Prologue
Like most days now, the sound of the ocean haunts me. My name is Angela. I'm a mother, doctor, soldier, and now, in the year 2017, I've become a leader of men. Thanks to the end of our world to nuclear war, I'm the Guardian of an American refugee camp named Safe Haven.
Surrounded by carefully watching guards, I sit beside the immense Pacific Ocean as my people work and play nearby, confident my Army will look after them while I tell you about the War of 2012 and how we were forced to leave our beloved Country. It was a nightmare from which we couldn't wake. Some of us still haven't and soon, we'll be at the water's mercy again. In less than two months, we're going home. America waits for us to reclaim and to rebuild, but mostly, simply, for us to return.
Before we undertake that perilous journey, I have to get the 357 souls here ready for the trip and I only know one way it can be done: Adrian has to come back and lead us home as he promised. He's the reason so many of us survived and now that incredibly patriotic man has been exiled. His secret was the only excuse the camp needed to turn on him, but I won't. I can't. I swore myself to him the same as the rest of his Council and like them, I still believe.
I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, far beyond the beginning, when our future didn’t look as good is it does now. Most people here in New America won’t talk about the War or the long, ugly journey we made together. They say the memories have faded but I know a lie when I hear one. Some horrors you never forget. Like our final battle with Cesar and his large band of ruthless Mexican guerillas.
It's been five years and I can still see the deep red streams of blood running down rain-soaked trees. I can still smell men burning alive in metal coffins. I dream of it sometimes: of the cold, wet night when I was the bait, and I'm sure Adrian does too. It was the moment we knew our people would live. We had found the strength to eliminate the threats to our survival before those threats could eliminate us; all because of Adrian.
He had kept us alive, gave us everything he had, and always did what was best for the camp, no matter what it cost him personally. He taught us to be stronger than we thought we could be, to look out for each other and ourselves, and through it all, he lied by omission, knowing these scared, hurting survivors would never have trusted him, would never have given him a chance, if they’d known who he really was.
We came a very long way together in the year after the War, over thousands of miles of heartbreaking devastation, and it hurts those of us who remain loyal to see him accept their unfair judgment without a fight. It makes everything we went through seem less important than it was, weakens the magic somehow, and I can’t allow that. I’ve been seeing open doors again, and that sly ocean cautions me, says the return trip will be just as hard as the one we undertook to get here. If there’s a storm headed our way, it’s our Shepherd we’ll need to see us through it.
So, for Adrian and for those of us standing by him, still ready to die for him, and for the dreams he made me believe in from almost the first minute I set foot in his Refugee camp, I will tell our story and leave nothing out. Maybe then these people will realize what he did for our country, accept how much we owe, and allow him to reclaim what’s rightfully his. Us.
Before I tell you about our harsh, ugly journey, let me show you what happened on that day, what they did to us and what we did to each other. This is how America’s story of survival began…
Like most days now, the sound of the ocean haunts me. My name is Angela. I'm a mother, doctor, soldier, and now, in the year 2017, I've become a leader of men. Thanks to the end of our world to nuclear war, I'm the Guardian of an American refugee camp named Safe Haven.
Surrounded by carefully watching guards, I sit beside the immense Pacific Ocean as my people work and play nearby, confident my Army will look after them while I tell you about the War of 2012 and how we were forced to leave our beloved Country. It was a nightmare from which we couldn't wake. Some of us still haven't and soon, we'll be at the water's mercy again. In less than two months, we're going home. America waits for us to reclaim and to rebuild, but mostly, simply, for us to return.
Before we undertake that perilous journey, I have to get the 357 souls here ready for the trip and I only know one way it can be done: Adrian has to come back and lead us home as he promised. He's the reason so many of us survived and now that incredibly patriotic man has been exiled. His secret was the only excuse the camp needed to turn on him, but I won't. I can't. I swore myself to him the same as the rest of his Council and like them, I still believe.
I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, far beyond the beginning, when our future didn’t look as good is it does now. Most people here in New America won’t talk about the War or the long, ugly journey we made together. They say the memories have faded but I know a lie when I hear one. Some horrors you never forget. Like our final battle with Cesar and his large band of ruthless Mexican guerillas.
It's been five years and I can still see the deep red streams of blood running down rain-soaked trees. I can still smell men burning alive in metal coffins. I dream of it sometimes: of the cold, wet night when I was the bait, and I'm sure Adrian does too. It was the moment we knew our people would live. We had found the strength to eliminate the threats to our survival before those threats could eliminate us; all because of Adrian.
He had kept us alive, gave us everything he had, and always did what was best for the camp, no matter what it cost him personally. He taught us to be stronger than we thought we could be, to look out for each other and ourselves, and through it all, he lied by omission, knowing these scared, hurting survivors would never have trusted him, would never have given him a chance, if they’d known who he really was.
We came a very long way together in the year after the War, over thousands of miles of heartbreaking devastation, and it hurts those of us who remain loyal to see him accept their unfair judgment without a fight. It makes everything we went through seem less important than it was, weakens the magic somehow, and I can’t allow that. I’ve been seeing open doors again, and that sly ocean cautions me, says the return trip will be just as hard as the one we undertook to get here. If there’s a storm headed our way, it’s our Shepherd we’ll need to see us through it.
So, for Adrian and for those of us standing by him, still ready to die for him, and for the dreams he made me believe in from almost the first minute I set foot in his Refugee camp, I will tell our story and leave nothing out. Maybe then these people will realize what he did for our country, accept how much we owe, and allow him to reclaim what’s rightfully his. Us.
Before I tell you about our harsh, ugly journey, let me show you what happened on that day, what they did to us and what we did to each other. This is how America’s story of survival began…
Life After War
Excerpt
Life after War
Books 1-3
Books 1-3
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