Salvation (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next afternoon, Bishop had meetings with Declan. Luna went to work on Victor’s car, taking small satisfaction in getting the engine to turn over.

Yesterday, before finding the papers, she would’ve been thrilled.

When she was done, she waited outside for Bishop. She didn’t want to go underground until it was absolutely necessary, and she didn’t know why tonight, the feeling was so strong, because lately, being with Bishop was taking the edge off any claustrophobia. It seemed to be less of an issue for him as well.

But tonight...maybe she was just worried because lightning fired up an hour ago. Or maybe because she knew that Bishop was with Declan.

Bishop had been right—sometimes it was better to live in ignorance, but that horse was long out of the barn and running wild.

She stayed in the garage as long as she could, until the alarms began to ring, which meant it was time to go underground. And still, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Bishop had promised to pick her up here, and she stood in the doorway as the rain began to pelt, and watched the people calmly go to their safe places. It was almost old hat at this point, which made things even weirder, and the pit in her stomach grew deeper. She gnawed on her bottom lip and considered going to Bishop’s place after another half an hour passed. The ground was flooded, and even though she’d probably be fine in this garage, which had outlasted many a storm...

“Luna!”

She glanced out the door and saw a lone, tall figure waving under one of the emergency lights. She walked out, began to pull the door locked behind her and Bishop was behind her, pulling against the wind, locking it down. And then he picked her up and began to run with her.

The wind whipped her hair against her cheeks. The downpour made it almost impossible to see, but Bishop carried her like she didn’t weigh anything.

And finally, they were underground and soaked, and it was just like last time, except Bishop put the soundproofing on much more quickly to drown out the yelling.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, echoing her inner monologue of the entire evening.

“I know.”

He took her hand and walked her into his place, locking the door and grabbing towels. They stripped and dried and redressed rather than falling into bed to pass the time, because neither could shake their feelings of dread.

There was a knock at the door a few minutes later that made her jump. Bishop opened it and she caught sight of Declan. He didn’t come inside, spoke to Bishop in quiet tones for a few minutes before leaving.

Bishop closed the door then said, “No word from Defiance.”

“That’s not uncommon during the storms though,” she said.

“That’s true.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’ve got to go out there and do something. Declan can’t—so you’ll stay with him.”

“No.”

“Luna, please—”

“You lied. You lied to me once about leaving Defiance. You said you’d never leave me because of what happened to Mia.”

“I didn’t leave you alone in Defiance—I left you with a man I trust more than myself,” he said through clenched teeth.

“And now, you’re leaving me with one of Keller’s men, a guy you barely know?”

“I’ve trusted him with my life,” he told her. “I have to do this. I won’t be long.”

“Are you going to be outside in this?”

“No,” he told her, and she relaxed. Walked into his opened arms and kissed him, so hard and well that he’d never forget her. At least that was her plan.

“Loved you from the day I met you, Luna,” he murmured as he brushed his fingers over her mouth. “Never gonna stop.”

“Hurry back.”

“Promise.” He let go of her, slung his bag over his shoulder and walked out the door. She forced herself not to go after him and ask any more questions.

Right after Bishop left, Declan was at her door. “If you want to grab some of your things—I’ve got an extra bedroom and comms. I’d rather you come to my place. Bishop would too.”

She nodded, grabbed her old knapsack and stuffed some clothes—and Bishop’s book—into it. She didn’t know if the paper was still there, but she figured, better keep it close. She followed Declan and several Keller guards down a long hallway. There was a gate that unlocked with a key and a code that separated Declan’s tube from the others.

“Are we still under the compound?” she asked.

“Just outside it,” Declan answered easily. “Keller likes some of us to be on the perimeters. Make yourself comfortable, okay?”

He pointed toward the extra room, but she didn’t go in there just yet. Instead, she sat at the table, her bag at her feet, taking in everything.

Keller’s men definitely had better comms. There were several TVs, and although the screens weren’t on, she figured they had to be of the outside, the compound. She heard the thunder and rain and she jumped, looking around.

“Sorry—we’re soundproofed here, so I have the camera sound on,” Declan said, lowering the volume. The door was locked behind them, the guards right outside in the hallway—that security camera was on, allowing her to see both ways down the hall.

He offered her a soda and she took it. She noted that he was as handsome as she’d originally thought—with an edge of danger she’d come to recognize easily. He was also bruised, and she didn’t know if that happened on the job, since Bishop had been a bit banged up...but she noticed bruises around Declan’s wrists. They looked like marks from some kind of bindings.

She looked from his wrists to his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t make an attempt to hide the marks by pulling his sleeves down. His arms were on the table, palms wrapped around his own bottle of soda.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked finally.

“I’m worried,” she said honestly. “About Bishop. About Defiance too.”

“It’s a bad storm—came up out of nowhere. It’s wait and see, Luna. But I’ll try Defiance’s comms for you.”

“Because it’s in Keller’s best interests?”

“Partly. But I work with Bishop. I trust him with my life during our jobs. I owe him.”

And he owes
you, she thought. Because while she was grateful for the no bullshit, she was also sick with worry.

Funny how worried she was about a place that, at one point, she was pretty sure she never wanted to see again.

They have to be okay.
We trained for that.
Our tubes are advanced...they have to be all right.

She repeated it over and over until she believed it. And she did, but she also knew that she and Bishop needed to go home, and soon.

Maybe she could be content here, for a while, even with the tear gas raids and everything she’d learned. Because of Bishop and the freedom. The novelty. Her and Bishop against the world. Sure, they could do it, but why would they want to, when back at Defiance, they had a whole family behind them?

After another ten minutes, Declan showed that he was like most of the men she knew as well. He was climbing the walls, much the way she’d seen both Bishop and Rebel and other men in Defiance do during the storms. Helplessness wasn’t a role any of them wore well.

She had a similar anxiety, but her tendency was to get quiet. And so she watched Declan pace, then stare at the cameras, turning them on every once in a while but blocking her view of them with his back.

If she strained, she could hear the light sounds of rain and thunder. It sounded like it was getting better out there, but maybe that was simply wishful thinking.

Suddenly, the unmistakable rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire rang through the speakers, accompanied by the stomp of what sounded like hundreds of people running.

“Fuck.” Declan was turning the monitors off, knocking on the doors for the guards, obviously telling them that something was going on. When he turned back to her, he said, “Riots.”

“Why? In the middle of the storm?”

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on, Luna. I’m sure I’ll get a call any minute from Keller,” he said, and seconds later, his SAT phone rang. He took the call, listening, saying only, “Yes, I understand. I’m prepared,” before hanging up.

“Keller?” she asked.

“Yes. He wants us to stay put. The guards are in place—he’s prepared to send them out since the storm is ending. But he’s also calling in the military to help. He doesn’t want us up above until further notice.” Declan’s voice was tight but she was grateful that Keller hadn’t called on him to help. As it was, Declan was taking out machine guns of his own, laying them out on the bed, like he was preparing for war. “You can shoot?”

“Rifle or pistol?” she asked and he nodded his approval and handed her one of each. “Loaded. Safety’s on. I don’t think it’s coming down to that but...”

She thought back to the paper tucked in Bishop’s book and she wondered...

And then she forced that out of her mind. Not when Bishop wasn’t by her side. They’d decided never to say anything to anyone in Keller’s about it, for their own protection. “Where’s Bishop?”

Declan stared at her. “Fuck, Luna...he’s off the compound. And I’m beginning to think that’s the place to be.”

And maybe he was right, but a chill ran through her at Declan’s admission. “He lied to me.”

“For your own good.”

“How is lying to me about going out in this storm for my own good, Declan?” She was prepared to push him out of the way, to at least punch him to make herself feel better.

“Rebel’s out there.”

And that stopped her in her tracks. “What? How do you know that?”

“Because he left from here fifteen minutes before the storm started. Probably couldn’t turn back so I’m hoping he stayed put. But still.”

But still, these storms, the rivers, everything was completely unpredictable. And when Declan asked Bishop to go, they thought they were looking at a storm, not the riots going on above them. “How do you know Rebel?”

“He started coming to me for information about you. He wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“And what did you ask from him in return?” she demanded and he blanched.

“It’s not like that. That’s how it started, what he wanted, but that’s not what happened, okay.”

She stared into his handsome face and saw the pain etched there. Although Rebel couldn’t have been coming here for very long, she knew, better than anyone, how quickly bonds formed these days. For her, it had taken five minutes.

It appeared that, unless her instincts were totally off, that the same thing had happened to Rebel.

“Ah, Bishop.” She hugged her arms around herself. He’d known she would’ve asked him to look for Rebel. But he’d also known she’d hesitate, because of what happened to Mia. He hadn’t wanted her to make the choice, so he’d made it for her.

“He tried to get through to Defiance—and maybe he did,” Declan told her. “We’ve just got to wait this out. He’s a tough guy, Luna. They both are.”

“So why send Bishop out there then?” she asked.

He sighed. “Because Rebel should’ve been back there before this storm started. And he’s got a way to check in where he’s staying.”

She put her hand over her mouth. Her first thought was the LoV. Her second was the paper in Bishop’s book. Declan seemed completely surprised by all of this, but he was still one of Keller’s. And letting him know seemed moot now, because if the LoV was responsible for the riots, they were well underway.

Above, the tanks rolled in and the sound of gunfire made her cover her ears and duck instinctively, even as Declan folded around her protectively. They weren’t in danger down here, but she didn’t even want to imagine what was happening up above. There would be carnage, and they’d be people she didn’t know. That wouldn’t make it any easier.

Finally, when her eyes started closing at the table, Declan led her to the couch and wrapped a blanket around her.

“You’re not going to be any good to anyone if you’re exhausted,” he told her. “I’ll find them both—I swear to you, I will, Luna.”

But going out there now was suicide, and she knew that. She could only hope that Bishop was out there, well past this and that he and Rebel wouldn’t try to intervene.

“When Rebel left, were things okay with you guys?” she asked suddenly. He shook his head. “Is he being an asshole? Because he does that when he’s scared.”

Declan gave her a wry I’m-not-a-fucking-idiot smile. “You’re exactly like he said you’d be. Actually, he said before he and I could go any farther, we’d have to go through you first.”

“He’s right.”

“He’s not like anyone I’ve met. And trust me, I’ve met a damned lot of people.”

For some reason, that brought tears to her eyes but she forced them back before she met his eyes. “I need him to be okay. I need both of them to be okay.”

“Bishop made me promise not to leave you, Luna. That’s one promise I won’t back down from.”

There was no point in arguing. The sounds from the compound sounded like mini-explosions, and it rang in her ears even after Declan quieted the speakers.

At some point she fell into an exhaustion-fueled sleep and dreamed of horrible things.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rebel’s my best friend in the world—like Mathias is to you
,
Bishop.
If anything ever happened to him...

Luna’s words had echoed in his head, ever since Declan had knocked on the door and told him that Rebel was caught up in the storm. At that point, Bishop hadn’t asked questions. Whatever reasons had Rebel coming close to Keller’s most certainly had something to do with Luna, and there was no way Declan, as one of Keller’s top men, would be allowed out. Even when he came to deliver the message to Bishop, there were three big guards there.

Declan could take them, but this was protocol. Bishop had seen it with some of Keller’s other men, especially during crisis times. No one guarded Bishop, because no one expected him to take off. He was too loyal to Defiance.

“Are you going to tell her about Rebel?”

“She’ll be worried enough about me. If I tell her Rebel’s out there too...she’ll insist on going.”

Declan shook his head. “No way. Rebel would kill me.”

Bishop looked at him then and he understood, just by the look on Declan’s face, at least another reason why Rebel was hanging around here.

Bishop hated lying to Luna, but the truth wasn’t his friend at this point. Of course, Luna could keep a secret—it wasn’t about that. But it wasn’t his goddamned secret to tell. It would also cause her to panic, and she’d had enough of those. He’d weighed what Luna’s response would be if he told her it was Rebel out there, and in his heart he knew she’d tell him to find Rebel. He
knew
that. So he’d endure her anger for that...

No, he’d do what Declan asked—he’d do it for Defiance and he’d be back. He’d been out in these storms before. He could handle himself. Rebel was working in the new Defiance compound—Bishop knew that. Rebel wouldn’t have chanced going all the way to Defiance in the storm, but at this point, even going three feet was an issue.

He was probably just waiting the storm out on the road, he told himself. Rebel had been through this shit before. He’d want to get back to the compound because he was in charge of it. And he wouldn’t have left if he’d known about the storm.

But the road between that new compound and Keller’s wasn’t always a simple one...because you had to pass through LoV country. If he’d gotten stuck there...

Bishop refused to think on that. Except that the hinky feeling hadn’t ever fully left from after the last job he and Declan did, but it was stronger than ever. So he’d geared up, gotten the Humvee’s keys, and he’d asked Declan for one favor—his SAT phone.

Declan had left it in the corner of the hallway, under the cameras, and Bishop grabbed it, dialed Defiance and tapped out a message in Morse code. Whether or not anyone could hear him, since these calls sometimes reverted to a switchboard type of system during the worst of the storms, he didn’t know. But Mathias would catch it. Caspar too.

What would Mathias do
? he’d asked himself.
What would Mathias tell you to do?

Mathias would tell him to let his conscience guide him, which wasn’t always the best thing. Tonight, it was.

Mathias

After we’d survived the first storms of the Chaos, Bish and I made a pact to never be separated. I understood why he broke it—and I planned on making sure he never did it again, right after I punched the fuck out of him. But after that initial anger, I concentrated more on What Would Bishop Do than anything. Because his mind was a crazy place—his thinking didn’t always extend in the straightest of lines, but hell, he usually had the best of intentions.

Unless he wanted to kill someone. Which was pretty often.

So during the storms, I’d go to the switchboards—there was some output when the SAT towers went down. One of the main reasons Caspar was thinking about going in with Keller was because Keller had more sophisticated comms. Defiance couldn’t concentrate on comms and tubes. And damn it all if I didn’t want this new partnership to happen sooner than later, thinking it’d free Bish.

Although, knowing Keller, he’d force Bish to serve out his time. Which was really
my
time.

So yeah, I’d go to the switchboards and put my ear down to the speakers and wait. Jessa was usually underground with Tru and the others. And as much as she wanted me with her, she also understood why I’d stay above ground during a major storm. She’d gotten really close to Bish really fast—something that couldn’t be helped given that she didn’t know sign language when we’d first met and Bish acted as our translator.

There wasn’t a way to move this system underground and get any messages. Bishop knew that. And so for the past four months, every time there was a storm, I parked my ass here and I waited.

And when nothing happened, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Tonight, there wasn’t any relief, and I forced myself not to panic when I heard the tapping. It was faint, but Bish made sure to repeat it at least ten times, over and over. And then there was nothing.

I mouthed curses at him, sure he felt them even as I just kept thinking,
We’ll get you
,
Bish—you don’t have to worry.

I ran down into the tubes and I got Caspar, pulled him aside and told him what the transmission meant. He cursed, like I did, and we stared at each other as the storm raged overhead.

“Know you want to go right now, but you can’t,” Caspar told me finally.

Fuck that. Even though he was right, it was only his arm on my biceps that held me in place—but barely. Wearing the Defiance cut meant following orders, whether I liked it or not. Right now, it was more of the not variety, and the consequences for going against Caspar were way more severe than they’d be in the military too.

Right now, I didn’t fucking care. Because What Would Bishop Do?
Gotta let me go
,
Caspar.
I’ll take the van
,
go by myself
, I signed.

“Go back and wait by the switchboard. Storm starts to blow out, we’re heading in that direction if we don’t hear,” Caspar told him. “I’ll assemble people. I’ll get your gear. But you don’t go farther than that switchboard.”

I
have to—

“Would Bishop expect you to be around for Luna if anything happened to him? Would he?” Caspar demanded.

You can’t do that to me—you can’t make me choose.

“I’m not. Bishop asked you to.”

I hadn’t told Caspar that part, but the man knew my relationship with Bishop.

And part of Bishop’s transmission had been “
Don’t come for me—go for Luna.
Rescue Luna from Keller’s if I don’t come back.
”

Jesus Christ. My throat tightened but I went back to the switchboard and I never prayed so hard in my fucking life for anyone who would hear me.

* * *

Bishop drove through the worst of the storm for about fifteen minutes and then he was past it. He assumed that Rebel had pulled over when faced with it, but man, this one had come up out of nowhere.

“He’s got to be all right for Luna...got to be,” he kept saying, over and over, although he wasn’t sure who he was saying it to. He didn’t believe in any kind of higher power, but he wasn’t prepared to piss off anyone who could help him find Rebel.

His tires skidded a little on the road. He slowed, put on the headlights and saw hail still frozen on the ground. He looked to the right—all open. But to the left, some higher ground, a good shelter from the storm.

It was much worse here than he’d expected. Up ahead, the road had buckled, making it impassable. Rebel would’ve had to go through the woods.

On closer inspection, Bishop could see that the road had suffered from more than the weather. Someone had rigged it to blow, and his heart lodged in his throat.

He drove the Humvee up to the flooded area. No way to cross that fucker now. It would carry the truck away with its fury, and whether or not Rebel had made it across before it flooded or had pulled over somewhere, Bishop has no way of knowing. He backed the truck up off the main road and drove slowly, looking for any recent tire tracks. He followed a pair and got nowhere. Backed out and started again. Four times he did that. On the fifth, he got lucky.

He saw Rebel’s truck. It had slammed headfirst into a tree, but the biggest damage appeared to be the grill and hood. The body was intact and Bishop got out, needing to be able to say the same of Rebel.

The biggest issue he could see was the river rising maybe ten feet away.

“Reb,” he called in through the smashed front window. “Rebel, it’s me, it’s Bishop. I’m going to open the back door. Don’t fucking shoot me, no matter how badly you want to.”

All he saw was Rebel’s Defiance cut, slashed in half, lying on a seat covered with blood.