Page 123 of Primal

Derek drags a finger down her spine. “Good girl.”

I grind my teeth.

Back. The. Fuck. Off.

His palm slides between her shoulder blades. He twists her hair around his fingers and yanks—not a sound from her. Not a flinch.

And I know it kills him.

Derek pulls something from behind the pulpit and tosses it at me.

The cheap vinyl cracks as my fist closes around it. A Ghostface mask.

Fuck this. Fuck him.

“Let’s give the girl what she came for.” Derek’s voice drips through his mask. “Her favorite monster.”

“No.”

Amanda steps in, taser humming. “Put. It. On.”

I open my hand. Let it fall.

The taser kisses my ribs, but I grit past it. Not enough to drop me. Just enough to remind me I’m not calling the shots. Not yet.

“Kade.”

Payton.

“It’s okay.”

No, it’s fucking not. She wants me to wear it. Wants something else to take my place.

She steps off the altar, bends to retrieve it, grace even now. Then she closes in and lifts it toward me.

“It’s okay,” she repeats. Softer now. Almost a whisper. “I know it’s you.”

I can’t find my voice.

Not while her fingers brush mine. Not with her scent drifting through the stink.

Payton. Alive. Right in front of me.

I want this moment, whatever the cost.

If I close my eyes, even for a second, and picture a future beyond this sick chapel, she could slip away again.

And for once, I don’t want to break time. I want to fucking freeze it.

She’s offering me an exit. A way to become whatever she needs—whatever this moment demands.

I bow my neck—so she can set it on my head herself.

She lets out a shuddery breath. Her fingertips smooth under the edge, bump over my cheekbone, beneath my jaw.

In the one heartbeat before she slips the mask on, Payton Reed presses a kiss to my lips.

I should’ve said yes to that horror marathon. Should’ve been the one in her stories. Her late nights. Her skin. Should’ve been the one who filled her laughter. Her silence. Every fucking breath she wasted on some prick who never saw her.