Page 186 of His To Erase

I glance over—and freeze.

There’s something in his face. Just a flicker of rage in his eyes. He schools it fast, but I saw it.

“What?” I ask, voice sharper than I mean it to be.

His expression smooths out completely. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” I snap, sitting up straighter, yanking the blanket higher even though he’s already touched every inch of me. “You just looked at me like—I don’t know.”

Steven leans back against the couch, elbow hooked over the backrest. Completely still.Retreat mode activated.

“You ever think maybe you don’t want to know?” he says quietly.

My chest pulls tight, and by the look on his face, I’m not sure we’re talking about me anymore. “What the hell does that mean?”

His eyes flicks to Harry and Dumbledore standing on the rocks beneath that spinning cave of cursed water. His jaw ticks again, but he still says nothing. I hate the silence. I also happen to hate the way he can read me like a book but locks his own pages shut.

“Jesus, why do I even talk to you,” I mutter, standing up. “Every time I give you something real, you pull back like I’m the problem.”

He stands too. “Because youarereal.That’sthe problem.”

I blink. For a second, I think I misheard him. “What the fuck does that mean?”

He closes the space between us in two steps—towering over me, still shirtless and completely unreadable. His eyes are locked onto mine like they’re trying to bore straight through. But this time, when he touches me, it’s different. He puts a hand on my jaw, fingers curled beneath my chin as he tilts my head up.

“You remember more than you think,” he says in a whisper. “And someone out there is counting on that.”

My stomach drops. A chill ghosts across my skin. “Steven?—”

“Go to bed,” he murmurs.

That’s it. He turns, disappearing down the hall, leaving me standing there, heat still trapped in my chest and silence thickaround me. A sound makes me jump—a single ping from my phone, that’s in the other room.

I almost don’t move, deciding to let it rot there. Whatever it is, whoever it is, I don’t need it.

But my feet move anyway.

UNKNOWN: Funny thing about ghosts. You can run from them, bury them, burn the evidence... But they always crawl back up when it’s quiet. You know who you really belong to.

I stare at it. My blood is pounding, and my fingers refuse to move. It’s vague, but not vague enough.

Are they at my apartment? Are they outside in the trees right now—watching?

My skin prickles as every instinct screams to move, to run and hide. I refuse to give them that.

I type a reply with fingers that feel like stone.

ME: You don’t scare me.

I move toward the hallway with my jaw locked and rage simmering beneath my ribs like a fuse.

If Steven wants to play cryptic, fine. But he doesn’t get to shut down and leave me dangling.

Not after everything.

The door to his office is half-closed, but I push it open without knocking. He’s sitting at his desk like he never left with that same controlled fury carved into the set of his shoulders, his fingers beneath his chin. His eyes look up the second I step inside and narrow.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”