Page 180 of Primal

I tug on a thin white T-shirt. Stretched out. Probably hospital-issued.

The sweats hang low on my hips—gray, worn, stiff at the knees. I’ve slept in them, bled in them, wiped my hands on them after digging through broken glass.

I shuffle to the door. The gut wound healed fast. It was the shoulder surgery that wrecked me—splinted and stitched.

I didn’t want it. Told them to close the knife hole and move on.

The surgeon insisted. Sadist. Didn’t even have decent painkillers.

I unlock the door. Crack it open.

Max squints past me into the basement. Wrinkles his nose.

“You look like a cave troll.”

I take the envelope and start to shut the door.

“I’m going over to Payton’s later,” he adds. “She asked if I could help with some boxes. You wanna come?”

“No.”

“You know she’s moving, right?”

Of course I knew.

She went to Kristy’s funeral but skipped Lana’s. Gave a statement to the police three separate times—once with a lawyer, once without, once to ‘clear something up.’ Turned down the press. Didn’t want to be some survivor mascot.

She canceled her trash pickup last week. The plants she watered every Sunday? Gone from the porch.

And I know I turned off the cameras since the For Rent sign went up. Two days ago.

Because watching her pack is worse than not seeing her at all.

Five weeks is long enough to heal.

Long enough to know when you’ve lost.

“Kade?”

“Yeah. Enjoy your Oreos, buddy.”

The door clicks shut before he can run his mouth again.

The letter’s bureaucratic bullshit—official notice I’m not a suspect.

Payton’s off the hook too. That’s all that matters.

The Verge’s been shut down. Assets frozen. Records seized. Everyone who worked there is either missing, lawyered up, or under investigation.

Eight out of fifteen hunters dead.

Wesley’s one of them. Because he gave a damn.

Somehow, all the Ghostfaces survived, including Trevor Meeks. The guy I patched up with a blindfold and a gas station Fireball shot. I thought he was toast. Turns out the other two Ghostfaces—Lucas Pryce and Ryan Voight—dragged Trevor out before Derek sealed the gates.

But those bastards didn’t call for help. They simply dumped Trevor outside Silverton’s ER, barely breathing, still in costume. No names, no details.

Twenty staples and a news interview where he called me ‘the rogue Ghostface.’