Page 7 of Primal

And the pièce de résistance?

A deepfake of Brett’s smirking face pasted onto footage from a Berlin fetish club (sourced from a forum even I don’t like to browse). HR won’t question it. They’ll just see what they want to see.

I tweak the metadata on every planted file—just enough to sting, not enough to trace. First, reduce Brett Tanner to a cautionary LinkedIn post. Second, make sure Payton never connects the dots back to me.

Revenge should be invisible.

Like a predator who knows your secrets, the sounds you make when you beg.

The mask waits in its case. Custom-fit. Modified sightlines. Beside it, The Verge’s login screen pulses:

HUNTER #13—Mercer, K.B.

PREMIUM STATUS ACTIVE.

The Verge’s paperwork is bulletproof. Cops get ‘donations.’ Lawyers get perks. And the hunters? They get whatever they want.

Took me three weeks to crack their system. Another two to ensure I’d be assigned to Payton’s group. Her signed waiver flickers behind my eyelids—that looping signature, the way she’d laughed when they warned her about ‘controlled danger.’

The mask seals against my face, and the world narrows to three truths through its slitted eyes:

Payton’s phone glows beside the tub. Her laptop’s on the bed. Another all-nighter. On-screen: some bank’s ‘edgy rebrand.’ Corporate logo. Half her tabs are stock vectors. The rest? Etsy orders for her latest sticker: a severed finger flipping the bird. Classic Reed.

The unopened knife packaging ($29.99 Halloween Special).

Max’s laughter trickles down from the garage. He’s rewiring the strobe lights, blissfully unaware that his big brother’s studying blade angles on YouTube. The tutorial plays muted, the subtitle scrolling, “Remember, folks, always cut away from—”

I snap it shut.

Why bother? Predators don’t wear warning labels. We come gift-wrapped in dimples and ‘Who, me?’ smiles, with hands that know how to pray—but oh, how they prefer to prey.

Let her think I’m just another masked stranger. Let her scream. No one else’s coming for her.

Pin her against a tree. Gloves up her thighs.

She’ll say please.

And I’ll be there.

Chapter Three

The Verge’s parking lot greets me with a plywood sign hammered into the dirt: ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE in dripping red paint. Someone got paid minimum wage to edge that font.

“We added a new fog machine this year!” Mom shouts through the speaker phone. “Your father may or may not have set the neighbor’s hedges on fire.”

I snort. “Accidentally or artistically?”

“Jury’s still out,” Dad yells. “But apparently, if we take down the flaming pentagram, they’ll call it even.”

I pop the car door open, swing my legs out, phone tucked between shoulder and cheek. The night air rolls over me. Woodsmoke. Wet leaves. And that weird sweet decay from the pumpkin patch at the entrance.

Time to live a little.

Mom’s still rambling about fog machines and corn maze logistics when I slam the door shut with my hip.

“Please tell me you at least took down the Children of the Corn tribute from the mailbox,” I cut in, hiking my backpack higher on my shoulder.

My survival kit is basically the contents of a woman who either expects to get laid, lost, or possessed. One water bottle. Extra underwear—just in case. Lube, because some decisions are smoother than others. A protein bar I’ll probably forget about. Condoms. Flashlight. Wet wipes. Fireball in a flask labeled Holy Water. A pocket knife I don’t even know how to open. And a blindfold.