Page 380 of Primal

He grins wider. “Go on. Make it count.”

Payton steps toward him. Measured. Controlled. Like prey pretending not to be prey.

Derek sees it too, his smile curdling.

He lunges. Fast—too fast for someone with one foot already in hell.

Payton stumbles. They crash hard to the ground.

All I can do is stagger forward.

Derek straddles her. “You’re not my Lana. You’re nothing.”

Payton thrashes.

He wrenches the knife free, slams it into the dirt beside her head.

Not killing her.

Not yet.

He wants to hurt her first.

“You know what your problem is?” he spits. “You hesitate.”

My vision swims. I push harder. Close enough to see her fingers raking his arms.

She goes still. Not limp—coiled. Her free hand darts into Kristy’s fanny pack.

She rams something into his neck.

Derek howls. Reels back. His spine hits the gates, one hand clawing at the jagged tine jutting from his throat—

Payton scrambles up, snatches the knife from the ground.

He lunges again—swinging left to right. Right to left.

I close my hand over hers. Drive the fucking blade—my cheap-ass, blood-slick Halloween prop—straight into his chest.

And twist.

“There,” I breathe. “Feel that give? That’s how you know you got it right.”

Payton’s eyes meet mine. Wild. Wide. Alive.

She remembers.

We wrench the knife free. I keep hold of it.

Derek’s head thumps against the iron gates. One last defiant chuckle. He collapses, face-first.

Payton drops beside him, hands moving fast.

Care to fetch it, little fox?

The memory scorches through me like acid.

“Right pocket,” I rasp.