Page 290 of Primal

My stomach plunges.

“Fuck it.” Kristy stuffs her phone in her fanny pack. “We get out. Drive until we get signal. Call 911.”

Sounds like a plan. Good one.

Kristy hoists a leg up, fingers threading through the chain-link. Like that’s something she’s good at.

I give her a boost—and slip, nearly taking us both down.

A few more attempts.

“It’s climbable,” she pants. “Just don’t look down. And if there’s barbed wire? Aim for the gaps.”

One little slip and my knee smashes into the links.

“What gaps?” I wheeze, hovering below Kristy, blinking against the pain.

No answer. She’s now halfway up, feet skidding and hands fumbling over the metal that’s slick with dew—or blood or fear, who knows anymore.

She reaches the top.

And freezes.

“Shit,” she breathes. “It’s got coils.”

“Barbed?”

“Razor. I can’t—there’s no …” She shifts left. Right.

Oh, shit. Oh, no. She’s going to fall. On me.

Her shoulder hits the fence.

I catch her—sort of.

We slam down. Tangled. Neither of us moves. Don’t know if I can’t or too scared to look.

Then Kristy groans. Cradles her arm. There’s blood darkening her crop top, blooming from a gash just beneath the shoulder seam.

“Okay,” she gasps. “Not climbable.”

No shit. Pain in my side where I landed. Elbow throbs. Skin’s raw.

I push up, hands shaking. “You okay?”

Kristy spits hair out of her mouth. “Yeah. Let’s go find a key. Or a phone that works. Or a fucking chainsaw. I’m not picky.”

Thanks to the floodlights, the security building’s like a theater. Blinding on one side. Black on the other.

The door creaks open. We edge in. Shoulder to shoulder.

The smell hits like a bad hangover. Mildew in the drywall.

The hallway splits two ways.

Kristy nudges me. “Got to find those cameras.”

I nod.