Let them all go!

"Ashley, let's just let them go." You say, unsure what to do.

Ashley knits his brows. "Seriously?" He started to lower his weapon,

Arabella, in the meantime, started to struggle even more. If only she put up this much of a fight in the warehouse... "You can't just leave us! We'll die!!"

"We can't keep you! Just go to Lakeside and-"

Arabella cuts you off. "You idiots don't get it, do you? We're not...There's a dead line we have to meet. If we don't meet that deadline, we're all as good as dead," she exhales, becoming flat while she's under you. "Those three, the ones you killed, played alpha to the end and never shared the details of the area. We’re lost now."

Ashley looks at you and shrugs. “I missed the part where that’s our problem. Why not take the advice from here Visser and go to Lakeside, poke a bit and find out where to go? Find yer’ kin and piss on out of this area?”

He then looks at the others. “Fellas, rope these sumbitches up and prepare camp. We leave early in the morning as soon as Flicker arrives.”

You look at the girls. “We’ll let you stay here until morning.”

Ashley nods. “And don’t worry about us being rapists. I’m sure we all have high enough standards not to touch any of yous.” He turns to you and cocks his head while he smiles.

For a brief moment, you look at Arabella and she looks at you, but nothing is exchanged after his last comment. You both just decide to turn in for the night. Nothing else was going to happen with everyone there.

The night is spent with light conversation making, but eventually you all fall asleep… Well, for the most part. You can’t sleep very well and there are a lot of weird noises outside that you haven't heard before. Even though you are confident that all it was some kind of deer or animal, you couldn’t help stress over it as the wind whistled through the hollow belly of the structure you were in. You just lay awake on your back, looking at the clear night sky through cracks of the ceiling, straining your eyes and ears to hear if any of the noises you are hearing are getting closer…

The sky starts becoming brighter just as you start fading into slumber. You get no more than 3 hours of sleep, perhaps you could convince yourself you got 4 if you had a cup of coffee, but that didn’t seem all that lucky since as soon as the others woke up, they started to go through the supplies the mutants had.

Gun parts, dried food, blankets and your basic military hard gear like magazines and grips were thrown around tossed into piles like they were trash; which they almost were considering their conditions. Ashley didn’t really deem you to be picky, but even he didn’t take the magazines for his AKM for himself or any of the others. Arabella watched in disgust as everything she had helped carry and haul around was taken apart, with a slight hint of sorrow.

There were a few remarks made from everyone in the group, even yourself, as you took apart one the boxes. The lack of coffee, living supplies, codes and insignia’s on the larger items. The way Arabella looked in whatever outfit she had looked to be professional and well-thought out of, but the objects you took from her load out told you otherwise - even though you wondered why that was, there was no way you were going to ask since you were parting ways probably within a few hours. When Flicker came back with the horses, you all fell into a column and left the area, leaving the remaining mutants to discuss their next steps of survival.

Ashley rode near you. You no longer see him as too bad as a person, but you still didn’t want to be sharing the workload within the area with him either. You tensed a little bit as he slowed down to ride beside you, nonetheless. “Good work back there, Visser, though I must admit, I probably would have wasted all of them back there. Even though I won’t condemn you for sparing their lives, I can’t help but wonder if that’ll come back and bite our asses.”

You shake your head. “I’m sure they’ll remember our mercy.” You look back, remembering the distraught Arabella had expressed however. You doubt you’ll ever see her again if she fails to do whatever her task was.

“Besides. None of his will be here by April.” You continued.

Ashley nodded. “Gitten straight to the point, aint’cha?” He spits, hunching his back.

“You aren’t so bad for a contractor. I hope our paths cross each other once more in warmer times, as partners, not enemies.” He tilts his head and presses forward.

When you return to Lakeside, Ashley and this rest of his posse decides to remain there. You think about doing the same thing for only a second. You should return to Tiny’s Tavern and get back to Delilah. She might actually be worried.

However, just as you are about to leave, you decide to find Marcelina and ask her about the mutants. Was that all just a set up? Despite it being still pretty early in the morning, you find her cleaning the tables in the bar, still open and actually occupied with past out customers. In fact, the entire room looks like a fight broke out here.

Your eyes meet and she smiles. Before you can even say anything she puts her hands on her hips and cocks her head. “How’d your contract go, contractor?”

“Horrible,” you tell her. “All the mutants were there. What the fuck was that about?”

Marcelina’s eyebrows furrow. “They...weren’t supposed to be. That little farmstead has been abandoned for as long as I’ve worked here…”

“Well, it wasn’t. There were 6 of them there. Looked like a small gun running gig, but I didn’t have time to look into it.”

She frowns and puts down the rag she was using to clean the tables. “Jesus, I’m sorry. Did you kill any of them?”

“Ashley and his group killed 3, but I possibly killed the survivors by letting them go...Does the Automatic Rifle Syndicate mean anything to you?” She doesn’t answer, but there’s a slight twitch in her eyes.

“I wouldn’t know anything about them. I’m just a barkeep.” She obviously lies, but you expect her to gesture for money. This time, she doesn’t. She steps closer to you and offers some advice though. “It sounds like a name you shouldn’t be asking about in these parts of the country though. Especially if you’re staying anywhere near Tiny’s Tavern.”

She shifts. “On the house.”

It was clear you snagged a SNAFU on this “contract”, but what is done is done. It can’t be reverted now. You start the journey back to Tiny’s Tavern on horseback just as the sun starts to break it’s light over the forest and the sky.