Page 350 of Primal

This is ours.

I choke on a sob as the pressure crests. Higher. Tighter.

Amanda’s still spewing some filth about me.

“Look at me, Payton.” Blood drips down the knife, slicking my entrance. “They don’t get to break us. Never.”

My breath stutters. I fall—

Into it.

Into him.

My cry breaks loose between clenched teeth.

I come—hard, shameless, unapologetic.

This isn’t surrender.

This is our fucking win.

The knife clatters.

Kade pulls away. Rips the mask off and tosses it aside.

He doesn’t look at me. Not once.

But Amanda does. She crouches to eye level, the snout stopping inches from my face.

“Admit it,” she purrs, brushing the hair from my eyes. “That was the best fuck of your life, huh? Brett never even got close. Then again, he never had to bleed for it.”

My breath hitches. Brett.

Only two people here would know.

Kristy and—

No, it can’t be.

I watched Ghostface stab her again and again. She was bleeding. There was so much blood.

She died saving me.

I choke on nothing. On every fucking thing.

“Lana?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Skip it,” Kristy says, her foot jabbing my thigh. “Last thing you need is another ‘feminist’ horror movie where women suffer beautifully for two hours.”

I squint at my laptop. “But Midsommar is different and—”

“Flowers in her hair while she burns some dude alive? Please. If I want to watch a toxic relationship go up in flames, I’ll screen your text thread with Brett.”

She’s right. Two days of rereading the same three messages and calling it closure. God, since when did I get so pathetic?

“At least have the balls to say it to my face,” I mutter.