Page 27 of Deep Within Me
“You need to turn it up.” Ernez pointed to the volume control.
Carreon put the sound at one hundred. All that produced was a steady hissing noise. “Is it broken? Why isn’t there any—”
“Liz!” Zeke’s voice shouted from the recording. “Liz, it’s Zeke. Your father’s with me. He’s all right.”
“Dr. Munez is still alive,”Roberto had said during his call.
The doctor’s voice sounded next on the tape. “The door might be shut,” he said. “If it is, she might not be able to hear any—”
Munez’s words stopped. He and Zeke finally came into view at the end of the hall. Carreon leaned up in his chair. Zeke hadhis arm wrapped around the older man’s waist, helping him to walk. Munez was limping badly.
The tape didn’t show what Zeke saw beyond the door. Carreon recalled every bit of the scene. Liz on her side near the fireplace, her face swollen and purplish from lack of air, mean bruises on her throat. Dead. Dead. Dead. Carreon had felt the bone in her throat snap beneath his fingers.
An anguished howl escaped Zeke as he and her father hurried into the room, out of camera range. Unmoved, Carreon listened to Zeke’s cries, his foolish pleas for Liz to be all right.
She wasn’t. Would never be again. He’d left her fucking dead.
“Go away!” Zeke’s voice shouted, no doubt to her father. “Leave us alone.”
“Put her down,” the older man said.
“No.”
Munez made a pained noise. “Do as I say.”
“Why? You think I wanted this to happen? I love her.”
Carreon’s jaw tightened at Zeke’s declaration. His fucking audacity in claiming Liz when she’d belonged with her own people. With him. Doing exactly what he said. Not defying him in the least. He gripped the arms of his chair.
Munez kept speaking. Carreon caught the last of his words. “—down. Let me do what I must.”
During the next minutes, Munez murmured to his daughter, telling her of his love. “Come back,” he finally murmured.
No,Carreon thought.What he wants is impossible. It can’t be true.
Not wanting to hear any more of the old fool’s sentimentality or Zeke’s sorrow, Carreon fast-forwarded the video then stopped and gaped at the screen.
Zeke left the safe room first, followed by Liz.
No.
Repeatedly, Carreon had insisted to Roberto that Zeke must have carried or dragged her lifeless body from the room.
On the recording, she walked on her own. Pausing, Liz glanced behind herself. Her face was no longer swollen, nor a sickening mauve color. The bruises Carreon had left on her throat were gone. She looked as though she hadn’t died…as though he hadn’t killed her.
He had, damn it.
Following close behind Liz was her father, no longer limping.
Had she healed him?
Had her father done the same with her? How could that be? Before Carreon had left his safe room, he’d searched for her pulse. There was none. She hadn’t been breathing.
This isn’t possible.
He backed up the video to play the parts he’d fast-forwarded over. For a moment, there was only silence or static then Munez’s voice.
“My dear sweet daughter, I’m so sorry. I never wanted to have to do this. It’s not fair leaving you with this burden. I warned you about our gift. I told you there were things about it that you didn’t understand. Now, I have to show you.”