RDR: NO REGRETS - Chapter 262: Reuniting (Patreon)

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

The three of them, two adults and one child, had barely gone a few steps when another burst of gunfire erupted ahead.

Stephen quickly pulled Alice into a nearby building that was still mostly intact, while Charles cautiously leaned out to see what was happening.

There was no telling how many cultists were still alive on the island. This was no time to let their guard down.

About ten seconds later, several cultists carrying guns appeared at a street corner not far away.

They were firing as they retreated, screaming at the top of their lungs as though some kind of demon were chasing them.

Stephen and Charles exchanged a glance.

Then Charles charged out.

Whatever demon those men were running from didn’t matter. They were going to die anyway.

Stephen glanced back at Alice, gently patted her on the head, and motioned for her to stay put.

Alice hesitantly nodded.

Stephen smiled at her, drew his long knife, and rushed out after Charles.

Charles crouched slightly as he sprinted toward the cultists from behind.

As he ran, both hands swept across his waist, and two gleaming throwing knives appeared in his palms.

The knives streaked through the air in straight flashes of white and buried themselves precisely in the backs of two cultists.

Two screams rang out.

The remaining cultists finally realized someone was behind them.

They immediately swung their rifles around, intending to kill Charles first.

But in the next instant, a dark figure dropped from above, accompanied by a lightning-fast flash of white.

It was Stephen.

Using Charles as cover, Stephen had sprinted forward at full speed.

Just before reaching them, he leaped into the air and used the piles of debris on both sides of the alley as footholds to propel himself upward.

His body flashed through the darkness so quickly that, to the cultists, he looked like nothing more than a blur.

The moment he landed, he darted between them in rapid succession.

When Stephen finally stopped moving, the four cultists behind him collapsed to the ground together.

Only two remained.

They finally managed to raise their rifles and shouted as they prepared to fire at Stephen.

But before they could finish yelling, two gunshots rang out nearby.

“Bang! Bang!”

The two cultists dropped at the same time.

A figure appeared at the street corner.

When Stephen and Charles saw who it was, both of them smiled.

“Hey, Cowboy. What are you doing here?” Stephen greeted him with a grin.

It was Arthur, who had come to meet them.

Seeing both men standing there unharmed, Arthur visibly relaxed.

“If I hadn’t come, we might’ve had a real problem.”

With a handgun in each hand, Arthur carefully scanned the area around them.

“How are things over here? I ran into a few lunatics myself just now.”

The instant he finished speaking, Arthur raised one hand toward a nearby alley and pulled the trigger with speed almost impossible to follow.

No aiming.

No adjustment.

Arthur barely even looked in that direction.

Stephen and Charles quickly turned their heads.

A ragged slave slowly collapsed to the ground.

There was a large bloody hole in the center of his forehead. Arthur’s shot had struck him directly in the vital spot.

No matter how many times Stephen saw it, Arthur’s marksmanship still seemed almost ridiculous.

“The slaves have been completely brainwashed.”

Arthur shook his head with a frustrated expression.

“Those two priests stirred them up earlier, and they swarmed Sadie like a bunch of lunatics.”

Arthur briefly explained what had happened at the ship.

Hearing the story, Stephen and Charles both felt a chill.

Thank goodness Arthur had arrived when he did.

Otherwise, Stephen would have regretted it for the rest of his life.

“How is she?” Stephen asked anxiously.

“She’s fine. I told her to move the ship a little farther away from the dock.”

Arthur pursed his lips, then pointed behind Stephen.

“What about you two? You look fine, but where’d the little one come from?”

The little one was, of course, Alice.

Once she saw that Stephen had dealt with the enemies, Alice immediately stumbled out and ran to his side.

She had become extremely attached to Stephen and seemed unwilling to leave him even for a second.

When she saw Arthur pointing at her, Alice nervously hid behind Stephen’s legs.

To be fair, Arthur did look rather intimidating.

He was unkempt, with a face covered in messy facial hair, and he hardly had the friendliest appearance.

“Don’t scare the kid.”

Stephen explained everything that had happened.

Arthur immediately cursed, “Those bastards. Every last one of them deserved to die!”

Just as Stephen had said, the members of the Van der Linde Gang might rob, kill, and commit every crime under the sun, but they were all good people at heart.

“So there’s no one left alive over there?”

Arthur hesitated for a moment.

“If you ask me, for a cult this big, that so-called church probably has plenty of valuable stuff inside.”

“Are we really going to leave empty-handed?”

Clearly, Arthur had his eye on the cult’s valuables.

Stephen, however, had no interest in thinking about that right now.

“I’m going back to check on Sadie first. I don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone in her condition.”

He gestured toward Alice, whose hand he was holding.

“Besides, that place is obviously no place for a child.”

The area was covered in corpses. There was no reason to put Alice through anything more than she had already endured.

Of course, Stephen had no idea that the ship wasn’t much better.

“I’ll go with Arthur. You head back to the ship.”

Charles patted Stephen on the shoulder.

“I noticed a small dock behind the church earlier. You can take the ship around there and wait for us.”

“Huh? There’s another dock back there?” Stephen asked curiously.

Just how much had Charles managed to do in such a short amount of time?

Charles nodded.

“Yeah, but it’s small, and it’s on the other side of the island. I doubt many people know about it. Wood probably had it prepared as an escape route for himself.”

“Too bad he won’t be using it,” Arthur said with a grin. “Then it’s settled. We’ll search the place, bring whatever we find over there, and meet you.”

Stephen watched Arthur and Charles walk away, then turned and picked Alice up.

“Come on. I’ll take you to meet an older sister... uh, actually, I guess I should call her an aunt.”

Alice walked too slowly, so Stephen figured carrying her would be faster.

Before long, he reached the dock with the little girl in his arms.

When he saw the masses of bodies scattered across the dock and floating in the lake, Stephen felt a lingering chill.

But there was no point worrying about what might have happened now.

At least things had turned out all right.

Sadie had clearly spotted Stephen as well.

She slowly brought the ship back toward the dock.