66) Are you sure you want me to let you have it?

I had felt the difference as soon as I stepped out of the Dungeon.

The ownership of the property, the entirety of the old hospital, and all of it are mine.

I had no clue how, but I did know that the land wasn’t woken. Vito wasn’t here since the place wasn’t connected to the land my house was on, but as soon as I set foot outside of the Dungeon entrance, I knew that Life Essence would gather on that land and I started slowly pulling warmth from around me and letting it leak back out.

All I needed was to buy some time, time to call up Heap at its full strength, on land that belonged to me that had every living thing on it constantly feeding heap with Life Essence. I thought the Border agents might find shooting Heap up would go a little different this time when he wasn’t drained from a bus trip across the city far from my home.

How the land had become mine, I wasn’t sure. Hiram might have gone for help, but the property had become mine at some time while the two of us were still in the Dungeon. Maybe it was because I had participated in killing the Dungeon stone this time?

So… No clue. But I was going to take full advantage of it. At the very least the Border guys were about to have bigger concerns than shooting some coyotes running away.

...dam it. They won’t run away, will they? Vito isn’t here to let me pass on the urgent need for them to run. And two of them were too damned loyal for their own good.

Reed cocked his head to one side, a questioning look on his face, then the first gunshot began outside and he jumped in his chair, giving me a shocked look. “What did you do old man?”

I grinned, and I felt inspired. “I made the Dungeon my new pet. You want everything I got boy, well here it comes! Tell the bats all about how you own them now while they’re gnawing on your face you heartless child abandoning little bastard!”

The trailer we were in rocked as something slammed into its side. Gunfire erupted again just outside, and the walls of the break room began to buckle in spilling out packets of ketchup and mustard from the cabinets on that wall.

I should probably grab some of those. My taxes paid for them. It would be a chance to get some of that back.

Reed cursed as he threw himself at the door of the break room and tried to turn the locked door knob, before beating at the door. “Let me out of here! God dam it, let me out! Now!”

I set my feet to keep from going over as the trailer rocked again, then twisted my wrists around to get a feel for the handcuffs. Would that even work?

With a thought, the cuffs vanished into my storage space. Bringing my hands around, I pulled the handcuffs back out and set them down on the table. While my taxes had paid for them too I didn’t see a use for them.

Reaching over the table, I snagged the papers Reed had set out. I figured it might help one or both of my lawyers to defend me if they knew what Reed had in mind.

As the trailer rocked again, and a clump of moldy tree branches burst through part of the wall, Reed’s briefcase slid into my reach, and I snagged it into my storage as well.

He didn’t deserve to keep it.

Standing up, and leaning back against a countertop in the break room, I pulled the revolver no one had known to demand from me out of my storage and cocked back the hammer.

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I didn't need to, since I could just pull the trigger to shoot it. But it did make a very dramatic sound.

Reed froze in place, then slowly turned around. Looking at me with his back pressed to the door.

His face was pale. “Don’t…”

I stared him down. “I never thought about it before, but a dead body would fit just fine into my storage space. And I’m sure Beatrice is the only one with a claim to your estate, even if you never set it up for her.”

The prodigal son lifted his hands up, pleading. “Please don’t. You don’t want to do this Dad.”

Inhaling slowly, I nodded. “I really don’t, but it would solve so many problems. For me, for her... I didn’t hate you anymore boy. I just thought we were done with each other, so I stopped caring about you at all. We could have left it at that, but you had to show up and become a problem.”

I raised the handgun with both hands to aim it at him. “If it makes you feel any better. You’re still going to be a problem for me even dead since I can’t do anything about the blood. You just won’t be a problem for my granddaughter. Her inheritance will be just fine even with me in jail.”

In the silence, I stood there. Not sure just how serious I was.

Everything I said was true, except for the part about not hating him anymore. But somewhere in the man that stood there, that man made up of bad choices and betrayals, there was still the baby I had held in my arms.

The boy I tried, and failed, to teach how to be a man.

The man standing before me was the sum and total of everything we had shared together as a deeply flawed father and son. All the bad, as well as the good.

He had cared about the friend he ended up marrying since neither of them had found anyone else by the time they were thirty, and I know he had loved that little girl.

Just not enough to keep living the life he decided was a lie. Not enough to keep pretending he was happy living as a husband and a father when he decided that being gay and regretting his choices meant he could walk away from everything he had committed to without a second thought.

Taking a deep breath, I started to think this might be more of a mercy. The man I tried to raise him to be would have hated himself more than I did.

The knock on the door made both of us realize that nothing had hit the trailer for quite some time and that the gunshots and most of the shouting had quieted down to just two men outside yelling at each other.

One of them was the prick in charge of the Border Patrol agents, the other one was the all too familiar voice of Captain Ebler explaining how this was now the property of the ‘George Bright Foundation’ by order of the Governor, with Harold Bright as the administrator.

Oh. That explained the whole this land is mine thing.

They even named it after my uncle. The old guy would have gotten a chuckle at his name being used to flip off some federal agents. Even more, if this is a non-profit the IRS can’t touch.

The lock on the door clicked and Reed twisted around to pull the door open, then froze in place, poised to escape as his mother slapped him.

He was rocked back on his heels, and as he stood there, rubbing at his reddened cheeks, I began to laugh. “Dam Beryl. All I was going to do was shoot him.”

She glared at me, then stepped aside. “Go ahead and run away Reed. It’s what you do best.”

Without a word or a glance, the boy rushed out.

Beryl stared at me. “You wouldn’t have done it. You still believe he’ll wake up one day and realize what he gave up.”

I sighed and put the gun back away into my storage. “No. I’m done with him. But I don’t want to Bea have to deal with her grandpa killing her daddy. I’m guessing you got a Quest.”

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

Outside… Well, to start with the Army guys had the Border Patrol guys outnumbered, and outgunned.

Ebler had brought in some big trucks with some guns that had belts of bullets going into them mounted up on top of the trucks with guys standing behind them, partially inside an open topped turret while standing on something inside, and partially exposed up where they were aiming the guns at the roofs of the surrounding buildings.

The Heap was posed next to the trailer I was stepping out of, and… It was a lot bigger than when it had been back at my house. Either because the property was larger here, or there was more yard waste for it to build itself with. Or maybe it was because I was at a higher level.

In any case, it was easily the size of one of Ebler’s big trucks.

As me and Beryl were escorted by Johanson, his friend, and two other Army people, I could see three coyotes, tails a wagging, up inside the back of one of the trucks, and heard the prick warning Ebler that “You haven’t heard the last of this!”

As I settled into the back of the truck, and reassured my furry minions that everything was okay, I could hear Ebler’s reply. “I’m sure I haven’t, but I’m pretty sure you are no longer going to be in a position where I’m going to have to listen to you ever again. Good day Mr. Pena ”

I think Uncle George would have liked Ebler, even if he was an officer. The man knows how to twist the knife.