Hearing what the other side said, Jason frowned slightly, vaguely guessing what they intended to do, but he asked anyway. He still remembered when he visited Oceanside; the leader of those people practically didn't want anything to do with his people.
"Yes, it's too dangerous for my people to remain here."
The girl beside him couldn't stand it any longer and stepped forward to stand before her group.
"Jason, my name is Cindy. Last time we could only see you from afar. Natania and Alberto are my grandparents."
"Yes, I remember them." Jason looked at the girl and nodded, indicating he remembered who her grandparents were.
"THEY WERE MURDERED! More than half of our people were cruelly killed. I can't leave like this!"
Seeing that the girl had clearly lost her composure, Jason asked again with an indifferent smile, "I suppose what you want now is revenge, isn't that right?"
Jason could feel it — both in the original story and now — hatred gleamed in Cindy's eyes, and there were traces of tears as she clenched her teeth and said in a choked voice, "Yes, I'll kill them and avenge our dead!"
"Why? Do you have weapons? Do you have enough people willing to go to that place and very possibly die? Do you know how many people are on the enemy side and the dangers they pose if you face them?"
"I..."
"Cindy, enough..." Alberto said in a deep voice.
Hearing that, Jason looked at the stubborn elder who told him to leave and then asked, "No, that's fine. You want to borrow a weapon from me now, don't you? Tell me, what will you do if I lend you the weapon? Your enemies don't need to shoot you — the walkers will eat you in a matter of seconds."
"Tell me how you'll finish them!"
This situation had been expected, but not to this degree. The Saviors were much more aggressive and never planned to ask for half the resources of other communities. What they did was kidnap people and force them to work in their own refuge, so Jason was caught off guard.
He hadn't expected Saviors like this, and for that reason he was especially confident. And the reason he had sent his people back to Atlanta was that a large, organized force was needed — at this time the CRM should be acting; that was something not known with much certainty.
And precisely because he believed the Saviors would act the same way they did in the original story, he hadn't left extra protection at the Kingdom, even withdrawing forces that originally guarded that place.
In fact, Jason sympathized strongly with this girl, but this was not the time to seek vengeance, and when he saw the look of disgust on Cindy's face, he reminded her.
"Our enemies are surrounded by thousands of walkers, and I have other plans for the future. What we have to do now is get out of here as soon as possible. I'm not trying to persuade you, but you must know that I will not provide you with weapons or people. If you still want to pursue that vengeance, think about your friends — are you really ready for them to be buried with you in this foolish decision?"
Cindy lowered her head slowly; her eyes were still full of fury, but Jason's words obviously calmed her down somewhat.
Seeing this, Jason looked at everyone and said, "I know you're afraid, you're eager for revenge and you feel like you're in a dark tunnel with no light, but I promise you I and my people will protect you and we will make sure that together we can build a world inside this ball of hatred and death."
After finishing his speech, Jason didn't waste any more time; he turned around and began to arrange things for these survivors.
Cindy was still standing there, wondering if it was really okay, while Alberto patted her shoulder and comforted her in a low voice.
A little more than four hundred people began to squeeze into the trucks. Although these trucks were made to carry people, they were still a bit cramped due to the special circumstances, but that was not a problem to be considered now.
Cindy boarded a truck at the back; she simply didn't realize that for now, she really couldn't do this kind of thing — she couldn't be the one to take her people to die if that was what was asked of her.
Jason, for his part, took the radio and reported, "We'll split into two groups. I want the Humvees ready to support us at any time. The force should wait and stay one step behind the lead group; this will help us in case of an ambush."
"Yes, sir!"
Most of the walkers were now near the Saviors' base, so the trucks could drive out of the warehouse. The modified RV took the lead, and a group of trucks began to slowly exit the warehouse, following those in front at a distance.
There is a small road on the east side of the town where they could take a detour. A few more kilometers were needed to reach the main road to the south. As soon as Jason left the town, he turned on the headlights and the dark road lit up instantly; there were small groups of walkers approaching the town but they weren't significant.
Attracted by the headlights, the walkers concentrated at the front of the convoy, fearless of death. But the driver knew that the farther they got from the town, the fewer walkers would be on the road. Therefore the modified RV had no intention of slowing down during the drive, so the advance was even faster.
Boom! Boom! Crack!
The walkers in the middle of the road could not stop the convoy's advance. Jason looked at his watch, and the arrival time should be around midnight. This mission had taken more time than expected, but everything was fine.
Just as he was thinking about how to persuade these people to leave Washington, he suddenly heard explosions coming from the direction of the town.
First there was a sound of an explosion around the town, and the great noise accompanied by towering flames brought a huge sense of shock to the people in the convoy!
A small building on the south side of the town slowly collapsed in the violent blast. The direction of the fall was on the road leading out of the town. There was a wave of smoke and dust. In the dark night, only on the road could one faintly see that a building had been buried.
The same scene happened at the exits of several small points. After this explosion, the entrances and exits of the entire town were sealed, which meant that the large group of walkers introduced earlier were trapped in the small town.
This also meant the Saviors were trapped there, and it would be very difficult for them to rely on outside help to drive all those walkers from their domain.
This was, of course, George's masterpiece: not only the exit from the town, but he also placed a time bomb at the Saviors' base.
At that moment, George was looking at the watch on his wrist, suddenly glanced toward the center of town in the distance, and a flash of light ignited, followed by a thunderous explosion.
He frowned slightly, looked at the time again in a strange way, waited about half a minute, and then ground his teeth angrily.
"Damn it!"
Jason looked back and asked a little oddly, "What's wrong? Didn't it explode?"
"Well, not exactly — two detonations failed, otherwise it could have completely destroyed the enemy's factory."
"Forget it, one explosion is enough to deal with most of them; at least those walkers are enough."
...
On the road to the south of the town, a team of about forty people watched their base in the distance in stupefaction. The small building that had been perfectly intact had been reduced to rubble by that explosion. The large group of people wondered what had caused that blast.
If they hadn't been assigned to intercept the enemy and had been at their base instead, they would probably already be buried in the ruins.
A young man in the group in the darkness looked at the main base in flames and said with some hesitation, "What should we do? Should we save our people or stay here?"
Just as Hiro was about to ask, the radio in his hand suddenly made a loud noise.
Then the familiar voice of the boss came through, and Hiro could clearly hear that the boss's voice was full of tyrannical attempts to kill.
"Hiro, you shitty bastard! Stop those sons of bitches for me, and if they escape, don't you dare come back in one piece, understand?"
"Yes, boss! I will definitely stop them!"
Putting down the radio, Hiro wiped the cold sweat from his forehead; he knew all too well that the boss was truly angry, and now they had to work hard to placate that fury.
A group of people lined several cars across the road, then took out all their weapons and equipment, preparing to stop the enemy at that point.
At that moment, Jason's convoy also turned onto the southern road. Jason checked the time and it was already past one in the middle of the night. Before he knew it, more than five hours had passed.
So far, the plan had gone very well, except for the two bombs that didn't detonate, but overall that problem wasn't major. Next, he planned to take these people directly to Alexandria, where they would be briefly examined before deciding their future.
After all, there were about a hundred people here he didn't know. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but think of Alicia. She and her mother were in charge of closely screening people who entered the base, so right now memories of her came to Jason's mind.
"Salazar should take care of that, but he's not here... I should leave that task to someone else, someone who can thoroughly vet people."
Thinking about these things, his attention was distracted a little and he didn't notice that a group of people had suddenly appeared in front of him.
Bam!
In an instant, several bright light sources suddenly switched on in front of him; his pupils contracted, and he was slightly blinded for a moment, and before he could react he heard a burst of gunfire.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Bang!
Suddenly some white spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the modified RV's front windshield, violent gunfire also erupted on the road, and serpents of fire lit up the surroundings.
Jason cursed under his breath and George, who was in the driver's seat, suddenly turned the wheel; the speed also decreased accordingly and he began to accelerate at full throttle.
Just as the vehicle's speed dropped a bit, he turned the wheel again and the RV swerved to the sides on the road, but the sounds of the side armor clashing rang out incessantly.
"Zz... We're under attack, return fire on the enemy! Fire everything you've got!"