Free Salvation by Stephanie Tyler

Bishop had told him truthfully, although there was more to it than that. And Keller had obviously known, because he’d told Bishop, “And you need to fight more than he does.”
    “Probably. Is that something I should be ashamed of?”
    Keller had laughed. “Not on my account.”
    And that’s when he learned that Keller’s interest in fighting was far from casual. As a kid, he trained as a professional boxer in Brooklyn, went on to do some serious prizefighting and probably could’ve gone far if he hadn’t needed to take over the family business when his father was murdered in front of a famous steakhouse when Keller was fifteen.
    “So you ran your family business when you were fifteen?” Bishop had asked him.
    Keller had put the barbecued steak in front of him—another thing Bishop learned was that Keller pretty much cooked all his own meals. There wasn’t a lot of trust for anyone, even the woman named Kammy who’d stuck by Keller for the past five years.
    Bishop knew he could easily become just like Keller. Luna was his way out of that, and she was here.
    Now, he shifted on the bed, put the western he’d been reading down to watch Luna. Her hair was damp from the bath, the T-shirt she wore was pretty sheer, which he wasn’t sure she knew, but he wasn’t going to tell her.
    And she was relaxed, but not enough to completely let down her guard. She was really looking around now, seeing past the trappings of the mirrors and the comforts of the fabrics and the rugs to the actual structure. These tubes were slightly smaller than the ones in Defiance, but they were definitely Defiance made. Several companies had tried to copy the tubes and make their own designs, but they’d never been able to perfect it.
    Nothing was perfect, not even when it appeared to be pretty damned close. Here, like everywhere, people were happy or they were sad or they were whatever the fuck they wanted to be. There wasn’t any “had to be” around here. You could chose to be happy or not, but hell, if you couldn’t be happy here, you had some serious problems.
    At least that’s the way it appeared, until the storms and the shootings started, reminding him that everyplace had its issues. No place had ever been perfect, pre—or post-Chaos. But for now...”You heard what the doctor said—rest.”
    “He told you that,” she countered.
    “Can’t, until I know you are,” he told her, and she smiled, relented and climbed into bed next to him. She was asleep within five minutes, and he kept his arm around her while he continued to read, almost afraid that today had all been a dream, that she’d somehow disappear.

Chapter Nine
    Rebel
    Rebel drove through the dark roads, cursing Luna for pulling a goddamned stupid stunt. Seriously, he knew she’d been fucked up since Aimee’s attack but to get into the car and drive to Keller’s...she knew better.
    So what the fuck would make her get into her goddamned truck and drive straight into Keller’s after blowing Bishop off left, right and sideways all the time he mooned after her in Defiance?
    Because he was gone ...because that’s what made her finally realize how much Bishop meant to her.
    “Women,” he muttered as he pulled into the lot behind the bar that was ten minutes from Keller’s compound, and only a little farther from where he’d been working for the past two months. No one but Defiance knew that, as the MC was setting up a new compound, similar to Keller’s, with a more elaborate tubing system. And that had started well before Lance, luckily enough. It was close to being ready. Defiance wanted to move off the grid, wanted a new space and this promised to be it.
    Caspar was also seriously considering Keller’s offer at this point. A tube that ran between the compounds would make for easier delivery of most supplies, considering the terrain around the new Defiance was rough at best, and not easily traveled. But because Caspar hadn’t made that inroad, Bishop remained