pause. "Okay. Hot date? Didn't peg you for the 'bring them home' type."
"Shut up, Liam. He has amnesia. He was in my garage. He doesn't know who he is. He's… clean. And empty."
Another, longer pause. "You brought a random amnesiac into your penthouse? Elara, have you lost your corporate-mind? He could be a serial killer!"
"He sat on the floor to avoid wetting the sofa."
"...What?"
"He's not a killer. He's… I don't know what he is. But I need you to come over. And bring some of your old clothes. He's about your size."
Liam sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a little brother. "You're insane. I'm bringing pepper spray. And a psychiatrist. Be there in twenty."
Elara ended the call. She stood for a moment, listening to the silence of her penthouse. Then, she heard a soft, rhythmic tap.
She walked back to the living room.
Leo was still sitting on the floor. He had found a small potted orchid on a side table. He was tapping his fingertip gently, ever so gently, against one closed bud. His expression was one of deep, quiet fascination. As she watched, the tight green bud, under the minimal, impossible rhythm of his tap, quivered. And then, in the space of a breath, it unfurled. A perfect, white orchid bloomed, right there, in the sterile air of her apartment.
Leo blinked at it. He looked at his finger. Then he looked up and saw Elara staring.
He offered her that small, sun-bright smile again, gesturing to the flower. "It was ready," he said, as if explaining a simple fact of the universe.
Outside, the rain of Silvercity continued to weep. But in Elara Vance's cold, perfect penthouse, a flower that should not have bloomed for weeks was now open. And a man with no past, named Leo, sat smiling on her floor.