Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 343

Chapter 343 She Was Poisoned?

Finished

Ahour later, Jolie looked worlds better – color back in her cheeks, wrist wrapped snug in a brace, the worst of the bruising faded to faint yellow-green instead of the angry purple it had been. She still moved a little stiffly, but she was steady on her feet, wrapped in a spare set of dry clothes Joanna had pulled from her

space.

They stepped out together, back into the cold, and crossed to the lab.

Michelle looked up the moment they walked in, relief washing over her face at the sight of Jolie uptight and breathing. “Thank god. Sit, sit – let me look you over properly.”

Jolie perched on the edge of the exam table, and Michelle held both hands over her, palms glowing with a soft golden light that swept slowly down the length of her body. For a moment, nothing seemed wrong the light passed calmly over the bruising, the healing scrapes, the wrist —

Then it flickered. Stuttered. And Michelle’s brow furrowed sharply.

“Boss.” Her voice had gone tight. “Jolie’s been poisoned.”

“What?!” Jolie sat bolt upright, nearly knocking Michelle’s hands away. “Poisoned? With what? I feel fine- tired, sore, but fine-”

Joanna’s stomach dropped straight through the floor. “Michelle. Talk to me. What kind, how bad?”

Michelle held her hands steady again, eyes narrowing in concentration as the light pulsed once more, slower this time, like she was tracing something. “It’s not aggressive – not yet, anyway. It feels more like a sedative that’s lingering longer than it should. Something meant to knock you out fast and keep you compliant, not kill you outright.” She looked up, meeting Jolie’s eyes. “But it’s definitely still in your system. Small amounts, working slow.”

Jolie’s hand drifted, almost unconsciously, to her own throat, like she was trying to remember. “I didn’t eat or drink anything out there. I didn’t even open my pack-”

“Wait.” Joanna’s mind raced backward, piecing through everything Jolie had told them on the ridge. “You said your head went foggy right before you blacked out. Sudden, right? Not gradual.”

Jolie paused, brow furrowing as she thought back. “Yeah. It was fast – one second I was fine, watching the bushes, and the next my vision just… swam. Like the world tilted sideways.” Her eyes widened slightly. “I didn’t think anything of it. I figured it was adrenaline, or the cold.”

“That’s not adrenaline,” Michelle said quietly. “That’s a fast-acting sedative hitting your bloodstream all at once. Something inhaled, or absorbed through skin contact – not ingested. If it had been in food or water, it would’ve taken longer to hit, and you said you didn’t eat anything out there.”

Joanna’s mind flashed back to the ridge – the bushes shaking violently in a line, one after another, like something sprinting through them. Not wind. Not an animal.

“The bushes,” she said slowly. “What if that wasn’t something running through them. What if something was released from them. A gas, or a spore – something carried on the wind toward her.”

Jolie went pale. “I was upwind of them. I walked closer to get a better look, right into whatever that was.”

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10:07 Sat, Oct 17

Chapter 343 She Was Poisoned?

Finished

Michelle nodded grimly, lowering her hands, the golden light finally fading. “That would explain the delivery method, and why it hit so fast. Whoever’s doing this doesn’t need to touch their targets at all. They

need them close enough to breathe it in.”

Joanna’s jaw tightened, an entirely new kind of dread settling into her chest. Someone out there a way to drop people without ever laying a hand on them and they’d used it, deliberately, to take one of her

own.

–

“Thank you, Michelle,” Joanna said, already reaching for Jolie’s good arm. “I’ll investigate, see if Feed out what kind of poison this is.”

Michelle nodded, still frowning slightly at her own hands, clearly turning the diagnosis over in her head. “Good idea. But Boss – make her rest. A day, maybe two. Keep her drinking water, keep her off her feetas much as you can, then bring her back to me and I’ll check again. I want to make sure it’s fully cleared before she’s back to normal duty.”

“Understood.” Joanna pulled Jolie back into her space without further ceremony.

“Boss, I have things to do,” Jolie started immediately, already trying to sit up straighter despite the exhaustion clearly weighing on her. “The food reserves haven’t been logged since this morning, and I still need to check on the-”

–

“No.” Joanna’s tone left no room for argument, guiding her firmly back toward the healing spring. “You’re getting back in the water, and you’re going to keep drinking water – a lot of it to help flush whatever’s left of that toxin out of your system. That’s the whole job for the next day or two. Michelle’s orders.”

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