The Pioneer by BRIDGET TYLER

Author:BRIDGET TYLER
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

Ten

Pel doesn’t bother with the spiral road to Sorrow’s Solace. She cuts through the city and leads us straight into the root cathedral.

Chris, Leela, and Miguel are already there, guarded by a pair of heavily armed Takers. As we approach, Leela takes off her flex and hands it to a Taker holding a long staff studded with the razor-sharp crystal. The Taker drops her flex on the ground and smashes it with the barbed end of their staff. The shards spark and flare in the Taker’s acid-green bioluminescence.

My anxiety congeals into dread. Where is Ord? Why is he allowing his Takers to do this to us? We need to get out of here. With every passing second, our chances of getting to the Landing in time to save Tau are getting smaller.

Dr. Brown must realize that too, but she has an expression of calm disinterest on her face. She could be waiting in line for chow, for all she seems to care what’s happening here.

Pel growl-moans something loud and hot. Another pair of Takers hurries to her side. One glows bloodred and the other an icy blue.

“Give them your flexes,” Pel hums to us, in English.

She strides back into the root garden without waiting to see whether we comply.

My hands are shaking so hard that it takes a couple of tries to get my flex off my wrist. I hand it to the blue Taker. Dr. Brown’s old flex is in my pocket. I leave it there. It’s a risk, but Blue doesn’t bother to search me. They just destroy my flex and move on to Jay.

He holds out his bare wrists. “I don’t have a flex.”

The green Taker stalks over to us, brandishing their barbed staff. They snarl at Jay. The Sorrow word feels like a slap.

“I don’t have a flex,” Jay repeats, slower this time. “I lost it during our fight with the phytoraptors.”

I bite back a scream as the green Taker swings their staff in a whistling arc that stops abruptly, centimeters from Jay’s head. They snarl the harsh Sorrow word again. The verbal impact makes my ears ring this time. They aren’t taking no for an answer.

My hand closes around Dr. Brown’s flex, still hidden in my pocket. Would it satisfy the Taker’s demands if I handed it over? If I do, we’ll lose a lot of priceless information about Tau. And I’m not even sure it would work. But if I don’t do something, they might kill Jay. I can’t just stand here and let that happen.

Just as I start to pull it out, a knife blade presses into my throat, and a many-jointed hand traced with blue light grips my waist.

Oh.

They aren’t going to kill Jay for his flex. They’re going to kill me.

Jay holds up his hands. “Steady. There’s no need for that.”

The blue Taker presses their blade harder against my jugular and hums something at Jay that feels like bleeding.

These Takers clearly don’t speak English. Jay can’t talk them out of this. I’m going to have to give them Dr.

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