Page 320 of Primal

“I’ll take hers too,” he tells Pigface.

The thing tilts its head—at me, at Kristy. Nudges the tray closer.

Kade grabs my hand. “You don’t know what’s in it.”

“I know what happens if I don’t.”

He holds my stare. Begging me not to.

As if I had any choice.

Kristy grabs hers. Downs it. Slams the empty cup back on the tray.

Fuck it. I grab mine.

Kade glares. A breath through his teeth.

Too fucking bad. If he and Kristy go down, I’m not walking out clean either.

The drink tastes exactly like the punch from earlier. Sugar and food dye and Derek’s sick sense of humor.

Pigface lingers a beat longer, snout tilted—judging the performance, maybe savoring it, whatever a swine-faced sadist does when it’s not tasing people.

Then it pivots toward the altar without a sound.

Save for the low hum of electronics, none of us so much as breathes. Waiting for the other shoe to drop—counting seconds until someone froths or twitches on the floor.

Kristy nudges me.

I turn my head slightly, half-expecting to find her clutching her stomach or going pale.

Nothing. All limbs accounted for.

I raise an eyebrow.

Her gaze flicks down. Toward her zip-tied wrists. Her face all sly but wary. Like earlier, when she showed off her smuggled phone.

Something’s in her hand. The broken antler.

Of course she’d arm herself mid-massacre. Girl could probably smuggle a grenade in her G-string.

The tray clatters. Too close.

Kristy nudges me again, harder this time.

I glance down—just as she slips the antler tine into the pocket of her shorts.

Pigface prowls toward us, a real-life version of the slasher you spot too late at the edge of your vision.

Kristy’s already sitting perfectly still, hands folded. The only evidence is a tiny smear of blood on her thigh where the edge nicked her.

Except now the antler’s jutting from her pocket.

Fuck.

Pigface’s boots scrape closer.

I lean into Kristy like I’m slumping from exhaustion—let my bound hands ‘accidentally’ brush her thigh. My fingers hook the fabric of her neon shorts—tug just enough to cover the point.