Apocalypse: After Reanimation, I Became The Queen-Chapter 74: _ Vote To Stay

We spend the next hour rotating through what passes for breakfast. By that, I mean, protein bars, the worst coffee known to man, a can of fruit cocktail that might’ve expired during the Nixon administration. I watch them eat like it’s a funeral.

The atmosphere is so quiet, solemn, and a little gross.

Pretty Boy stumbles out last, shirtless, with wild hair, and eyes squinty like he’s wandered into the wrong dream.

Bea perks up like a meerkat spotting a steak.

"Morning," he says, voice all sleepy rock and confusion. "Why does it smell like burnt tires in here?"

I grin. "Bea’s coffee."

Bea flips me off without looking.

Pretty Boy gives me this bleary, soft-eyed smile that does things to me and sits beside me, his thigh pressing against mine. His body heat seeps into me like a slow burn.

Bea watches that contact like it’s a war crime. Yes, bitch, cry!

Yara sighs, eyeing me and Pretty Boy. It seems we were very obvious.

"You two are going to get us all killed, you know that?"

"Why?" I ask. "Because I like hot people?"

"Because of attachments." She gives me a look. "They make you stupid."

I roll my eyes. "I was stupid before the attachment."

"Facts," Bea says under her breath.

Of course, she’s always team ’against Renata’.

I reach for the can of cocktail and pretend not to hear her. Because if I don’t, I’ll stab her with a spork, and I think Yara’s right—we need to conserve our strength.

We finish eating... or rather, THEY finish eating. The silence is more palpable now. Bea has her arms crossed. Pretty Boy’s arm is around my waist, casual, like he’s done it a million times before. Yara’s looking at a map she unfolded across the table.

Then she speaks. "We leave at nightfall. Get as far as we can before they start hunting. That means weapons, supplies, and water. Everyone gets five minutes to grab what they can carry."

I nod.

Bea doesn’t.

"Why should I listen to her?" she asks, chin tilting my way.

"Because she ripped a guy in half yesterday with her bare hands," Yara says. "And you were hiding behind a washing machine."

"Strategic hiding."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Pretty Boy chuckles, then coughs when Bea glares.

I lean into him. "Still want to borrow him?"

"Still want to catch these hands?"

Yara claps once. "Okay! Field trip’s over. Everyone shut up and start packing."

It sounds like a nice plan if she was not injured and Pretty Boy too. Moreover, I went through a lot to find this room to just give it up after a night. Hence, I cross my arms and narrow my eyes at her.

"Aren’t you like... injured?" I interject, crossing my arms like a detective assessing a crime scene.

Yara lifts her eyes from the map, unimpressed. "I’m fine. I can walk."

She says it like she didn’t just get beaten to a pulp by those bastards yesterday. Like she didn’t almost bleed out while I carried her over my shoulder like a half-dead sack of bones.

"And Leon?" I say, tilting my head at the man currently goofing off like a wounded Greek god on the moth-eaten couch, shirtless, bandaged, hair a disaster, but still somehow glowing like he just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. "Is he fine too?"

He sits up straighter, running a hand through his hair slowly like his bones still remember the pain. "Healing too fast, actually."

There’s a moment of silence as we all blink at him.

"Too fast?" Yara repeats, voice like someone hearing a cat talk for the first time.

Leon nods. "The wound’s closing faster than it should. I think it’s Renata. She helped calm my nerves and took my mind off of the pain."

Is he talking about the sex? How the hell did having sex with me help his wounds?

I try not to think about it, but it’s impossible when he’s looking at me like I’m a miracle he keeps trying to memorize. My cheeks heat and I look away quickly, busying myself by re-folding an already folded corner of the disgusting fruit cocktail can.

Yara leans forward, her eyes narrow. "What if it’s not healing? What if it’s... infected?"

"Oh, come on," I mutter, already regretting this conversation.

"I’m serious," she says, her voice growing tight with tension. "What if it’s those black worms? The parasitic kind that crawl under your skin and use you like a meat puppet until they hatch out of your eyes and turn you into a full-blown fucking zombie?!"

Bea raises her eyebrows. "How vivid."

Leon scratches his shoulder like maybe he is suddenly itchy.

Yara’s hands flutter in the air as she tries to explain. "We all know what happens when a wound gets infected with black worms!"

"Yes, they turn into zombies." I roll my eyes. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"And?"

"I assure you, he’s fine! He’s healing fast. That’s not supposed to be a bad thing, is it?!" I protest.

Yara looks genuinely stressed now. "And if it is something like the black worms? And he turns in the middle of the night and rips our faces off with his pretty teeth?"

"Pretty teeth?" I whisper, caught on to that detail like a scandalized librarian.

Bea rolls her eyes. "I’m sure it’s not worms, okay? Especially not considering the way Renata was bouncing on him yesterday."

Oh, God. This girl!

The fact that she was repeating this in front of Pretty Boy made my soul leave my body.

Leon himself chokes on the air. "Bea!"

Yara’s face contorts like she’d just been forced to smell an armpit.

Bea shrugs like an unrepentant villain. "What? I was awake."

"You were spying!" I hiss, feeling my whole body heat like someone dropped me into a boiling embarrassment bath.

"No, I was suffering, which is a little different. Thin walls, as I said, Renata."

Pretty Boy groans into his hands. "Can I die now?"

I wish I could. I’m going to dissolve into the wall and become a ghost who haunts this moldy room until the end of time. I hate everything.

Yara is too stunned to speak. She just blinks at us like we’ve sprouted tentacles. "I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that."

"Same," I say too quickly. "Rewind. Erase. Never happened."

Bea scoffs. "Y’all were going at it like it was your last day on earth."

"It might be," Yara snaps. "Which is why I’m trying to get us out of here."

That sobers the mood. A thick silence falls again, heavier this time. Even Bea looks away. The reality of what’s outside these crumbling walls presses in like a storm cloud. It’s silent, looming, and electric with danger.

"We’re too exposed," Yara says finally, tapping the map again. "If the friends of those guys from yesterday track us, we’re screwed."

The "guys from yesterday." As if the memory isn’t already scratched into the back of my brain.

Still, I exhale slowly and shake my head. "We haven’t even been here a full twenty-four hours."

"We can’t afford to settle in."

"But we have to recover. You’re still limping. Leon’s, apparently, healing like Wolverine but still not one hundred percent. I..." I pause, about to lie. "...I’m tired too."

Bea stretches dramatically on the broken recliner. "I vote we stay. Mostly because I’m lazy, but also because Yara’s stress is contagious, and I don’t want hives."

"Gee, thanks," Yara mutters.

I nod. "One more night. We reinforce the doors, set up watches, and rest properly. Then we go."

Leon, who is still trying to pretend he isn’t mortified, raises a hand. "I second that. A night of actual sleep sounds... nice."

I’m glad he supports my notion. He he he.

Yara groans. "Seriously? Am I the only one who cares if we get our skulls cracked open?"

"No," I say. "You just care... loudest."

After some more grumbling and Bea making the world’s most obnoxious tally count on her fingers, the vote is settled: we stay. Yara’s outnumbered.

Yay!

I think the tension’s finally passes until Yara suddenly grabs the map and crumples it hard.

"Fine," she mutters like we’re all a bunch of kids choosing ice cream over evacuating a burning building. "One more night. But if I wake up and Leon’s gnawing on my face, I will haunt the both of you."

Leon lifts his hand like he’s taking a solemn oath. "I swear I will not eat your face."

Bea grins. "Unless Renata asks him to. Then all bets are off."

I launch a pillow at her face. It hits her with a satisfying fwump, but she catches it and hugs it like it’s a reward.

We know trouble awaits us, but the truth is, even if we left here, there’s trouble everywhere. At least here, we know the type that’s coming. Outside, we don’t.

It just comes at you and steals your sanity before you can even blink.