Book three of the Compound Series is about the trials of Lily Jacqueline "Jackie" Schwartz. It has been just less than a year since terrorists carried out world-wide, well-coordinated attacks which crippled most governments. Even where there were no actual attacks, the ensuing chaos ravaged the area. Unarmed men were killed for no reason. Others failed to rerun from scavenging forays, their fate unknown by grieving families.
Lily Schwartz is adept at using the rifle she carries and the pistol stuffed in her waistband. She managed to protect twenty-two women and children. When the utilities failed, they scavenged what they could, loaded it into Marie Gonzales' large van, and fled south seeking a habitable location near a river.
Along they way they rescued a young mother and her newborn son from a brutal man who had kidnapped her. He continued to menace them as they traveled. As winter approached, they avoided the towns to evade the terrifying man and his entourage and ended up on a abandoned farm just as the van ran out of gas. Now their food supplies are gone. Their options are to scavenge and barter in the nearby-possibly violent-town or starve.
