บททั้งหมดของ MY EX LEFT ME TO DIE, SO I BECAME QUEEN OF THE APOCALYPSE: บทที่ 61 - บทที่ 70

Ahead of them, beyond the trees, the road breathed with the sound of countless infected moving north.No one moved.For several seconds, the entire convoy seemed to hold itself in place by force of will alone. Engines sat silent. Doors remained half-open. People stared through windshields and over truck beds, caught between the instinct to ask questions and the deeper instinct not to make a sound.The forest carried noise strangely.At first, the movement ahead had been faint, something Evelyn might have mistaken for wind if she had wanted badly enough to lie to herself. But now that the engines were off, the sound gathered shape. Feet dragging through dead leaves. Bodies pressing through brush. Low, wet exhales. The occasional rasp of something too damaged to breathe cleanly but still moving because the infection had stripped mercy from the body and left motion behind.Rowan stood beside her near the old mile marker, his rifle held low but ready.Warren turned toward the convoy and l

The shape stood between the trees behind the convoy as if the forest had grown a spine and decided to look back at them.For one suspended moment, no one spoke.Evelyn heard the faint ticking of the cooling engines. The soft creak of branches overhead. Someone’s breath was catching inside one of the trucks. The distant migration still moving ahead, a wet, dragging whisper beyond the bend in the main road.But behind them, the Watcher made no sound.It stood half in shadow, half in the pale spill of morning light, too far away for the smaller details of its face to be clear and too close for anyone to pretend Lily had imagined it. Long arms. Long legs. A lean, almost human frame stretched into something that made every instinct in Evelyn’s body reject the comparison.Not a monster from old stories.Not a corpse animated by infection.Something worse, because it looked like the world had considered humanity, taken notes, and begun revising the design.Mark whispered, “That is not a pers

The side road had not been empty after all.Evelyn stood beside Caleb at the bend, staring at the thin gray thread of smoke rising beyond the trees. It curled upward in a steady line, too controlled to be accidental and too fresh to belong to a cold camp.Cook smoke.Someone was close enough to smell the fire if the wind shifted.Rowan moved ahead of her, rifle low. “Small fire.”Caleb squinted through the trees. “Hidden well.”“That worries me more.”“It should.” Caleb rubbed mud from his hands onto his pants and looked offended when it only made the problem worse. “Anyone who can hide a fire out here either knows what they’re doing or has survived long enough to become irritating.”Dean limped up behind them with one boot on and one sock wrapped in a plastic bag. “I vote for irritating. Competent people make me feel judged.”Mrs. Carter called from behind the truck, “You are judged constantly.”“See?” Dean said. “Hostile environment.”Warren approached with his rifle ready but point

The thought stayed with her as the camp beneath the bridge shifted from hidden shelter to hurried departure.Mrs. Carter took command of Henry with the ruthless confidence of a woman who considered death personally annoying. She had Gabriel hold the old man still while she cleaned and rewrapped the wound, then ordered Rowan to hold the lantern closer and stop “looming like a tragic pine tree.”Rowan adjusted the lantern.Gabriel looked briefly amused.Rowan did not.That, Evelyn thought, was probably the beginning of something.Not conflict exactly.Recognition.Men like Rowan and Gabriel did not need speeches to understand each other. They measured through movement. Through who stepped where. Who noticed what? Who flinched first? Who did not?Clara sat near the tarp opening while Nora helped secure her bandaged arm against her chest. Her face had more color now, though exhaustion still clung to her like a wet cloth. Owen remained close to Henry, pretending not to watch every hand tha

“If someone’s firing there,” Gabriel said, “they’re either already dead or about to be.”The words had barely settled when another gunshot cracked through the trees.Then another.Uneven. Panicked. Too fast.The convoy froze along the ridge road, tucked between dripping branches and the raw edge of the washed-out slope behind them. Mud clung to tires and boots. The creek below was distant now, replaced by the muffled violence ahead.Warren lifted a fist.No one moved.The forest listened with them.A shout rose somewhere beyond the trees, too far away to catch the words. It broke into a strangled cry, then vanished beneath a chorus of infected rasping.Evelyn’s stomach tightened.Living people. Not many, judging by the gunfire. Not calm, judging by the spacing. Someone ahead was firing because fear had reached their hands faster than sense.Warren turned toward her before she could speak. “No.”She looked at him. “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”“I do.”“Then you know I’m right