Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1)

by William Bernhardt

  The doctor yanked her face up, forcing her to meet his cold gaze. "Who else do you know that is like you and Russian born, Ms. Walker?"

  "Svetlana."

  The old man scowled. "We should have used that one for biochemical testing when we had the chance."

  "Her gifts are too powerful to waste in such a way," the woman said. "We're ready for her now. She'll make a mistake, eventually, and we'll have her back." The woman turned her attention back to Camille. "What does she know about those like her, I believe they call them Shines, in the United States?"

  The doctor turned to Camille. "Do you work for the Shine resistance in the United States?"

  "Yes."

  "Why are you in Russia?"

  "To see if the rumors are true," Camille answered.

  "What rumors?"

  "That Russia protects and trains its Shine."

  The doctor glanced at the older woman. "What have you found?"

  "That Russia is nothing more than a gilded cage."

  The doctor smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Indeed."

  "Where is your resistance organization located?"

  The roaring flames in the trashcan jumped to the blanket the doctor had tucked around her legs. Things jabbed the cotton all around her consciousness. The electrical current running over the walls moved faster.

  "In the United States."

  The doctor's eyes flashed. "Clever, my dear. Where in the United States is the Shine Resistance headquarters located?"

  The fire crawled over the blanket, burning her legs. Something wet dripped from her nose. The cotton surrounding her consciousness grew so thin in places, Camille could almost feel again. If she'd jab from this side would it rend a tear in the cotton? The liquid dripping from her nose dropped onto the blanket covering her lap, distracting from testing her theory.

  The doctor wiped the blood from her nose. "If I continue with that line of questioning, her mind could possibly break."

  An alarm suddenly flashed above the door. The older man and woman turned to leave.

  The woman glanced at the doctor over her shoulder. "We don't need her mind healthy, just her body. Get the location of that base from her."

  The sound of sirens wailing broke the quiet of the room when they opened the door. They quickly exited out the door near V's bed. She met V's terrified gaze and the fire once again covered her legs, burning her.

  The doctor yanked her chin back around until she faced him. He pushed another vial of the yellow liquid into her arm.

  "I'm afraid you're going to tell me everything I want to know," he said, a fanatical smile on his face.

  The thin patches in the cotton thickened until she once again felt nothing. She forgot about the fire that had covered her legs, the electrical current slowed to a sluggish stream, the beads of water shrank, sending only occasional small showers of sparks.

  The doctor reached around and loosened the ties of her hospital gown. "Pull your arms from the gown."

  The electrical current moved faster. The beads of water grew. Camille pulled her arms from the gown. The doctor pulled it off of her and laid her bed back so that she was naked before his cold, hard gaze.

  The electrical current hit a large bead of water and the sparks showered over them both, stinging Camille's exposed flesh.

  The doctor picked up a shiny scalpel from the tray next to the bed. “The drug steals your free will, but it doesn’t dampen your ability to feel pain.” He slid the sharp point of the surgical tool over her cheek. Her cheek burned along the tool’s path. “You’ll feel every cut, but you will remain still and silent.”

  Another flash of sparks. Her emotions battered at the cotton around her conscious.

  "Now, how about we start with something a little easier?" He moved the scalpel to her thigh. "What is your ability?"

  The drops of water rolling down the glass walls swelled. "I can make others not see me."

  "You can hide just yourself?"

  Sparks showered around her. "Anyone I choose."

  The doctor lifted an eyebrow. "Very impressive, my dear.” His dark eyes narrowed. “Where is the resistance base located in the United States?”

  The smoldering fire in the trashcan burst into roaring flame. The doctor jabbed her thigh with the scalpel, causing her to jerk her gaze away from the flames crawling up the blanket.

  “Where is the resistance located in the United States?” the doctor repeated.

  The cotton around her consciousness thinned. Emotions jabbed against the thin barrier. The flames crawled over the blanket, brushing against her toes. She curled her feet away from the heat. The doctor slid the scalpel’s blade down her thigh. Blood welled. The deep cut burned hotter than the fire at her toes.

  “Answer the question, Mrs. Walker.”

  The flames scorched her skin as it continued to crawl up the blanket covering her feet. Blood dripped from her nose and down her thigh. The doctor reached for another syringe of the Devil’s Breath serum. Her consciousness shoved at the thin cotton barrier mentally holding her in its suffocating embrace.

  Her consciousness wailed behind the cotton barrier as he put the needle into her vein. Just as he pushed the liquid into her arm, the door crashed open and Jeremy rushed in, a gun pointed at the doctor. Rachel, Brenna, Sophia, Svetlana, and several other unfamiliar women ran to free the four women lying in beds.

  "Get away from her," Jeremy growled.

  The doctor met Camille's eyes and loosened the restraints on her arms. "Take the gun from him and shoot him," he whispered.

  Emotions halted the renewed effects of the drug trying to suffocate her in another layer of the thick cotton. She pulled further into herself in an attempt to free herself from the impossible order. Sparks exploded around her as her body moved to a sitting position. The doctor lifted his hands and stepped back.

  A group of armed women burst through the door near V. They surrounded her friends. Fire once again ate its way over the sheets of her bed, burning her bare skin. Camille stood. The pools of water on the floor swirled with electricity and crept toward her. The cotton tightened around her, forcing her body to carry out the order.

  "Come to me, Camille," Jeremy ordered.

  His voice made the beads of water pour down the walls in streams. The water rushed toward Camille's feet, sparking with electricity. She paused, her eyes darting between the current of electricity moving toward her toes and the gun in Jeremy's hand. Sparks rained in constant showers. Her emotions hammered at the cotton suffocating her. She struggled to breathe. She lifted her arm. Jeremy stepped toward her, searching her face with his concerned gaze. The cotton around her consciousness thinned.

  Jeremy lifted his eyebrows as her hands closed around the gun. "Scout?"

  That name sent the water gushing toward her toes. She rammed her conscious into the thin barrier of cotton cutting her off from her emotions, from her Shine. The enemy lifted their weapons, aiming at her friends and allies. The water touched her toes, electricity arced through her body. The cotton barrier around her mind exploded out, her Shine with it.

  She screamed out her anger at being taken against her will, at having her baby's life possibly endangered by the unknown drug, at being hurt by the doctor.

  Her Shine targeted those intending to hurt those she loved, plucking their worst nightmares from their minds and playing it like a recurring loop before their eyes, freezing them where they stood.

  Consumed by fire, Camille collapsed into Jeremy's arms, her hands clutched tightly around the gun.

  EPILOGUE

  Voices murmured around her, too low for her to hear. Where was she? Fragments of memories flashed in her mind. A syringe of yellow liquid. Fire. A shiny scalpel slicing into her skin. Her stomach churned. She clenched her fists at her sides and opened her eyes. An odd rounded ceiling, tiny windows. Had something happened to Jeremy? Was she still being held in a Russian lab? Her breaths rushed too fast in and out of her mouth.

  Then he was there. Ben
ding over her. His beloved face bringing tears to her eyes.

  "You're safe," he whispered, squeezing her hand. "We'll be touching down in Vegas soon."

  He brought a straw to her mouth. Camille drank while studying his face. The dark shadows that said he hadn't slept in too many hours, the love shining from tired blue eyes. Movement out of the corner of her eyes made her tense. She glanced over to see Rachel and Brenna sitting on the bottom edge of her bed, relieved smiles on their faces.

  The fact that she was in a bed on a plane finally registered. She glanced around at the rich furnishings.

  "I called in a favor," Jeremy said.

  Exhausted from so little, she let her head sink back onto her pillow. "The lab? Svetlana? Karen?"

  Brenna squeezed Camille’s foot. "Karen is with us, though she is letting her guilt over what happened to you isolate her. She refuses to speak to anyone.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Apparently, she called the number Elena left on the card and told them you all were going back to the States, but she wanted to stay. They timed the attacks on you and those remaining at the flats to occur simultaneously. Karen thought they were just there for her. She had no idea they'd overheard one of the others talk about your pregnancy and that they'd want you for the baby," Jeremy closed his eyes. "Everyone's going to want you for the baby."

  A tear leaked from the corner of Camille's eye. "Svetlana and the lab?

  “I was waiting for my first cup of coffee to brew when they stormed our flat,” Rachel said. “I was pinned down by a Shine with some type of ice ability and another with a heat ability. I’d been hit by an ice dart in the shoulder and was losing blood fast when Svetlana and her girls came in through the back fire escape. By the time we managed to wound them enough to make them run, the others were all gone. When Sophia appeared with Brenna and told us what’d happened to you, we started planning how to get you back.” Rachel paused and looked at Jeremy with admiration. “Jeremy showed up just as we were getting ready to leave and already had your general location.”

  Jeremy’s gaze jerked to her wedding ring then back to her face. He smiled. “When I arrived and you weren’t there, I checked your location and knew something had happened.”

  Camille squeezed his hand, grateful for his overprotectiveness. “Svetlana?”

  “Svetlana freed all those trapped in the lab. She left instructions with any your power didn't disable on how they could get word to her if they changed their minds and wanted out of the program."

  Camille's brow wrinkled. "What do you mean? My Shine isn't offensive."

  Jeremy held her gaze. "Your Shine has developed a new trick. You hit anyone within a mile who wished you or those you considered yours harm with their worst nightmare. As if your Shine plucked the information straight from their minds and froze them in place, forcing them to relive it over and over." He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. "The screams were the worst I've ever heard." He met her gaze. "Apparently, your Shine isn't just defensive any longer."

  Nausea churned. "I'm going to be sick."

  Jeremy pulled an airline barf bag from a bedside drawer and helped support her shoulders. When she sank back onto the pillow again, she cupped her stomach. "The baby?" she asked, tears in her eyes. "They gave me something that the doctor said killed fetuses over six weeks old."

  Jeremy shook his head. "Svetlana has some type of cellular manipulation Shine that allows her to see a body at the molecular level. She said the baby’s fine. Though if she ends up developing the Shine gene, the drug could have affected her Shine."

  She sighed, relieved that their baby would be fine. "Her?"

  Jeremy leaned in to kiss her, a smile on his face. "Svetlana said that we're definitely having a little girl."

  Camille's eyes fluttered closed, a small smile on her face. "If she's anything like me, she'll be a daddy's girl."

  Jeremy pressed a kiss to her forehead. "If she's anything like you, she'll be smart, funny, and the bravest woman I've ever met."

  Episode Fifteen

  Ricochet

  by Burke Holbrook

  Chapter 1

  Frenchie shivered. If she had to wait in these cramped quarters for another five minutes, frostbite would set in. Why couldn’t they have chosen a different apartment building, preferably one that wasn’t abandoned and absent of heat? She glanced over at Juliet, hoping for the sign to go, but Juliet’s eyes were closed. She was no doubt enjoying the frigid wind as it blew through Chicago. A sensation lost in the depths of Detroit’s old salt mines.

  Lengthening her own hair was now an afterthought, almost automatic. There was no need to pinpoint the hair follicles before activating them like she had to do for others. She grew her hair along her chin and gathered the warmth from her breath.

  The hard plaster that now made up the lower part of her right leg felt like it was encased in ice. Her new nub was going numb. The pain from her three-month-old amputation was returning with electric shocks that shot from her existing hip down into her prosthetic toes. She bounced on both feet and switched her weight from one foot to the other, desperate to keep the blood flowing.

  The early morning sun did little more than provide ambient light to the building they were staking out, but it made it easy to see the FBI agents and local police surround the place. It was hard to believe they put so much effort into arresting a few Shines. And it made even less sense for Juliet to risk the safety of the entire Shine team for a few girls.

  Juliet motioned for everyone to tuck in to the shadows as an armored, hovered, vehicle glided past the window and parked in front of the neighboring house’s door steps.

  Four FBI agents sprinted to the vehicle, pulled out a battering-ram, and carried it to the front door.

  Frenchie glanced back at the room she had just seen the girls in. They were still there, lying in their bunk beds just across the hall from the front door, no idea in the world they were about to become victims of the FBI’s latest raid.

  Why didn’t they warn them? Why didn’t they bust in and save them already? Frenchie glared at Juliet once more and cursed under her frosty breath. She couldn’t sit here and watch more innocent Shines get incarcerated. But she remembered the gallon of Nair and the electrolysis that followed the last time she disobeyed a direct order. Even her own powers to wield and control hair were unable to resurrect the dime size of hair follicles on the back of her head. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having to do a sweep over.

  The battering-ram smashed into the front door. The door flew open. And a dozen federal agents rushed inside.

  Juliet waved at Anvil who was already sharing the opposite roof with two snipers. Then she signaled to Empy, who crouched down low next to Frenchie.

  Empy stood up and tried to blend in with the cement wall with her palms facing the front door of the house. Moments later an electromagnetic pulse caused the hovercraft to collapse to the ground. Those agents and policemen who’d been waiting for a chance to use their new laser stun guns would soon be disappointed.

  The agents ran out of the house empty handed.

  Juliet pointed a tiny satellite at them, allowing the Shine group to hear the conversation as if they were sitting next to them.

  “Where did they go?” one of the agents asked, looking at his director.

  “We had eyes on them,” the director screamed looking around the small army. “We had agents covering every exit and eyes up above. The girls were there no less than one minute ago.” The director held a walkie-talkie to his lips. “Eagle, Shad, did you see what happened?”

  There was no reply.

  “Eagle, Shad, over.”

  Frenchie smiled as she imagined the two snipers crumpled up like accordions and Anvil sitting nearby fighting the urge to answer the call. She had to have known there was no way her deep voice could sound like a man’s.

  The director sent two men into the neighboring building to check on the snipers. By the time they made is upstairs, Frenchie knew they too would be
out of commission.

  “Here they come,” Juliet said. “Ground yourself.”

  Do what…

  The Chicago winds stopped for a moment and the entire room felt full of static. Every hair on Frenchie’s body stood on end. And then, as if someone had touched something metal, the static electricity discharged with a sudden zap. A brief flicker of light filled the room as a shock wave rippled through Frenchie. When her eyes adjusted again to the darkness, two twenty-something year old girls stood in the middle of the room holding each other.

  How? What? Frenchie glanced at Juliet for an explanation.

  The FBI scrambled over to their building.

  “And here comes the cavalry,” Juliet said as she turned toward the newcomers. “Srini, Clara, we thought you could use some…”

  The door burst open. Two agents jumped into the room, weapons raised.

  “Don’t move,” one of them said. “Unless you want to find out what fifty thousand volts feels like.”

  Srini and Clara’s hands shot up. Frenchie started to follow.

  “Put your hands down. They won’t shoot,” Juliet said as she walked out onto the lanai. “Let’s go ladies.”

  Empy followed. Frenchie did as well. When a series of clicks shot out from the Taser’s empty shell, she spun around in time to see the FBI Agents pulling their back-up weapons.

  Frenchie, grew-out both of the agent’s arm hair, braided their hands and heads together, and gagged them with ratted ponytails, before they could line up a target.

  After closing the apartment door behind the two agents, Frenchie joined the other girls on the lanai. It would take the rest of the agents another ten minutes to search through the rest of the apartment building. That’s plenty of time for the group of Shines to slip into the night.

  Chapter 2

  Lake Herron’s frozen air was so cold it burned Thierry’s lungs as if he’d just inhaled a few embers of magma. His fingers and toes were numb and tingling some time ago, and his insides would soon follow. He’d never seen snow. In fact, he’d never been north of Florida’s panhandle. Not until a few days ago anyways.