Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 357

Rewrite The Apocalypse Dream

Chapter 357 Someone Got Pass

+5 Pearls

Joanna huffed out a humorless laugh, staring down into her tea like it owed her answers. “Funny thing was, that’s when I decided to date Drew. I actually thought if he was willing to kill his own friend over me, that had to mean something. That he really cared.” She shook her head slowly. “Turned out he only cared about my space. What it could do for him.”

Julian’s expression darkened slightly, though he said nothing, letting her continue.

“He even turned on my sister to keep me close to him,” Joanna went on, voice flattening with old, familiar bitterness. “Told our superiors he was the reason our team succeeded. Took full credit for it, every time.” Her jaw tightened. “Most scavenging teams came back with a fraction of what we did. Too many mouths to feed along the way, or people desperate enough to kill a team over what little they’d found. A lot of groups learned to bring back small amounts on purpose – just enough to survive scrutiny, not enough to paint a target on their backs.”

–

She set the teacup down, something hard settling behind her eyes. “We never had that problem. Because to everyone else, it looked like we never had anything worth taking. My space hid everything. So we were safe, every mission, while Drew stood there collecting recognition for my ability.”

The table went quiet for a moment, Caleb watching her carefully, clearly already anticipating where this connected back to the missing reserves and the timeline shift he’d sensed. Julian’s fingers had curled slightly tighter around his own cup, jaw tight with quiet, protective anger on her behalf.

Caleb reached across the table and gently caught Joanna’s hand, pulling her back from wherever the memory had dragged her. “Boss. Stay with me.”

Joanna blinked, the tightness in her chest easing slightly at the contact, old anger giving way to present focus. “Sorry. Go on.”

“In this timeline,” Caleb said carefully, “Shane never made it to your old base. He never caught you in that alley, never got the chance.” He paused. “Instead, he ended up leading a group a few ridges over.”

Julian’s head snapped up. “The group living in the caves? The silent ones Dante’s been watching?”

Caleb nodded slowly. “Yes.”

The table went utterly silent.

Joanna felt something cold settle low in her stomach, the pieces of the last few days rearranging themselves violently around this single, devastating new fact. The quiet survivors who never lit fires, never left visible trails, who vanished the moment anyone got too close. The strange, deliberate relationship with the ant swarm that didn’t attack them. The poison

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Chapter 357 Someone Got Pass

+5 Pearls

that had taken down Jolie with surgical precision. The collapsed tunnel network running straight beneath the very ridge where she’d been standing not six hours ago.

Shane. Alive. Leading them. And apparently, very good at not being found.

“He’s been watching us,” Joanna said quietly, the realization landing like a stone. “This whole time. Not just scouting the ridge out of curiosity.” Her eyes lifted to meet Caleb’s.

Caleb’s silence was answer enough.

Joanna stood abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. “Shane, and whatever he’s building over there — I’ll deal with it later.” Her voice had gone flat, controlled, the kind of calm that came from shoving something enormous into a box to deal with when there was actually time. “Right now, I want to see the reserves myself.”

She walked off without waiting, and Julian and Caleb exchanged a brief, wordless glance before pushing up from the table and following after her.

She led them down into the tunnels, to the underground bunker-six shipping containers welded together into one long, reinforced structure buried beneath packed earth and steel. Fluorescent lights hummed along the ceiling, casting a steady white glow over rows of shelving units, stacked crates, and the quiet hum of a space built to outlast disaster.

Since the theft, Jolie had shifted a significant portion of the remaining supplies into the warehouse section insode Joanna’s storage space for tighter tracking – the shelves here still held food, water, medical stock, and fuel, but noticeably less than the space had once comfortably contained. Gaps sat where full pallets used to be.

Over half the bunker’s length had been designed with an entirely different purpose in mind: shelter. Rows of simple cots and bunk-style beds lined one container, blankets folded neatly at the foot of each, a stockpile of basic medical supplies – bandages, antiseptics, splints – organized along a nearby shelf. If the base ever came under direct attack, this was where the children and elderly would be brought, tucked safely below ground while the fighting happened above.

At the far end, Jake had cut away an entire wall section between two of the containers months ago, opening a direct passage into the vehicle tunnel beyond – the same tunnel where the trucks waited, fueled and ready, leading out the far side of the ridge. It wasn’t a casual opening, either; a reinforced gate and fencing had been installed across the gap, manned at all hours by a rotating guard detail. No one reached the vehicles, and no one reached the bunker from that direction, without the gate being opened first.

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