Apocalypse Villainess? Nah, I'm Nice

”Of course you’re the most important one. The planting is just incidental.”

Paige Summers’s heart skipped a beat. His knowing gaze, as if he had already seen through her secret, was deeply unsettling. She forced herself to suppress her shock. ”Too bad you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You don’t actually think I’d tell you my planting method under these circumstances, do you? Besides, it would be useless even if I told you. Without seeds, it’s all just empty talk.”

”We have seeds, of course.” Shawn Monroe stared at her with a faint smile. ”Something so important... I’m sure you must have a stockpile in your space, don’t you?”

’A stockpile...’

Paige Summers slowly let out a breath of relief.

’So, he only knows I have a space, not that it’s a Planting Space.’

But before she could fully relax, Shawn Monroe spoke again. ”As for the planting method, you’ll naturally tell me. Unless you don’t want Mrs. Lowell to stay alive.”

Paige Summers’s pupils constricted. ”You captured her?!”

Shawn Monroe nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ”Yes. At first, I was worried you might do something rash and hurt yourself. Since that’s no longer a concern, let’s just trade her for the planting method.”

Paige Summers was silent for a long time before saying, ”I want to see her.”

”Still don’t believe me? Then take a look.”

With that, he went out and gave an order to his subordinate. A short while later, someone brought Wendy Lowell to the doorway.

The moment she saw her, Paige Summers’s eyes instantly reddened.

In just a few days, Wendy Lowell had lost a startling amount of weight. Her clothes were wrinkled, her hair was a mess, her spirit was broken, and her mouth was taped shut. When she saw Paige, an urgent light flashed in her eyes, and she began to shake her head frantically!

Paige Summers knew what she was trying to say. ’Don’t worry about me...’

But how could she possibly do that!

Soon, Wendy Lowell was taken away.

Paige Summers’s tears began to fall.

’I didn’t want it to be like this.’

’I thought I could handle this calmly.’

’But I can’t...’

Seeing Wendy Lowell suffer like that made her heart ache.

Perhaps her tear ducts had become more active since she got pregnant. Even though she knew she shouldn’t be like this in front of Shawn Monroe, she couldn’t hold it back.

A pained expression crossed Shawn Monroe’s face as he reached out to wipe away her tears.

Paige Summers smacked his hand away with a ”PAK!” and said through choked sobs, ”Don’t forget what I told you. Don’t push your luck!”

Shortly after she had woken up in the car, Shawn Monroe had tried to hug her and kiss her, so she had warned him beforehand.

She might not be able to escape, but she could definitely kill herself! If he didn’t want to push her to that point, he shouldn’t touch her!

Shawn Monroe had agreed at the time.

After that, he did indeed try his best to avoid any excessive actions. But some contact was unavoidable, and Paige Summers could only endure it. She didn’t want to make things too tense, either. After all, she didn’t really want to die.

She wasn’t afraid of death, but it wasn’t the last resort yet!

Paige Summers cried silently for a while, and Shawn Monroe sighed again.

”Don’t cry. Haven’t you been wanting to know how I got you out? I’ll tell you now, okay?”

If Marcus Monroe had said that with such a doting tone, as if coaxing a child, Paige Summers might have found it sweet. But coming from Shawn Monroe... it only made her want to vomit blood.

However, she composed herself, slowly wiping her tears and adopting a listening expression.

”It was actually quite simple.” Shawn Monroe gave her an innocent smile. ”There’s a type of superpower that allows someone to change their appearance into that of another person...”

Hearing this, Paige Summers froze, immediately thinking of Faye Webb.

However, from the look in Shawn Monroe’s eyes, he thought she had never heard of such a superpower, so he began to explain with some relish.

”Interesting, isn’t it? I just happened to come across such a person, which is how I was able to come up with the plan.”

”That day, I first had her change into your likeness to lure away the guy guarding the Zombie. Then I had another Superpower User cast a Blinding Technique, making the people in the base unable to see the Zombie, thinking it had escaped... But to be honest, I didn’t expect it to go so smoothly. Those people seemed really nervous about that Zombie. Is it special in some way?”

’As expected, he doesn’t know it’s Nora Lowell...’ Paige Summers said impassively, ”Of course. It’s a mutated Zombie. Catching one alive isn’t so easy!”

Shawn Monroe’s brow twitched. It was unclear if he truly believed her, but he didn’t press the matter. Seeing that Paige Summers was no longer crying, he continued with satisfaction, ”Once the base was in chaos, I guessed you would definitely come out. So I seized the opportunity, knocked you unconscious, and then had the fake you deal with those people. As for you, I hid you in my quarters.”

”The next day, when I proposed we leave, the fake you naturally found a way to convince your subordinates.”

”Once I’d snuck you out, the fake muddied the waters about the time of your disappearance and then made her exit. It wasn’t particularly difficult for her to change into an inconspicuous team member and leave the base.”

”As for Mrs. Lowell, we also took her from your residence during the chaos. As long as ’you’ didn’t leave your room the next day, I figured no one would notice she was gone.”

As Paige Summers listened, her mind raced.

’He’s only been at the base for a few days?’

’How could he be so familiar with the entire place?!’

’Putting other things aside, just the residential area on the east side—how did he know which house I lived in, and even manage to have someone precisely abduct Wendy Lowell... This has to be the work of a mole!’

’Who is it? Who’s the traitor?!’

While Paige Summers was racking her brain, it took less than two days for Marcus Monroe to find a traitor.

He looked at Franklin Forrest, who, after a round of ”persuasion,” realized he couldn’t escape and decided to abandon all pretense, now crying his eyes out. Marcus remained completely unmoved.

”Speak! Where did they go?”

Franklin Forrest let out a wail before crying and begging, ”I really don’t know! I don’t even know how many of them there were! Those bastards grabbed my Belle to threaten me, that’s why I told them some things about Bloodfall Base and agreed to help them leave... Chief Monroe! Have mercy on me, Belle is my only daughter! If she dies, I don’t want to live either! I really had no choice! When they left, they even killed the people I sent to follow them! The bodies are still there, I can take you to see them!...”

Marcus Monroe narrowed his eyes, radiating an imposing aura.

Franklin Forrest’s face flushed red, then turned purple, and finally went deathly pale. His body began to tremble uncontrollably as if he had malaria, shaking violently.

But his testimony, though repeated over and over, didn’t change much.

That included the people around him.

Marcus Monroe interrogated everyone who had been involved.

He even met with Franklin Forrest’s daughter, Belle, a very frail five-year-old girl. Her account of being kidnapped and held hostage matched her father’s.

It seemed the possibility of them lying was very small.

The trail seemed to have gone cold at Stoneridge Base, but that wasn’t actually the case.

After spending the better part of a day scouting the area outside Stoneridge Base, Marcus Monroe was finally certain.

Shawn Monroe would only take one of two roads.

Either toward Southreach or back to Central City!

These two roads were well-traveled and relatively smooth. Paige Summers was obviously very valuable to Shawn Monroe, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken such a huge risk. That being the case, he wouldn’t choose the difficult back roads; Paige’s current physical condition absolutely couldn’t handle it!

And between the two, the former was the most likely possibility.

A long journey would be just as risky for Paige Summers!

Of course, the small bases nearby were also suspect.

After thinking this through, Marcus Monroe quickly had Sweetie send a message to Claire Chapman, telling him to get his ass back to Southreach as soon as possible and thoroughly investigate whether Paige Summers had been brought into the city.

As for himself, he took his men.

Starting from Stoneridge Base, they went from one base to the next.

There was still no news of Paige Summers.

Marcus Monroe told himself that no news was good news.

Shawn Monroe had abducted her for no other reason than to use her as a hostage. He already knew about Shawn waking up recently, having a falling out with Mr. and Mrs. Walsh, and then making up with them.

Shawn Monroe was probably desperate to achieve something to prove himself right now!