Page 11 of Deep Within Me

Brutality didn’t come easily to Zeke Neekoma, not even after all he’d suffered and lost. Liz hoped it never would.

As she had earlier, she rested her hand on his thigh. This time, Zeke covered her hand with his own as though he feared she’d remove it.

They drove in silence. Clearly, none of them was able to think of acceptable conversation. Her father cleared his throat. A nervous reaction to something that worried him? An unconscious one? Liz decided against asking, knowing he’d lie to her just as Zeke had about everything being all right.

It wasn’t. Wouldn’t be as long as Carreon ruled. He’d wrested power from his father two years earlier, ordering his lieutenants to assassinate the man. His brothers, all products of different mothers, had gone into hiding, knowing he’d have them murdered next. Carreon demanded a clear and permanent path to ruling his clan. Once he’d taken over, he ended the fragile truce his father had established with Zeke’s people.Carreon’s lieutenants killed indiscriminately, not caring if they slaughtered children, women, or the aged.

Liz fisted her free hand, outrage and hatred urging her to strike something. To destroy Carreon, a filthy coward. Fear and paranoia ruled him, so he’d actually believed Zeke would do anything to spare his own life. That after Gabrielle’s murder, Zeke would no longer fight capture or imprisonment. He’d want only to save himself from Carreon’s depravity.

Liz swore at the bastard beneath her breath.

“What did you say?” Zeke asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He squeezed her hand. “You can quit worrying, all right? We’re here.”

The mountain towered above them, its jagged peaks blotting out most of the sky from this position. Zeke drove around several boulders to a stand of trees, bushes, and cacti, no doubt nourished by an underground stream. Threads of moonlight whispered over the vegetation, making it a study in light and dark with the shaded areas hiding what was within—the entrance to the clan’s stronghold.

The Others had built it during their brief time here.

Three of Zeke’s men were just inside the tunnel’s entrance, assault rifles raised. He slowed the Jeep, giving them time to recognize him. Once they had, his men nodded and granted him entry.

The tunnel was no less impressive than the other times Liz had seen it, the passage seeming to stretch for miles. Its twenty-foot-high walls were constructed of an alloy Zeke had said was from the Others, the metal unknown to the people on this planet. Near the ceiling, long tubes ran down each side, their blue-white light nearly blinding. The tires hummed with the vehicle’s speed, this ride as smooth as if they’d been on a newly constructed highway.

After what seemed like miles, Liz saw his clan’s other vehicles. Many of them bore bullet holes from tonight’s battle or earlier ones.

Unlike the first time Liz had been here, none of Zeke’s men came to the Jeep to greet him. The area was oddly deserted, dark reddish stains on the floor. Dried blood. She recalled the pools of it inside the stronghold, the spatters on the walls, doors shot out, the bodies of Carreon’s lieutenants.

She exited the vehicle when Zeke did, taking a moment to help her father.

He patted her hand. “I’m all right.”

“Good.” She wasn’t. With her arm linked through his, she walked with him to Zeke, taking his hand. “Why isn’t anyone outside like they were when you first brought me here?”

“They have injured to attend to.”

Of course. How could she have forgotten about that? The three of them moved as one to the stronghold’s enormous door. The width of a tank, it was made of the same material as the walls.

Zeke laid his hand on the control panel so it could read his palm and grant him entrance.

Liz waited for the remembered series of clicks then the door sliding sideways, disappearing into the wall.

Nothing happened.

Zeke frowned.

She squeezed his fingers. “What’s the matter? Why didn’t it open?”

“It will.” He rubbed his palm against his jeans as though he needed to clean it of dirt and blood or wipe the sweat from it. Again, he placed his hand on the control panel.

The door didn’t move.

From behind them, the sound of a motor neared. Its brakes squealed briefly.

Alarmed at the thought of Carreon’s lieutenants, Liz turned and saw a van. The three men who’d been at the tunnel’s entrance exited the vehicle.

The stockiest of them—Ike, Liz recalled—studiously ignored her and her father as he went to Zeke. “What’s the matter?”

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