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Chapter 40 — The Map

Author: Brandi Rae
last update publish date: 2026-06-05 03:20:19

The day after Eli's burial felt strangely quiet. Not peaceful. Just quieter. The kind of quiet that settled over a place after something important had been taken from it.

The compound moved slower than usual. Repairs still needed to be done, meals still needed to be cooked, and fences still needed to be reinforced. Nobody shared the same urgency as before the attack.

Exhaustion had finally caught up with them. Even the weather seemed tired.

Gray clouds drifted over the ridge while patches of fo
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  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 96 — Inside Frostfang

    It was not a refuge.It was a fortress bleeding from within.Orra’s hand twisted in the back of Evelyn’s jacket and hauled her clear of the postern just as another burst of gunfire cracked through the southern service corridor. Evelyn stumbled, boots skidding across wet stone, and caught herself against a wall slick with rainwater, smoke, and something darker. The air inside Frostfang hit her like a second impact. It was hotter than outside, thick with burned oil, gunpowder, old stone dust, blood, and the packed human smell of too many terrified people trapped behind walls that had stopped feeling safe.Behind her, the postern groaned.Rowan was still outside.Gabriel was still outside.The thought drove through Evelyn so sharply she turned back before she fully had her balance. Orra shoved past her, pistol raised toward the half-open door while two Frostfang soldiers braced iron bars against the warped mechanism. The postern had jammed wider now, but not enough. The opening shuddered

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 95 — The South Postern

    The postern stopped halfway open.And from the darkness beyond, the sound of gunfire came.Evelyn dropped instinctively toward the slick stone shelf as the first shots cracked from inside Frostfang’s southern wall. The sound ricocheted through the drainage ravine, hard and close, turning the rain itself into something that seemed to flinch. Tessa hit the ground beside the rusted marker, one hand still clenched around the south-wall token at her throat. Rowan moved in front of Evelyn so fast his shoulder nearly struck her cheek, rifle raised toward the half-open postern. Gabriel came down behind her, broad body angled to shield both her and Tessa from the exposed drop.The hidden door at the base of the wall had opened only wide enough to show darkness, the lower edge of a stone corridor, and a harsh flicker of muzzle flash inside.Someone screamed again.This time the sound broke into a curse halfway through, rough and furious and very much alive.“Hold the bloody line!”Tessa’s head

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 94 — The Western Drainage Shelf

    “Move,” Evelyn said.And the convoy pushed forward together.The first infected came through the brush with its jaw hanging crooked and rainwater slicking its gray skin. It stumbled into the trail as if the slope had thrown it there, arms lifting toward the mass of warm bodies packed between the firs. Rowan met it before it found balance. His knife flashed once, low and efficient, and the infected dropped sideways into the mud without a full sound leaving its throat.Another lurched behind it.Gabriel stepped past Evelyn and drove the blunt end of his axe into its knee hard enough to fold the leg backward. The infected hit the ground face-first. Before it could claw itself upright, Gabriel brought the axe down again. Not dramatic. Not wasteful. One hard strike, then he was moving, already looking for the next one.The convoy did not scatter. That was the part Evelyn held onto. People flinched, yes. Someone choked on a cry. Henry cursed from his sling while Mrs. Carter told him to stop

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 93 — Don’t Answer the Dead

    Behind her, Milo’s stolen voice whispered Tessa’s name one last time from the trees. This time, no one answered. The convoy kept moving.That was the victory, small and ugly as it was. Not a gunshot. Not a body dropped. Not a monster driven back into the dark. Just boots lifting from mud and setting down again, one after another, while grief called from the trees in a dead boy’s voice and no one gave it what it wanted.Tessa walked near Evelyn now instead of ahead of her.The girl had not asked to move back. She had not admitted she needed anyone close. She simply stayed within reach, jaw locked so tight the muscles in her face trembled. Evelyn let her have the dignity of pretending it was tactical. Rowan walked on Evelyn’s other side, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers whenever the trail narrowed, while Gabriel moved a few paces behind with the stretcher team, helping carry Rusk through the worst parts of the mud.The deer trail seemed to resent being used by humans. Roots h

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 92 — The Runner’s Marker

    “Milo.”Tessa whispered the name as if saying it any louder would make the body more real.Rain slid through the birch branches overhead and gathered along the yellow cloth tied around the dead runner’s wrist. He could not have been much older than sixteen. Maybe seventeen if hunger had carved away the softness that still should have belonged to his face. Wet leaves clung to his jacket. Mud darkened one side of his cheek. His throat had been opened with a clean, deliberate cut, and the ground beside him held three long marks filling slowly with rainwater.No one moved for several seconds. The convoy stretched behind them along the deer trail, compressed into uneasy silence beneath the trees. People craned their necks to see without stepping out of formation. Nora pulled Lily closer. Clara covered Owen’s eyes, but Owen pushed her hand down, pale and rigid and old enough now that no one could fully protect him from what the world had become.Tessa tried to step forward again. Gabriel bl

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 91 — The Deer Trail

    Then Tessa Orra turned into the trees, and the convoy followed her toward the wall.The deer trail began where the maintenance track seemed to end, hidden beneath a curtain of wet fir branches and a slope of moss-covered stone. Tessa slipped through first, small and sure-footed despite the mud sucking at her boots. She did not look back to see if they followed. She moved with the hard confidence of someone who had learned that hesitation could be louder than footsteps.Evelyn followed close behind with Rowan at her left shoulder and Gabriel a few steps to the right, both men scanning different pieces of the same danger. Rowan watched the ground, the broken ferns, the mud pressed thin beneath passing weight. Gabriel watched the spaces between the trees, the dark gaps where something tall and pale could stand still long enough to become part of the forest.Behind them, the convoy compressed into a long, careful line.No radios. No engines. No careless voices. Only boots in mud, cloth br

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 6 — The Man at the Gas Station

    The rain followed Evelyn out of the warehouse—cold, heavy, relentless.By the time she loaded the last of the supplies into her trunk, water had soaked through the shoulders of her jacket and numbed her fingers. Around her, people moved faster through the parking lot now, carts rattling wildly acro

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 5 — Cold Storage

    By the time Evelyn left the second store, rain hammered hard enough against the windshield to blur the city into streaks of red brake-lights and gray concrete.Traffic crawled northbound. Too many people were suddenly deciding they needed bottled water and batteries at the same time.Instinct. Eve

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   Chapter 4 — You’re Overreacting

    By noon, Evelyn had spent nearly four thousand dollars.And it still didn’t feel like enough.People still laughed in the parking lot while buying Halloween decorations beneath emergency alerts, completely unaware the world was already starting to crack beneath them.The shelves inside the grocery

  • MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE   CSapter 3 — LUS

    Chapter 3 — LUSThe blue text hovered in the air. Impossible. Evelyn stared at it while her pulse slammed violently against her ribs.SURVIVAL PROTOCOL DETECTED.COMPATIBLE HOST CONFIRMED.INITIALIZING LOGISTIC UTILIZATION SYSTEM…The letters glowed faintly against the bathroom mirror before dissolv

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