Page 227 of His To Erase
She steps in closer, just enough for me to smell the faint trace of something floral under gun oil. Jasmine and violence.
I lift my head, muscles twitching with resistance, but the serum’s already dragging me under. I can feel it. My thoughts fracture, and the only thing still sharp is her.
“Still hard to kill, I see.”
I stare at her, unmoving. I couldn’t respond if I wanted to. My body’s failing, but my mind’s screaming.
The last time I saw her, the world was burning—and she was at the center of it. There was blood all over her hands, and she was screaming.
My vision flickers.
The concrete bleeds into memory—blood pools in the cracks of the warehouse floor, bodies are slumped against rusted beams, the light flickers, and shadows crawl up the walls like they’ve never left.
“You should’ve stayed gone,” I rasp, trying not to pass out. Every word drags like sandpaper being torn from my throat.
A soft, low chuckle follows, laced with something dark. “You should’ve stayed dead.”
Then all I see is black.
I fightto lift my head, vision swimming. The light above swings, casting her face in flickering shadow—and still, there’s no mistaking her.
Time didn’t soften her, it carved her into something cold. The girl I bled for is gone. What’s standing in front of me now…isn’t flesh and memory. It’s a phantom draped in the face of the girl I should’ve saved.
“What did he promise you?” My tongue feels thick and dry. “Money? Power?”
“Closure,” she says softly. “Funny how we both came for the same thing.”
My gut twists.
“You were with him?”
“Still am.”
Her voice is too calm for a girl who once clung to me with blood on her hands and terror in her eyes. It doesn’t match the memory I’ve spent half a decade chasing. If she’s really standing here, alive and colder than I ever remember—then either she’s been broken into something I don’t recognize…or I’ve been chasing a ghost that never needed saving.
And fuck, I don’t know which is worse.
“You never understood, Steven. You thought you were the only one he broke. The only one who survived.”
She crouches, putting her face inches from mine, and it’s like staring down a barrel I used to trust.
“But I didn’t survive,” she murmurs. “I adapted.”
Her arms were in front of her, tied at the wrists, trembling so hard I thought they’d snap. He leaned into her, sayingsomething low against her ear—and even now, I can’t stop hearing the silence that followed.
I lunged—then the gun went off.
She screamed. I saw her fall. I watched the blood bloom beneath her body. I thought she was gone.
I buried that night in the deepest part of me and let it rot there. And then I burned everything in my path trying to make him pay for it. I mourned her like a fool, but she was never a victim.
“You killed that part of me,” she whispers, almost tender. Almost like she’s grieving it. “The night you ran.”
“I didn’t run.”
“You didn’t stay either.”
My jaw locks, the ropes biting deeper as I clench my fists. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
