Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1)

by William Bernhardt

Then why weren’t these stains coming off?

  I scrubbed harder. And then I tried something I knew I would regret later. I darted out of the shower. Cold air blasted my skin as I grabbed my jar of makeup remover from under the sink.

  Goose bumps prickled my flesh as I climbed back in the shower. I opened the jar and grabbed a handful of goop. I rubbed at the purplish smudges. They came off without a hitch.

  Makeup.

  I played the scene through my head. Ashleigh had fallen when I picked her up and carried her into the caves, staining my hands and transferring her makeup onto my arms. Those bruises hadn’t been bruises at all.

  I clenched my eyes shut, wishing the stains would disappear. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. Surely there was some other explanation. I ran through the scenarios over again and again, but I came up with no other reason. Ashleigh had been wearing makeup. The whole thing was a sham.

  Oh my Gandhi.

  My brain clicked into gear as I realized how bad this was. Ashleigh had been in league with the Xeros, which meant we’d been set up, which meant the Xeros weren’t done with us. They would be here any minute now to drag us back to their death cave.

  “Lillie!” I bounded out of the shower. I grabbed a towel as I burst into the living room.

  An empty couch greeted me.

  “Lillie!”

  My pulse sped, sending waves of panic through my body. I searched our entire apartment, which didn’t take long.

  Lillie was gone. I dressed quickly and headed for the door.

  A familiar clicking sound came from behind me. I whipped around to face Thexus. His scarred head looked scaly in the light streaming from the bathroom. Where had he come from? He pointed his pistol at me.

  “Time to come back and play,” he said before pulling the trigger.

  Fire erupted in my right knee-cap.

  No, no, no. This isn’t happening.

  I hit the floor. Thexus loomed over me. I stared into his face and saw pure hate. He raised his arm, then bashed my skull with the butt of his gun.

  The world went black.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rain hammered the tin roof. I sat on the front porch of my old Texas ranch house. I knew this was a dream because that house doesn’t exist anymore. I also knew this was a dream because my mom sat beside me.

  “You look tired,” she told me.

  “My head hurts.”

  She nodded. “Getting pistol-whipped will do that to you.”

  Her rocking chair squeaked. A lazy peal of thunder rumbled in the distance. I felt a pang of guilt as I studied her features. “Mom, are you happy?”

  “As happy as I can be.” She paused. “Under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “I miss my two girls. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you two.”

  Weird as it may seem, her words brought relief. I thought she’d bring up another topic from our past, a time that I never wanted to think of again. “Am I dead?”

  “No,” she answered. “You’ve still got work to do.”

  Yeah, like making the Xeros pay up.

  “You’re going after them, aren’t you?” she asked as if reading my thoughts.

  “Yes.” My voice sounded more bitter than I’d intended.

  “You can’t.”

  I turned to her. That’s not what I expected to hear. Steel gray light played over her softened features. Her maturity made her more beautiful, not less so.

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’ll kill you.”

  “Oh.” Well that put a damper on my planned pool party. “Can I ask why?”

  Mom’s voice hardened. “They’ve never let anyone live. They’ve honed the sport of killing to an art form. Escape them. Run away and never look back, that’s the only way you’ll live.”

  I pondered her advice. I’d never run before. I’d always stood and fought. She’d taught me that.

  “Mom, no. They kill for pleasure. I can’t let a group like that keep doing what they’re doing. Plus they have Lillie.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I know.”

  “I have to save her.”

  “May, listen to me. The Xeros want you to fight your sister. They’ve been goading you, making you hate each other so that when the time comes, you’ll fight. You’ll kill.”

  “I would never kill her.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  I crossed my arms as the chill from the rain dampened my skin.

  “There has to be a way,” I said. “The Xeros aren’t invincible. I can’t let them go without a fight. I have to stop them.”

  Mom focused on the barn barely visible through the curtain of rain. I missed the barn. I missed waking up every morning to the scent of freshly-baled hay. I missed riding my gelding horse, Riker. I missed walking the fields on a crisp autumn day with the scent of winter in the air.

  The Xeros seemed so far away. I wished I could stay here.

  “There might be a way,” Mom said in a quiet voice. “You remember May Lillie?”

  “Of course. How could I forget?”

  “She was an ordinary woman. She didn’t have great charm, or unnatural abilities, or money in abundance. But she had what God gave her. And that was enough.”

  An ordinary woman. No fortune. No breaks. No luck. Just common sense and a rope with a bucking bronco at the end of it.

  If May Lillie could, then so could I.

  Mom rubbed her hand over the worn wood of the rocking chair’s arm. “There’s another reason.”

  “There is?”

  “Miracles. When all else fails, you have to trust in them.”

  “So it will take a miracle to defeat the Xeros?”

  “Afraid so.” Her smile turned sad. It reminded me of the day she died. I banished the thought as I always did, then rubbed my temples. Even in the dream my head pounded. “Miracles happen, sweetheart, but not as often as we would like. And never when we expect. I haven’t always believed in miracles.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed in them. If I wanted to defeat the Xeros, I knew I had to believe in something. But Mom had always been so logical. Maybe this wasn’t her after all. Maybe this conversation was all in my imagination.

  The rain stopped. The barn’s vivid red paint came into sharp focus. Mom had always said that red was her favorite color. It’s the color of life, she’d say. Now, more than ever, I had to know what she wanted of me. I had to know if this was really her. “Do you really believe in miracles?” I asked her.

  The rocking chair sat empty. I stared across the horizon. The dream faded like sand in an hourglass.

  I haven’t always.

  * * * * * *

  I screamed when I woke. I’ve always considered myself tough when it came to pain. My knee throbbed, but that was nothing compared with the needles burrowing in my brain.

  Bright light stung my eyes as I opened them, making the needles bore deeper. I cursed with enough muster to make an inmate blush. It didn’t help with the pain.

  I focused on breathing. Deep breath in, exhale out. After a few breaths, the pain receded enough to let me think.

  I sat tied to a chair. Stone walls surrounded me, so I must’ve been in the Xeros lair. A rickety card table stood near the wall, surrounded by mismatched chairs. A few stale-looking pizza crusts and empty soda cans littered the table. I spotted two doors.

  First order of business: get out of this chair.

  I wiggled my arms and fingers. Tight ropes bound me to the chair. I barely had room to breathe, let alone move. Whoever had tied me here didn’t want me going anywhere.

  But they’d made a huge mistake.

  They’d used rope. On a cowgirl.

  Suckers.

  I twisted my wrist until I could get my fingers between the loops of rope, then tugged hard. Rope burned my skin, but compared with the needles knifing my skull, I barely felt it.

  The rope loosened an inch. I wiggled my hands back and for
th. It took twenty minutes at most, but being tied to a chair with pain stabbing through my body and daggers in my head, twenty minutes felt like hours.

  I pulled my left wrist free. The pins and needles diminished as I flexed my fingers. Pulling my other hand free went more smoothly than the first. They’d tied a knot around my forearm. I pried at the rope until it loosened, and then released my other hand. The rope fell away as I uncoiled it from my torso. I flexed my arms, my legs. I focused on my wounded knee.

  White blood-stained gauze wrapped my knee. A faint scent of rubbing alcohol filled the air. It took me a moment to register that someone had bandaged my gunshot wound. I peeled away the layers of gauze, expecting the worst. Instead I found only a scratch where the bullet had grazed me. I stretched my leg, and then stood, testing my weight. So far so good. I guess they wanted me healthy. For now.

  I took a step forward, coiling the rope as I went. I’d need it.

  A banging sound caught my attention. It came from one of the doors. My fists tightened around the rope. I approached the door on silent feet, listening as the banging increased.

  Was this another trick? Was Thexus on the other side of that door, waiting for the right opportunity to clobber me?

  I heard Lillie’s voice. “Help!”

  I wrenched the door open, taking in two things at once. First, a rope cut in pieces lay on the closet floor. Second, my sister lunged at me with her knife. I stumbled back, barely avoiding her blade.

  She paused in mid-swipe, her eyes wide. “Oh my Gandhi, May?”

  “That’s the second time you almost killed me.”

  “Sorry. Thought you were one of them.” She flipped the blade backward and stuck it in her jeans pocket. “Let’s get out of here before they catch on that we’ve escaped.”

  Besides the closet door, the room had one other passage. Only one way out. Of course. And I’m sure it would be a complete happy meal getting out.

  “Lillie, listen to me. They tricked us. They were onto us the whole time. Ashleigh is one of them. She was trying to make us clash with each other to manipulate us into fighting.”

  “I knew it! I knew there was something wrong with that creepy girl. She’s a freak just like them. Didn’t I call it? I’m gonna chainmail her scrawny ass when I find her.”

  She sounded more happy than I thought healthy.

  “She’s a thirteen-year old girl who’s been manipulated by the Xeros. I don’t think hurting her is a good solution.”

  “Are you flicking kidding me? She totally set us up.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have a choice.”

  “How can you stand up for her? She conned us.”

  “I don’t think hurting her is the way to go. We need to find Thexus and take him down. That’s the only way to defeat them.”

  “Who?”

  “Thexus. You know, the guy with the scars. Banana Brains. Whatever you want to call him.”

  She bit her lip, seeming lost in thought. “You really think he’s the leader?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  Lillie paced the room. “It just seems too obvious, you know? The Xeros are all about lies and deception. Do you really think they’d let their leader be out in the open like that? If you ask me, I think he’s the fall guy for someone else.”

  “Like a decoy or something?”

  “Exactly.”

  I mulled it over. It made sense. Thexus seemed like the obvious leader, maybe too obvious. But I wasn’t completely convinced.

  “Who else could it be? There are tons of those psychos out there. How do we know which one?”

  Lillie shook her head. “I come up with problems, sis. Solutions are your job.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any time.”

  “For now we’ll have to assume he’s the leader. We have no proof that anyone else is. We target him first.” And do it without dying.

  “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  Lillie paced to the exit and I followed. She pressed her ear to the door before opening it an inch.

  I weighed the rope in my hands. It was thin and pliable, the way I liked it. I coiled it around and tied a lasso.

  We exited the tiny room and crept into the hallway. Dim light spilled across the floor from wall fixtures, reminding me of an underground war bunker. My head pounded with each step. Twinkling stars danced in my vision. I blinked to make them stop.

  Raised voices echoed through the hallway. We stopped at the end of the tunnel and peeked around the corner.

  Yankee Stadium came into view. We discovered the source of the shouting voices. Ashleigh and Thexus stood on the field. I clenched the rope tighter.

  “Can you hear what they’re saying?” Lillie asked.

  I strained to make out their words. “No.”

  The heated exchange turned physical when Thexus caught Ashleigh by the throat. She kicked his shins and he let her go, but he grabbed her hair as she attempted to dart away. Her hoarse scream reverberated through the cavern.

  “We have to go to her,” I said.

  “No way,” Lillie answered. “I promise you she’s not hurt.”

  Ashleigh’s scream turned to a wail of pain when Thexus produced a knife and sliced it down her cheek. Crimson blood spilled down her pale-white skin. Without all the fake bruises, she looked smaller, and somehow more helpless.

  My stomach clenched. “We have to go,” I whispered.

  “It’s a set-up. Why can’t you see that?”

  Ashleigh landed a fist in Thexus’s face. He flinched back.

  She made it halfway across the stadium when Thexus leapt into the air. He closed the distance in half a second.

  Oookay, that was weird.

  “Is he a Shine?” Lillie breathed.

  “He can’t be. Only females are.”

  “Then how did he do that?”

  Beads of sweat moistened the back of my neck as I watched Thexus thrust his fist forward. He didn’t touch the girl, but she sailed backward and crashed into the press box.

  My heart stopped.

  We weren’t just dealing with someone depraved and immoral, we were dealing with a freak of nature.

  He caught Ashleigh around the wrist and threw her to the ground. Listening to her screams felt worse than torture. I couldn’t let this happen. God help me. I couldn’t listen to this a moment longer.

  In the back of my mind I knew Lillie was right. I knew we were being set-up. I didn’t care.

  “Ashleigh!” I raced toward the field. The tiny girl’s eyes met mine. Thexus focused on me. A wicked grin tugged the corners of his mouth.

  He let Ashleigh go and shot into the air. He landed in front of me with a thud. The earth shook around us.

  Standing this close to him made me shudder. All the irrational fears I’d experienced as a child bubbled to the surface as I stared into his soulless eyes.

  “Glad you could join us,” he said.

  My mouth wouldn’t work. A cold chill crept down my spine.

  “Having trouble speaking? It happens when people get near me.” He shrugged. Such a common gesture on him seemed out of place. “It’s part of my abilities.” He leaned close enough for me to feel his rotting breath caress my face. “I can make you re-live any of your memories. The happy ones, the sad ones—the ones you never want to live through again. I can stop hearts if I unleash my Shine to full potential. Do you want to see how it works?”

  “No, stop,” Ashleigh yelled behind him. She lay in a heap on the ground.

  The cold intensified. I felt as if I stared into the face of Death. I wanted to scream, to run. I couldn’t move.

  “Who are you?”

  He loomed overhead. “Do you really want to know?”

  I crumbled. My knees struck the ground with a sharp thud. Tears leaked from my eyes. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stand and fight?

  An image of Mom sitting in her rocking chair, looking out over the green Texas pastures came to mind. The memory shifted. I
stood over her hospital bed.

  No, no, no.

  I didn’t want to go there. I couldn’t go back. I’d sworn to never think of it again.

  But the memory came anyway, forced into my head without resistance.

  We take breathing for granted. It comes so naturally. As a child, I’d decided that going without air would be the worst way to die. And that’s how Mom had gone. Starved for air on a cold January morning.

  She gasped and struggled for air on that sterile hospital bed. She’d been that way for three months. The cancer started in her breast, moved to her lungs, and then to her trachea. She didn’t go peacefully. She died from asphyxiation. The strongest woman I’d ever met, and cancer defeated her.

  As I sat on her bed, her cold hand in mine, I’d prayed for her to die.

  Her heart stopped four minutes later.

  I collapsed onto the stadium floor. A clammy sweat broke out across my entire body.

  You killed her.

  “Had enough?” Thexus asked.

  I curled into a ball. He wanted me to admit defeat.

  She died because of you.

  Nausea wracked my body. I wanted to vomit on the stadium floor. I gagged. Nothing came out. My stomach twisted in knots. I couldn’t stand this a moment longer.

  I gagged again. Bitter yellow bile squirted into my throat. I choked as it spewed from my mouth and burned my nasal passages.

  After vomiting all over the turf, I sat back and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. I needed water. I needed a bath. I would get neither.

  “Why?” I gasped. “Why . . . are you doing this?”

  Thexus grabbed my collar and dragged me upright. When he looked into my eyes, I wanted to retch again.

  “Because you deserve this.”

  Behind him, I watched a crowd gather in the stadium seats. Through blurred eyes, they looked like a horde of demons. I blinked, trying to focus my vision.

  “You hurt people like me, kill others like me.” He pulled me so close I could see the oily pockmarks marring his skin. “Now it’s your turn.”

  He flung me backward. My hip took the brunt of the impact. The pain shot into my butt, my back. I rolled over and attempted to climb to my knees. Thexus planted his boot on my back. Stabbing pain seared the base of my spine.