Tina Donahue - Deep Within Me

He couldn’t answer. Too many pictures pulsed in his mind with the irritating speed of a strobe light.

He saw a woman’s hand, her skin color rich, familiar. Liz? Within her fist she held a slender onyx knife with a metal button on the side of its hilt. A switchblade? Blood dirtied its steel edge. Whose?

Carreon’s face materialized into the scene, similar to when a photograph develops. Pleasure hooded his pale blue eyes. His broad smile revealed his satisfaction. Had he killed someone else? Taken them prisoner?

Zeke blinked rapidly, needing to see more. Another man filled his vision, younger than Carreon, possibly late twenties. Dirt from the desert coated his denim jeans and jacket. Wind tugged at his dark hair, worn longish. Anticipation tightened his handsome features.

Wait! Zeke’s mind shouted.

Whorls of dust obscured the young man’s image before Zeke could study it. New pictures flashed in his mind, these at record speed. He saw the inside of the vehicle Liz had taken to Carreon’s stronghold, its dashboard illuminated though no one was inside. Next, he saw Carreon’s lieutenants, each in their early thirties, the same as him. Something wet shone dully on their black clothes. Blood? Their vehicle’s dashboard illuminated their faces, their features taut with fear and hate.

The one in the passenger seat kept looking at his side-view mirror as though he feared someone following them. The driver divided his attention between what lay in front and to the left. His pitiless stare turned to surprise, then renewed rage at whatever he’d spotted.

The man in the backseat leaned up, his mouth forming the question, “What?”

Coming, coming, coming, Zeke’s thoughts warned.

He blinked at a flash of light. A gun’s report. A thin line of smoke rose from its muzzle. The Jeep’s windshield cracked, its glass webbing in all directions. Blood bloomed on a woman’s torso. Liz?

No.

“Zeke?”

Dumbly, he regarded her hand on his arm. His vision had faded as quickly as it had arrived, much of it already gone, which left only snatches of what he’d seen. Shifting the Jeep into reverse, he turned it around in a tight circle.

Liz gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Taking cover.”

“From what?”

Carreon’s lieutenants. During tonight’s battle, Zeke’s clan had killed most of the men. They’d taken two prisoner, with three having escaped. They were heading this way. He didn’t know how, given the hidden route. He wasn’t even certain if his vision was correct. It hadn’t always been in the past. However, he couldn’t discount any of it now.

“Tell us what you saw,” Liz cried.

Her father leaned up. Just as Carreon’s man had in Zeke’s mind.

“You had a vision?” Munez asked.

Zeke nodded, unwilling to tell either of them the extent of what he’d seen. He drove the Jeep toward a series of boulders and parked it behind the largest, then grabbed his assault rifle.

“Wait.” Liz dug her fingers into his arm, just below his tribal band tattoo. It formed a stylized snake curled around the eye of an eagle that designated him as a prophet. The snake’s head was gone, cut out by Carreon as a trophy when Zeke had lay dying.

“What did your vision show you?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

Zeke shook her off. “Get on the floor.” He spoke to her father. “You too.”

Liz didn’t move. “Why?”

“Just do it,” Zeke insisted.

She reached into the backseat for another weapon. “I’m coming with—”

“I saw you bleeding, killed in the crossfire,” Zeke blurted, then lied. “Your father too. Neither of you able to save the other. My vision showed Carreon’s men taking me prisoner, torturing me so I’d tell them the future. Do you want that?”

Her mouth trembled. “No.”

“Then do as I say and get on the floor.”

She looked torn between arguing and leaving him to fight Carreon’s men alone. “Please come back,” she whispered.

“I will.” He ran his knuckles down her cheek.

Liz took his hand and kissed his palm. Then she crouched on the floor, the same as her father had already done.

Zeke exited the vehicle and ran ahead to another series of rocks, his moccasins muting the sound of his footfalls. He took cover behind the biggest of the group. The strong breeze, mild and dry, smelled of dust. It tugged at his shoulder-length hair and dried the sweat on his naked chest. He held his breath and listened, then heard a faint hum in the distance—a generator or the sound faraway traffic might make when driven by the wind. This deep in the desert, the noise from a generator was impossible.

The merciless landscape was all too still, its thirsty vegetation scarcely moving with the gusts of wind. A uniform pewter shade stretched out before Zeke, interrupted by specks of some luminescent material that glittered within the endless miles of land.

The hum grew louder.

With the butt of his assault rifle braced against his shoulder, Zeke waited. Perspiration broke out on his forehead. Several drops slipped down the side of his nose and ran into his eyes. He blinked away the sting. His throat hurt from his heart’s frantic pounding. Grit filled his nostrils and coated his lips.

Movement. To the right.

He strained to see better and focused on an area approximately half a mile away. A series of large rocks jutted up from the ground, resembling a monster’s bony spine, whitened by the moonlight.

Zeke concentrated on them. Come on.

Nothing happened.

He swore, then sucked in a breath at a shadow moving in front of the pale stone. A new blast of wind brought the hum closer to reveal the sound of a motor.

Within minutes, Zeke saw the outline of a vehicle, its headlights off. From this distance, its shape resembled an SUV. Had to be Carreon’s men. At this hour—in this location—who else would be driving this way in the dark?

He tensed as it neared. Within his rifle’s scope, Zeke regarded the driver and his passengers in the moonlight streaming through the windshield. All were dressed in black. Smears of something equally dark, most probably dried blood, dirtied their cheeks.

They were the men from his vision, but they looked younger now. Scared to die when they’d barely had a chance to live.

Zeke hesitated. He considered the possibility of letting them choose his side over Carreon’s or living out their lives as prisoners of his clan. Their decision.

Would they take him up on the offer, or would they ridicule his suggestion, wanting to battle it out?

His forefinger slid down the weapon’s trigger. Their SUV rocked from side to side as it moved over the bumpy road. Available light skimmed off the barrels of their rifles, the metal glinting briefly.

How many of their victims had seen those brief flashes before they’d died?

Had Gabrielle?

Zeke’s chest ached at the memory of his daughter—her new outfit, a cheery yellow, stained with her blood. She’d died along with her mother and a score of other women while they attended a child’s birthday party.

Had one of these men been responsible for the carnage?

Even if they were innocent of that crime, did it matter? They’d been at Zeke’s stronghold tonight, shooting at doors, not caring if women and children were inside the rooms. They’d been prepared to take him prisoner no matter how many innocents they harmed.

His hesitation and humanity fell away, replaced by icy resolve. Never again would any of Carreon’s lieutenants take a loved one from him. Not while Zeke still breathed.

He steadied his weapon, focusing on the driver in his crosshairs. The man’s skin was darker than his companions, possibly a deep bronze. Hard to tell in the scant light. His thick black hair was slicked back, his expression unchanging when the bullet pierced his upper lip. It shattered his teeth and surely destroyed his brainstem.