End Times, Surviving with My Beastly Army novel Chapter 69

Chapter 69 Hard Lessons

When he finished speaking, a long silence hung in the air.

Finished

Leland stood there, his patience fraying into something raw and ugly. “Don’t pretend you can’t hear me. I saw you up there a minute ago. I’m not looking for a handout. I can pay. And I swear when this is all over, when things go back to normal, you’ll have my gratitude. Properly. Just think about it.”

Upstairs, the words drifted in through the open window. Dane made a face, somewhere between disbelief and secondhand embarrassment. “Where the hell did this idiot come from?”

Robin hadn’t expected that something as mundane as shaking out a bedsheet would give her away. The timing was almost laughable. “Ignore him,” she said.

But the silence from above only seemed to stoke the man’s temper. “Hey.” Lynch’s voice hardened. “Are you deaf up there?”

His gaze landed on the vehicle parked at the curb, and something shifted in his posture. A spark of leverage. “This car down here’s yours, isn’t it? I’m being reasonable. I’m asking nicely. But if you push me, I might just lose my patience and put a few dents in it.“”

Robin’s expression cooled in an instant. She moved to the window, her silhouette cutting sharply against the dim light. “Try it.”

At the sight of a response, Lynch exhaled in visible relief.

Then he noticed who was speaking. A young woman. His eyebrows lifted. “Are you up there alone?”

Robin’s reply came flat and immediate. “What business is that of yours?”

His jaw tightened. Before all this, he’d been used to rooms going quiet when he spoke. People nodded, deferred, watched their tone. Respect had been the default, not something he had to ask for.

But necessity had a way of sanding down even the sharpest ego. He swallowed whatever retort rose to his tongue and smoothed his features into something he hoped looked cordial. “Listen, do you have food? I can buy it. Or are you heading somewhere? We could travel together. More people mean better odds. Safer.”

“No. Not interested. Goodbye.”

Three words, dropped like stones into still water. Then Robin paused, as though remembering something she’d nearly forgotten. “Oh. And if you so much as scratch that car, I’ll crack your skull open.”

No edge, no theatrics. Just a statement, laid flat. Leland’s face darkened instantly.

He might look worn down now, but he was a CEO. Or he had been.

He was a man with power, with influence. People didn’t speak to him like this.

And now some girl was talking to him like this? The sting of it lingered.

One of the men trailing behind him stepped forward, fists clenched. “Who the hell do you think you are.

12:45 pm P p pp.

Chapter 69 Hard Lessons

Finished

talking to Mr. Lynch like that? Back where we come from, you wouldn’t even get close enough to breathe his air. Is this her car? Fine. Let’s show her what happens to people who forget their place.”

He bent, snatched up a loose brick from the roadside, and hurled it.

The impact was a thunderclap in the quiet street.

A web of fractures bloomed across the glass. Upstairs, Robin’s expression went still. The way the surface of a deep lake goes still before something rises from below.

Ella felt it before she understood it. Instinct pulled her a step back.

“… They really went and did it,” she murmured.

Ella exchanged a look with Dane and Tim. There was no fear in their eyes, only pity.

Below, the man who’d thrown the brick saw Robin reappear at the window and mistook it for hesitation. He grinned, lifting the brick again, basking in his own momentum. “Finally got your attention, huh? Be smart. Get down here and apologize properly to our boss. He’s generous. Might even let this slide.”

Lynch said nothing. His silence was endorsement.

Robin’s lips curved. It wasn’t a smile. “Fine,” she said. “Your funeral.”

Before anyone could process the words, she jumped from the second story and landed on the pavement with the easy, coiled grace of a predator.

Lynch’s jaw went slack.

That kind of movement was the kind of thing you saw only in movies.

The man with the brick stood frozen, his confidence stalling mid–stride as she walked toward him.

She stopped in front of the ruined windshield, her gaze tracing the network of cracks. Something cold flashed in her eyes.

“You did that?” she asked.

He tried to hold his ground, tried to summon the bluster that had come so easily a moment ago. “So what if it was? You brought this on yourself. Someone had to teach you about respect…”

He didn’t finish. Robin’s hand closed in his hair and drove his face into the hood of the car with a force that made the chassis shudder.

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