ashen city (Black Tiger Series Book 2)

by Sara Baysinger

  Married? The mere thought rocks me. It kind of terrifies me. I always avoided thinking about my future with Forest, because a future with Forest meant living in Frankfort. And I wanted to leave Ky. But Forest clearly never wants to leave. And marriage is a scary thought. I don’t even know if I love Forest. I mean, I love him enough to lay my life down for him. But I’m not sure if I love him enough to marry him.

  And all these thoughts keep rolling around in my head, tugging and pulling at my brain until I want to scream at my thoughts to shut up, to just give me a shoddy break. I look out the window at the crumbling buildings, force myself to look forward, to forget, for just a moment, how screwed we all are.

  We dart through the streets of Frankfort. The weather turns from spring to winter when we cross through the cupola onto an abandoned road that’s unguarded. And we take off through the tall, gray buildings of Ky toward the edge of the city.

  “We need a map,” I say. “So we can know how to get back from the outskirts of Ky.”

  Rain snorts out a laugh. “We’re not going to the outskirts of Ky.”

  I look sharply at him. “Where are we going?”

  I’m almost too afraid to find out the answer, but he flashes his signature half grin and says, “We’re going to Louisville.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I stare at Rain in shock. Because there are no words. If the outskirts of Ky are a ghost town, then the ashen city is the borderline of hell itself. It’s where the remaining plagued were sent to die off. It’s a forbidden zone. People who enter Louisville NEVER return.

  I clear my throat. “Um. Why—why are we going…to…Louisville?”

  Rain grins at Mcallister, his gray eyes dancing, and says, “Should we tell her?”

  Mcallister looks at Rain. “She’s going to find out eventually.”

  “What?” I ask. “Tell me what?”

  “We—Mcallister and I— are a part of the Resurgence.”

  The news knocks the breath out of me. “Wait. What?”

  “We’re a part of the—”

  “No—I heard that. What do you mean? How did you—when did you—” I look at Defender Mcallister. “You’re not brainwashed?”

  “Calm down, calm down.” Rain rolls his eyes. “Don’t have a heart attack right after your rescue. We’ve been working with the Resurgence for some time. Ever wonder why I haven’t chosen a career yet? It’s because I’m devoting my full time working as a spy for the Resurgence. And no, Forest and my father don’t know. And no, you’re never going to tell them.”

  His words imply that I will return to Frankfort someday. He seems certain.

  But…Rain and Mcallister are a part of the Resurgence. I mean, I had my suspicions about Rain a couple of times, but pretty much dropped them because of the way Rain spoke of those…Neanderthals.

  “I thought you hated the Resurgence.”

  “Well, yeah. I couldn’t risk you telling Titus anything.”

  “So the Resurgence really is in Louisville?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “And Titus doesn’t know?”

  “He suspects it, but we have such a spectacular hiding spot. Titus’s men never find us when he sends them to scout us out.”

  “Then why didn’t we bring Forest with us? If you’re guaranteed safety?”

  “Because he’s not guaranteed safety,” Rain says. “Even though he’s my brother. The Resurgence kills politicians on the spot. They don’t trust them, no matter their relations.” He looks ahead. “And I’m not sure I trust Forest, either.”

  I remember Judah saying something similar in the prison cell, how the Resurgence vowed never to let a politician live in their territory after the last three turned them in. Never trust a politician. Ever, Judah had said.

  “But…they let you in?” I ask.

  “Hey, don’t look so surprised.”

  “I mean, you’re a Turner. Your entire family is made up of politicians. Why do they trust you?”

  “Don’t you know anything about me, Rainbow Eyes?” Rain grins again. “I’m very persuasive.”

  I sit back against the car seat. The wheels in my head spin so fast with questions that I struggle to grasp just one.

  “So…you’ve been working with Walker all this time?” I look at Mcallister. “And—and you? You’re not under compulsion?”

  Mcallister shakes his head.

  “Does Forest know you’re not under compulsion?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Mcallister says. “He thinks everything I did was under his influence. Even now, he believes I’m brainwashed into taking you to the city limits.”

  “It’s funny how things just work out like a puzzle, eh?” Rain says.

  I look at him, still putting the puzzle together. “So when we went to the library to see the map, when I was asking questions about the Resurgence and the ashen city…you acted like you didn’t know, or it was forbidden—”

  “Well I couldn't have you sniffing us out on camera. Could I?” Rain says. “That library was wired. Anything you said could have been used against us.” He chuckles, then mumbles, “Stupid girl.”

  The insult cuts to the quick. “Well, you could have said something in the church. There were no cameras there. But I suppose you didn’t trust me. Although I trusted you enough to put my life on the line for the Resurgence’s cause—”

  “Puh-leeze,” he says. “You didn’t put your life on the line because I told you to. You did it because you wanted to avenge your family. And you thought Forest had betrayed you. You had nothing left to live for, so you risked your life in a brash attempt to reveal Titus’s injustices. Not that it did any good.”

  “Hey, at least I tried. It’s more than you’ve ever done. You, who place bets on the trials and watch your own people die on the Rebels Circle—people like Judah.” I look at Mcallister. “And you. You take these rebels—your own people—to the prison yourself, with the full knowledge that they’re going to die!”

  “What else are we supposed to do, Carter?” Rain snaps. All forms of mockery are replaced with pure irritation. “If Mcallister helped people out of prison, he would be dead now and completely useless, as would I if I ever showed sympathy toward the rebels.” His jaw tightens. “Mcallister and I have an image to uphold if we want to stay under the radar and keep helping the Resurgence undercover.”

  “Yeah, some image,” I snap. “Mcallister, the brainless robot. And all that people think of you, Rain, is that you’re a miserable drunk, desperate to get your hands on any girl who lets you.”

  “Wow,” Rains says. “Wow! You have a miserable way of showing appreciation, don’t you? I mean—” He laughs in obvious shock. “Here we are, James and I, laying our lives on the line for you, and all you can do is come up with insults? Calling us robots and drunks?” He looks at Mcallister. “Pull over, James. Let’s just leave her on the side of the road to fend for herself. Then, maybe, she’ll be grateful.”

  My anger evolves into ice-cold fear. Rain would do it. He would abandon me, no question. Maybe I pushed him too far. Maybe I should have kept my shoddy mouth shut. But thankfully, Mcallister doesn’t slow down. Instead, he keeps driving and glances at me in the rearview mirror like he did so many times when he was driving me to prison.

  “I understand your confusion, Ember,” Mcallister says. And it’s so strange hearing him talk like a normal person instead of a brainless Defender. “The thing is,” he says. “My working undercover was not only to help Resurgencies escape at opportune moments, but for this very moment. See, we’ve been looking for you for years.”

  “Because I’m the chief’s sister.” I roll my eyes.

  “Exactly,” Rain says with a short laugh. “You’re a Whitcomb. You have the chief’s blood running through your veins. You’re the one the Resurgence has been waiting for to take Titus’s place as chief.” He looks back and pins me with those raging gray eyes. “So please don’t let us down.”

  I cross my arms. I wonder what the Resurgence
is going to do if I refuse to be their chief. Because, first of all, I can’t imagine myself leading a country. The thought is absolutely absurd. Second, there is no way they could take down Titus.

  Titus, who is always one step ahead.

  Titus, who misses nothing.

  Titus, who has thousands of Defenders brainwashed to protect him.

  But I don’t tell Rain or Mcallister this. Not while they’re risking their lives to keep me alive. Not after we’ve left Forest behind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  We merge onto a wide, abandoned highway with a rusted sign that says I-64.

  I look ahead, because in this situation it’s all I can do. I can’t think of Dad or Elijah being gone. I can’t think of Forest and what might happen to him for staying behind. I can’t think of Titus and how he’s my brother and he killed my family. By my rebellious actions, I have left all that behind. And now I can only look forward at the new future laid out for me.

  Snow covers the road, blanketing the rest of the city that I can now see at a glance from our place on the highway. Brick buildings pepper the city, old and crumbling. It’s midmorning, and few people roam the streets. They’re all slaving away in the factories. Titus takes little care of Ky. He doesn’t give it the attention he gives his weather-controlled, golden-paved Frankfort. The megacity stretches for miles and miles and miles, a gray haze of pollution rising above the old factories.

  We drive for another hour before the buildings start looking vacant, and eventually the streets and houses are altogether abandoned. We’ve arrived at the outskirts of Ky. The ghost town.

  Ky used to be one big city before the White Plague wiped out the majority of the population. Now, this far out from the heart of Ky, it’s just old, crumbled buildings, evacuated houses. A giant graveyard. And no one wants to live this close to Louisville, the ashen city. So the ghost town is like no-man’s land. The dead space between the living Ky and the terrifying Louisville.

  Rain slips his flask from his back pocket, screws off the lid, and takes a drink. I remember what he told me that evening after the chapel. It’s tea. It’s always been peppermint tea—for the most part. It’s all a part of his image. And all the pieces begin falling into place. Rain said he went to the Black Tiger club to collect gossip.

  “You were really getting inside information for the Resurgence, weren’t you?” I ask.

  “What’s that?” Rain asks, as if being pulled from some deep thought.

  “When you went to the club, it was to get info for the rebels.”

  His lips quirk up in a smile. “You’re sharp.”

  “But how…how could you do it?” I ask. “ I mean, if you disagree with the Frankfort lifestyle, so much so that you would join a rebel group against them, then why do you go to their parties? Why do you just sit there while girls get…used?”

  He closes his eyes a brief moment, then opens them and takes a drink of his tea. “Same reason I don’t stop innocent victims from getting killed on the Rebels Circle. Image, Ember. I have an image. My efforts would only make me suspicious, thus, putting me at odds with the government. And then I’d be useless to the Resurgence. I’d be useless to the future of Ky.”

  He looks back at me and offers a sad smile. “It’s like you said. I have to go to the club to get inside information that could really help the Resurgence.”

  I look out my window at the city shadowed by an ominous gray cloud. Rain, ever the mystery.

  “You play the part of a snotty Patrician pretty well,” I say. And then I look at Mcallister. “And you.” I snort out a laugh. “You had me fooled.”

  He grins.

  “I thought you were as brainless as all other Defenders.”

  Rain bursts out laughing. “James,” he explains between laughs, “is hardly brainless. Just wait till you get to know him. You’ll get so tired of hearing him talk that you’ll wish he was a brainless Defender, just so you could tell him to shut up.”

  “Seriously, man?” Mcallister—James—says. “Seriously? I just left my post for you and this is what I get?”

  Rain laughs. “You left your post for her, not me. And, please, James. You’ve been complaining about your brainless Defender job for years. I think you owe little miss apple-picker here a big thank you for finally showing up so you could ditch that ridiculous uniform.”

  Mcallister looks down at his red uniform with gold buttons, then he looks at Rain. “You’re just jealous this uniform looks better on me than you.”

  My mouth drops open, because this James is nothing like the stiff Captain Mcallister I’ve come to know. And I choke out a shocked laugh. This day has been strange to say the least. Between my death sentence and my escape and the secrets upon secrets these two have been keeping from me all this time, I can’t help it.

  So I look out the window of the car carrying me away from Ky. Study the ghost town that I’ve always been curious about. And think now would be a good time to wake up.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Another hour passes by with no sign of anyone chasing us. The buildings and roads out here have been ravaged by weeds. The pavement erodes in random places, but Mcallister weaves between the potholes like a professional. The outskirts of Ky is a dead zone. No man’s land. Eerie. But eventually, tall buildings stretch toward the sky ahead. Most are rectangular. One is rounded at the top. Like the rest of the outskirts, the entire city has been nearly drowned by vines, but the taller buildings still stand strong, reminding me of a crumbling version of Frankfort.

  “Louisville,” Rain says, taking note of my expression. “It was bigger than Frankfort back in the day.”

  Deteriorating trash litters the road. Weeds swallow the highway, eating away at the buildings.

  “How long has this place been abandoned?” I ask.

  Rain makes a low whistling sound. “Hundred years, at least.”

  We take an exit off the highway, and when we maneuver onto one of the city streets, trepidation crawls up my spine. Abandoned buildings surround us. Broken shards of glass border the edges of the windows. Doors are broken in. Faded red X’s mark the doors that haven’t been broken in. Some buildings are charred from what looks like a fire, and the buildings still standing are shrouded in weeds.

  And it’s so foreboding, so incredibly creepy that I begin to wonder if there are zombies inside the buildings, watching us, waiting for us to exit the jeep so they could kill us and turn us into one of them.

  “It looks like there was a riot here,” I say, shaking the disturbing thought from my head.

  “There was,” Mcallister says. His deep voice snaps me to attention. “Just before the city shut down. It was the only city standing up against the rule of the chief.”

  “I thought the remaining White Plague victims were sent here?”

  “That’s what Titus wanted you to think. He wanted everyone to be too afraid to enter Louisville because he knew the Resurgence was here.”

  “Oh.” More secrets. “So where did everyone go after they revolted against the chief?”

  “Most succumbed to the will of the chief and moved farther into Ky,” Rain says, ever the history buff. “But some risked the White Plague and fled across the Ohio River into a place once known as Indiana.”

  “The Ohio River?”

  He looks at me and grins. “The Northern Line.”

  “From the song,” I say. I look back at Mcallister. “The Keeper’s Lullaby. The one you told me to sing when you locked me in prison.”

  “Hey, I wanted to give you some measure of hope,” Mcallister says. “Like, you know, a reason to live so you didn’t attempt some sick suicide mission or something.”

  “It didn’t work.” I look ahead. “My family’s dead. I thought Forest was a traitor. I didn’t really have any reason to live, with or without the Resurgence.”

  “Now what would your rebel mother have to say about that?” Rain asks.

  I look at him. “So she was a rebel?” I knew it.

  “The true
st one of them all,” Mcallister says. “Or so legend has it.”

  I grin, a sense of pride filling me at the thought of Mom fighting with the Resurgence.

  “So if the northern line means the Ohio River, what does the rest of the song mean?” Caverns run deep. “Are there really caverns here?”

  “Well, you don’t see anyone living in the buildings, do you?” Mcallister asks, his dark eyes shining.

  I glance around the city surrounding us. It’s hard to imagine caverns anywhere near this place. I mean, there are no nearby hills or mountains, and isn’t that where caverns usually are?

  We drive in silence through the dead city until, up ahead, someone wearing black slacks, a thick black coat, and a black fedora steps into the road. My heart stops. Have the Defenders found us? But when I look at Rain, he doesn’t seem the least bit worried. Actually, he’s grinning. Grinning. Mcallister slows the vehicle to a complete stop in front of the man dressed in black, then gets out. And so does Rain. And then loud, friendly greetings are exchanged, and to my astonishment, they all embrace. I slowly get out of the jeep. Must be safe enough now. But as I walk closer to the man, I notice his dark curly hair, his thick beard, and the scar on his right cheek. And the night the Resurgence broke into my hotel room flashes through my memory.