Page 274 of Primal

The sound’s coming from inside her.

“Wanna say hi for the fans, Ghost Daddy?”

I grit my teeth. Here goes nothing.

The oak’s trunk is gnarled, easy footholds. I haul myself up.

Level with her now.

Her mouth’s carved into a leer, cheeks pulled taut.

The phone’s buried in the slick nest of her guts.

Fuck.

I reach out with one hand. The smell—copper and her perfume—hits like a sucker punch even through my mask.

Warmth gushes over my wrist.

“You gonna stab me now or later? I like a little build-up, you know.”

“Shut. Up,” I grit out.

Her laughter gurgles from inside the meat. “Oh, that tickles.”

The screen’s glowing inside the ruin of her abdomen, wedged between ribs. The more I dig, the more her insides slither out.

My fingers close around the goddamn phone. I yank it free.

The mess clings to me. I wipe it on the girl’s thigh. She’d appreciate the aesthetic.

I climb down fast, landing hard enough to rattle my teeth.

“Baby, I ain’t scared of no blade. You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want me to quit clownin’ on you from beyond.”

I swipe the screen. The video stops.

It’s a TikTok draft.

@VanessaGraves: POV: You’re getting murdered but your killer’s whack as hell.

#Ghostface #GhostDaddy #PrimalPlay #ScreamQueenSupreme

I replay it on mute, simply to see if she caught him on camera. Only a flash of his mask—Ghostface.

“How’s that for going viral?” I mutter, scrolling through her texts.

An unsent message—from him.

Congrats! You made it. Just in time.

Chapter Fifteen

The trees blur into a tunnel of shadows as I run. My lungs burn. My legs scream. But nothing— nothing—hurts like the images seared into my brain.

Ghostface slamming Lana against the tree.

Her fingers scrabbling at his ankle.