"Don't listen to her," Daisy said. "You've done nothing but support us. Without you, we'd have never made it this far."
The others nodded.
Camille swallowed, cursing the hormones that made her eyes burn. "I had no idea she felt that way. I've never begrudged any of you the choice you made. I'd rather you were all safe than fighting. You're like sisters to me and I wouldn't see any of you hurt."
Brenna reached over and squeezed Camille's hand. "We know this. Karen does too. She's pinned all of her hope on this trip and is having a difficult time accepting that it hasn't panned out."
V stood. "I'll bring her back."
"No, let her calm down first. I know how hard accepting the loss of a dream can be," Camille said, remembering the feeling of having to sell her childhood home and the only link left to her murdered parents.
Daisy tilted her head. "She isn't in our flat, anyway."
Camille frowned. "Where would she go?"
"Probably just needed to walk it off," Rachel said. "That much disappointment doesn't allow you to stay still."
Camille nodded, worried for her errant team member. She laid her head on her folded arms, suddenly feeling exhausted.
"Go take a nap, Cam. We'll come get you when Karen returns," Brenna said, patting her shoulder.
Camille stood. "The second she returns, come get me. I need to apologize for giving her the impression that I thought less of her for not wanting to fight."
Rachel scowled. "You don't owe anyone anything, Cam. Her own guilt makes her think that way and she's blame-shifting her own insecurities onto you."
"Even still."
Brenna elbowed Rachel. "We'll come for you. Now go sleep."
Camille slid between the cool sheets of her bed wishing Jeremy was there to warm them up. Praying the time until he returned the next day would pass quickly, she sank into dreams of faceless Russian scientists poking and prodding at her as they tried to take her baby.
She woke covered in sweat, the sheets tangled around her legs. The sun, slanted low on the walls, told her it was near dinner time. She shoved the sheets off and reached for her glasses. She selected Jeremy's number, needing to see his face.
He appeared in her lens, hair rumpled as if he'd been running his hands through it. "There you are, Scout. How are you feeling, today?"
The tension left over from her dream faded at the use of his pet name for her. She relaxed against her pillow and smiled. "I've been napping. We start our new teaching jobs on Monday so I need all the rest I can get this weekend."
"Did you have your meeting?"
Camille frowned, her sadness from earlier returning. "Yes. Karen accused me of thinking less of them for wanting to stay. She thinks I'm looking for any way to make them come back to the States with us."
Jeremy's brows lowered. "Why would she do that?"
"Rachel thinks she is just blame-shifting, but I don't know. Could I have tried harder to make them all feel included? Did I give the impression that I disapproved of their choice without realizing it?"
He shook his head. "Don't try to take any of the blame for this, Cam. That team knows you'd do anything for them. I'm sure she'll see that once she calms down."
Camille nodded, hoping he was right. "I'll talk to her as soon as she returns to the flat. In the meantime, I'm ready for you to be back. What time is your train scheduled to pull in to Izhevsk?"
"I'm already headed your way. My train should arrive there around eleven in the morning."
Sophia flashed into her room. "Karen's back."
Camille climbed off her bed. "I have to go, babe. Karen's back."
"Okay. See you in the morning."
Camille smiled. "I'll be the one waiting with her heart in her eyes."
"I'll be the one counting on that," he said, a sexy smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
With a sigh, she pulled the glasses from her face and let Sophia wrap her arms around her. She opened her eyes to see Daisy and V waiting on the couch. Karen was coming out of the kitchen, a bottle of water in her hand. Camille glanced at the clock on the TV’s satellite box and raised her eyebrows. The red-headed Shine had been gone all afternoon.
Camille stepped forward. "We've been worried about you."
Her eyes flickered to Camille then away. "Yeah, well, I'm fine."
"Please know that I don't see you as any less for wanting to stay here."
Karen pressed her lips together and moved past her.
Sophia stepped forward. "Karen, please. We need to talk about this."
The red-headed Shine stopped and glared over her shoulder. "You're willing to walk away from your family and your homeland just because she—" Karen sneered toward Camille. "—says you should. We have nothing left to talk about." The angry woman turned away from the Shines and stomped to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Camille lifted an eyebrow at Daisy.
"I caught her thinking about the tour before she remembered to block me," Sophia said with a shrug.
Camille inhaled. "She still has Elena's card. Do you think she called to schedule the tour?"
V frowned. "She's angry, not stupid. Let her cool down and we'll try to talk to her, Cam."
Camille nodded, worried at the hate she'd seen in Karen's face. Hopefully, V was right.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Camille stepped out of the cafe with Sophia and Brenna. The two Shines had volunteered to go with her to meet Jeremy at the train station.
"If we don't figure something out, Karen won't come back with us," Sophia said.
Camille nodded. What could she say? The other Shine would only speak to V and then only when the others weren't around. She squeezed the bridge of her nose. Not for the first time, she didn't feel qualified to be the leader her team needed.
Brenna rubbed Camille's back. "We'll figure something out."
Her glasses beeped in her pocket. She put them on and Rachel's face appeared on the lens.
"A boy who lives one floor down just delivered a note from our Russian friend," Rachel smiled. "Looks like we're taking that tour after all."
Her tension eased. "Tell Karen to schedule it."
Rachel nodded. "Got it."
Sophia frowned. "Shouldn't we meet with the Russian Shines and go over a plan?"
"That’ll be up to Svetlana. The less those of us going on that tour know, the better." Camille folded the glasses and slid them back into her pocket. "We don't know what abilities the Shines in the facility have. Better that we don't have any information in our minds to give away. Those not going on the tour will meet up with Svetlana before to get the plan."
Sophia nodded, worry written across her face. They rounded the corner near the tram stop. Camille's upper body suddenly lurched forward, her feet seemingly stuck to the pavement. At the tram stop, four women turned and hurried down the sidewalk toward them.
Camille shoved her Shine out, hiding her and her two friends from sight while they tried to pull their feet free. "Sophia, can you use your Shine?"
The younger woman closed her eyes. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her face turned red, but finally she disappeared and reappeared several paces in front of them. The four women slowed and looked around warily. One of the women, her hair dyed hot pink, closed her eyes. Camille felt the grip on her feet tighten. The woman said something to her friends and they started toward where Camille hid them.
"Sophia, take Brenna and go." The four women moved into a jog. "Now."
Sophia looked over her shoulder. "But--"
Camille met her friend's panicked gaze. "That was an order."
The other Shine stiffened and nodded. "I'm coming back, Cam."
Camille nodded. Sophia wrapped Brenna in her arms and closed her eyes. Her face reddened as she fought the other woman's hold on Brenna's feet. Camille knew by the trembling in Sophia's body that the other Shine would be spent and unable to come back for her.
Understanding this too, Brenna grimaced and held Camille's gaz
e. "We'll find you."
"Tell Jeremy that I love him."
Brenna's gaze hardened. "You can tell him when you see him again."
Before Camille could say anything else, her two friends vanished. She looked up to see the four women paused only feet in front of her.
The pink haired one narrowed her eyes on the ground where Camille stood. "I know you're there and that you're all alone, sister."
Camille smoothed all expression from her face and released her Shine. "We aren't sisters."
One of the two brunettes sighed and shook her head. "But aren't we? You are like us, no?"
Camille lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah and you're, like, the delusional, spoken about only in whispers, side of the family."
The brunette frowned as if Camille's English wasn't translating for her.
"Enough." The black haired leader said in Russian. "She's the one they want. Let's go."
The pink haired woman grabbed Camille's arm. The confused brunette took her other arm. The pressure on Camille's feet vanished and the two women pulled her away from the tram's tracks to a dark gray car that waited on the street. Knowing that getting in that car was a very bad idea, Camille looked over at the crowded tram stop.
She opened her mouth to call out. Pain exploded at the back of her head and she fell to her knees, stunned. Another blow and her face dove for the ground as she plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Camille woke to a throbbing headache that pulsed to the rhythm of a loud beeping sound. She flinched as something sharp poked into her arm. She tried to curl it into her stomach, but it wouldn't move. She blinked against the bright fluorescent lights above her. Where was she? She yanked on her arm, but whatever held it wouldn't give. She ran her dry tongue over equally dry lips and slowly turned her head toward her trapped arm. A man in a white coat pulled a tube of blood from the needle sticking in her arm and replaced the full tube with an empty one.
Camille licked her lips again. "What are you doing with my blood?"
The doctor looked up and Camille flinched. Though handsome with thick black hair and a flawless face, his blue eyes were cold, only seeing her as an object rather than a person. "We need to confirm you're like the others." The doctor smiled, sending chills down her spine. "And that you're pregnant."
Camille's heart jerked in her chest, the beeping speeding up. "How do you--"
"We have our ways," he interrupted.
She turned her head, taking deep breaths until the heart monitor's beeping slowed back to a normal rate. For the first time, she noticed that she was in a small room of glass panels that looked out over a larger, windowless room lined with five other medical beds separated by temporary walls. There were women lying in four of the beds, hooked up to various types of machines.
One of the other patients had a gas mask, similar to that a dentist used, over her face. Another jerked every few seconds as if jolted by electricity. But the most horrifying were the two familiar women sitting up in the beds closest to her. V's jaw was being held closed by metal straps that ran under her chin, over and behind her head, while a piece of metal stuck out of her mouth as if to keep her tongue still. Her arms and legs were strapped to the bed. Her eyes were wide and terrified, staring at Camille. Daisy was in the bed next to V, her head shaved. Little round disks were stuck to her head, wires leading from them to a machine by the bed. Her eyes stared blankly through Camille.
"What are you doing to them?"
The doctor looked over at her friends. "They're to be reconditioned for service as they both have combat useful abilities. If they fail to recondition, they'll be assigned to either the breeding program or the biochemical testing." The man took out the last vial of blood, then replaced it with a syringe of yellow liquid that he began pushing into Camille's veins. "You're the first one to come to us already pregnant. We're excited to compare your baby's genes to those we've created in our lab."
The heart monitor paused then began beeping at a rapid pace. What were they going to do to her baby? The doctor pulled the empty syringe canister from the needle still in her arm.
Warmth crawled up her veins into the rest of her body. "What did you inject me with?"
"We were quite amazed at your ability to fight off the effects of the Devil’s Breath,” the doctor replied. “I think you’ll find this version much improved.”
The warmth moved through her body, leaving her with a familiar numbness. She soon floated surrounded by cotton within her own mind, lulled by a calm she knew was false. She shoved at the numbing calmness, fighting the suffocating cotton that urged her to relax.
The doctor unstrapped her arm. "Sit up, Ms. Walker."
Camille knew she should be alarmed as her body did what it was told, but like before, the cotton soothed the alarm before it could do more than nudge her conscious.
"Let’s see how you respond." He pulled a medical gown out of a cabinet. "Strip and put this on. Now."
Alarm nudged harder and the cotton around her thickened as her arms lifted, pulling her shirt over her head. When she stood naked in front of the doctor, he held open the hospital gown and she moved toward him, arms raised.
"Good girl," he said with a triumphant smile. He tied the gown at her back, gently pulled her hair free. Alarm stabbed through the cotton, stirring her from her drug induced calm. The doctor pulled away and the cotton around her conscious thickened. "Let's get you back in bed, then you have some visitors who'd like to ask you some questions."
He adjusted her bed to a sitting position, helped her get comfortable, then tucked a blanket around her legs. "I often wonder how aware those under the influence of our little potion are, but none of you ever remember when you come out of it." He smoothed her hair back from her face, then fisted her hair and wrenched her head back. "If you're in there, know that you cannot fight this. I can command you to do anything and you'll do it. For the duration of the time that the drug courses through you, you're mine." He released her and stepped back, his gaze disapproving. "And I don't forgive you for allowing a specimen I haven’t authorized to inseminate you.”
Camille's body relaxed into the bed, but inside her mind alarm tore at the cotton. Her consciousness sharpened for a moment, fighting the numbness. Then the cotton tightened and she sank with a silent wail back under the drug's influence. Her body remained still in the bed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The glass walls throbbed around her. Large beads of water welled from the pores of the glass and left wet trails as they pooled on the floor. A current of electricity moved through the glass, exploding into showers of sparks when it would hit the beads of water. The cotton surrounding her conscious mirrored the same current of electricity. Just like in Las Vegas, Camille knew that to touch it would feel the same as the shock collar she'd once been forced to wear. She knew it should alarm her, but the cotton let no strong emotion penetrate the numb state in which it held her.
The door to her glass prison opened. Sparks showered the three who entered. The doctor who'd taken her blood, an older woman with gray streaked black hair, and a white haired older man surrounded her bed. The doctor took another syringe of the yellow liquid and pushed more of it into her arm.
"This won't hurt the fetus?" the woman asked.
The doctor pulled the syringe out and tossed it into the trash. "Our tests have shown that it only seems to affect fetuses over six weeks developed. She is only about five weeks."
The woman nodded.
"Let's proceed," the white haired man said.
The doctor squeezed Camille's hand. "Ms. Walker, I'm going to ask you some questions and you'll answer with the truth. Do you understand?"
"Yes, doctor," Camille answered.
"Good." The doctor patted her hand. "What is your name?"
"Camille Walker."
The woman wrote on the clipboard in her hands.
The doctor continued. "Where are you from?"
"The United States."
"What state?"
The cotton around her rippled. "Oklahoma."
"Who is the father of your child?"
Sparks burst from the room's glass walls. Camille paused, her eyes wide as her head swung from each shower of sparks.
"She fights it harder than the others," the older man murmured.
The doctor squeezed her hand. "Answer the question, my dear."
"Jeremy."
"Who is Jeremy?"
Something jabbed the cotton around her. Camille prodded the place where the jabbing had come from and it shocked her.
"Who is Jeremy, Ms. Walker?"
The current of light hit a large bead of water and the resulting shower of sparks was large enough to reach the trashcan at the doctor's feet. Smoke drifted into the air.
The doctor reached over and pulled her gaze away from the trashcan. Holding her gaze, he asked again. "Who is Jeremy?"
"My husband."
The doctor smiled and patted her cheek. "Very good. Do you know of others like you who were born Russian?"
"Sophia, her cousin, Agne, and Agne's friend, Elena."
"Do you know any others like you besides Agne and Elena?"
Something jabbed at the cotton. The smoke from the trashcan filled the room as flames licked the trashcan's interior. Camille watched the flames grow.
"What is she staring at?" the woman standing at Camille's feet asked.
"We believe the hallucinations are the mind's way of distracting them from answering the questions. It's different for them all. The more the subject doesn't wish to answer, the stronger the pull of the hallucinations," the doctor said.
The older woman studied Camille. "Ask her what she sees."
"What are you looking at, Ms. Walker?"
"Fire and smoke."
The doctor lifted an eyebrow at the woman who gestured for him to continue.
"Do you know any other Russians born like you?"
Sparks showered around her and Camille shrank her consciousness down into a tiny ball to keep the cotton from touching her.
Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1) Page 107