End Times, Surviving with My Beastly Army novel Chapter 199

Chapter 199 Zelda

Finished

Humiliation flickered across Zelda’s face the instant she realized Robin hadn’t recognized her. “What are you even doing here?

“You shameless little snake. You actually have the nerve to stand in front of me.”

Robin smiled. “Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing. I genuinely thought you were dead. I had no idea you were tough enough to walk out of a hospital alive.”

She truly hadn’t expected to run into Zelda here.

On the very first day of the apocalypse, she’d steered that wretched pair straight into a hospital, which had been ground zero for the outbreak. Surviving that wasn’t something most people managed.

If anything, Zelda was living proof that the worst ones had a way of never truly disappearing. She’d wound up all the way at Redwood Military Base, and somehow their paths had crossed again.

Robin folded her arms loosely across her chest. “What’s the issue? I haven’t done a thing to anyone. Why wouldn’t I show my face?”

That indifference set Zelda’s face ablaze. “You have the audacity to ask me that? Everything I’ve lost is because of you.

“And look at you, dressed like you just walked out of a boutique. I’m sure that came at quite a price.”

The words had barely left her mouth before Zelda’s composure split wide open, and everything festering beneath it came pouring through.

Her eyes swept over Robin again and again, completely beyond her control.

They were both surviving in the same shattered world, and yet Zelda had been ground down to rags while Robin looked like nothing had touched her at all.

Robin’s hair was thick, dark, and luminous. Up close, a faint, clean fragrance drifted off her, and her clothes were neat and unwrinkled, as though the apocalypse had simply forgotten to mark her.

The contrast made Zelda feel like a beggar standing beside someone untouchable.

Zelda yanked her tattered clothes tighter around herself, and her voice went sharp and venomous. “Some women just know how to get ahead no matter where they end up, don’t they? Because they’re willing to use what they’ve got.

“You climbed so fast before the apocalypse, and now here you are, still looking like you own the place. But who really knows what’s underneath all that polish, right?”

Centerville’s residents hadn’t quite sunk to the hollow numbness that had consumed Outerville. Outerville had been scraped clean of everything, including the will to care.

Survival was the only thing that mattered.

But the people here still had their curiosity intact, and the sound of a conflict pulled them in like a tide. A

Chapter 199 Zelda

Frished

sinall crowd had gathered, and their eyes were already settling on Robin with something pointed and measuring in them.

After Zelda’s words, that look turned into something far uglier.

Robin laughed quietly. “You’ve been going for a while now. Do you have any actual proof?”

“Proof? What proof do I need?”

Zelda fired back without missing a beat. “The way you’re dressed isn’t proof enough?

“Look at every single person walking by. Every last one of them is dirty and worn through. And then there’s you, put together like you’ve got somewhere to be. Ask yourself why.

“You dress like that to get people’s attention. Find someone useful, latch on, and let them toss some resources your way.

“Robin, I knew from the day I met you that you weren’t the kind of woman who plays by the rules. Turns. out I was right.

“Was I?” Robin’s voice stayed flat. “Is it really that impossible that I earned what I have on my own?”

Zelda laughed like she’d just heard the most absurd thing of her life. “Earned it yourself? Robin, please. It’s brutal out there. What could one woman possibly accomplish alone?

“On top of that, this is Centerville. Everyone here knows exactly what it takes to earn a place here.

“How you got in isn’t a mystery to anyone. You traded the only thing you had.”

Robin let out a quiet, incredulous breath.

She shook her head slowly, and her eyes went cold. “Zelda, I have to say, this is the first time I’ve ever watched someone hurl an insult that hits themselves just as hard.

“If I got in by trading my body, then what about you? How exactly did you get in?

“There are plenty of women in Centerville. Are you saying every single one of them got here the same way?”

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