Reborn Cave Queen of the End Times novel Chapter 61

Chapter 61 The Chief’s Long Game

“Mr. Wright, Zain’s a rough guy, but he’s sharp underneath it, and he’s got real leadership in him. Not much schooling, a little crude, but he knows how to win people over. His group’s got old and young both, and though they lost a fair few along the way, they kept every last kid safe.

“As for Silas, since he came up through a martial arts school, most of those coaches with him are his old schoolmates, all trained fighters. Small in number, but strong in a fight. Their one fatal weakness is firearms-they’ve got none. No matter how good your martial arts is, you’re still no match for a bullet. With them, Mr. Wright, you stay alert, but you don’t lose sleep.

“But that group of townsfolk who barely seem to register? Those are the ones you watch closest,” Oscar said. “The chief runs deep, and he’s slippery as they come.”

Leonel nodded. “A man who could lead a whole town on the run and still keep that many alive was never going to be harmless.”

“Exactly. At first, I took him for a kind old man, good-hearted through and through. But one thing later changed my mind,” Oscar said. “That woman of Rex’s? She didn’t go to him on her own. The chief handed her over.”

“Oh?” Leonel tapped his fingers on the table. “Go on.”

“Everyone in that town has the last name Westfield, so the place is Westfield Town, and Chief Evander is the one who calls the shots. Fay is his niece. When he handed her to Rex, she didn’t want to go at first. But the chief crushed her resistance by force, and only then did she end up with Rex.

“Outsiders all figure Fay wrote the town off as dead weight and ran off with Rex, and that Chief Evander is just some pitiful old man who got left behind. But the truth is, every move Fay made, he was pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Even getting Rex’s crew to take Westfield Town under their wing was part of his plan.

“The whole way here, everyone was short on food and clothes, so conflict was bound to happen. The Westfield townsfolk even stole our supplies. But with Rex backing them, we had no choice but to let it go. We had no choice. We couldn’t beat Rex.

“If Zain hadn’t been capable and Silas hadn’t been strong, Chief Evander would’ve set his sights on them too. Truth be told, he tried. He planned to run the same trick again—send the young women of the town to Zain and Silas. But Zain has a wife and a daughter. He’s a family man to the bone, rough on the outside but genuinely devoted, so he flat-out refused the chief’s little gift.

“Silas just wasn’t interested. One look and you could tell he came from money. A guy who could take 20- some schoolmates and open his own gym had to have some assets behind him. Men with money don’t go for country girls. Sure, Westfield Town has a few lookers, but they’re just pretty faces with nothing behind. them…

Oscar smiled.

Leonel nodded in understanding.

I won’t be it’s an embarrassing thing to admit. There were more than a dozen of us, not a fighter in the bunch. To stay alive, we had to play every angle, suck up to whoever we could. When Rex leaned on us.

We'd run to Zainand Silas for help. But neither one took us in. At most, they’d give us a little cover, a little help. That was it.

“I know how they look at us-like we’re just dead weight. Just a bunch of weak links waiting to be weeded out.” Oscar said with a bitter smile. “But who doesn’t want to live? We had women in our group too. Short of bowing and scraping, what choice did we have?”

Leonel clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve had it hard. From now on, never again.”

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