Page 6 of Deep Within Me

Zeke remained in a crouch as more noises poured from the vehicle. A frustrated huff. The smack of a man’s foot hitting a door, which swung open with a tortured creak.

Puffs of dust plumed up as Carreon’s remaining lieutenant fell from the SUV, his boots hitting the ground.

Taking aim, Zeke hollered, “Drop the weapon, or you’re dead too.”

All movement stopped. Even the Jeep’s elevated wheels no longer spun.

“Move away from the vehicle—slowly,” Zeke shouted. “Hands—”

“Fuck you!” The man lifted his rifle, took aim.

Zeke fired a volley of shots into his legs, exposed beneath the Jeep’s opened door. On a wild, agonized scream, Carreon’s lieutenant tumbled down, still clutching his weapon, aiming it, preparing to fire.

Another shot stopped him from doing so.

Zeke wanted to feel bad but couldn’t. Nor would he offer any of these men a chance at reanimation. Their deaths were for Gabrielle and all the others in his clan who’d never asked for this fight. Who’d paid the ultimate price for Carreon’s hunger for power.

As the man’s blood flowed into the parched ground, Zeke regarded him. He was lean with a shaved head, the same as Carreon, his features decidedly plain, his lips too thin, nose toolarge. Not the man in Zeke’s vision whose longish hair and good looks were the kind that women found enticing, arousing.

Why had he been in the vision? Who was he? Another of Carreon’s men?

Zeke pulled the driver from the vehicle. His body thudded to the ground. Given the SUV’s angle, it would be a bitch to climb in and delete the GPS information so Carreon’s other lieutenants wouldn’t be able to use it to locate Zeke’s stronghold.

They wouldn’t have had it the last time if not for Kele. Zeke tamped down his anger at her. Heartache and jealousy, nothing else, had led her to betray their clan. She loved his younger brother, Jacob, while Jacob barely noticed her. Jacob wanted Liz, despite Zeke’s insistence that he wouldn’t share her. With Kele unable to stand any more hurt or rejection, she’d led Carreon’s men to the stronghold tonight so they would take Liz away.

To keep that from happening again, Zeke positioned himself at what he hoped was a safe distance and fired into the dashboard. Luckily, there wasn’t a dramatic explosion, the vehicle engulfed in flames, him hit by flying metal as one might see in an action-adventure flick.

A gaping hole replaced where the GPS system had once been. Faint wisps of smoke rose from it and the muzzle of his weapon. The best he could do. Hopefully, these men had been too busy fleeing to have downloaded the data to Carreon’s computer system and given the bastard another chance to locate Zeke’s clan in what was supposed to be a hidden and secure location.

He took the men’s weapons and cell phones then ran back to the Jeep. His feet pounded the dirt, an accompaniment to the other night sounds. Animals cried out in the dark or skittered about. Brisk air skipped over the stark landscape, whining then whistling. Near-dead vegetation crackled as though in answer.

At the Jeep, Zeke opened Liz’s door. She flinched, horror etched on her face, her tee and jeans smeared with blood from the earlier battle that Kele had caused.

“It’s all right,” Zeke panted. “I got them.”

She reached for him. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” He swallowed and embraced her briefly. “Get back in your seat, please. We have to go.” He circled the vehicle and put the confiscated phones and weapons on the floor in the back.

Munez leaned away from them.

Zeke got behind the wheel.

“Your vision didn’t come true this time,” Liz said. “It did when Carreon strangled me, but not—”

“It wouldn’t have happened then if you hadn’t left the stronghold. When I tell you to stay put, you do so, understand?” He shifted the Jeep into drive. “That’s why Jacob was hit tonight. My vision showed it happening, and I tried to prevent it, but he refused to listen to me. Just like you keep—”

“All right, all right, I’ll—wait, what are you doing?” She looked in her side-view mirror, the direction they’d been going. “This is the wrong way, isn’t it?”

Zeke gulped more air. “We have to go back to Carreon’s stronghold.”

“You can’t be serious. Why?”

“The vehicle you drove to Carreon’s is still there.”

“So?”

Zeke sighed out his next breath, wearier than he wanted to be. “He or his men will use the GPS to locate my clan’s stronghold. Right now, I’m hoping they still don’t know where it is. The moment they do, they’ll come again for you and your father. This time my people and I might not be able to stop them.”

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