Liza followed Jonas with her gaze as he moved to the long table against the wall.
“Let me show you something,” he suggested. Turning, he indicated that she should follow him.
Liza’s gaze shifted to Stygian before she turned and moved carefully to the table.
She had a feeling she didn’t want to see what the director was pulling from the files stacked there.
Stepping to his side, she stared down at the photos he was setting out on the table.
The eight-by-ten glossy photos were of a very ill child, her little head bare of hair, blue eyes filled with sorrow.
She was pale, obviously in pain, and stared into the camera with a sense of resignation.
Her heart beat faster, her throat felt tight with dread. She tried to tell herself, to convince herself it was because of a child’s pain seen so clearly in those frightened, worn blue eyes.
But that didn’t explain the flash of some long-forgotten sensation attacking her arm. The feel of phantom needles inserted into an arm so thin, already so bruised and abused, sent a shock wave of horror traveling through her so quickly that before she could react, it was gone.
What was that? It couldn’t be a memory, because Liza knew she hadn’t ever been so ill as a child.
The next photo was one of another young girl, though her illness wasn’t as apparent. Dark brown eyes and hair lay around her pale face. Her lips were cracked and dry, her gaze distant as though she were forcing herself to see beyond the camera.
She was living, but she wasn’t really with them. They were desperate to pull her back. What if she never came back? What if she went away inside herself and never returned to them? All the planning, all the deception and the lies would have been for nothing?
Liza felt her breath catch as she fought to hide the shock and fear that nearly overcame her. Clenching her fingers into fists and tucking them beneath the fold of her arms, she kept her gaze centered on the corner of the photos until the wave of disorientation receded.
But she couldn’t keep her eyes from them for long.
There were pictures of the two girls together; then, there were pictures of the hairless girl with two adults Liza assumed were her parents.
The tall, broad male had a haunted look in his gaze, while the mother’s face was filled with pain and love. They weren’t staring at the camera; rather they were standing next to the hospital bed where their child lay sleeping.
Sleeping?
Or dead?
There were other pictures.
The two girls with two Breeds. It was obvious because they were displaying their incisors in the pictures. In their eyes though, Liza could glimpse the hell all four were clearly enduring.
Compassion filled her, as well as a sense of sorrow.
“Who are they?” Looking up at the director, she had to refrain from rubbing at the chill that suddenly raced over her arms. “Will they be okay?”
Jonas gathered the photos together before replacing them in the file.
“They grew up,” he stated. “The one with her parents is Honor Roberts. The leukemia she had was diagnosed as a particularly fast-growing and fatal illness. There is no known cure or procedure for remission, even now.”
“The other girl was Fawn Corrigan. At two months of age she was near death, diagnosed with infant AIDS and given only weeks to live. As you saw in the photo, at age ten, she was still alive.”
“But still ill,” she stated.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “Did you recognize any of them?”
“Why would I?” Her gaze jerked back to his with a hard frown. “The two girls were with two immature Breed males. There are no Breed males of that age in Window Rock that I’m aware of.”
Tightening her stomach, she refused to allow herself to think about them—or her reaction to the photos.
“Those pictures were taken more than a decade ago.” The obvious impatience in his voice was reflected in the darkening swirls of gray in his eyes.