APOCALYPSE QUEEN: LEVEL UP OR DIE의 모든 챕터: 챕터 141 - 챕터 150

We stayed on the roof long after the plan had taken shape between us.The stars had sharpened into hard points of light, the smoke finally cleared enough that the whole sky felt close enough to touch. Dutch’s arm stayed around me, solid and warm, his thumb tracing idle circles against my shoulder through the fabric of my shirt. The compound below us had gone almost completely still, no raised voices, no hammers, no hurried footsteps. Just the soft creak of the wall settling and the distant call of a night bird.I turned my face into the curve of his neck and breathed him in. Cedar and the faint trace of the soap we both used, undercut by the clean night air. The ache of missing home was still there, but it sat differently now, less like a wound and more like a direction.“I don’t want to go inside yet,” I said against his skin.“Then we don’t.” His voice was low, almost a rumble. “Nothing down there that can’t wait until morning.”I shifted, swinging one leg over his so I straddled hi

Liam survived the night. Justin had him stable by sunrise, breathing steady, the arrhythmia settled, though he warned me the convulsions had likely cost him some fine motor control in his left hand — a small, permanent reminder of exactly how far his own desperation had carried him. I didn't feel triumphant about it. Mostly I just felt tired, my ribs wrapped tight under Melony's borrowed bandaging technique, courtesy of a crash course Justin had given me over black coffee at four in the morning.What Liam's fate would actually be — exile, confinement, something else — was a conversation for another day, once the whole compound could weigh in properly. For now, he was locked in a storage room off the clinic with a guard rotation, alive, and that was enough to be going on with.This morning was for something else entirely.I gathered the compound in the gymnasium again, same as the night of the vote, but the mood in the room felt different this time — less like a trial, more like the fi

They gathered in the gymnasium one more time, the same lantern light, the same worn faces, though the mood tonight carried none of the uncertainty of the first vote. This one felt more like a formality everyone had already quietly agreed on days ago, waiting only for the proper structure to make it real.Liam stood near the office door under guard, his left hand curled uselessly at his side, the aftermath of that night still written plainly across him — thinner, hollowed out, none of the clean-jacketed composure left in him at all."We do this the same way as before," I said, addressing the room rather than him. "Fair, open, everyone gets a voice. This isn't about revenge. It's about what keeps this compound safe going forward."Denise stepped up beside me, clipboard set aside again, her voice steady and clear. "Three nights ago, Liam attacked Audrey with a weapon, with clear intent to kill. That's not a leadership dispute anymore. That's an act of violence against someone who came he

I found Tristan in the armory the next morning, exactly where I expected, cleaning a blade he didn't strictly need to clean, the same restless energy humming off him that I remembered from the night before everything changed."There she is," he said, not looking up, though the corner of his mouth curved the second he heard my footsteps. "Was starting to think Spokane kept you for good.""Never," I said, leaning against the workbench across from him. "Missed this entirely too much.""The armory?" A sly grin flickered up at me."You, idiot." I bumped his shoulder, warm and easy. "How's Apex been without me causing chaos?""Quiet." He set the blade down, giving me his full attention now, something softer under the usual sharp edge. "Too quiet, honestly. Ronan moping around on that cane, Dutch gone, you gone — this place felt like it was holding its breath for a month straight." He studied me a moment, careful. "You look tired. Good tired. The kind that means you actually built something

I woke tangled in Ronan's sheets, morning light cutting gold across the room, his arm heavy and warm across my waist, his breathing slow and even against the back of my neck. For a long moment I just lay there, let myself feel the solid, grounding weight of him, the ordinary miracle of waking up somewhere safe next to someone who'd nearly died defending that safety."You're thinking loud," Ronan murmured against my hair, voice rough with sleep. "I can feel it.""Sorry." I turned to face him, tracing a hand along his jaw, still half in disbelief at how whole he looked now, no bandages, no careful stillness guarding old wounds. "Big meeting today. The merger idea. Everyone needs to actually weigh in before this becomes real.""Good." He pressed a slow kiss to my forehead before finally sitting up, stretching with the easy confidence of a fully healed body. "Decisions like this shouldn't get made by just you and me in a bed, no matter how good the bed is."I laughed, swatting his chest,