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?”
Zeke felt wearier than he ever had. As succinctly as he could, he explained the problem to Jacob.
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
