{"id":4289,"date":"2020-04-27T16:10:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T20:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4289"},"modified":"2020-04-27T16:10:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T20:10:14","slug":"four-02-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4289","title":{"rendered":"Four – 02"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

He had never been fully comfortable with the assertion that once Thom and Marin were gone that he would be the one to lead. Of course, he understood it, knew where it came from and why it had arisen, but he\u2019d never been truly<\/em> at peace with it. He suspected that his wife felt the same, but for her own reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will we do if they\u2019re not all right, Phelan?\u201d he asked softly. \u201cWhat do we do if New Hope isn\u2019t there anymore?\u201d That settlement had never been huge\u2014perhaps two dozen families and perhaps another two or three dozen singular souls beyond those\u2014but it was large enough to be noticed and they\u2019d come to their aid before, as the Valley\u2019s much more formidable numbers had come to aid them in the past. Lara was a good leader and a strong woman, the only leader that New Hope had ever known, vastly different from the experience in the Valley, where leadership ebbed and flowed between a small group of the original survivors. They still formed a sort of leadership council, but for all that it existed, the truth was that everyone looked to Matt Astoris for true leadership, for the final word. The more their settlement grew, the more deeply uncomfortable it became.<\/p>\n

And yet no one would have ever let him give it up, and something in him wouldn\u2019t let him do it anyway even if they would.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose that will depend rather heavily on the particular flavor of their \u2018not all right,\u2019\u201d Phelan said softly, gazing at nothing for a few seconds. \u201cEither way, whatever forces are marching are going to require some kind of response.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMm.\u201d Matt crossed his arms, frowning. \u201cAgain, that\u2019s going to depend on what the status of New Hope is. Gods and monsters, I hope it\u2019s just raiders, Phelan. I hope it\u2019s nothing more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you really think that\u2019s the case?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Matt said, his stomach sinking. \u201cI just know it\u2019s what I hope. Raiders we can deal with at the same time shit\u2019s rising. If it\u2019s raiders because of shit rising\u2014well. Then it all starts to get more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if the rising shit is actually moving the raiders around like pieces on a chess board?\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt took a deep breath and exhaled in a sigh. \u201cThen we\u2019ve got a lot of work to do, don\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.] He had never been fully comfortable with the assertion that once Thom and Marin were gone that he would be the one to lead. Of course, he understood it, knew where it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[336,337,346,14],"tags":[340,150,171,170,181,149,173,148,168,147,146],"class_list":["post-4289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-04-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-matthew-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-phelan-ocredne","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-17b","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4290,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}