Page 266 of Primal

His knife plunges into her.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Ghostface wrenches free and spins toward me.

Lana’s hand twitches, fingers scraping through leaves. A final grab at his ankle.

His boot smashes into her ribs.

She rolls onto her side. Motionless.

NononoNO—

I turn and run.

Chapter Thirteen

12:02 am. Still no signal.

The Verge’s control room sits at the heart of a low-slung security building—flickering monitors, stale coffee stink, and two staffers bored out of their skulls. One’s got a peeling neck tattoo that says ‘No Regerts.’ The other drums his fingers beside a sandwich fossilizing into sediment.

Neck Tat taps his headset mic. “Status check. Anyone playing possum out there, give us a moan.”

He sighs, slouching back. “Man. This year’s hunt is drier than my girlfriend’s texts.”

Sandwich Guy snorts. “At least last year we had that chick who stripped naked and tried to ‘negotiate’ with Leatherface.”

“Fuck, I forgot about that.” Neck Tat grins. “Dude looked so uncomfortable. Just standing there holding his chainsaw when he should’ve been sucking on those sweet-looking tits.”

I scan the monitors while they bitch—sixteen screens showing different angles of the same dead forest. Camera 7: a branch sways left. Camera 12: the same branch sways left. Same timing. Same fucking leaves.

Looping.

They’re watching reruns.

Sandwich Guy takes a bite of his petrified sandwich. “Remember the girl who pissed herself in the corn maze? Classic.”

“Or that bachelor party who brought their own gimp masks?” Neck Tat shakes his head. “Wildest part? None of ’em were even the prey.”

The infrared bloom should’ve lit Jessica Langley’s corpse up like a bonfire near Sector 4’s tree line. But there’s nothing. Just empty woods.

The speakers crackle—a wet pop of static. For half a second, Camera 9 flickers to reality: a flash of pale limbs, dark pooling liquid—

Then back to ‘normal.’

Neck Tat frowns. “The hell was that?”

Sandwich Guy shrugs. “Probably a squirrel chewing the cables again.”

Neck Tat kicks his feet up. “Hey, did Group 4’s Ghostface ever check in? Dude’s been MIA.”

“You mean #13? Nah, no sign of him.”

I could knock them out. A chokehold for Neck Tat, a keyboard to the temple for Sandwich Guy. Right now, their shitty security feeds are the only thing standing between me and Payton’s pulse slowing to a flatline.