Page 384 of Primal

I look at Kade one more time. The monitors beep. The IV drips. His chest rises—barely.

I kiss his hand before leaving.

The waiting room is colder now. Amanda’s gone—probably getting grilled by a cop or hiding in a bathroom stall.

I drag myself to the nearest chair and sit. Just for a second.

“Hi, Payton?” Her voice is gentle, but there’s a cop’s edge beneath it. Badge, notepad, no smile. “I’m Detective Marquez. Just need a few details for the initial report. We can go somewhere quieter if you’re up for it.”

I’ll have to tell them about the chapel. The altar. The blood in the baptismal.

About the girls in the woods. The guys who didn’t make it.

The man with the antler in his throat.

Finally, I nod.

She leads me down a hallway. We pass a row of darkened exam rooms until we reach one left half-open. No table or machines. Only a single chair beside a sink and a box of tissues.

“Take a seat.”

The vinyl sticks to my thighs, tacky with disinfectant.

Detective Marquez clicks her pen. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

The basement’s been good to me. Quiet. Dark. No mirrors.

Max calls it brooding. I call it not throwing a fist through drywall every time I blink and see her crying.

At first, he kept bugging me to fix him dinner. When that didn’t work, he started leaving meals at the door. Like I’m something he’s trying to tame.

Mom sticks to the living room. Vodka in her coffee mug. Leftover Snickers. TV loud enough to keep the ghosts at bay.

She hasn’t asked how I’m doing once. Probably just waiting for me to end up like her.

The knocks today are louder.

I ignore them.

“Yo. Letter for you.”

I don’t answer, but Max knows I’m up. Knows I’ll come to the door eventually.

“It’s got one of those seals on it. Says Official Police Business.”

That gets me moving. Mostly because I’m picturing Payton’s name on some coroner’s form—cause of death: stubbornness.

I tug on a thin white T-shirt. Stretched out. Probably hospital-issued.

The sweats hang low on my hips—gray, worn, stiff at the knees. I’ve slept in them, bled in them, wiped my hands on them after digging through broken glass.

I shuffle to the door. The gut wound healed fast. It was the shoulder surgery that wrecked me—splinted and stitched.

I didn’t want it. Told them to close the knife hole and move on.

The surgeon insisted. Sadist. Didn’t even have decent painkillers.