Through the Gate: Atlantis University Book 1

One ending after another, and this one is no different, or is it?

The chaplain’s office smelled like coffee and carpet cleaner, the same institutional air that lived in every government building Jackson had ever entered. He’d spent plenty of time in rooms like this. Foster care offices, school counselors, group home intake centers. The furniture changed, but the smell never did.

Chaplain Morrison sat across from him, a folder open on the desk between them. The man had kind eyes and a patient voice, a combination that made Jackson’s skin crawl. Kindness always came with conditions.

“How are you feeling today, Lance Corporal?”

Jackson didn’t answer. Through the window behind Morrison, Marines crossed the quad in PT gear, their cadence calls drifting through the glass.

Two years ago, he’d been one of them. Running in formation. Part of something bigger than himself. Now, he sat in this office while paperwork decided his future.

“Jackson.” Morrison leaned forward. “This is a conversation, not an interrogation. I’m trying to help.”

“I know.” Jackson kept his face empty. “You’ve said that.”

The folder contained his psychiatric evaluation. Jackson had seen enough government documents to recognize the ones that rewrote your life.

Morrison turned a page. “Your combat performance has been exemplary. Your NCOs speak highly of you. Sergeant Torres called you one of the most reliable riflemen he’s served with.” Morrison paused. “But your responses during the evaluation raised some concerns.”

Jackson didn’t need the list. He’d been honest because lying felt worse than whatever consequences honesty brought. It always had.

“Question 147.” Morrison’s finger rested on the page. “‘I sometimes wonder what the point is when no one would notice if I was gone.’”

“That’s a true statement.”

“You also wrote extensively about the incident on November 12th.”

Fallujah. The city that lived in Jackson’s head, playing on repeat at three A.M. when sleep wouldn’t come. The IED that had turned their Humvee into a coffin. Corporal Danny Reyes bleeding out in Jackson’s arms while they waited for a medevac that arrived four minutes too late.

Danny had been the first person since foster care who’d given a damn whether Jackson lived or died. They’d shared watch rotations, care packages, and dark humor that only made sense when you were nineteen and far from home, trying not to think about what tomorrow might bring.

Danny’s mom still sent Jackson letters. He couldn’t open them.

“I answered the questions.” Jackson didn’t look away. “Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?”

“You wrote about whether Danny’s death meant anything, and whether the world would miss you if you were gone.” Morrison closed the folder. “Those aren’t the thoughts of someone who’s ready to continue serving.”

“They’re the thoughts of someone who watched his friend die for nothing.”

Morrison’s expression softened. Not pity, but recognition. “I’ve had those thoughts too, son. Every combat veteran has. The difference is learning to carry them without letting them carry you.”

“Maybe I haven’t learned that yet.”

“No. Maybe you haven’t.”

The discharge papers waited. Their edges showed under the folder, official letterhead that would reduce two years of service to a single paragraph. Honorable discharge. Medical. Mental health.

Not the Marines’ fault. They’d given him everything he’d wanted. Structure, purpose, brotherhood. A place where showing up and working hard meant something. 

Morrison kept talking. “You’ll have access to VA resources. Mental health services and job placement assistance. The transition can be—”

“I know how transitions work.” Jackson stood. “I’ve done a few.”

Morrison didn’t try to stop him. “The paperwork will be finalized by end-of-day. You’ll need to clear the barracks by 1800.”

Jackson walked out of the chaplain’s office and didn’t turn back.

The base spread around him in the afternoon sun, familiar and foreign. Two years of his life reduced to a folder and a handshake. He’d survived Fallujah, and before that, foster care following his parents’ death. Now, everything was ending.

Again.

He crossed the quad, past the Marines in PT gear, the administrative buildings where his discharge was being processed, then the gate where he’d entered two years ago, thinking he’d finally found a place to belong.

***

Three hours later, the bus dropped Jackson off in downtown San Diego. He had a duffel bag with everything he owned, four hundred dollars in separation pay, and nowhere to go. The apartment he’d been renting was technically still his for another two weeks, but the lease required a co-signer he no longer had and rent money he wouldn’t be earning.

He walked toward the harbor, because standing still was worse.

The sunset painted the water gold and orange. It looked obscene. He sat on a bench overlooking the marina, where boats bobbed in their slips, owned by people with lives that made sense.

A fire truck’s siren cut through the evening air.

He closed his eyes.

He was nine again.

The smoke woke him before the alarm. Thick, black, and wrong, pouring under his bedroom door, alive. The taste of it coated his tongue. His lungs burned with his first conscious breath.

He’d rolled out of bed and touched the door handle, as his dad had taught him. Too hot. The metal seared his palm. He’d jerked back. A cry escaped.

“Mom?” His voice wavered. “Dad?”

No answer except the crack of a beam giving way and the whoosh of flames finding new fuel.

The window. He recalled his dad explaining, “If there’s ever a fire and you can’t reach us, you go out the window and down the trellis. We’ll meet you on the lawn.”

He’d climbed out. He’d waited on the grass in his pajamas as the fire trucks arrived, as the house burned, as his gaze remained on the front door.

They didn’t come.

The foster system took him the same day. Then came nine years of placements that never stuck. The Hendersons, who’d tried before Mr. Henderson got transferred. The Marcuses with their dog Chester, who’d loved Jackson unconditionally until the day they decided fostering wasn’t for them. The Reeves, with their locked refrigerator. The Dawsons, where he’d learned to sleep with his back against the wall.

The lesson he’d learned was, don’t get attached. Don’t expect anyone to stay.

The Marines were supposed to stick.

As the siren faded into the distance, Jackson opened his eyes.

The harbor was still there. Joggers passed on the path behind him. A couple walked hand in hand along the water’s edge. The world kept spinning, oblivious to Jackson Bach and his pattern of losing everything.

A family walked past. Mother, father, teenage son. The kid wore a Marines T-shirt. Probably fresh from a recruiting office, heading home to celebrate with parents, who would co-sign his lease and call him on Sundays and give a damn whether he lived or died.

The family disappeared up the path.

He thought about Danny laughing at his terrible jokes. The care packages Danny’s mom sent with enough beef jerky for the whole squad. The four minutes of waiting for medevac that had felt like four years.

Danny’s mom was out there right now. Possibly writing another letter that Jackson couldn’t bring himself to open. Wondering why the kid who’d held her son’s hand at the end couldn’t find the words to write back.

Jackson wondered, too.

As he sat unmoving on the bench, he tried to figure out what came next.

The old patterns clicked into place. Seven foster homes had taught him how to work the system. Four hundred dollars could stretch three weeks in a hostel if he found day labor. The VA would process his benefits, eventually. Two months, maybe three. He could survive that long on cereal and ramen. He’d done it before.

He knew where to go, too. A shelter on 16th Street didn’t ask too many questions. A temp agency near the Gaslamp hired vets. A church soup kitchen served hot meals three times a week if you sat through the sermon first. He’d never used those resources, but he’d mapped them years ago, alongside fire exits and alternative routes in every building he entered.

Foster care survival skills never went away.

He’d figure this out. Tomorrow he’d start making calls, filling out applications, working whatever angles existed. 

By morning, he’d be moving again.

When your whole life has been on let down after another what is next? Find out on May 11th, when Through The Gate: Atlantis University Book 1 is released. Until then head over to Amazon and pre-order it today.