Page 267 of His To Erase
I know this place. I don’t know how, because I don’t remember being here. But something inside me lurches—like a string pulled tight. My throat closes and my palms go damp.
I’ve been here before.
Frank leans over, and he’s so close I can feel his breath on my skin. “You like it?” he asks. “It’s mine.”
He has to be wrong. Because even as he says it, the sunlight catches my eyes just right and something shifts. A flash of red. A dress. A woman’s laugh floating through the air, warm and sweet. The sharp curl of perfume. Someone calling my name—in Spanish.
There’s a hallway, covered in paintings. A man’s deep laugh echoing off the stone, and the sound of a cane striking the tile. My head snaps back and I flinch so hard the seatbelt digs into my ribs.
What the hell is happening?
The car slows, pulling to a stop. Frank gets out, slamming the door shut behind him, but I don’t move. I’m staring up at the house, and every inch of my body is screaming…I’ve been here.
One of the men opens my door and the heat hits me again. I don’t move fast enough. A second later, Frank’s back, yanking the door wider. He reaches in, grabbing me by the arm like I’m a ragdoll and not a whole, bruised, chronically sarcastic woman trying not to puke on the seats.
He doesn’t say anything, just pulls me out, causing me to stumble, but catch myself.
The driveway’s made of smooth stone, flanked by tropical flowers that look like they belong on a postcard and not in the nightmare version of House Hunters: Narco Edition.
The estate looms ahead—white, regal, and far too familiar. My feet already know the path and that scares the ever-loving shit out of me. Frank storms up the steps, talking to the guy who opened my door.
I mutter under my breath, “Careful. Wouldn’t want to chip your ego on the stone.”
He throws the front doors open with both hands and I cross the threshold behind him, and the air changes.
Literally.
There’s a shift in pressure, a weight in the room that slams straight into my lungs.
The smell hits me next. It smells like cedar, citrus, and polished wood.
I stop just inside the doorway. Frozen. I am now one hundred percent sure I’ve been here before. Somewhere beneath the bruises and fear—my body remembers.
I’ve seen these walls before. The high ceilings. The sweeping staircase. The painting above the entry table—storm clouds over the ocean, with a ship caught mid-surge, bracing for impact.
I know that painting. My grandfather loved storms. He used to say they reminded him that the world could still surprise him. That not everything bows to power.
The second the memory surfaces, something cracks. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped breathing until my chest aches. It’s stupid, but it hits like a punch to the face. He used to say it with this crooked half-smile, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.
Frank steps in front of me and turns, arms outstretched. He looks like a fucking game show host at the gates of hell.
“Welcome home,” he says, smiling like this is some kind of grand reveal and I’ve just won a trip to my own personal nightmare.
I blink. Hard.
“No,” I whisper, mostly to myself, because saying it out loud feels like I might be able to undo the entire moment. “This isn’t your home.”
He tilts his head, a smile sharpening into that slow, precise,I could break you without raising my voicelook he does so well.
“It is now.”
But I’m not listening anymore. Behind him—down that hallway—I see something that shouldn’t be there.
I see me. Tiny, barefoot, and darting around the corner in a red dress. Laughing. A deep voice calls after me in Spanish—“Anianne, espera, mi amor… cuidado con la escalera…”
And just like that, my knees almost give out.
It hits so fast I don’t have time to brace. One second I’m upright, and the next—I’m swaying, body buckling under the weight of something I don’t even understand yet.
