Page 168 of Primal

No. Not doing that.

Stomach wounds don’t kill fast. They hollow you out, drop by drop.

Just like Kristy.

I wipe at my eyes. Blink hard.

The chapel looks smaller. Orange-gold windows and pale stone, the dark cross jutting skyward—a box of bloodstains and bad memories. Another building in the distance now.

We’ll be rid of it soon.

Rachel whimpers again, and my nerves jump.

“Almost there,” I say, more to Kade than her. “Look at me.”

Kade does. His pupils are too wide, lips tinged blue.

“M’good,” he slurs.

I turn—in time to see Rachel backpedaling from the security building.

“No. I’m not—I can’t.”

I open my mouth. To say what? Stay with us? It’s safer?

We stuck together in the chapel. Look how that turned out.

“Fuck this. I’ll see you at the gates.”

She’s gone before I can react.

The door to the security building thumps closed, sealing the storm outside. Everything inside looks the same. The control room’s freezing. The two bodies are still here—Nate and Justin.

I wipe my hands on my skirt.

Wesley stumbles in, dragging Kade. He sways but stays upright, one arm clamped around his middle like he’s holding his guts in.

I keep the gun out. No fucking way Derek ran off to hide in a bush.

Wesley stares at the walls. The lights. Anywhere but the screens.

The kill clips keep running.

Kade’s palm lands on my lower back—he’s here. With me. Even in this hell.

And that—that, of all things, nearly breaks me.

A sob claws out as I lower him into the chair—same one Kristy sat in hours ago. He’s still breathing … but for how long?

I drop the laptop on the desk. Flip it open with bloody fingers.

00:06:49.

Then it’s gone.

The timer, the feed, everything. Swallowed by lines of white text crawling over black, too fast to follow.

My pulse spikes.