The Grower's Gift (Progeny of Time #1) (27 page)

The pure white skyscrapers of the warehouse district rose before them. They were almost at the shield. The screen flickered back to life. His father's scarlet face filled it, the thick vein in his forehead pulsing. "Turn around and come back right now!"

The shield glimmered in the soft morning light.

"Never. You better make sure Eve survives!" Ty yelled back. He was through taking orders from either of his parents.

"You leave me no choice then. I will never trust you after this!" his father said and turned to someone standing on his left. "Do it."

A row of red lights flashed across the control panel, wiping away all the buttons used to steer the craft. Ty felt the craft pass from his control.
 

How was he doing this? It shouldn't be possible, not after he removed the black control box.

~

Ronia pointed for Maya to sit down in one of the seats in the command room. The craft was identical to the one in which she was brought to the city.

Maya clutched her injured left arm to her chest and sat down.

Ronia returned with a small red box.
 

"That was an amazing tree." The woman's words appeared in the air.

She opened the box and took out a piece of gauze which she used to clean the wound on Maya's scalp. The stinging brought the room into clearer focus.

"Where are we going?" Maya asked while Ronia applied a cool cream to her wound. The pain disappeared.

"A safe place. The Sanctuary." She pried away Maya's arm. A few moments later, Maya watched the gash on her shoulder seal itself shut when Ronia applied the cool cream to it as well.

Ty had helped her after all. She never thought he would. That panic of his, which filled the room each time he visited her at the hospital, was sickening and had a definite source. His mother. How long could he remain sane while in the presence of it? She had to try and make him see, had to try and get him to face it.

Then a cold fear gripped her. "Are we leaving the city?"

Ronia typed, "Yes."

"What about my friend Giles? Is he here?" Maya asked.

Ronia blinked up at her in confusion. "It's only me, Martin, Ty and you here."

Maya leapt to her feet. "No. We have to go get him as well. I can't leave him behind."

The hovercraft lurched to a sudden stop, making her stumble.

Ronia looked at her, fear widening her eyes.

"What is it? What's happening?" Maya asked.

~

They'd reached the shield, but the craft stopped dead.

Ty adjusted the settings frantically, even rebooted the whole panel; he had no control of the craft anymore.

"Come back home, Tyberious," his father said calmly.

"Let me leave," Ty said. "I don't want anything from you anymore."

His father laughed. "You are such a child still. I don't know what possessed me to confirm you as my heir."

Ty was well past caring whether his father considered him childish. "Let me go and you'll be free to choose a new heir."

"Fine," his father said. The control panel flickered back to life. "I'm going to leave the decision to return up to you. If you ever want to enjoy the privileges of our house again, you will not leave the city today. I will also let you earn my forgiveness if you return now. I fear your mother never will."

There he went again, using Ty as a weapon against Violetta. Ty was well past caring about that too.

He broke the communication line and seized control of the craft, angled it vertically. It shot up and stopped at the coordinates for Rober's gate, right at the point where the domed ceiling of the shield started.

The red lights disappeared from the control screen. Only the word PASSCODE blinked across the otherwise black screen. Ty pressed his tattoo against the screen and held his breath. Heat erupted in a single line on his tattoo as the machine read the code.

The word ACCEPTED flickered across the screen. The buttons reappeared on the control screen and Ty let the craft squeeze through the shield and into the Badlands.

No one called after that.
 

The screen told him there was no pursuit either. With any luck, the SFs didn't even notice them leaving the city. Rober hadn't exaggerated. His exit was perfect.
 

Ty flew the craft himself for the fifty miles through the no man's land between Neo York and Dakota. He loaded the maps into the control panel and chose one that showed the land areas in detail all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
 

Then he called Ronia and Martin.

"Can you show me where the sanctuary for the gifted you spoke of is on this map?" Ty asked Ronia.

Martin looked at her sharply, but she nodded and pointed to a location almost in the ocean.

Ty read off the coordinates and punched them into the autopilot, making sure they would fly nowhere near any of the other cities and their shields. Martin volunteered to mind the controls.

"Thank you for saving me from that place," Maya said when he and Ronia entered the command room.

"It was my fault you were there in the first place. It was the least I could do," Ty replied and moved to walk past her.

She took his hand and held him back. "Please tell me, will Giles be safe in the city?"

Ty ignored the pang of jealousy. "I told him never to look for me. If he does that, he should be fine."

"Can we contact him?" Maya pleaded.
 

Ty looked to Ronia, who was eyeing them both with a thoughtful expression on her face. He pointed at her. "I don't even know where we're going. Ask her if you can contact anyone once we get there."
 

"We can." Ronia's words appeared in the air.

Ty tried again to pull his hand free, but Maya wouldn't let go. "I know how much you risked getting me out. You have given me my life back and I will always be grateful for that."

Ty clasped his free hand over hers. "That tree you made had more to do with saving you than me. Besides it was time for me to leave too. Past time, really."

Her deep brown eyes lit up in happiness, her lips slightly parted.
 

Ty placed his hand on her cheek, enjoying the warmth of her skin passing into his. Then he leaned over and kissed her.
 

She might have pulled away, or wanted nothing of the sort. But she leaned in and returned the kiss.

Ty let it all go. Lost himself in the warmth of her life, her sun, her soft lips pressed against his.
 

A few moments later, he reluctantly pulled away. "Now I have one last thing to do."

She let him go, looking startled and pleased at the same time.
 

Ty walked over to the weapons locker by the wall screen.

He pulled out a hunting knife and sat down on the floor. He rolled up his left sleeve and stared down at his shiny tiger tattoo. The mark of his family, House Remarque, the most powerful family in the city of Neo York.

He winced as his first cut went too deep.

"What are you doing? Stop it!" Maya shouted. Ronia held her back when she tried to rush to him.

Ty looked up and smiled at her. "Don't worry. I've seen my mother do this a few times to family members who displeased her. I have to get the cuts just right."

He bit hard into his lower lip as he made shallow, half-inch incisions along the perimeter of his tattoo.
 

"Please stop," Maya whispered, but Ronia still held her back.

"Almost got it now," Ty muttered. He made one last incision, longer than the rest, along the top of the tattoo. He gripped the skin between his thumb and the blade of the knife. "Done."

He gasped in pain as he yanked the skin back, evenly and firmly ripping the tattoo, along with the layers of skin that contained it.

He nearly passed out, willing himself to surrender to the sharp, burning pain.
 

Finally the piece of skin with the hard lines that made up the tiger hung from his trembling fingers. He tossed the vile thing on the floor, and broke the hard lines with the handle of the knife then leaned back against the wall, panting.
 

"There. Now I'm no longer a member of House Remarque. Long have I waited for this day," Ty said, affecting the best Castle Life accent he could muster.
 

Ronia finally let Maya go. She rushed towards, him, examining his arm. "We must wrap this up."
 

Ty pulled his arm back and cradled it. Thick drops of blood were appearing through the thin layer of bright red skin on his arm. "No, not yet. I think I'll let it bleed for a while first."
 

Maya went to get the medicine box.
 

"Nonsense," she said as she knelt beside him. "This can get infected."

She took his arm and gently placed in against her thighs. In a few moments she had it neatly wrapped up in white gauze.

Drops of blood seeped through the bandage.

She sat beside him and cradled his head against her chest. The rise and fall as she breathed was the sweetest lullaby he'd ever heard.

"You know, if you'd applied the healing cream first, it'd be mended by now," Ty muttered.

Her sharp gasp jolted his head. "I'm sorry. Here I'll do it."

He laughed and placed his uninjured arm around her shoulders. "No leave it for now. I don't feel any pain at all."

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
 

I am already working on the next instalment of the Progeny of Time series and am aiming to release it this fall.

In the meantime…

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About the Author:

Vanna Smythe is the author of Protector, the first book in the Anniversary of the Veil fantasy series. She has been writing creatively since her early teens, though one could say her creative writing efforts started long before than. While still in kindergarten, she once tore up a library book to make alphabet soup, and has been fascinated with what words can do, the pictures and worlds they can create, ever since. Book two of the Anniversary of the Veil series, Decision Maker, is already available.

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