CHAPTER 311

Duke

This was my grandfather’s place. He decided when he turned sixty that he no longer wanted to live in society and purchased a hundred acres bordering thousands of acres of uninhabited state land. The small container shack he built with his own two hands was off-grid and self-sufficient. The property was in a trust that wasn’t directly traceable to me. I’d never mentioned the place to anyone in the club because it was my fallout shelter if things hit the fan and I had no safe place to go.

I’d learned long ago that no matter how good life was going, it went to shit quickly. To stay alive, you needed a fallout. This property was mine.

There were shaggy bark juniper trees along with tumbleweed bushes. If vehicles came from any direction, the dust cloud would signal us. Hiking in would take someone with experience. There were traps set in the higher hills around the property. My grandfather had shown me how to keep each one in working order and how to set up new ones. Where my father f