Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1)

by William Bernhardt

  "You okay?"

  Brenna nodded and turned to help Sophia. A man roared behind Camille and a large shoulder plowed into her. She flew through the air. Landing several feet away, her head bounced off the pavement. She opened her eyes and immediately closed them again as the world spun around her. Her stomach heaved. A hand grabbed her bare foot and dragged her across the pavement.

  She moaned. "Oh God, I'm going to be sick." She rolled to her side and spewed wine and mini cheesecakes.

  A boot pressed against her throat and Kirill’s voice lifted above the sounds of fighting. "I've had enough. Stop or I'll crush your friend's windpipe."

  Camille's head throbbed. She wanted to lift her hand to her head but her hand didn't move. She needed to get up and help her friends, but her aching head made it impossible to focus. She opened her eyes but it only made her feel sicker. Squeezing her eyes shut, she gagged and pushed desperately at the boot on her throat. She was drowning in vomit before the boot eased enough for her to turn her head.

  Wiping her mouth on her shirt, she cracked her eyes to look up. Kirill smirked down at her. Her gaze darted to the bald man beside him who was glaring down at her, blood smeared on the bottom half of his face. She smiled weakly and he kicked her in the stomach.

  Fighting for breath and dry heaving at the same time, Camille wished to be anywhere but there. She turned her head and saw her friends each being held by one of the group of men who'd been waiting to jump them, knives and guns at their throats.

  She turned her narrowed gaze back to the overly muscled leader and shuddered. "You win. Now what?"

  Kirill gestured toward her and the bald man bent, grabbed Camille's arm and jerked her to her feet. Camille cried out, her knees refusing to hold her. The bald man held her up by her hair and a knee between her legs.

  "You hurt her again and I'll cut your balls off and feed them to you," Rachel swore. Camille held up her hand and struggled to breathe through the nausea and dizziness.

  "Yes, listen to your friend," Kirill said. "Since you've proven not to be Ved'm, my employers have lost interest in you, lifting the order not to kill you and leaving you at my tender mercy." He ran a sharp knife from Camille's ear, down her throat, to the cleavage revealed by her tank top, leaving a thin cut welling with blood in its wake. "If you make me happy, I'll take very good care of you." Using one long finger, he followed the blood trail to her neck and circled her throat with his hand. "However, if you make me angry—“ he slowly squeezed, cutting off her oxygen. “—I'll make you very, very sorry.”

  Camille bared her teeth. "You're the one who's going to be sorry."

  He smiled, his eyes lit with her challenge. His expression froze, the humor fading from his face as he coughed up blood then slowly sank to his knees. His hand fell limply from her throat as he toppled over onto the pavement.

  The blonde woman from the airport stood behind him, a half smile lifting one corner of her mouth. "Oh, he does,” she said in Russian. Three other women appeared behind her. "Drop your weapons, boys."

  The bald man pressed a gun to her temple and growled in Russian. "You will pay for that, little whore. Get in the van or I'll kill this one."

  The blonde met Camille's spinning gaze. "Those watching have left."

  Rachel growled in triumph. The gun pressed to Camille's temple was yanked from the meaty fist holding it. It slowly turned to point at the bald man's head. Camille looked around to see the other weapons floating in similar positions.

  The men froze, shock on their faces.

  The blonde woman smiled. "Impressive."

  "Ved'm," the bald man spat, tightening his grip on Camille's throat.

  The blonde met Rachel's angry gaze. "Finish them."

  Camille threw her head back into the bald man's chin. Stars exploded before her eyes, but she forced herself to jerk from the big Russian's loosened grip. "No." She stumbled to her bag and pulled out her glasses. "Sophia, get V."

  Sophia vanished. Camille shoved the glasses on her face. Sophia reappeared with V.

  The blonde woman frowned. "If you let them go, they will come back better prepared."

  Camille ignored the woman. "V, give Rachel a break."

  "Every male will stay where they are and stay silent," V said, her powerful voice making the blonde and her three friends' eyes widen.

  The weapons Rachel held on the men clattered to the ground.

  A man and woman exited the nearest apartment building. A woman walked down the street from the bus stop. Camille focused past the pain in her head. She shoved her Shine out creating the image of a normal group of women simply standing in a circle laughing and telling jokes. The pain in her head brought her to her knees. She pressed her hands to her temples, the pulsing at the back of her head pausing as she almost lost control. Squeezing her eyes shut, she excluded her team, the men, and the three Russian women from the illusion.

  Rachel moved next to her. "Cam, stop."

  She forced herself to her feet. "I'm fine," she squeezed through clenched teeth.

  Focusing on the glasses, she pulled up her contacts and selected Jeremy's number. He appeared instantly in the lens of her glasses.

  "Scout," he said, his smile soft. Then his face paled and his mouth opened on a soft gasp. "What the flick happened to you?" His eyes moved from the top of her head to her shoulders, narrowing the further down he looked. His jaw clenched when he saw her swollen right eye and the cut on her chest and neck. "Is that your blood?"

  She attempted to smile, but knew by his deepening scowl that she’d failed. "I'm fine. We just took out our welcoming party.” Jeremy nodded, a muscle ticking in his jaw. " Several of them are unconscious, one may be dead, and the rest have seen too much. Can you help?"

  "Did this leader do this to you?" Jeremy bit out.

  "Him and his giant bald-headed sidekick, actually." A cold smile stretched across her face and Jeremy's eyebrows lifted. "The leader is the potentially dead one and I'm pretty sure I broke the sidekick's nose."

  He shook his head, an amused smile doing nothing to alleviate the worry in his eyes. "Let me make some calls and get back to you in a few minutes." His expression softened. "And Camille, be careful."

  She gave him a wan smile and nodded. "Always."

  His face vanished and Camille sagged, the dizziness she'd been holding at bay rushed forward. "We need to secure them."

  "They were going to use tape on us. It's in the van," Daisy said.

  Rachel went to search the van. "Turnabouts fair play," she said, tossing a roll to Brenna.

  Camille swayed, losing her balance.

  Sophia wrapped her arm around Camille's shoulders. "You've been concussed."

  "I'm fine," she growled. She pointed at the overly muscled bald man. "Tape that clown extra tight. Someone really should tell him to lay off the steroids."

  Sophia sneered and spoke in Russian. "You Russian scum must not know that obvious steroid use tells any intelligent female that your little pickle won't be at all satisfying?"

  Anger twisted his face into an ugly mask. "I'll hunt you down--" Rachel slapped a piece of tape over his mouth then pushed him toward the van to lie on the floor with the rest of his bound friends.

  "Save it for someone who cares," Rachel muttered.

  The blonde, her three friends having vanished when Camille had been talking to Jeremy, moved over to Camille. Sophia stepped between them.

  "You've called in someone to take care of this then?" The blonde woman asked.

  Camille's glasses blinked. "This will be them now."

  Jeremy's face popped back up on the screen. "I have a cleanup team on the way." He studied Camille, his gaze burning into hers. "I can see someone is holding you up. You'd tell me if something was seriously wrong?"

  Camille nodded, then squeezed her eyes shut, the nausea she'd been holding back pushing its way up her throat. While holding Camille's hair out of her face, Sophia pulled the glasses off Camille's face and put them on.

  "I'm
pretty sure she's got a serious concussion." She nodded. "I will."

  Camille stood and wiped her mouth on the tissue Brenna pulled from her bag. Sophia sat the glasses back on Camille's face. Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck and Camille's heart clenched. She'd give anything to feel his arms around her while she rested her aching head on his chest.

  "You need rest. No thinking. No physical activity. If your symptoms aren't gone by Sunday night, you need to go to the American hospital," he said, his voice a soft caress. "I gave Sophia instructions for your care and the address to the hospital."

  Frustrated by both the pain in her head and the distance separating them, Camille scowled. "I'm not a child, Jeremy." She could feel the surprised glances from her friends.

  Jeremy's eyes flashed with hurt, then hardened. "Yeah, I know. Take care of yourself. I'll see you in two weeks."

  He ended the call and Camille's face crumpled. "I don't know why I spoke to him like that." Her eyes burned as she tried and failed to control her whiplashing emotions. Her dizziness increased, the nausea making her bend over and dry-heave until her eyes felt blood-shot.

  "You need rest," Sophia said. "And I can't use my Shine to get you up those stairs. I'm afraid it would make your concussion worse."

  Rachel stepped forward. "I can give her a piggy back ride."

  "Up four flights of stairs?"

  "Please. You're a whole buck fifteen soaking wet," she said, sarcasm dripping from her words.

  Camille looked up to see the blonde, whose name she still didn't know, moving quickly down the street. "As soon as Jeremy's clean-up crew gets here, we'll leave."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Camille ran her hand down her ponytail for the thousandth time and shifted to her other foot. Jeremy's flight number had flashed ARRIVAL on the screen ten minutes ago. Her eyes scanned another group of people surging through the gate.

  "Any second now, Cam. Relax," Brenna said softly behind her.

  She shot an anxious smile over her shoulder. Her team was huddled in a close circle using their suitcases as chairs in the crowded airport. They'd finished their intern training the day before and said goodbye to their elderly host an hour ago. They were just waiting on Jeremy before heading to Izhevsk.

  Camille was so ready for their mission to be over. Though she'd recovered from her concussion after a couple days of rest and had felt fine since, she'd woken up the last two mornings with a queasy stomach and feeling more tired than when she'd gone to bed. Hoping it was only anxiety over seeing Jeremy for the first time in three weeks, she turned back to scan the people pouring through the gate.

  Then he was there and she forgot to breathe. Gray cotton lounge pants hung low on his hips and a thin black hoodie emphasized his flat stomach and wide shoulders. Their eyes met and the crowded airport faded around them. The last three weeks apart, her waspish words, his hurt feelings and the ensuing stilted conversations stood between them like a wide chasm that shrank with each step he took closer.

  He stopped in front of her, expression inscrutable, and dropped his duffel. Camille threw herself into his arms, her eyes burning. She buried her face in his neck and inhaled his not quite floral, not quite citrus scent. He bent over her, his arms tight around her waist, his nose buried in her hair. The knot of tension caused by her loneliness without him, the stress of getting to Russia, passing the tests in the internship program, and finally the attack and concussion was expelled against his chest in an appalling storm of silent tears.

  "Hey," he said, softly. He tilted her face up and rubbed her cheeks with his thumbs. "I've missed you too."

  "I'm sorry," she said, her face heating. Why was she crying? She never cried. The surprise on his face told her he was wondering the same thing. She tried to pull away.

  His arms tightened. "For what?"

  She looked away from his probing stare. "Everything. Being rude when you were just trying to help. Refusing to talk about it with you after. Not being good at being your wife."

  He smiled ruefully. "We're both new to this and need a bit of a learning curve." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to each corner of her mouth, then the center of her lips. She looked up. "That's better." He covered her mouth with his.

  "Train to catch," Rachel reminded them in a sing song voice.

  Jeremy pulled back and rested his forehead against Camille's, a smile on his face. "She's annoying, but right." He winked over at a scowling Rachel.

  Camille grabbed the handle of her suitcase. Jeremy slung his duffel over his shoulder and tucked Camille under his arm. They hailed a taxi-van and made it to Kazanskii train station with only thirty minutes until their train left. As they entered the station, a woman pulled her pants down and squatted in the corner to pee.

  Rachel reached over and thumped Brenna’s dropped jaw. "Welcome to Russia."

  "Indeed," Jeremy said, voice dry.

  They found their train and made their way to the two neighboring four-bunk compartments they'd purchased. Jeremy, Camille, Rachel, and Brenna took one compartment and the other four Shine took the other. While they were storing their luggage and the small cooler of food, an attendant came by and checked their tickets and passports, then moved on. Rachel and Brenna both tossed their shoulder bags onto their chosen top bunks, toed off their shoes, and climbed up to give Camille and Jeremy a semblance of privacy.

  Camille kicked her shoes off and curled up next to Jeremy, who'd stretched out on one bunk, a thin pillow folded in half under his head. They laid in comfortable silence, Camille content for the first time in three weeks. Jeremy played with her ponytail, his eyes closed. He'd been traveling since early the day before and she knew he was probably exhausted.

  The smell of basturma, a Russian beef jerky Rachel had fallen in love with, filled the compartment's interior. Camille's stomach churned dangerously, with the same queasy feeling she'd experienced when she'd first woken up that morning. She wrinkled her nose and shifted.

  "You okay?" Jeremy asked.

  The smell intensified and Camille bolted up. "Oh God." Realizing she wasn't going to make it to the bathroom, Camille lunged for the pillow on the opposite bunk, desperately tore the case from it and lost her breakfast. She pulled her head out of the pillowcase and Jeremy handed her a tissue from the package Brenna held in one hand. Brenna and Rachel were looking at her over the edge of their bunks, matching looks of concern on their faces. Jeremy unzipped the cooler's lid and pulled out a bottle of water. The aroma of the basturma drifted over her again, her stomach heaved and she put her face back into the pillowcase.

  When she caught her breath, she held her nose and gestured wildly at Rachel. "The smell is making me sick."

  Rachel's eyes widened and she dropped the strip of dried meat back into its bag. Jeremy reached for the compartment's door and opened it to air the smell out. Camille sagged weakly against Jeremy.

  "I must be coming down with the flu. I felt queasy this morning, but it went away until I smelled the basturma." She shuddered. "Sorry, Rachel, but I don't think you're going to be able to eat that in here."

  Brenna climbed down from her bunk, a frown marring her face. "You felt nauseous this morning only? Any other symptoms?"

  Camille took the bottle of water from Jeremy. "I woke up nauseous yesterday morning, but it went away just like this morning. I've been more tired the last couple of days, but figured it was a lingering effect of the concussion."

  "No fever, aches and pains, chills, or sore throat?" Brenna asked, a pensive look on her face.

  Camille shook her head then paused. Her breasts had felt tender the last few days. She glanced at Jeremy and heat crawled up her neck. They might be married, but talking about her body so casually in front of any man made her uncomfortable.

  Brenna raised her brows.

  Camille shifted and looked away from Jeremy, her cheeks getting even warmer. "My breasts have been really achy."

  Brenna sank to the opposite bunk, her eyes wide. Her glance flicked to Jeremy then back to Cam
ille. "It's been four weeks since you two were married."

  Jeremy stiffened. "It can't be possible. She's on the pill."

  Brenna stood and pulled her tablet from the bunk above her. "She's on the mini-pill because it was the only type we could get a doctor to give us without coming in for an appointment." She tapped on the tablet's keyboard, then silently read the information the search engine had pulled up.

  Camille pulled away from Jeremy's chest, her mind spinning into a chaotic tornado of panic and fear. "I took it every day, like you told me when it arrived."

  Brenna chewed on her lip as she read. Camille stared unseeing at the wall behind Brenna. Though she'd dreamed of someday having a family, it’d been an unrealistic dream. Should those hunting her ever find out about a baby, they'd double their efforts to take her.

  "The mini pill is a progesterone only pill and is more apt to failing if not taken appropriately. It says the mini-pill must be taken at the same exact time every day. Being even three hours late will leave you unprotected. It must be taken seven days before intercourse," Brenna read.

  Camille groaned and huddled into a ball, her forehead resting on her knees. "I started taking it five days before we were married. The day of our wedding I forgot to take it that morning, but thought it was okay since I remembered it when I changed after the wedding that afternoon."

  "But she could just have the flu, right?" Jeremy asked, voice strangled and hoarse.

  Camille squeezed her eyes closed.

  "Nausea caused by the flu wouldn't appear each morning then go away. It also wouldn't be affected by smell," Brenna muttered.

  Jeremy shifted and pulled her toward him then lifted her chin until she was forced to meet his eyes. "We'll get through this."

  "Our enemies want us so bad, just imagine what lengths they'll go to if they find out about this baby," Camille whispered.

  Jeremy's eyes hardened. "Then we need to make sure they never find out."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Camille stared at the ceiling of her room in the new flat in Izhevsk. One hand cupped her stomach, the other held the home pregnancy test she'd just taken. This was really happening. The sight of the tiny blue plus sign on the test was superimposed on her mind's eye. She was numb.