by Tina Donahue
“And if I can’t?”
“I don’t accept failure.”
“You should have thought of that when you told Ernez to strangle her.”
Before Carreon could comment, or grab and squeeze Trinidad’s throat to prove he’d lost all patience with her fucking banter, Ernez returned. The club was now blessedly silent, which accentuated the way Maria wheezed. As though she were drowning in air.
“Go on,” Carreon ordered Trinidad.
On an exasperated sigh, she lay on Maria again and ministered to her, breathing more air into her mouth, touching each part of the woman’s limp body.
For a moment, there was a spark of awareness in Maria’s expression. A what’s happening? look. It extinguished quickly, leaving that same vacant stare.
Minutes later, Carreon finally snapped, “Enough.”
Without objection, Trinidad rolled to the side and rummaged through Maria’s purse, pulling out a pack of Camels. The unfiltered kind that gave the most kick. With her cigarette lit, she pulled deeply on it as one would after great sex. Ignoring the previous warning that she wasn’t supposed to smoke in here.
Trinidad’s insolence was the least of Carreon’s concerns. He’d deal with it later when he could focus solely on her, teaching obedience, submission to his will. Lessons he’d enjoy and she’d endure.
“Finish her off,” Carreon ordered Ernez, gesturing to Maria.
“He should leave her here,” Trinidad said.
Carreon looked over. “Why?”
Did she want to practice on the woman? Had Trinidad considered, as he had, that she might strengthen her gift by using it?
“Who healed for you before you came here last night?” Trinidad asked.
“What business is that of yours?” Carreon answered.
She filled her lungs with more smoke, releasing it with her words. “My guess is you’ve lost that person. To Neekoma? I heard rumors earlier about a battle with his men over a woman called Liz.”
Carreon said nothing.
Trinidad picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue. “I’ve heard she’s not only a healer, but painfully honorable.” She smiled as though she found the thought decidedly naive. “You want her back.”
He didn’t answer.
She regarded Maria. The woman’s chest rose and fell with her labored breathing while the rest of her body had absolutely no muscle tone. “Before Ernez finishes Maria off for good, I think there’s a way you can use her to get Liz back.”
Having joined Liz and Jacob at their table, Zeke had encouraged Liz to eat.
“You need to keep up your strength,” he said.
“I’ve had enough, really.” She pushed her barely touched plate aside.
He brought it right back. “We don’t waste food here. We’ve stored a lot, but we still need to send our men out for provisions at times. They’re always risking an ambush from Carreon’s men just to make certain everyone here is well fed.”
Zeke’s heavy dose of guilt worked. Liz finally finished everything on her plate.
He and Jacob escorted her from the dining hall. No one watched them depart, not even Kele. She’d left the kitchen minutes before. On the way to Dr. Munez’s room, Zeke, Jacob and Liz happened upon the women who’d voted for them to leave. Each of those ladies avoided eye contact and conversation, ducking into whatever rooms happened to be available, closing and locking those doors as they passed.
Jacob pretended not to notice the lingering resentment. Zeke did the same. Liz sighed repeatedly.
At the door to her father’s room, Zeke spoke to his brother. “Don’t leave. This will only take a minute; then I want to see the prisoners.”
“Do they need to be healed?” Liz asked.
Zeke was about to exchange a glance with Jacob but thought better of it, not wanting Liz to see and interpret it as something bad. That would come soon enough. “No. Your father’s already seen to everyone. We have something we’d like to talk to you about.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “What?”
“Let’s go inside.”
He gestured her into the room. Jacob watched Liz with that same yearning expression he’d worn in the dining hall. Zeke’s chest ached with sorrow rather than jealousy. He loved them both and wished this hadn’t gotten so complicated, but it had. However, right now all that mattered was Liz’s continuing survival.
“Don’t leave,” he murmured to Jacob.
His brother screwed up his face. “I’m not, all right?”
“Make certain Kele doesn’t come anywhere near here.”
“Why would she?” Jacob seemed surprised at Zeke’s worry. He spoke quietly as Liz and her father embraced. “Kele knows she’s lucky you let her stay with the clan. I don’t think anyone could be more ashamed. It’s my guess she’d risk her life to protect Liz and her father as she did with us last night.”
Deep down, Zeke believed the same, until the disturbing images from his vision returned. That hand around a knife. Blood on the blade. The thumbnail polished a deep red or black.
He went into the room, closed the door and spoke to Liz’s father. “Do you want to start this or should I?”
“Start what?” she asked.
“You can’t heal anymore,” Dr. Munez said.
Liz regarded the man, then Zeke, her lack of emotion saying she’d suspected this intervention. “Why not?” she argued with her dad. “You can’t possibly mean I’ve lost the ability to do so. That’s not true.” She gestured to his leg. “I healed your ankle.”
“Then you passed out in the Jeep,” Zeke said.
She frowned. “I did not.”
“Yes, you did,” her father said. “You don’t recall it, but I saw. Zeke shouted your name several times. You didn’t respond, not until I laid my hand on your shoulder and poured more of my healing gift into you.”
Even though she kept shaking her head to deny her father’s words, blood continued to drain from her face.
Zeke went to her. “You better sit down.”
Liz pushed his hands away and stepped back. “What does my healing have to do with any of this?”
“Each time you pour your gift into anyone,” Zeke said, “you drain yourself. That never happened before the reanimation, but it’s doing so now.”
“So what?” She said to her father, “Even if I deplete myself to the point of death, you can keep reanimating me.”
“No fucking way,” Zeke said. “We don’t know if it will work a hundred times or even once more. We can’t take that chance.”
She seemed surprised and concerned, as if she’d never considered such a complication, though not for long. “Surely there’s a way around this. You need me. If you get hurt or…” She covered her mouth with her hand, clearly unable to finish, horror in her eyes.
Zeke softened his tone. “It’s all right. Nothing’s going to happen to me. Your father’s here. He can—”
“No.” She dropped her hand. “What if he can’t?”
“I’m old,” Munez said, “but I do have a few more years left.”
Liz made a sound filled with heartache. Her eyes got shiny. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever even think it, please. There must be something I—we can do so I can still use my gift.”
Zeke considered what he’d thought of earlier. When he had a chance, he’d present his plan to her and Jacob. Now wasn’t the time. “We’ll work on it.” He went to the door and spoke to Liz. “Stay here until one of my men comes for you.” Zeke glanced at her father.
The older man nodded that he understood and would make certain she obeyed.
“Wait,” she protested.
“I can’t.” Zeke closed the door on her and joined Jacob in the hall.
His brother leaned close and whispered, “What went on in there? Did you tell her she couldn’t heal anymore?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d she take it?”
“Not well.”
“I can imagine. So what does happen when she heals now?”
His brother looked like a man who’d just been given a death sentence by his doctor. “Is she all right now?”
“She’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t heal again.”
“Ever? What if something happens to her father? Can he heal himself?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
Jacob muttered an obscenity. “We have to fix this.”
“I’m working on it. Where are the prisoners?”
Jacob stared at the door to Munez’s room, worry, yearning, frustration playing across his features.
Zeke elbowed him. Jacob frowned. “What?”
“Our prisoners. Where are they?”
He regarded the closed door once more. Liz said something, her voice muted. Her father answered, his words also impossible to understand. “One of the safe rooms,” Jacob mumbled.
“I want to see them. Come on.” Zeke took his brother’s arm and led him down the hall. Twice, Jacob glanced over his shoulder at the room.
Zeke suppressed a sigh. Jacob in lust was bad enough. Jacob in love and worried was almost too awful to see. “What’s been going on with the prisoners?”
“Nothing.”
“And that means?”
Jacob pulled his arm away from Zeke. “Some of the men tried to get them to talk. They wouldn’t tell us shit. Paul suggested torture. The guys were all for that. I talked them down. Said we’d leave it to you.”
“I’m not going to torture anyone.” Zeke refused to sink to Carreon’s level. Right now, he simply wanted to get a good look at them.
He and Jacob went down three more halls. In the middle of the last, Jacob slowed and rested his hand against the wall. The hidden door swung inward. Within the small room, Paul and Kele sat to the left. Assault rifles rested on each of their laps.
Despite Kele’s weapon, relief whispered through Zeke when he saw that her nails were unpolished. Probably always had been.
More than a bit of remorse crossed her features. Studiously, she avoided looking at Jacob. That one action told Zeke that even if she hadn’t relinquished his brother in her mind, she wasn’t going to make a play for him again. She’d seen where her jealousy had led and seemed to have no desire to return to those days.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked. “I will if you want.”
Zeke gestured Kele back into her chair and regarded the prisoners across from them, disturbed by what he saw. Or rather, what he didn’t see.
Neither of the men had hair long enough to blow in the wind. They’d shaved their heads like Carreon’s. Their features were rough rather than handsome, their clothes a solid black rather than blue denim. They also appeared older than the man in Zeke’s vision, possibly mid-thirties.
Did they know who the other man was? Would they tell him?
Hatred filled their eyes even though the clan had brought them food.
An empty plate and coffee cup were stacked on the nightstand from the breakfast one of them had enjoyed. The other had barely started to eat.
Why? Had he held back, thinking the food was poisoned or drugged? Had he waited until his partner had finished to see what would happen?
The man shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs and hash brown potatoes into his mouth and chewed slowly. Manacles held his and his partner’s ankles to the chairs on which they sat. Each had his left hand secured to the arm of the chair, leaving the other free in order to eat.
Zeke spoke to them. “If Carreon’s not at his stronghold, where would he be?”
The man on the right, who was bulkier than his companion, stared at a spot on the wall above Kele’s head.
The other spat. The food in his mouth sprayed Zeke’s jeans.
Paul stood so quickly, the legs of his chair scraped the floor. He pointed his weapon at the one who’d spat.
“Easy.” Zeke put his hand on the barrel, lowering it. Icy determination rather than rage coursed through him.
Paul growled, “A couple of bullets to his knees, like what they did to Samuel, will get him to talk.”
The man spat again.
“No,” Zeke said. “We’ll let Carreon deal with them like that.”
The prisoners exchanged a glance, then regarded Zeke cautiously.
“After you’ve been here awhile, we’re going to release you,” he said. “Right into Carreon’s lap. No matter what you tell him really happened here, he’ll believe you talked. You told us all of his secrets. What do you think he’ll do about that?”
The men’s swarthy faces turned pale.
“You have two choices,” Zeke explained. “You tell us what you know and join us, or face Carreon once we send you back to him.”
“You’re lying,” the bulkier one growled.
“Care to find out if that’s true?” Jacob asked.
They exchanged another glance with each other.
Now that Zeke had their attention, he asked, “Which one of Carreon’s men is in his late twenties with dark hair, longish past his ears? He’s a pretty boy, not like you guys. What the ladies would call handsome. What’s his name? Who is he?”
Jacob turned to Zeke and whispered, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Ignoring his brother, Zeke coaxed more images from his vision. “He’s wearing a T-shirt, denim jacket and jeans…possibly hiking boots. He’s—”
Zeke stopped. The prisoners, Paul, Kele and Jacob faded away. In the place of this room, he saw the desert landscape outside. A bone-dry breeze whipped around him, stirring up sand and dirt, the sound nearly as loud as the static from his vision. He smelled the earth baking beneath the oppressive sun.
Overhead, a bird squawked.
The young man from his previous vision held up his arm to shield his face. He mouthed something Zeke couldn’t hear. His expression made it seem like a plea or a—
Zeke’s breath caught as a bullet tore through the young man’s belly. Another ripped through his heart. He stumbled back and fell to the ground, dust puffing up around him.
No.
Liz leaned over the young man, wanting to bring him back. As she did, her lids grew heavy, her shoulders slumped. Zeke screamed for her to stop. She didn’t hear. He ran toward her, but no matter how much distance he traveled, she was still too far away, the life force draining from her, leaving her—
“Zeke.”
He blinked and stared at Jacob, who’d gone as white as their prisoners had a moment earlier.
“What did you see?” Jacob asked.
Zeke wasn’t certain what any of it meant. As always, his fucking visions showed just enough to confuse him, taunting him with clues he couldn’t yet read.
“Jacob!” Ike’s voice called from the hall. “Are you down here?”
He stuck his head out the doorway. “Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“Is Zeke with you?”
He went into the hall. Ike and several of the other men were there, each armed with an assault rifle.
Bile rose to Zeke’s throat. He forced it down. “What happened?”
Ike spoke before the others could. “There’s a man not too far from the tunnel’s entrance. Our cameras just picked him up. Looks like a hiker. Could be a trick. Maybe Carreon told him to dress that way. Our guys are already headed out there to see—”
“What’s he wearing?” Zeke asked.
“Jeans, a white tee, denim—hey,” Ike interrupted himself as Zeke bolted down the hall, followed by Jacob. “Where are you going?”
Outside. To keep his men from shooting the man, and Liz from having to revive him. To find out who the fuck he was. Why he’d been in Zeke’s visions.
Chapter Eight
Trinidad’s suggestion was so simple and delightfully insightful, Carreon smiled. “You’re very cunning, aren’t you?”
She pulled on her newest cigarette, then released the smoke through her nose. “Yes, I am.”
Carreon grinned at
her continued arrogance. In time, he’d make her more docile than Maria, with Trinidad watching him carefully to see what he’d do, never quite knowing what to expect. For now, though, he encouraged her bluster, wanting to see where it would go.
He offered his hand.
She enjoyed a bit more of her smoke before accepting it.
Once she was on her feet, Carreon pulled her against him. Luckily, for her, she kept her cigarette to the side, not burning him as she had Ernez. If she had…well, no woman would live through that with him.
Trinidad parted her lips, her focus on his mouth as though she expected a kiss. Carreon knew she could feel his erection, given how she’d pressed her cunt against it.
With his attention on her mouth, he hid his distaste for the stench of cigarette smoke and spoke to Ernez. “Who do we use for our computer systems?”
Ernez gave up the man’s name immediately.
Carreon cupped Trinidad’s ass, enjoying how plush and incredibly soft it was. He pulled her closer. She didn’t resist. He hadn’t expected her to. “Where is he now?” Carreon asked Ernez.
“At this hour, probably still at home, having breakfast.”
“Call him. Tell him we need to get into Neekoma’s systems.”
Those in Zeke’s clan weren’t the only ones who could hack into someone’s computer. However, Carreon didn’t want any data wiped out as Zeke’s people had done with the GPS. He was fairly certain Zeke’s men would stop that kind of cyber-attack before it could happen—if it were even possible to do something like that given the technology the Others must have provided Neekoma’s clan. What else could explain their ability to hide so well in the desert…to have access to an underground tunnel system they’d used to escape?
Unfortunately, the Unknowns had left Carreon’s people with little in the way of otherworldly gifts. Only a few in their clan had the ability to heal, to reanimate. That wasn’t right or fair. More so than ever, Carreon demanded everything, especially Zeke’s stronghold and his power to see the future. “We need to send him a message. I want that to happen within the hour.”
Ernez went to the phone.
Carreon ran his free hand down Trinidad’s silky arm and pressed his face to her hair. Despite the smoke, she still smelled of honeysuckle and musk, steamy nights and reckless sex. Before he was through with her, she’d please him greatly. He trailed his fingers to her hand and took her cigarette.