After the End

Author's note:

This is the ninth chapter of

After the End - Part 3

, the final novel in my dystopian erotic romance trilogy. If you enjoy intensely provocative sex with a power play twist, handsome male heroes in emotionally satisfying relationships, and unconventional happily-ever-afters -- you are in the right place! These books are full-length, publication-quality, and currently being offered free of charge. :)

Descriptions of each book can be found in my bio by clicking my user name. Feel free to drop in on specific chapters or sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start from the beginning of Part 1. As always, I appreciate hearing your reactions and feedback. It truly does help me create the best stories that I can for readers to enjoy.

Content warning:

This chapter depicts graphic experiences and intense, distressing emotions related to the following: violent armed conflict (war); gun violence, homicide, and traumatic grief; imminently life-threatening injury, emergency medical treatment, and hospitalization; and death of a committed romantic partner.

Please proceed with caution

and be gentle with yourself if this content could be upsetting. Helpful resource: https://everytownsupportfund.org/everytown-survivor-network/resources-for-victims-and-survivors-of-gun-violence/traumatic-grief.

Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #future, #dystopia, #novel, #romantic, #gay romance, #married, #male submissive, #polyamory, #triad

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Julian:

When I was in school, I happened upon the memoir of a young artist whose life ended tragically before his eighteenth birthday. Battling the illness that eventually claimed his life, he wrote poetically and presciently about accepting mortality, leaving a legacy, and the nature of human existence. Maybe it was the clarity of his insights that fascinated me; maybe it was the idea of being forced at such a tender age, even younger than I was at the time, to come to terms with the fragility of the tether between body and soul.

One phrase I've never forgotten:

You just know when death is coming

. It struck me because despite the credible source, it seemed untrue. Many people die without being aware of what's about to happen, and many who fear imminent death end up surviving. Yet as my own years -- and witnessed deaths -- accumulated, the words continued to echo in my psyche. Because sometimes the sentiment proves all too accurate.

A good commander embraces the inherently chaotic nature of conflict and reserves space for the unforeseeable. No matter how much intelligence is gathered or how carefully operating manuals are written, the dynamics of war are co-created by countless individual human decisions and random turns of fortune, all woven into the unknowable pattern that makes up the tapestry of our universe. While it's advisable to calculate the odds and plan accordingly, it's never completely possible to predict what decisions an enemy will make, or which picture the myriad of discrete threads will form at any given moment. The most insignificant choices or vagaries of fortune can alter the entire course of events.

But enough experience on the battlefield, enough patrols through the same few hundred square miles of wooded terrain, enough sifting through rumors and reports, and once in a while the scattered, apparently unrelated bits of information coalesce into an ominous significance beyond logical calculation. It can be sensed the way sub-audible sound can be felt by humans even when it can't be heard, or the way vibrational ground waves travel from undersea earthquakes ahead of massively destructive tsunamis. The danger crackles invisibly, like static right before a lightning strike.

You just know when death is coming.

Something had seemed off, those first few weeks after the summer solstice, even as the locust heralded the most fertile season and our well-watered crops formed abundant fruit. I couldn't identify any single source of unease, nor could I find grounds to take any particular actions, so I tried to dismiss it as paranoia. Yet the feeling persisted -- a subtle warning I couldn't quite decipher in the ostensibly innocuous events of that July: Sporadic attacks from the northeast that we never fully contained. A shortage of certain supplies at the trading posts. The military's decision to extend control further into the continent's interior. Unusual quiet in the lands across Red River, which we should have noticed, but didn't.

Security threats are most often measured by the presence, not the absence, of activity. No news registered as good news, or not at all. In the bustle of activity that followed vernal planting and birthing, and with our attention drawn to aggression on our opposite border, the information vacuum in the southwest didn't emerge as a pattern until it was too late.

I was north of Fort Laurel one muggy afternoon, debriefing the patrol that had just returned, when I heard faint shouts from the direction of the settlement. Not voices raised in joy or in anger, but tones of alarm. The guards and I exchanged a fraction of a glance before immediately taking off at a sprint toward the stockade wall. We were only halfway there when a messenger intercepted us.

"Attack from the south, Delta!" she shouted as we closed positions. "Lone Star Defense Force -- we don't know how many, but enough to overwhelm the Goldonna outpost. Most of the guards were killed, and the rest are fleeing for their lives. Lansing and Larsen are mobilizing their forces to hold the ridges above Ragan Creek."

My blood turned to ice while my brain shifted into overdrive. That outpost was only five miles from the fort.

"How the hell did they get to Goldonna without us knowing?" I demanded of the messenger, who reversed directions to run alongside us. Our location was separated from the Texas border by a solid fifty miles of wild terrain crossed only by ruined, overgrown roads. If our enemies had penetrated this deep into our territory without detection, I was responsible for a catastrophic lapse of vigilance.

"We think they must have left Texas below the reservoir and come north in secret. Crossed Red River at Natchitoches and advanced between the lakes. The Coushatta garrison knew nothing when we got them on the radio. They're headed here, but it's four times the distance. We don't know if LSDF split their forces at Goldonna, or which route they took."

Eerie dread tingled down my spine while my boots pounded toward the fort, every second a costly delay. The Texan militia must have been planning this attack for months, if not all year, while we sat in ignorance. The depth of strategic investment required to pull off a stealth invasion of this magnitude meant we'd dangerously underestimated their capabilities after the easy dismissal last spring.

I pictured the map in my head, calculating the probabilities for various attack strategies, and suddenly my gut hit freefall. Avery had left early this morning as he often did, leading a party of traders along with a few other guns. And today's planned route was toward the southeast.

"The trading mission across the bayou -- have they returned?" I questioned the messenger urgently. Even the time it took to ask the question seemed too long to wait.

"Not when I left," came the chilling answer.

"Damn it!" I shouted uselessly toward the canopy of leaves far above my head. The towering trees, and their ancestors in endless succession, had witnessed the birth of untold humans for thousands of years. The carpet of needles and decaying leaves yielding beneath my heels had subsumed just as many. This forest didn't care who walked it for the fleeting few decades I drew breath. But if my husband lost his life because of my failure...

I couldn't go down that path. If Avery lost his life, there would be nothing left for me on any path.

"Report!" I ordered as soon as I leapt the threshold of the command center.

Iris, chief of my captains and one of my most trusted allies from our Army days, pressed a handheld radio into my palm, which was emitting a flattened approximation of Graham's voice.

"...Got first, second, and fourth platoons from Bravo Company and two from Echo taking positions north of the creek," he was saying. "No movement sighted so far. Standoff weapons are on alert. Over."

"Lansing, this is Demos, over," I said into the radio.

"Go ahead, Demos."

"Have you sent anyone to find the trading mission? Over."

"A couple of Larsen's squads are tracking down the bayou in hopes of escorting them in. If the traders hadn't started back before the attack on Goldonna, we might not be able to reach them without running into LSDF's main force. Over."

"Avery was with them," I said, entirely unnecessarily. It wouldn't matter if Goddess Herself had gone trading this morning. The only way to get far enough south to rescue the team -- if they were still alive by then -- would be to win the battle at the creek.

There was a pause before Graham's grave response came through the wireless. "I know."

My whole being yearned to grab a rifle and search every square meter of wetland myself until I found my beloved. But I was too well trained. Snippets from the combat casualty manual, which I'd quoted countless times to subordinates, surfaced in my head:

The most effective way to reduce casualties is the focused application of firepower by all personnel. Gain tactical control, then treat the wounded.

Rushing off would only increase the chances of us both being killed.

Iris and I quickly arranged deployment of Fort Laurel's forces, leaving some in reserve in case of a two-front strike. The contingent patrolling the northern woods had been recalled, but they likely wouldn't make it for the initial assault. We'd hiked nearly to our planned forward operating base when the radio crackled with an unfamiliar voice.

"This is Sergeant Blackburn. Trading party located in sector five near the juncture of creek and bayou. Pursuers have been halted south of the creek. Estimated twenty combatants at this position. Guards remaining with our unit; civilians sent to base. Two casualties: Chase and Zhao, both being evacuated to the CCP for triage. Over."

The instant I heard Avery's last name, the rest of reality halted. The single syllable clanged over and over like an alarm inside my head:

Chase. Chase. Chase. Chase.

He was hurt, badly enough to be removed from the field. He was bleeding, possibly dying, at this very moment.

"Report status of casualties," I managed to instruct the sergeant before anyone else spoke.

"Zhao gunshot to the thigh. Alert and tourniquet applied. Chase gunshot to the lower abdomen. Alert at evacuation but with uncontrolled bleeding. Over."

This was it: my nightmare. The actual worst thing that could ever happen to me.

My husband's gorgeous body ripped open by one pitiless twitch of the trigger.

His sensitive flesh, which my fingers had caressed so often, split and shredded.

His nerves flooded with agony. The blood draining from his veins, taking with it the ability to feed his tissues, heat his organs, and clot his severed vessels. All because someone's boundless greed drove them to rob peaceful neighbors of homes and family.

I was still standing in frozen horror when Iris's hand landed on my shoulder. "Julian, you have no reason to think he won't make a full recovery. Third Battalion's forward surgical unit is less than two clicks from there. Most injuries to the bowels are reparable."

I didn't bother speaking the counter-arguments, which she knew just as well as I did: That without medevac transport, Avery could easily bleed out before they could get him to the surgeon, especially since we didn't know how long he'd already been losing blood. That if he lost too much, he would spiral down regardless of whether surgery was successful. That he'd be at high risk for infection we had few tools to fight. That the only medical resources available were half a battalion's field hospital plus three unlicensed doctors in a barely-functional rural facility. And that we had no idea how many other wounded might soon be competing for surgical repair and resuscitation.

I'd led troops into enemy fire far too many times. I'd lost friends, colleagues, and lovers to callous metal cylinders. But none of the soldiers hauled broken from the field had ever been Avery: my love, my heart; my soulmate, if you believe in that sort of thing. I'd been conditioned since childhood to disregard distracting emotions while making decisions. But I couldn't seem to remember how to do anything except stare into the forest toward where he was.

"You know there's nothing you can do for him right now except win this fight," Iris reasoned when I didn't respond. "The medics will give him the best care they can. The more decisive our outcome, the easier it will be for them to treat him."

That was true, of course. It made perfect sense. Except it still left Avery out there alone with strangers, in fear and pain and with a hole in his gut that he may or may not survive.

"I could be with him," I told Iris, afraid to speak the words, but more afraid not to. "In case --" Well, it turned out I couldn't finish that sentence after all.

"Julian." She shook my shoulder to get my attention, and finally I looked at her. There was compassion in her gaze despite the lack of emotion in her words. "If that's what you have to do, then go. But what would Avery say, if you could ask him? Because I think he would want you to focus your attention on halting LSDF's advance, so that the surgeons have a secure perimeter to work on him, and so that we all still have a home tomorrow. This battle will go better if you're committed."

I swallowed a lump of terror from my throat, though I knew she could see it in my eyes. But I couldn't yet find the strength to resist the invisible force drawing me toward my husband's distress, as potent as gravity or electromagnetism or the binding between subatomic particles.

"Whatever happens, you'll get through this," Iris encouraged, as gentle as she ever got. "And we'll be here for you. Let's do what we can to avoid more loved ones getting shot."

At last I nodded, and somehow my legs resumed walking. Not where I wanted to go, but where he needed me to be.

It wasn't very long before our enemies could be sighted in the woods on the other side of the creek. Given the direction they'd chosen in order to sneak by our defenses, they couldn't get any closer without crossing the drainage basins to the south or east, unless they detoured a long way west, which would give us ample opportunity to pick them off. There wasn't a lot less cover in the lowlands than there was anywhere else, but they'd be slowed by the soggy ground and by the climb down and out of the creek bed. Our higher ground gave us the opportunity to flood our opponents with firepower while they crossed the thousand meters between us.

Which is what we did when they charged. LSDF had automatic rifles -- those are still abundantly available, though most were manufactured over a century ago -- but the backwoods route they'd taken hadn't allowed them to bring any vehicles, if their arsenal even included any. They had nothing to match the heavy machine guns and mortars the two infantry companies were raining down on them.

Fort Laurel had also been without such defenses until last year. In prior eras, paramilitary groups could obtain military-grade weapons on the black market. Once humanity exhausted our planet's fountain of hydrocarbon fuels and overseas shipping became as impractical as it was during the Renaissance, the U.S. Department of Defense gained much tighter control over the supply of advanced weaponry. The government, and the federal contractors they made rich, could still coordinate the complex chain from mining to component fabrication to final assembly, whereas militias like LSDF could not. I was more grateful than ever for Third Battalion, even at only half capacity. Their other units would already have been notified of this unprovoked invasion -- exactly the sort of violence they were in the South to prevent. Likely LSDF's stronghold in East Texas would be hearing from Fort Worth in the coming weeks.

It's basic warfighting doctrine that attacking a fixed position is much more costly than defending one. While our enemies had surprise, momentum, and bloodlust on their side, we had discipline, superior weaponry, and homefield advantage on ours. They kept control of their people and land through violence, indoctrination, and religious fervor. We chose to maintain order through cooperative agreements and quality leadership. Due to the government's withdraw from the continent's interior in the prior century, LSDF probably hadn't gone up against a professional army since before any of their fighters were born. They'd brought hundreds, but it wasn't enough.

By nightfall, what was left of their forces had retreated beyond the opposite bank. Our reinforcements from the north and east were well on their way, so unless the invaders had several reserve companies stashed below Goldonna, they were no longer an immediate threat to Fort Laurel. Which meant I could at last run to the forward medical station and find my husband. There hadn't been time or radio bandwidth for me to get any updates during the fighting.

Wounded fighters in and out of unform were huddled around the floodlit entrance to the canvas tent, lying on blankets or leaning against tree trunks. The body bags were kept out of sight in accordance with standard operating procedures, but I knew they must be near. I pleaded with every deity I'd ever heard of that none contained the man I loved.

"Avery Chase," I demanded of the first person in scrubs I encountered, who was helping lift a bandage-wrapped service member onto a litter.

The medic glanced up and recognized me, though I didn't know him. "Sent him to the fort a couple hours ago, Major. Presented with stage three hypovolemic shock." Dread saturated my gut while he strapped in his patient with practiced motions and kept speaking in technical language I understood all too well. "We performed an abbreviated laparotomy to control hemorrhage and contamination from the bowels. Abdomen was left open and resuscitation initiated, but BP and temperature worsened. Had to transfer him since blood products here are limited."

The man nodded toward two volunteers standing by, who grabbed the litter's handles on either side and carried it away. Then he focused on me, his tone growing more grave. "I wish I had better news for you, sir, but the situation was critical when he left." There was another brief, pitying pause. "He's strong. We did everything we could to give him a fighting chance."

Horrifying visions played over my unseeing gaze: Avery's heart beating much too fast, frantically attempting to compensate for insufficient blood. His extremities cooling as his body tried desperately to maintain enough circulation to keep his brain and lungs functional. His sliced belly packed with gauze, nothing protecting his organs except plastic dressing. IV bags swinging above his head while his litter was carried the additional kilometer from here to the fort.

The odds of him making it that far, before his remaining blood lost the ability to clot and started leaking from every exposed surface, were terrifyingly slim. There was no ambulance, no medevac chopper, that could be sent for him. No ICU to send him to. No blood bank to donate extra units. Just him jostling through these woods on a thin bridge of fabric: gasping for breath, too cold to shiver, his cells starved for oxygen. Lactic acid building up in his tissues as they shifted into emergency metabolic mode, until his entire circulatory system-- the moment-by-moment process of staying alive -- collapsed under the strain of the bullet's trauma.