Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1)

by William Bernhardt

  We stayed in the back alleys and avoided the main streets. Dilapidated doors and dingy windows were hidden by FOR SALE and KEEP OUT signs. Memphis stopped at one of the doors that had been propped open. Cobwebs clung to the edges as he pulled it open.

  I glanced back as he stepped inside. Only a few people filled the streets. Most of them avoided eye contact. Except one man. He stood a head taller than the rest of the crowd, with pale skin and a shaved head. He wore dark colors and heavy boots. I darted inside before I got a better look.

  Memphis crouched near the room’s only window. “Did you see him?” Memphis mouthed.

  I nodded as I slunk beneath the window. Wooden slats had been nailed across the broken glass. Through the gaps I scanned the street outside. “Who is he?” I whispered.

  “I’ve seen him before. His name’s Creighton. He’s ex-green beret. He must’ve been the guy in the car. He’s got a Glock in his left coat pocket. 9 mm. bullets. The same bullets that ruined my truck’s windows.”

  My stomach sank. He’d finally caught up. “What should we do?”

  Memphis’s eyes stayed on the street. Streams of light drifted through the window, illuminating the dust particles floating through the air. “He’ll catch up with us eventually. No matter how long we hide, sooner or later he’ll find us.”

  “So it’s only a matter of time?”

  “Yes. But we have one advantage. He hasn’t found you yet, which means that when he does, it will be on our terms. Follow me to the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  “Yes, once he gets up there, he’ll only have one exit.”

  “But that means we’ll only have one exit.”

  Memphis gave me a half-smile, the look that made my stomach do flip-flops. “We only need one way off.”

  What did he mean by that? He grabbed my hand as we raced for a staircase at the back of the room. Some of the stairs were missing, leaving gaping holes that I had to jump over. I made it to the top just as Memphis found another door.

  He opened it a crack and then motioned for me to follow. We made our way onto a balcony that overlooked the alley. A narrow ladder led up the roof. Memphis stopped beside it. The evening sun turned the sky dark orange. A breeze gusted past as I grabbed the rungs and climbed up.

  I stepped onto the roof. Memphis climbed up behind me. The place could have been used as a patio at one point, but now it looked abandoned. Rusted metal chairs surrounded a table. A frayed umbrella poked from the table’s center. Leaves and debris littered the rest of the space.

  Unlike New York, the buildings weren’t close enough together to leap across. How did Memphis plan on getting away?

  Memphis drew his knife. The silver blade gleamed in the last rays of sunlight. I flexed my hands, feeling exposed without my own dagger.

  We didn’t wait long.

  Soon I heard footsteps, a heavy thudding that echoed through the room below. The door leading to the balcony squeaked open. I crouched behind the table, realizing what a stupid idea this was. What was Memphis thinking?

  Creighton had a gun. We had what—a knife? What good would that do?

  My heart thudded in my chest. He would take me. If he didn’t kill me then I was going back to a facility for sure. I couldn’t let him.

  I heard footsteps on the ladder. A gentle wind gusted past. Creighton rose up. His eyes met mine. Pale pink pupils stared from a skeletal white face.

  I suppressed a shiver. He reached for his pocket when I saw a blur. Memphis tackled the guy before he made it up. They both fell back, landing with a loud clatter on the balcony below. Racing to the edge, I peeked over to see Creighton slam his fist into Memphis’s jaw. Memphis fell back. Creighton pulled out his Glock.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  He looked up, eyes narrowed as he aimed his gun at my chest. “You gonna come with me, doll? Or do you want to do this the hard way?”

  I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. The wind made my hair batter my face. “Where are you taking me?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  He spoke with a smooth voice. Blood dripped from his knuckles where he’d hit Memphis. I glanced at Memphis. He lay on the balcony, eyes staring overhead as if he couldn’t focus.

  “It is my concern,” I answered. “I don’t go unless you tell me.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I wanted to keep him talking and give Memphis time to recover.

  “If you haven’t noticed, you’re in no position to make demands. Come down from that roof.” His voice turned gruff.

  I held tight to the ladder. “You have to let me call my family first.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve got a gun aimed at you.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot me. I’m worth too much.” From the corner of my eye, I watched Memphis crawl into a crouch.

  His face turned red. “If you make me come up there, I swear you’ll regret—” Memphis barreled into the guy. The gun flew out of his hands and landed with a clatter a few feet away. With Creighton on the ground, Memphis kicked him in the head. Creighton let out a hoarse gasp, and I wondered if Memphis had broken the guy’s neck.

  Memphis scaled the ladder. He grabbed my waist and lifted me off the ground. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “We’re getting off of this roof.”

  “What? How?”

  “Hold on to me, okay? Whatever you do, don’t let go. Trust me.”

  A shout came from the ladder. Creighton rose up, blood dripping from a gash in his head. He held the gun and aimed it at Memphis.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  For a guy so big, Creighton moved faster than I expected. Memphis kicked the patio table over, knocking it toward Creighton. The man leapt over the table, gaining on us. Memphis raced with me in his arms to the edge of the roof.

  My stomach leapt into my throat. “What are you doing?”

  “Trust me!”

  Memphis was going to kill us. My hands tightened around his neck. When we reached the edge of the roof, Memphis jumped. We flew through the air, my hands gripping him so tight I was sure to cut off his circulation.

  We landed on the building across the street. He placed me on my feet, grinning. “Didn’t I say to trust me?”

  “You,” I breathed. “You can fly?”

  He laughed. “I can jump. There’s a difference. Come on.”

  We raced for a ladder on the opposite end of the roof when I heard the shot. He must’ve used a silencer as the sound made only a small pop.

  We reached the ladder when another shot went off. Memphis practically pushed me down the rungs.

  The ladder stretched to the street below. I climbed with sweaty palms. My hands wouldn’t cooperate. I couldn’t climb down fast enough.

  I leapt to the ground with Memphis behind me. He grabbed my hand.

  “This way,” he whispered, eyes livid under the yellow street lamps. My breath came out in labored huffs as we ran through the back alleyways.

  We ran for what felt like hours, though I knew it could have only been twenty minutes. I glanced behind us but found no sign of Creighton. Had we escaped him?

  The familiar garden behind Memphis’s apartment came into view. We stumbled down the path and onto the porch. I stopped, realizing that Memphis stumbled behind me. He smiled before he collapsed, his face pale, blood seeping from a bullet wound in his chest.

  “Didn’t I say to trust me?” he whispered.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Memphis!” I knelt beside him, eyes fixated on the blood draining from his chest. I’d seen blood coursing through bodies almost my entire life, but the sight of it leaking out sickened me. I clutched my stomach as I inspected the wound.

  The bullet made a small hole in his right pectoral. It severed several veins and tore through the axillary artery. I saw the bullet inside him, the tattered vessels, the severed artery, all bleeding out. I fought the urge to vomit as I grabbed him under the arms. “We’v
e got to get you inside.”

  Adrenaline gave me added strength as I carried him into the house. My mind raced. This wasn’t good. The blood was coming out too fast. If he didn’t get help soon…

  We reached the kitchen. I wasn’t sure where to put him, so I propped him against the backboard.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” I said as I reached for my phone.

  “No.” He grabbed my wrist. “He’ll find you…sooner.”

  “But you need help.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not bad.”

  I ground my teeth. “You’re not winning this one. I’m calling.” I fumbled, but finally found my phone in my pocket. I’d already lost Naomi. I wouldn’t lose him, too. At this point, I didn’t care if Creighton found me. Let him come. I was tired of running.

  My fingers shook as I pressed the numbers. Memphis grabbed my phone away. I reached for it.

  “No,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We don’t need them.”

  “But you’re bleeding out!”

  “You can heal me.”

  “What?”

  “Heal me. You can do it.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I can’t.”

  I grabbed at my phone again. What was he thinking? Heal him? It wasn’t possible, was it?

  “Think about it. You’ve manipulated blood before. You…healed yourself in Arizona. You can do it again.” He winced, then clutched his chest.

  “But that was different.”

  “How?”

  I didn’t have time to argue with him. I grabbed a stack of clean hand towels from the drawer and pressed them to the wound. Fighting back the nausea, I focused on the broken vessels. They would be easy to fix, assuming I could. The artery bothered me most, and he’d already lost so much blood.

  “Memphis, I don’t think I can.”

  “Yes, you can,” he whispered. His face paled. He released his grip on my phone. It clattered to the floor. I picked it up. The numbers were still on the screen. All I had to do was press send and help would come.

  But he was right. The Revenants would find me. Creighton would be here faster than I could blink.

  We had another problem. How long would it take the ambulance to get here? Would he have enough time? The blood was coming so fast, I knew the answer. Deep inside, I knew the answer.

  I turned to Memphis, focusing on the entry wound. I rested my fingers on his forehead. His skin felt clammy and unnaturally cool.

  I had to help him. I didn’t have a choice anymore. If I didn’t, he would die.

  I inhaled a deep breath as I laid him on the floor. His eyes fluttered. I couldn’t keep my hands steady as I found the scissors and cut his shirt open. The blood made me dizzy. I rested on the floor to keep from falling.

  There was too much blood. It was bright red, the color of arterial blood. It covered his torso and pooled in a puddle on the floor. I had trouble looking at it. How would I ever be able to heal him?

  You can do this.

  I focused, pushed my panic aside, and pressed my hand over the bullet hole. Closing my eyes, I let the sound of his heartbeat guide me. It was more of a whisper now than a beat. I’d never heard it beat so quietly.

  I repaired the veins first, knitting them together, pushing and pulling until the ripped ends reconnected. There were more severed veins than I’d first realized, but I found each one, cutting and removing the torn parts, reconnecting them with the live tissue.

  After I finished with the veins, I turned to the artery. I saw it in my mind’s eye. The ripped stump contracted and released, spilling more blood with each pulse. It was ripped so badly that I wasn’t sure I could salvage it.

  I knitted the ripped pieces together, but as soon as I did, the tissue fell apart. I cut away the bad parts, but after I finished, there wasn’t enough good tissue intact to keep it together.

  My stomach clenched. I tried again. Surely I could salvage something. But every time I tried, I only made it worse.

  Tears stung my eyes as I sat back on my heels.

  I’d failed.

  I took his hand, his icy fingers in mine, and gripped tight. “Sorry,” I whispered. I hadn’t realized how much he meant to me until that moment. Losing him was a pain worse than any physical injury. I couldn’t explain why he meant so much to me, but the fact was, I loved him.

  I held back my tears as I brushed the hair from his forehead. With his skin so white, he hardly looked himself.

  He looked like a ghost.

  Like his father.

  The sound of his heart came as if from a distance, a quiet whisper that I had to concentrate to hear. I held his hand, focusing once again on the broken artery. Maybe I’d missed something. Surely I could salvage something. But the tattered pieces of artery broke apart with every beat of his heart.

  There was nothing I could do.

  The quiet whoosh turned to a murmur, and then to silence. I held his hand, staring at him. Numb inside. Not able to accept the truth in front of me.

  An audible whoosh filled the room. I focused on the sound and found it coming from his heart. A silvery substance leaked from his ventricle.

  I sat up. Concentrating on his heart, I watched as the substance mixed with his blood. The sound of his beating heart filled my ears once again. It flowed with every heartbeat, filling the broken spaces. The substance moved like quicksilver through his blood. It entered what remained of his axillary.

  It clung to the broken remnants of vessel, strengthening it, creating new pathways and binding them together.

  I held my breath as the artery re-formed.

  It seemed too incredible to be real. If I hadn’t watched it happen, I wouldn’t have believed it.

  After the quicksilver substance completely reformed the artery, it retreated into Memphis’s heart. I sat back, my mouth gaping, not sure I could come to terms with what I’d seen.

  Memphis’s heartbeat grew louder. The thump, followed with a whoosh.

  The whoosh from the quicksilver.

  He opened his eyes, then stared at his chest. “What…?”

  I didn’t know how to explain. My mind reeled, trying to come up with some sort of explanation.

  “June, you healed me?”

  “I— I’m not sure.”

  He smiled, then laid his head back. “You healed me.”

  It was only half true. I’d healed his broken veins, but the artery… I’d never seen anything like that. “No,” I said. “Memphis, I don’t know how to say this, but there’s something inside your heart. A silver liquid. It healed you.”

  He creased his brow. “Silver?”

  “Yes.”

  My heart thudded loud in my ears. I was talking to him. He had died and now I was talking to him.

  He fumbled with the hand towels, trying to wipe the sticky blood off his chest with little success. I took the towels from him.

  “I’ll get some clean ones.” I made my way to the sink. I moved as if on autopilot, rinsing the towels, finding new rags, wetting them, all the while trying to understand what had just happened.

  When I came back, I found that he’d moved to the living room. He sat on the sofa, shirt cut open, chest covered in drying blood.

  I sat beside him. “Here.” I gave him the towels.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled as he took them. He focused on the journals lying on the coffee table.

  The journals.

  Did they hold the key to the substance in Memphis’s heart?

  “You said there was a silver liquid inside me?” he asked.

  “Yes. But it was strange. It moved like…like it was alive or something. It repaired your artery, even though I’d already tried several times. It was ripped so badly.” I swallowed my fear, remembering how hopeless I’d felt as I’d tried to heal him. “Memphis,” I whispered. “You should be dead.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m serious.”

  He let out a long sigh. His hands were shaky as he pulled a journal toward us. “My parents
used to say that I never got sick. If it’s true—if there’s something inside me, keeping me alive…”

  “But what is it?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Miss Angel mentioned that your father was a scientist. That he did something to his blood, and did the same to yours.”

  “Whatever it is, if it’s keeping me alive, then that means it’s keeping Lavalle alive, too. We may never be able to stop him.”

  I wrapped my arms around my chest as Memphis carefully opened a journal. Some of the pages had stuck together, but at least they were dry and didn’t fall apart as he touched them.

  I’d dealt with my Shine ability almost my entire life. It shouldn’t have come as a shock to learn that Memphis also had strange alterations to his chemical makeup. Yet I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I couldn’t get the image of that liquid swimming through his blood out of my head. It had healed and repaired, as if it knew exactly what to do and how to fix it.

  Memphis flipped to a page in the middle of the diary. He read aloud. “‘J.H. Lavalle. August, 1922. Sixty-six years ago my experiments on the carnivorous plant, scientific name, Sarracenia, resulted in a substantial breakthrough in our knowledge of the varicose system. My work led to groundbreaking research. The plantation gave me ample opportunity to further my research, though the tissues of cadavers did not hold up suitably to my experiments. Indeed, the only willing participant able to withstand the rigors of my tests writes in this journal now. As I have not aged since the final injection, I conclude that my experiments were a success. Although the scientific community will never know, nor will they recognize, the enormity of my work. My search for a sufficient test subject continues’.”

  Memphis sat back.

  The ticking of the clock broke up the silence.

  “It’s true, then,” I said, my voice quiet. “He’s been alive for more than a century.”

  Memphis rubbed his hands over his face. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. Nearly dying had taken its toll. He reached for the journal once again. When he found a page not water-stained, he stopped. He continued to read aloud. “‘…The sixth day of June, 1942. J.H. Lavalle. Blood is the inferior substance to sustain our species. We must replace it with a less mordant compound if we wish to survive for more than our allotted time. I have made this recommendation on several occasions to the academy of health sciences, but have been turned away, sometimes with harshness, for my claims.