[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 628 - How Could Ashley Ever Be Taken Away

Smith looked at the acutely alert Asian man standing off to one side, then at Leon, who was sitting on the iron bench like he had nowhere better to be.

He had said everything.

He had laid out every last secret he had.

The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment of the United States Army.

The President's daughter.

In the peaceful Washington of the old world, those two names would have made any senior official or governor receive him with open arms — some would have bowed and smiled doing it.

But on this lawless wasteland, inside this private warlord's compound with its obscenely fortified defenses, that identity would only bring the deadliest kind of trouble.

What choice did he have, though?

He had none.

The mission had already failed.

If he was going down anyway, he might as well die clean.

Smith's jaw was clenched tight, sweat sliding down the hard lines of his face as his mind ran through a thousand ways he might be executed.

Tied to the outer wall and fed to the Walkers.

Held under a water tank, beaten until he gave up the bunker access codes.

......

He had made enemies of powerful men before. He knew full well he wasn't walking out of here alive.

But Leon looked at him — and suddenly smiled.

"I'm glad you chose to tell the truth."

Leon slowly straightened up.

"Otherwise, you'd already be a corpse."

"Congratulations."

No outburst. No screaming threats. Just the flattest, most matter-of-fact statement imaginable.

And yet it was precisely that composed, unhurried tone that made Smith, a battle-hardened veteran, feel the full weight of absolute pressure bearing down on him.

Leon stepped forward.

Every muscle in Smith's body contracted at once. He instinctively wanted to step back.

He thought Leon was about to make a move.

Click.

The heavy electronic ankle shackle locked around Smith's ankle fell open. Leon had just unlocked it.

Leon casually kicked it aside with his toe. It skidded to the corner of the wall.

Smith went completely still.

He stared at his two suddenly free legs in bewildered disbelief, then snapped his head up and locked eyes with Leon.

He didn't understand.

He truly didn't understand.

In this wasteland where a knife in the back could come at any moment, an unknown special forces commander walks in, drops the President's daughter's name, and that's it?

Information that explosive, any camp leader worth the title would have had him strung up and beaten for three days straight just to verify whether it was even true.

And that's it?

Smith's mind couldn't make the turn.

He had no way of knowing that the young man in front of him possessed a mind-reading ability that defied all science.

If even a half-sentence of a lie had been threaded through his words just now, Leon would have snapped his neck without a moment's hesitation.

Honesty wasn't just a virtue. In front of Leon, it was the most effective way to stay alive.

Because honesty was the only path to a peaceful conversation, and Leon had zero interest in wasting a single word on someone whose mouth was full of lies.

"Alright. I'm done here." Leon tucked both hands into the pockets of his tactical pants.

Smith felt like a Boy Scout stumbling blindly around an impossibly complex battlefield.

Every beat of this exchange had been completely controlled by the young man standing in front of him.

Leon turned and walked toward the heavy iron door. His hand rested on the handle. He stopped.

"One more thing."

Leon tilted his head.

"Tell your men outside to stop hiding."

"Wind's picking up out there — have them drive the vehicles straight into the outer compound."

Smith's breath stopped completely. His heart slammed against his ribcage.

Outside? His men?

He felt like someone was scrubbing his scalp raw with coarse sandpaper.

He had left the main force hidden behind a pine forest ten miles out. Well concealed. He was certain of it.

He had brought only the Lieutenant on foot.

The entire way here, he had employed the highest-level counter-surveillance techniques and confirmed absolutely that no eyes had followed them.

And yet this young man already knew they had left people outside?

Smith's mind raced.

No wonder.

No wonder this man hadn't taken his special forces credentials seriously at all.

No wonder he'd unlocked the shackle without blinking.

From the moment their convoy had crossed the horizon, their elite squad, the one talked up as so formidably heroic in front of the President, they had already been reduced to a handful of tracked dots on this man's around-the-clock radar screen, locked and lit.

And if they had made even the slightest wrong move, those twin-barreled autocannons on the wall would have taught them what real suppressing fire looked like.

The other side held absolute, crushing power. That was precisely why they had no need for petty interrogation.

"Understood, sir."

Smith's back bent all the way.

He didn't dare offer a single word of protest. He turned and gave a look to the Lieutenant, who had been standing frozen in the corner the whole time, not daring to breathe.

The Lieutenant swallowed hard, immediately took the radio Glenn handed over, adjusted the channel, and began transmitting the clearance coordinates to the convoy ten miles out.

Leon strode out of the isolation block.

Glenn followed close behind, the palm of his hand around his rifle grip slick with cold sweat.

"Boss, you're just letting them go like that?"

Glenn pressed the question, genuinely puzzled.

"What if they try something once they're armed inside the compound? They're professional special forces operators."

"They don't have the guts." Leon moved fast through the corridor.

"Go stand watch at the gate. Once they've driven their vehicles into the outer compound, have them disarm completely. Get them set up in rooms with private bathrooms — treat them well."

"Got it." Glenn immediately turned and ran for the outer compound gate.

Leon walked alone through the prison's inner yard.

The afternoon sun was sharp and blinding. Several carts loaded with fertilizer were making their way through the farming area.

The camp was in perfect order.

He needed to find Ashley.

Her father had sent someone to his door. The matter had to be passed along. But he wasn't worried, there was no way Ashley was being taken from him.

They were bound together too tightly for that.

At the end of the corridor, in the main office.

Sunlight filtered through the blinds and laid neat parallel strips across the hardwood floor.

Ashley was bent over several complex weapons inventory lists.

The Red Queen had been rebuilt by now, and with her data reconstruction running, the camp's entire resource consumption had been compiled into reports accurate down to the single unit.

Ashley bit her red lip, steel pen moving quickly across the paper.

The door opened without a knock.

She looked up.

Seeing Leon walk in, she set her pen down without any particular fuss.

"If it's something, come back tonight. I have work right now."

She leaned back in the wide executive chair.

Leon pulled over the leather chair across the desk and sat down.

Ashley raised an eyebrow, not understanding why he'd suddenly come to find her.

"A few uninvited guests showed up at the outer gate." Leon met her eyes. "The one leading them is a special forces commander. Name's Smith."

At the name Smith, Ashley's hand gave a small tremor. The coffee nearly sloshed over the rim of her cup.

Because she knew that name far too well.

He was the sharpest blade her father had.

After stepping back from field operations, he'd become the most discreet head of security in the entire White House.

"How did he find this place?"

Something flickered across her face. Her breathing went slightly quick, and she set the cup down.

"Your father probably misses you," Leon said, spreading his hands. "So he came."

Ashley stood up and walked to the window.

She looked out at the towering concrete walls and quickly turned over the implications in her head.

If her father had sent Smith, he was coming to bring her back.

Back to that White House full of tedious political maneuvering.

But she'd been living on this wasteland long enough to see clearly.

Those old men in Washington had no ability to build a real Sanctuary in a world this completely broken.

Only the man standing behind her.

And here, there were endless fresh vegetables. There was the Red Queen, a top-tier artificial intelligence. There was even an evolved virus that put modern medicine to shame.

This was the real Noah's Ark.

And she didn't want to leave Leon.

"How do you want to handle it?" Ashley turned around and looked him directly in the eyes.

"They came for you. Naturally you're the one who goes out and talks to them." Leon leaned back in the chair, completely relaxed.

He had no concern whatsoever that Ashley would run off with Smith.

They had long since been bound together. Whatever else might be said, she had been marked with his brand completely.

"No need to talk." Ashley shook her head without hesitation. "I'm not going back."

She walked up to the desk and placed both hands on the edge.

"Then let's go." Leon stood. "Since you've made your decision."

---

About ten minutes later.

Outside a separate isolation room in the outer compound.

Two guards armed with assault rifles stood on either side of the door.

Glenn was posted at the door. When he saw Leon coming, he stepped obediently aside.

Leon pushed open the wooden door.

Ashley walked in beside him.

Inside the room, Smith was sitting in a daze.

At the sound of the door, he jerked his head up.

His gaze crossed past Leon and landed with precision on the girl in the clean grey knit sweater, complexion healthy and flushed, looking nothing like someone who'd been surviving the apocalypse.

Smith shot up from the bed.

He had finally laid eyes on his mission target.

➤ Next: You've Grown Up, Ashley