man.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Zeke said. He pulled a chair next to the bed.
Munez pushed to a sitting position and swung his naked legs over the side of the mattress. He’d washed off last night’s gore and grime, and wore one of Bartholomew’s T-shirts that was several sizes too large for him. The rounded neck sagged beneath Munez’s thin throat.
Zeke sank into his chair. “How’s your ankle?”
“Fine.” He lifted his leg to show it wasn’t bruised or swollen any longer. Liz’s healing touch had taken care of it…after he’d reanimated her.
A wave of nausea hit so hard, Zeke had to swallow repeatedly to force it down. Taking a full breath wasn’t something he figured he could do right now. Although he had meant to broach the subject carefully, the words spilled from him. “Liz isn’t fully back, is she?”
Munez’s hands stalled on his head, not all of his hair smoothed back. A tuft on the left side stuck out defiantly. He didn’t bother combing his fingers through it.
When the man didn’t comment, Zeke added, “You noticed it too, in the Jeep. That’s why you touched her shoulder. You brought her back again.”
His hands dropped to his lap. They shook so badly, he clasped them together. “No.” His tone said he refused to believe such a thing. “I gave her a boost, that’s all.”
“Same difference,” Zeke argued. He leaned forward, ready to face what had been eating him for too many hours…the only explanation of what was happening to Liz. “You brought her back, and she was fine until she healed your ankle. When she poured her gift—her life force into you—that drained it from her, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
Zeke shook his head, not believing this. “How can you say that? You’ve known from the beginning that those with the gift could go beyond healing. They could also reanimate. You kept that secret from Liz until last night. How many others have you brought back from the dead? What happened to them? Tell me. I’m worried about Liz.”
Munez drew in his narrow shoulders and spoke with reluctance, obviously disturbed by the subject. “Liz is only the second person I’ve brought back.”
Zeke stared, unable to comprehend such a thing. “How is that possible? You’re talking about not reanimating Carreon’s lieutenants, correct? Surely, with the rest of your people, the ones who aren’t a part of his inner circle, you—”
“I didn’t want to use my gift on them either. If they had known what I discovered by accident, I was afraid Carreon and his men would find out. The fighting would have escalated beyond anything we could have imagined, becoming impossible to stop. Why would he restrain the carnage at all if he knew I could bring his men back from the dead?”
“Whoa.” Zeke waved his hand. “Back up. You discovered the extent of your gift by accident? How? When?”
Sadness swept over Munez’s features, aging him further. “I was eleven when my sister became ill with what was later diagnosed as high-risk neuroblastoma. Brutally aggressive. At first, my parents asked me to heal her, take away her fever and constant pain, get rid of the swelling in parts of her body. I did repeatedly. But the tumors kept returning.”
He shook his head in memory. “My parents didn’t understand why my gift hadn’t worked. They became so desperate they tried conventional medicine next, something they’d never done before. The doctors did all that they could. Nothing helped. Benita came home to die. She was only five years old when she passed. I refused to believe it and fought my father when he tried to pull me away from her body. Before he could stop me, I laid my hands on her and healed as I never had before, pouring my life force inside.”
Munez paused, his focus turning inward as though he were reliving the moment. On a shudder, he continued. “My little sister gasped and opened her eyes. It was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen. My parents began to sob. They knew then that not only could I heal, I could reanimate.”
Zeke rested his hand on the older man’s and forced himself to ask what he feared knowing. “What happened to your sister?”
All of Munez’s breath escaped on an edgy sigh. His body seemed to deflate with it.
“What?” Zeke insisted.
“The cancer she’d had went into remission and didn’t come back.”
Zeke’s smile felt jittery, weird. “That’s great. How old is she now? Where is—”
“You don’t understand,” Munez interrupted. “You didn’t let me finish.”
All of the muscles in Zeke’s face went slack. He struggled to swallow. He wanted to flee to avoid hearing the rest. His legs wouldn’t cooperate, refusing to allow him to stand.
The doctor continued, “We thought everything was going to be fine, and for a few days it was. Then new forms of cancer—not metastasis from the neuroblastoma—invaded her skin, eyes and mouth. I’d always been interested in medicine, and I sensed that when I’d healed the first problem, I had simply created others. Because of her age, her cells were already dividing rapidly. My power accelerated that process in ways none of us had considered. That’s why I never again healed a child and warned Liz not to do so either. Eventually, Benita’s suffering was so great, my parents allowed her to slip away forev—”
“No. That can’t happen to Liz.” Zeke squeezed the man’s wrist. “I won’t let it happen, dammit. You have to do something.”
He regarded Zeke’s hand on him. “It’s different with my daughter. It has to be.” Desperation tinged his words. “Liz wasn’t ill when I brought her back. She’s an adult, her cells aren’t dividing at the same rate as a child’s. You’ve been with her for the last several hours. You would have come for me if anything had happened to her.”
“Like in the Jeep? She wasn’t close to okay there. You saw how she slumped over, as though she’d passed out. It wasn’t until you touched her shoulder that she came to, revived, whatever you want to call it. I want to know why.”
Zeke released the man’s wrist and jerked his chair closer to the bed. Its legs scraped the stone floor. He kept his voice low in case anyone passed in the hall. “I’ve gone over this dozens of times in my head. The only thing I can come up with is what I said before. By healing you, she depleted her own strength.”
“If that’s true, it would have happened right away, not minutes later.”
“Like Benita’s other tumors?” Zeke countered. “You said she was fine for days. Maybe there’s a delayed reaction after someone’s reanimated. I don’t know. Do you have a better explanation for what happened to Liz in the Jeep?”
He bowed his head. “No.”
Zeke’s belly continued to churn. What kind of fucking gift did Liz and her father have if it didn’t always work? If no one could predict its outcome?
Too many times Zeke’s visions were inscrutable, providing clues he hadn’t a hope in hell of deciphering. How often had he wanted to simply give up? This time, he couldn’t. Not when it meant Liz’s life—having her at his side.
He recalled last night, how he’d taken her repeatedly to ease his fears, as though his love alone could—
His thoughts paused as something flashed in his mind, then skittered away. What, damn it? What?
And then he had it. One of the reasons he’d been so impassioned last night, his longing for Liz so insatiable. On an unconscious level, he’d sensed the solution even then. “She poured her healing gift into me, saving my life,” he said, then hesitated before continuing.
“Yes?” Munez prodded.
“Is it possible that my touching her would transfer some of her life force back—her unique life force—with that filling her again rather than having yours or any other healer’s pouring into her?” That having his cock deep inside would return some of what she’d given to him?
“I don’t know.”
Zeke kept himself from snapping,
