Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 213

Chapter 213 The Race

Finished

Jake sat behind the wheel, his posture suddenly rigid. The happy energy from moments before had hardened into a sharp, locked-in focus, his jaw set, both hands pressing firm and still against the leather steering wheel. Beside him, Julian leaned back in the passenger seat, a relaxed, knowing smile playing on his lips as the flat-six engine roared to life, a deep, mechanical growl vibrating straight through the chassis.

Joanna stood just to the side of the driver’s door watching them with an amused glint in her eyes. She raised her right hand, her fingers extending.

“Three,” she counted down. Jake dropped his foot onto the clutch, his jaw tight.

“Two.” The engine screamed as he built up the RPMs.

“One” Her hand snapped down.

The red Porsche shot out like an arrow unloosed from a bow. The rear tires violently chewed into the dirt, kicking up a massive, blinding rooster-tail of dust before catching traction on the broken asphalt ahead. The car launched forward with brutal, neck-snapping force, the world outside their windows liquefying into a violent blur of gray and green. The transmission whined in a perfect, high-pitched mechanical symphony as Jake slammed it through the gears, the speedometer needle sweeping rapidly past one hundred miles per hour as the vehicle tore down the empty road.

Joanna watched the red streak vanish into the distance for a fraction of a second. Then, she gathered her will.

The space in front of her folded, and she vanished, reappearing five miles down the straightaway. Without pausing to lose momentum, she took a second localized warp jump, crossing the invisible ten-mile finish line fifteen seconds ahead of the car.

She stepped onto the shoulder of the road, crossed her arms, and waited. A few moments later the red Porsche came thundering into view, screaming down the asphalt at top speed-only to find Joanna already standing there, checking her watch with a smirk. He slammed on the brakes beside her, the car screeching

to a halt.

He killed the engine, threw the door open, and stepped out onto the road, his hands flying to his head.

“Ten miles!” Jake huffed, his voice annoyed and terse. “We were doing a hundred and eighty miles per hour. I didn’t even see you blink past us! I am driving a masterpiece of pre-Collapse German engineering, and you just walked here!”

Julian stepped out of the passenger side, casually smoothing down his jacket. He didn’t look bothered at all, though a faint, amused smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Your launch was sloppy,” Julian noted deadpan, leaning his elbows on the roof of the car. “You dropped the clutch too fast in second gear. If you hadn’t lost those two seconds spinning your tires in the dirt, we might have only lost to Joanna by nine and a half miles.”

“Not helping, Julian!” Jake threw his hands up, pacing around the front bumper before pointing an accusing finger at Joanna. “You cheated. I don’t know how, but spatial manipulation definitely counts as performance-enhancing drugs for a footrace.”

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10:43 am MWM M

Chapter 213 The Race

Finished

Joanna’s carpiece buzzed with the sound of the comm chat dissolving into chaos-a wall of overlapping laughter and crosstalk.

“Bro, she was already standing there-” someone started, before being buried under a pile-on of notifications.

“Jake, you just got cooked by someone on foot,” another voice managed between what sounded like genuine, helpless laughter.

Joanna kept her eyes on Jake, letting the laughter in her earpiece fade before she cut through the noise. “Alright everyone. Enough play time.”

With a slick flick of her wrist, she tucked the Porsche back into her storage space. Joanna laughed a little at Jake’s sudden, tragic face, but before he could even complain, she threw him into her storage space too.

Julian swaggered over to her, leaning forward with a smooth, roguish grin. “You should get a congratulatory kiss, Joanna.”

He puckered up as if to kiss her, but before his lips could even get close, she threw him into her pocket space too, cutting him off mid-lean.

An instant later inside the villa warehouse, Julian materialized right in front of Jolie and Jake, stumbling slightly as his feet hit the floor. The red Porsche sat beside them, its finish now coated in a fine layer of dust. Jake and Jolie took one look at his lingering, puckered expression and instantly broke out into booming, breathless laughter.

Julian smoothed down his collar, his smooth demeanor instantly cracking into a deeply offended frown.

Jolie leaned against the Porsche’s pristine fender, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye as she pointed a finger at Julian.

“Oh, wow, Romeo,” Jolie gasped, her voice dripping with mockery. “Did you really think the girl who can bench-press a rusted sedan was going to swoon over a puckered lip? You looked like a goldfish gasping for

air!”

Julian crossed his arms, his scowl deepening as he tried to regain his composure. “I was merely offering a classic token of appreciation for a stellar athletic performance.”

“Sure you were,” Jolie laughed, crossing her arms and mimicking his puckered expression right back at him. “Next time, try asking for a high-five.”

Outside Joanna glance at the sky, the sun was setting and they still had a long ways to go. She spoke into the comm in her head. “Briggs, with the sun setting it going to get dangerous. I will clear the road as much as I can so tell Will to step on it.”

Briggs replied, “Understood”

She blinked, and the world shifted. The jump was so clean she barely registered it-no violent tug, no wave of exhaustion, just the sudden chill of dusk on her skin. Joanna stood on the gravel shoulder of a desolate highway, before a small, skeletal rest stop. The sky at dusk was a bruised cocktail of deep indigos and bleeding violets, casting long shadows from an abandoned gas station. In the distance, the silhouettes of buildings cut grim shapes against the fading horizon.

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