When the sky turns white over the northern Cascades, Darnell Pike is eleven miles from the nearest road with an M1 Garand, a .22 pistol, and a cat named Roger who kills chipmunks for a living.
Every light in the valley dies at once. Every engine stops. And within hours, a flashlight comes swinging up the meadow toward his door.
Nine years of hard-won self-reliance meant Darnell owed nothing to anyone. Now there's a man bleeding out from a compound femur, an old rancher's daughter taken hostage, and four armed strangers working their way down a printed list of properties.
A list with Darnell's name on it. Circled twice.
Because the man who made that list didn't build it after the lights went out. He built it two years before, and he's been waiting for permission ever since.