The Grower's Gift (Progeny of Time #1) (13 page)

Ty opened his mouth to reply, then changed his mind. He'd done it all wrong by arguing with his father, running away from his guards, acting like a teenager. Maya was hurt, and Ty had to make sure she was alright.

He should have gone to his mother for permission to leave the house.
 

The door slid open again and she walked in, still wearing the white jumpsuit she always wore to the office. "Ty, how nice to see you. I expected you to come to the facility today."

Ty took the opening. "I wanted to, but Dad here thinks I should be locked up like I'm eleven years old or something."

"Does he now? Well we'll just have to fix that, won't we?"

"He's staying put until this business with Dakota and New LA is concluded," his father insisted.

His mother wrapped her arms around Ty's waist. It was all Ty could do not to pull away. "Ty's all grown up now, Caesar. We can't exactly ground him anymore."

The vein in his father's temple began throbbing. "Yes, well, you should have thought of that before you spoke at the meeting yesterday. Now they're all waiting to get their hands on him in retaliation."

"Oh, Caesar. I only did what you expected me to do. You'll get exactly what you wanted, only much faster. Ty can take care of himself."

His father rose and advanced on them. "He stays in until this matter is resolved. I won't hear another word about it."

It must have been a bad day indeed if his father was standing up to his mother like this.
 

"At least let me go to the Orsinis'. I'm dying of boredom here," Ty said, forestalling his mother's retort. "I'll be as safe there as anywhere."

"Caesar, he's right. If he's not safe with the shield makers he's not safe anywhere," Violetta said.

His father shrugged and sat back down. "Fine, but only there. I'd still rather you didn't."

"And take the SFs off me. I can take care of myself."

"Absolutely not. They stay," his father replied. "Don't even think about assuming any kind of command either. Leave us now."

It was something, anyway. The fact that his father had taken away his command in the SFs would make getting Maya out more difficult. Not impossible though.

~

"What did you do?" Rober yelled at Maya. Her shirt was open and he was jabbing something sharp into her chest. Her breathing became a bit easier.

He hauled her over his shoulder and started running out of the room, yelling for Giles to follow. Maya's head flopped from side to side, her long hair obscuring her vision, getting in her mouth.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on a soft bed. Giles knelt beside her, biting down on his knuckles. Rober and Ty stood by the door.

"What, you think this is my fault?" Rober yelled.

"Why'd you have to set all the failsafes on the doors?" Ty shouted back. "They'd never have figured out how to open them anyway."

"Don't you think I know that? That wasn't me. They tightened security sky high after your mother's little stunt last night. If Maya had so much as touched the door she would've been knocked out. This stupid girl hurled a food maker at it."

"Don't call her stupid. And I didn't hear your parents disagreeing with my mother yesterday."

Maya reached out to pull Giles' hand away from his mouth. Her arm missed him by several inches.

Ty walked over and knelt beside her. "How do you feel?"

She tried to say she was fine, managing only a weak croak.

Ty fixed Rober with a cold gaze. "Does she need a doctor?"

"I don't think so," Rober replied.

Ty looked at her again. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Lucky I was right outside the door when it happened. I barely had enough time to revive her and get them out of there before the SFs swooped in."
 

A wave of concern flashed through Ty's eyes, then they turned back to an icy ocean immediately. "I'll take you back home as soon as I can."

Maya shook her head and tried to rise. Giles and Ty each grabbed one of her arms to steady her.
 

"No…the school…"
 

Ty let go of her stood up. "We'll talk about it when you're better."

His caring tone was completely the opposite of his cold, murderous gaze.
 

He turned back to Rober. "So no one knows she's here? Can you keep them for a few more days until I figure this out?"

"That's another big favor you'll owe me."

Ty fixed his cold eyes on Rober's who, of all things, smiled as though Ty's gaze didn't promise murder. "Yes, they can stay here. Just come to the next meeting, alright?"

Ty nodded quickly and looked back at Maya. Then he turned and walked out of the room, Rober right behind him.

As soon as the door rippled shut, Giles threw himself down and kissed her furiously. She was too weak to wriggle away. "I'm sorry… I thought…I thought you were dead. Why did you do it?"

Thick tears streamed down his cheeks now. Maya tried to reach up and wipe them away but her hand flopped down through empty air.
 

"I was being stupid, I guess," she whispered and then her eyelids became too heavy to keep open.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Are you coming or what?" Rober asked over the phone in the late afternoon of the next day. Ty had spent most of the day deciding the very same thing.

Getting to know Maya was pointless. She'd be gone soon and he'd never see her again. Though he should at least make sure she was alright. Obviously she was, otherwise Rober would've called sooner and told him she wasn't. Going to see Maya could lead his mother to her. Ty had to prevent that. Lana couldn't know either.

"Do you think I should?" Ty finally asked because the silence was dragging.

"Yes. I do."

"Is Lana back yet? I mean, she won't walk in on us or anything?"

Rober laughed. "You haven't spoken to Lana since we got back?"

The thought to call her hadn't even crossed Ty's mind.
 

"Don't worry about meeting Lana," Rober continued. "She's still in Chicago…or more likely, she can't get back because of the lockdown. You should thank me. It took me ages to convince my father she was safer staying put than traveling back."

Ty wondered why Rober thought he wanted that. "Alright, I'll come for a bit."

The decision took some weight off his chest, weight he wasn't even aware he was carrying.
 

It took him a good half an hour before he finally reached Rober's apartment. The extra security meant that every door had to be opened for him manually, his tiger tattoo inspected each time, even with the two SFs still trailing him. All that gave him was extra time to change his mind.
 

Maya would be going back to the Badlands as soon as the no fly order was lifted, and Ty would never see her again. Which was for the best, probably for both of them. If not, first his mother, and then Lana would surely claw his eyes out if he told her he preferred Maya. Not that he did. How could he? They'd hardly spoken. Going back now would mean passing all those checkpoints in reverse, and who wanted that?

Ty almost sighed with relief when Rober opened the door. "Took you long enough. I was just about to call you again."

Ty told the SFs to wait outside and entered the apartment. Maya sat on one of the velvet sofas wrapped in a fluffy blanket, her friend sitting at her feet.
 

"That's because every ten paces the guards had to make sure I was still me," Ty responded.

Rober laughed too loudly at his feeble joke.

Not that Ty noticed. Maya was looking directly at him, a lush plain stretching towards a far off horizon in her eyes, bathing in sunset, calling Ty to come even though she never said a word.

Maya looked down at her hands and the spell was broken.

Ty cleared his throat and looked around the room, his eyes coming to rest on the dining table still laden with dirty dishes and leftovers. "I see you've eaten."

Rober shrugged. "I would've waited for you, but I know how you prefer those ration pills."

Ty winced. What Rober said was true. Ty usually popped three rations a day and didn't have to worry about what to eat. He didn't want Maya to know that; somehow he didn't think she'd approve. Not that the food served in the Ring was much more natural than the pills.

Rober took a seat opposite Giles and Maya and waved Ty over. "We were talking about the shields."

Ty sat down beside Rober and tried to catch Maya's eye again. "Those liquid metal doors…they're so unstable you won't find them anywhere other than in the Orsini household. They make the shields and doors, and sometimes their creations are plain deadly."

Maya still avoided his gaze, so Ty stared pointedly at Rober. "Someone should have warned you about that."

"Sorry," Rober said.

Maya's eyes flickered up to meet his for a moment. "So Ty, what does your family do?"

"Well…" Ty started, trying to hold her gaze; she already looked away. "I guess the simplest way to explain it is we make the building blocks that go into most machines, you know, like tablets, and hovercrafts and the shields…like organic building blocks, you know."

He was tripping over his words like he was an eleven year old school boy and had been asked a question he couldn't answer. Worse, she didn't seem to understand a word he was saying.

"Most things aren't made of naturally occurring materials and elements anymore," Rober said, coming to his rescue. "They're grown, constructed from the nanoparticles upwards. That's what the Remarques do, they study nanoparticles."

Maya nodded slowly. Ty was sure she still didn't quite understand. "And your mother, she runs the school for the gifted?"

Ty flinched, he couldn't stop it in time. Instead of replying he nodded, afraid his voice would come out shrill and boyish.
 

"Do some of her students then go to help in the work with the…what did you call them? Nanoparticles?"

The students his mother taught never went on to help with anything. The stuff she learned from her experiments did sometimes help, just never the students.
 

Maya was waiting for his answer. Ty coughed and fixed his eyes on the waves of the sea crashing against the windows of the apartment. "Yes, some of them help." Eager to change the topic, Ty pointed at the window. "Rober, is that the live feed from the old city?"

"Yes." Rober pulled out his phone and unfolded it, then pressed a few buttons. The old New York City filled most of the windows, completely submerged, schools of fish flashing past.
 

Maya gasped when a shark narrowly avoided two skyscrapers and swam right by the camera. She rose, still wrapped in the blanket and walked to the window. "There's still this much life in the sea?"

Rober nudged Ty and pointed that he should follow Maya. Ty rose, his knees banging into the little coffee table.
 

"Yes. The efforts to reintroduce animals to the wild were most effective in the oceans," Ty explained, coming to a stop beside Maya who was admiring the old city through the window. Warmth emanated from her as though from a camping fire. She watched the fish swim by, her eyes sparkling.

"I knew it. All is not lost, we only have to take control of the water again," she said.

It took Ty a moment to make sense of her words. He'd mostly been watching her full lips make the shapes as she spoke, and not really listening. "What do you mean? The weather is broken."

"It can be fixed. I know it can. I can help, as soon as I go to the school and learn how to use my gift. That's why I can't go home yet."

The reflection in the window showed Giles glaring at them from the sofa. A shark darted past the underwater camera again. Maya stumbled back and got tangled up in her blanket. Ty placed his arm around her waist to steady her. She looked up at him questioningly.

Ty let her go and looked back at Rober. "You have to get me access to this feed. Remember that hunting trip we took out there? A complete disaster, but still the best ever."

Maya walked back to the sofa and sat down beside Giles.
 

"I remember Hercules lost a leg during that hunt," Rober grunted.

"He got a new one, and better than the last." Ty burst out laughing and sat down too.
 

"Is that all you do? Hunt?" Maya asked. She was sitting upright, glaring at them both. Even her sullen and silent friend looked angry now. "And to laugh like that at your friend getting hurt!"

Ty wiped away his tears, still chuckling. "You shouldn't feel sorry for Hercules, he's mean and he's only about half human these days."

"Less than half. More like a third, maybe," Rober put in, chuckling.

"See what they're like?" Giles whispered to Maya. "We should leave."

"What do you mean? We're good hosts aren't we?" Ty asked.
 

Giles recoiled, clearly thinking he was speaking too softly for Ty to hear.
 

"Never mind," he muttered and looked away.

"No, tell me," Ty insisted. "You've been looking at me like you want a fight since we met."

"Leave him be, Ty," Rober said.

Giles looked down at his hands and extended his fingers. Ty followed his gaze, thinking up some clever insult. His eyes froze on the cleanly cut stumps of his fingers. A faint, painful memory of witnessing one of his mother's punishments swam before his eyes. A boy screaming, blood streaming from his hands as he clutched them to his chest.
It couldn't be.
 

Giles' face found a home in Ty's memory. He was ten years old, standing beside his mother while she ordered Giles' fingers cut off. It was the first punishment she took Ty to witness, and he nearly passed out trying to keep all the hurt, anger, shock and pain locked tightly in the metal chest in his mind. The boy Giles screamed and cried, blood pouring from his stumps.

"I had nothing to do with that," Ty said softly, making everyone look at him. It wasn't until then he realized he had spoken aloud.

"What happened to your hands?" Rober asked.

Giles looked down at his stumps. "An accident."