For the next several moments, her huffing and his merged, the same as their bodies.
Ernez waited until the sounds had quieted, then spoke with caution. “He’s working on it now. He’ll let us know when you can send your message.”
A bead of perspiration skimmed Carreon’s cheek, then slipped to his jaw and dropped. It fell on the small of Trinidad’s back. She inhaled deeply in answer.
To the side, Maria made an inarticulate sound, part gurgling mixed with a grunt that proved how useless she was as a stripper and a mother. However, those sounds would soon bring Liz back to him.
This was inconceivable. Worse, it was insane.
Liz argued with her father as she’d never done before. “You really expect me not to heal you if you’re injured? That I’d save myself instead? You actually believe I wouldn’t heal Zeke or Jacob if something were to happen to them?”
“You have no choice.”
“That’s bull, Papa. You know it.” Liz stopped pacing. She went to the side of his bed and looked down at him. Despite his messy hair and cheeks roughened with white stubble, he was still an elegant man and all too kind. “You’re lying, right? This is no different from what you told Carreon when he wanted you to heal his men. You’re just trying to protect me, that’s all.”
“No.”
Liz stared at him, not certain whether he was telling the truth or not. All of her life, she’d believed everything he’d said without question. Then, Carreon had killed her. On the other side, she’d spoken to her mother, who’d revealed the secret Liz’s father had always alluded to but never exposed.
“Many times your father lied to keep from healing the fallen,” she’d said, “telling Carreon they were too far gone to help or that he could only bring them so far, which left them in a vegetative state. He also lied to protect you.”
He had to be doing the same now.
As though her father had read Liz’s mind, he took her hands in his, holding them gently. “You can’t risk healing anyone or bringing them back. Not me. Not Zeke or Jacob. If you do…” He seemed unable to finish. His chin trembled.
Oh God. She brought back her hands. “You expect me to do nothing and watch all of you die?”
“It may not come to that.”
“But it could,” she cried. “Carreon’s not going to give up until he has both of us back, along with Zeke.”
“That’s why we have to stay here.”
He’d said it so easily, as though it were a real solution when it was not.
Liz recalled how Zeke’s people had tried to block their entry into the stronghold. What if Isabel’s hostility flared again, convincing the others she’d been right after all, with that overruling the previous vote they’d taken?
“For how long?” Liz asked, then thought of something else that had slipped her mind. “What about my practice?”
She’d left abruptly the night Carreon and three of his lieutenants had come for her so she could heal Zeke. She hadn’t returned or given any indication when she’d be back. Surely, her staff wondered where she was, what had happened. By now, they might have thought to contact the police and report her as missing.
“Carreon forced me to call there,” her father said. “I spoke to your receptionist and explained there was a family emergency. That you wouldn’t be in for several weeks. When that time’s passed, we’ll contact them again somehow.”
Liz pushed her fingers through her hair, feeling like a caged animal suddenly. “I can’t accept this. There has to be something I can do to use my gift.” She grabbed his hand that bore the reddish stain, which marked him as a healer. “If you push as much of your life force into me as possible, then—”
“No.” He yanked back his hand, his sudden strength surprising. “I don’t know what it will do to you. It may be too much for your body to handle since I brought you back. Something’s changed in your physiology. I saw it in the Jeep. I didn’t consider it at the time. I simply reacted to you losing consciousness. I could have harmed you forever then. I might have killed you with no way of restoring your life.”
Liz’s breath hitched. Her pulse raced at the thought of dying at her father’s hands and only because he’d tried to save her.
However, that hadn’t happened, had it? She refused to accept that it ever could. “You didn’t. If you go slowly, you can pour enough of your life force into me that my body stores it. Then I can heal again without any bad effects.”
He crossed his arms over his narrow chest. “We don’t know that, and we won’t. I refuse to chance it. Not to save myself. Not to save Zeke or Jacob.”
He couldn’t mean that. Liz recalled how close Zeke and Jacob had come to death. How she’d caressed them as she healed, coaxing them to take their first full breaths, feeling their hearts beating strongly again.
“Please,” she begged.
Her father turned away, refusing to listen.
Zeke, Jacob and Kele had left the stronghold from a rarely used exit that allowed for foot rather than vehicle traffic.
A gust of wind whipped their garments and drove dust into their faces. Squinting, Zeke held his hand over his nose and mouth until the air settled. His brother and Kele did the same.
The sun beat down from a flawless sky, heating the ground to a point that it shimmered in the distance, creating a mirage that resembled a large pool of water. Bleached rocks and stunted vegetation disputed that notion. Plant life ran uninterrupted along the base of the mountain range. Some of the soil glittered from minerals within it.
Zeke turned, then gestured for Jacob and Kele to follow.
They carried assault rifles and their two-way radios clipped to their jeans. It hadn’t been Zeke’s idea for Kele to join them. She’d insisted, wanting to prove her loyalty.
“It doesn’t matter if I die,” she’d said to him when he demanded she stay in the stronghold.
“It matters to me,” Jacob argued. “It matters to all of us. You’re being foolish.”
“I have to do this,” she said to him, then spoke to Zeke. “I’m asking you to let me. Give me a chance to prove my loyalty.”
He hadn’t wanted to take the time to argue with her, so here they were, circling the area, coming upon the intruder from behind.
His vehicle was nowhere in sight, his attention on the ground. If he was an ordinary hiker, it might be that he was looking for some pretty rocks to take home with him. Could be he was a grad student, studying desert flora or insects and was in the desert to collect samples of each, storing them into his backpack that hung over one shoulder.
Of course, he might be studying the ground because he was searching for tire tracks that would lead him to the stronghold’s location. That wasn’t something Zeke had worried about until now. This area was so remote there were no roads or trails nearby. No hikers had ever come this far. No hikers had ever been in one of his visions.
Carefully, Zeke and the others approached. The wind was on their side, blowing in their faces, not delivering their scent or the sound of their footfalls to the intruder.
He focused on something to the right, then moved toward it.
The white plume of a jet streaked across the sky. Closer to earth, birds flew past, perhaps on their way to the corpses of Carreon’s three lieutenants.
This man hunkered down and studied the soil. Past him, the wind had whipped up a dust devil that whirled for several moments only to blow itself out.
Perspiration coated the back of Zeke’s neck. A drop rolled down his spine. He held his breath.
Now.