Janice tried to get out of bed.
Charmin stopped her. “I’m afraid that I need you to stay in bed a bit longer, so I can transfuse your blood to the others. You’re blood type should be transferable to everyone.” Charmin started the transfusions.
Thierry was first. His eyes barely cracked when Charmin inserted the needle. His breathing was down, way down.
Frenchie wheeled across the room and scooped up his hand. His skin was warm and clammy. His lungs were barely moving as if they were wrapped in a strait-jacket. The tiny hair lining his respiratory tract were almost completely overwhelmed by mucus. How could it come so far so fast? “Charmin, he needs oxygen and, and, and – decongestant.” Frenchie gripped his fingers and helped debride the mucus from his lungs with her mind.
“You guys,” Charmin called from the doorway in an odd, high-pitched voice.
Frenchie glanced at the panicked Charmin. She stood frozen, staring outside the doorway. More backpacks had been unloaded. Frenchie could see stacks of plastic explosives piled along the cave’s entrance. The intruders were lining them up along the infirmary’s doorway as well. The packages had glowing red timers with a descending countdown, currently at eight minutes and fifty-four seconds.
Lola wheeled over to the window to get a better look, leaving the baby asleep on the bed. “They don’t look like they’re coming in here. They’re going to bury the place.”
Thierry gained some of his color back.
The ever-stable Charmin turned toward Thierry’s bed and then back to the window, ready to have a meltdown.
“Charmin,” Lola called as she reached for her.
Charmin walked over and took Lola’s hands. “There won’t be time for infusions. Give us each an inoculation of Janice’s blood and prepare everyone for transport.” She wheeled across the room. “Frenchie, come help me with Caroline.”
The two of them wheeled over to Caroline’s bed and unfastened the safety straps that bound her wrists. As soon as she was free, she clapped her hands and flapped her right elbow.
Lola repeated the gesture and grunted a few times. Then the two of them appeared to communicate like a couple apes with additional nostril flares and eye bulges.
Charmin plunged a syringe into Frenchie’s arm without warning.
“Owe,” Frenchie screamed, jumping away with the needle hanging in her left arm. She yanked the syringe out of her arm flung it into the trash.
Three of the agents were connecting wires to the explosives. The rest of them filed toward the exit.
“Frenchie, if we can open up the doorway, can you take care of the guards?”
Two was the most she’d ever taken out at the same time. And they were unarmed. Could she take out all three, each of them carrying explosive triggers and automatic weapons?
“I think we can open the door, Frenchie,” Lola continued. “But we need someone that can incapacitate the guards.”
“I can probably take out the three in the hallway. But what if the others rush back in?”
“We’ll figure that out when it happens. But my guess is they’re all headed topside.”
Lola spun around squawked and flapped her arms at Caroline.
“Everyone’s been given the blood,” Charmin said. “Including the baby.” She passed out the ‘medication’ that had been confiscated from Janice on her arrival. She disconnected Janice and Thierry’s IVs and helped them get dressed.
Caroline still seemed somewhat subdued from the cocktail Charmin had been giving her, but a hint of her excited smile returned as she jutted her head forward in understanding. Lola popped one of Janice’s energy pills into Caroline’s mouth and the girl sat up with an instant jolt of energy.
Frenchie grabbed the mattress off one of the beds and helped Lola line the window with the bedding, blocking most of the intruders view.
“Are you ready, Frenchie?” Lola asked as she handed Caroline a metal cane with the rubber end removed.
Frenchie crouched on the ground near the window, wondering how an autistic Shine was going to penetrate the four-inch-thick, bullet-proof glass. But she nodded anyway and slipped her prosthetic leg on. She winced as she put a little weight on it. The wounds had not yet healed.
Lola braced Janice’s shoulders and edged her directly in front of the window. Then she grunted like a gorilla again.
Caroline raised the cane and set the tip of it in the middle of the blocked exit. Within a few seconds the cane turned red-hot. Smoke bellowed off the glass. The cane sunk in a half-inch.
Lola grunted. Her facial expression changed. Then she nudged Caroline forwarded.
The cane turned purple, blue, and near translucent. It slid into the glass as if it were melted butter.
Lola guided Caroline’s arms around in a circle. Some light smoke drifted upward and then a four-foot section of the emergency doorway crashed to the floor.
The guards rushed at them.
Lola pulled Caroline behind the glass and mattress.
Frenchie took a half-second to focus. Then she reversed the hair in this first guard’s hands and gave a sudden burst of ingrown hair. His gun skittered to the floor. A strip of bullets hit the wall and the outer edges of the bedding-lined glass as Frenchie disarmed the other two guards in the same way.
All three men stopped and tried to strip off their gloves and claw at their hands. Thankfully, none of them had tried to call for their comrades.
Frenchie stepped out through the oblong hole and into the hallway. Within a few seconds she grew the guard’s facial hair out into long spindly beards and forced the bundles into their mouths, gagging them. As a final precaution she bound their hands and feet together in a rats-nest of hair that would that would take a gallon of Nair to remove.
She turned around.
Charmin placed a few blankets over the three guards as if they were sleeping, then she waved Lola, Caroline and the rest of the group out of the infirmary.
Frenchie’s eyes followed the line of explosives down one side of the hall and then the other. The stairwell and the exit that went deeper into the mine were the only possible retreats.
The timer on the explosive charges had five minutes remaining. Even if they could make it up the stairwell in that amount of time, they would be surrounded by the rest of some private army.
A high pitch scream ripped through the hallway followed by a bitter chill. Frenchie covered her ears as she spun around.
Caroline’s eye were shut. Her arms flapping wildly at the infirmary’s door.
Lola grunted and moaned to her friend. A moment later, she screamed for somebody, anybody to cover up Jared’s body.
Frenchie grabbed a blanket and threw it over Jared. But the effort didn’t stop the ring of ice that was emanating from Caroline.
“Help her,” Lola demanded. “She can’t stop. Her fath-” Lola collapsed. Her arms barely saving her cradled baby.
Frenchie rushed to Lola’s side. “Thierry, grab a wheelchair for Lola and the baby.”
Charmin skidded across the icy floor and injected a needle into the back of Caroline’s neck. It took a few seconds, but eventually her screaming slowed, she fell asleep, and Charmin lowered her to the floor.
“We have to go, now.” Frenchie demanded as she glanced again at the timer on the explosives. “We only have 3 minutes.” She and Janice helped Lola and the baby into the wheelchair and started running for the western tunnels. Thierry and Charmin were right behind her carrying dragging Caroline.
Janice threw open the door, held it, and ushered the others through.
Frenchie ran passed her into the tunnels, pushing Lola and the baby. The rest of the group followed. By the time Janice closed the tunnel’s door, only ninety seconds remained.
The group moved down the dark corridor as fast as they could. They had just rounded the far bend when Frenchie heard the first of the explosions.
Light flashed through the cavern and the heat threatened to singe off every last one of her hairs, but she
still refused to turn around and look at the flames. She kept running with the wheelchair in front of her.
The ground rumbled and one by one the massive wooden beams fell behind them. The warehouse and the whole of Detroit was about to come down on top of them.
Frenchie pushed forward, desperate to save Lola and her baby. She tried to find a rhythm with her footsteps as she fought the pain that had re-ignited in her missing limb. Another forty yards went by, and then a half-mile. The dust from the final broken wall support settled, and she was still moving deeper into the abyss, running to safety.
The wheelchair hit a bump. Frenchie stumbled. Her good knee slammed into the wheelchair’s frame. Thankfully she was holding onto the handles, otherwise she would’ve found herself on the ground.
She limped a few more steps, but the pain exploded into both of her legs. Her legs trembled. Both of them wanted to give way. She closed her eyes and willed herself forward another step when her good knee buckled.
“Frenchie, you okay?” Thierry asked. He was behind her, holding her up by the armpits. He eased her down to the ground.
Frenchie had only been on the ground for a few seconds, but the cold was already seeping into her bones. And then she felt his warm hands. She sat in a haze, enjoying the tingling sensations created by his hands, trying to ignore everything else.
Charmin clambered over to her with the medical kit. “How are your lungs doing?” she asked as she removed the charred praying mantis prosthesis with ease.
Her lungs? Frenchie hadn’t thought of her lungs since they’d left the infirmary. She checked on her own cilia, then of that on Thierry, Charmin, Lola, and the baby. They were all clear. The mucous, the virus, it was all gone.
“Yeah. Mine too,” Charmin said reading her mind. “I’m clear. I’m not tasting anything more than the McNasty ramen I had for lunch. And from the looks of it, everyone else is feeling the same way.”
Frenchie gave a weak smile. Too tired and in too much pain to do much more.
“And to think that we owe it all to you and the world’s newest Shine, Janice. Between the two of you, the world now has a cure.” Charmin delicately slid a small needle into Frenchie’s left butt cheek.
Slow warmth spread across her hip. A cure, Frenchie thought. Her brain wanted to calculate what that might mean, but when she kept coming back to her mom’s fried chicken, she gave up.
Frenchie’s eyes grew heavy. The meds Charmin gave her were kicking in. She felt the warmth gathering around her while her consciousness faded. Each time she blinked, minutes or hours could have passed.
“It’s okay to sleep,” a voice said. “We’re all safe now.”
Frenchie strained to crack an eye open to see who’d spoken. Juliet was by her side. Janice and Caroline were ahead of her walking toward the cave’s exit.
Blood seeped through the bandages on her left leg and the nub of her right. The reverberating steps of whoever was carrying her seemed to be almost melodic. She glanced down at the tight, tanned, muscular arms wrapped around her. And then she smelled the cheap shampoo. She was in Thierry’s arms. At least one thing had gone right. She snuggled into his chest and closed her eyes. He was all she needed to go right to sleep.
Note From the Authors
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Acknowledgements
I want to thank James Richard Ludwig for his careful reading of the manuscript and his scientific and technical advice. I want to thank Jim Vance for his usual outstanding editing work. I want to thank my young girls, Alice, Beth, Kadey, and Madeline, for showing me what girl-power really is. And most importantly, I want to thank my beautiful wife Lara for her editing, advice, and brilliant reading of the audiobook. I hate to admit it, but her vocal talent makes the book even better than it was before.
About the Authors
William Bernhardt is the bestselling author of more than forty books, including the blockbuster Ben Kincaid series, and Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness, currently in production as a miniseries for NBC. Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writing Center in 2005, hosting writing workshops and small-group seminars and becoming one of the most in-demand writing instructors in the nation. His programs have educated many authors now published at major New York houses. He holds a Masters Degree in English Literature and is the only writer to have received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." In addition to the novels, he has written plays, a musical (book and music), humor, nonfiction, children books, biography, poetry, and crossword puzzles. He is a member of the Author’s Guild, PEN International and the American Academy of Poets.
To learn more about William Bernhardt, visit his website: www.williambernhardt.com. You can email him at: [email protected].
Shine
Copyright for Childhood’s End, Roses in the Ashes, Pandora’s Daughters, Renegades, Who’s Gonna Stop Me? 2015 William Bernhardt
Copyright for Raze, Never Say Reven, Into the Fire, Storms and Spirits 2015 Tamara Grantham
Copyright for Lost Haven, Road to Nowhere, The Gilded Cage 2015 Sabrina A. Fish
Copyright for The Unfound, Ricochet 2015 Burke Holbrook
Copyright for Cassandra 2015 Lara Wells
Published by Babylon Books
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Table of Contents
Episode One: Childhood’s End
Episode Two: Roses in the Ashes
Episode Three: Pandora’s Daughters
Episode Four: Renegades
Episode Five: Who’s Gonna Stop Me?
Episode Six: Raze
Episode Seven: Lost Haven
Episode Eight: The Unfound
Episode Nine: Cassandra
Episode Ten: Never Say Reven
Episode Eleven: Into the Fire
Episode Twelve: Storms and Spirits
Episode Thirteen: Road to Nowhere
Episode Fourteen: The Gilded Cage
Episode Fifteen: Ricochet
Note From the Authors
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright Notice
Table of Contents
Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1) Page 115