All Chapters of APOCALYPSE QUEEN: LEVEL UP OR DIE: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

Chapter 120: The Man Behind the WallLoading Justin, Ashley, and Sunny into the truck bed took all of two minutes and about a hundred wary backward glances, the three of them pressed together against the cab like they weren't entirely convinced this wasn't some elaborate trap. Dutch drove slow through the ruined streets, headlights carving through drifting ash, while I rode in the back with them, rifle across my knees, watching Justin watch me."How much farther?" I asked."Half a mile," Justin said. "What's left of the community center. It's the only structure with four intact walls anymore, so that's where everyone who's still breathing ended up."Sunny was quiet, curled small against the truck's side rail, but Ashley kept glancing at me sideways, working up to something. "You said you were sent," she finally said. "Sent by who?"I hesitated on that one again, the same hesitation from the street corner. "It's complicated," I said. "Let's just say I've got a way of finding out where

Chapter 122: Cracks in the WallBy midmorning, the north wall had more hands working it than I'd expected — Dutch up on the scaffold he'd rigged from salvaged pallets, directing two survivors on how to brace the timber uprights properly, while a dozen more hauled scrap metal and busted furniture up from the ruined structures to reinforce the gap where the raiders had come through eight days ago."You're not building a fence," Dutch called down to a lanky teenager struggling with a sheet of corrugated tin, his tone easy, encouraging rather than critical. "You're building something that has to survive being hit twice. Angle it, don't just lean it."The kid adjusted, and the panel locked into place with a satisfying clang, and something like pride flickered across his exhausted face — small, but real, the first thing that looked like hope I'd seen out of any of them since the truck rolled through their gate.Justin worked a few yards off, kneeling beside an older man with a fever-flushed

Dutch found me at first light, leaning against the truck bed with two cups of something bitter and hot that barely qualified as coffee, watching the compound stir awake around us."You've got a look on your face," he said, handing one of the cups over, settling beside me with the easy, unhurried comfort he always carried. "Same one you get when you're working something out and haven't decided if you're going to say it out loud yet."I didn't bother denying it. There wasn't much point, not with him. "Justin," I admitted.Dutch didn't so much as blink. "Figured as much." He took a slow sip, watching the compound instead of me, giving me room instead of pressure. "You gonna make me ask, or you gonna just tell me?""I'm attracted to him," I said, plain, because dancing around it with Dutch had never once been necessary. "I don't know what that means yet. I don't know if it means anything beyond noticing. But you should hear it from me instead of guessing.""Appreciate that." He bumped his

We finished the sweep in silence that felt heavier than the fight itself.The back offices were exactly where LUS had guided us—two sealed metal cabinets still locked, the inventory manifest half-rotted but readable enough. Inside we found what we’d come for: intact cases of canned beans, stew, powdered milk, and sealed bags of rice that hadn’t spoiled. Not a feast, but enough to matter. Justin worked beside me without speaking, loading the crates onto the collapsible sled we’d brought, every movement efficient and quiet. I kept my rifle ready, eyes on the dark aisles, while he stacked and secured. The kiss still burned on my mouth. Every time our shoulders brushed I felt the same electric pull, sharp and unfinished.By the time we rolled the sled back out to the scout truck the sky had started to lighten at the edges—false dawn, thin and gray. Justin drove. I rode shotgun with the rifle across my lap, watching the road and the side mirrors both. Neither of us spoke until the warehous

The north wall stood nearly finished by midweek — one more day's work, Dutch figured, before it could take a real hit without flinching. I spent the morning doing something I hadn't let myself do much of since arriving: walking the compound slow, talking to people instead of directing them, letting Riverside Commons become something more to me than a mission with a body count attached to it.The lanky teenager from the wall crew turned out to be named Caleb, seventeen, quick with a joke once he trusted you weren't going to yell at him for making it. He'd lost both parents in the initial collapse and had been half-raising his younger sister ever since, and he talked about Liam with the careful, diplomatic vagueness of someone who'd learned survival meant not picking fights with whoever held the ration list."He's fine, I guess," Caleb said, shrugging, not quite meeting my eyes. "Kept the lights on. Didn't ask for much, either, so long as you did your job and didn't cause trouble.""Tha