A grandfather counts his family. Four heads, in a crowd pressing toward the boats before dawn. He counts them again, because counting is the one thing the morning has left him - and out over the black water, something small and patient is counting too.

This week is a gift, Fellow Riders. Author Adam Vahn gives you the first two chapters of his novel Treated as Hostile as a full dramatic reading - and the entire book is free (more on that below).

But first, a sincere look at the idea the book is built on: the Post-Heroic Era. The history of war is really the history of reach - the distance at which one human can kill another - and every so often that reach takes a leap that changes everything. Fists. The spear. The bow. The industrial artillery and trenches of the First World War. The air power and mechanized blitz of the Second. And now, in our own lifetimes, the next leap: the cheap remote drone and asymmetric warfare, demonstrated brutally in Ukraine and in the strikes traded between Iran and its neighbors. Each leap stretched the reach - and quietly shrank the hero. Against a machine that cannot be frightened, shamed, or faced, and a war with no front to hold, courage has almost nowhere left to stand. That is what post-heroic means. And the title says the coldest part out loud: treated as hostile is not a feeling - it is a classification. You do not have to do anything wrong. You only have to be sorted into the wrong box.

Then the reading. Meet Dan, a grandfather with damaged ears, a pry bar, and a plan; Claire, his daughter-in-law, who carries the packs and the harder judgment; and Lucy and Noah, who miss nothing. On the morning the harbor stops being a way out, a family of four tries to cross a dying city on Lake Michigan - and learns that the official help and the actual safety no longer point the same direction.

THE FREE BOOK: The whole novel, Treated as Hostile, is yours for nothing when you join the newsletter. Straight terms: one email a week, no spam, cancel anytime - just weekly updates and a short story in every one. Sign up and download it tonight: adamvahn.kit.com

EVERYTHING ELSE - books, socials, and the story behind the stories - lives in one place: AdamVahn.com

The Iron Road Reader is where novelist Adam Vahn reads you into the worlds he builds - thrillers, alternate history, science fiction, and short stories, read aloud with the time they deserve. New episodes every Tuesday. Chapters read this week: "The Count" and "Away from the Water." All aboard, Fellow Riders.