ashen city (Black Tiger Series Book 2)

by Sara Baysinger

  A blood-chilling roar.

  Goosebumps flesh out across my skin, and I’m living Judah’s death all over again, and I’m taking the Black Tiger Test all over again, and I just wish the Defenders would shoot me quickly because I really don’t want to face a black tiger again. But this must be Titus’s way to torture me.

  I always knew I would die by a black tiger.

  I hear Aurora scream. Barely see her bolt across the room. And before I can comprehend what’s going on, the black tiger is attacking the Defenders. One. By. One. And I realize that the tiger only has three legs. Rain’s pet tiger. Julius.

  Julius is saving my life.

  I watch in shock and horror as he knocks the Defenders over like plastic soldiers. But he doesn’t maul them. He hardly gives them a scratch.

  “Ember!” someone shouts. I look up to find Elijah in the door way. Elijah. He’s okay. My heart melts at the sight of him. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Aurora.

  “Ember!” he shouts to her again. “Come on!”

  “Elijah!” I shriek, infuriated. He looks at me momentarily confused. “I’m right here.” Shoddy rot, is even my little brother blinded by this clone?

  “Ember?” His eyes widen, then he releases a shocked laugh when he looks at my hair. “Holy Crawford. What happened to you?”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s just temporary. And you better watch your mouth or you’re going to wake up with hair just like this tomorrow.”

  He chuckles, but then gunshots ring out down the hall, and his smile vanishes. “Come on!”

  Oh. Yes. Run. The Defenders are already beginning to stand, grabbing their guns, but Julius approaches and knocks them out of their hands. I bolt for the door.

  Another scream. I stop just before I leave the room and spin around. Aurora is standing in the corner, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide in horror as she watches Julius attack another Defender.

  Aurora. Fake Ember Carter. My twin. My clone. My biggest mystery. My worst nightmare.

  When you leave Ky, take your look-alike with you.

  No. There’s no way I can take her with me. Walker would be pissed.

  You want Titus to fall? Create the necessary loophole.

  I smother a groan and race back into the room, grabbing one of the discarded guns, and march toward her.

  Her eyes widen. “No,” she cries. “No, no, no, no, no—”

  I shove the barrel of the gun up to her temple, pretend like I know exactly how to use it, and hope that I don’t accidentally shoot her.

  “You’re coming with us,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Uh-uh. You don’t understand what you’re doing. Titus will kill you—”

  “He already wants to kill me. Now go!” I nudge the barrel against her temple, and she’s suddenly cooperative, walking beside me until we reach the door.

  “Seriously, Ember?” Elijah asks. “Really?”

  “Go!” I shout.

  We follow Elijah into another room, into a closet, down a secret stairway that leads into another room. He climbs onto the windowsill and breaks the glass, then helps Aurora over the ledge while I keep my gun aimed at her, but it’s so hard for her to climb out the window in that ridiculous dress that I almost decide to leave her behind, because she’s seriously slowing us down, but then I can’t just leave this terrible mystery behind me. I need answers. And if Mrs. Turner was right about the loophole, I can’t miss this opportunity.

  When she finally climbs over, I follow close behind. Julius leaps out behind us, and we’re racing across the perfectly mowed lawn to a waiting vehicle. I can just barely see Levi in the driver’s seat.

  I shove Aurora in the back seat then clamor in beside her. Ash is sitting by the opposite window. Elijah leaps in beside me, squishing us all together, then Julius leaps in on top of our laps, sucking up every last bit of space that’s left in this tiny car.

  The vehicle takes off at a neck-breaking speed down the road just before Elijah slams his door shut.

  “Seriously, Levi?” he asks. “You couldn’t just wait for me to shut my door? Really?”

  No response as we dart through the gates before they close.

  Eventually the gunshots cease behind us. And the wailing sirens fade. And when I look out the window, I realize we’re traveling to the more battered part of Frankfort. I release a sigh. I think we’re safe. But I’m not sure.

  I look at Elijah. “I’m so glad you’re alright. I’ve been worried sick about you these past two days.”

  “Me?” he asks. “You’re the one in danger, Ember. Titus wants to kill you, not me. Especially now that you have your look-alike. I mean. Wow. I thought she was you. How do you look exactly the same?”

  “I have no idea. But please don’t get confused again, Elijah. We’re nothing alike.”

  “No worries.” He snickers. “With your hair like that, I doubt I’ll ever get you confused again.”

  I shove him.

  “Hey!”

  Elijah. I’m so glad he’s okay. And he literally just saved my neck in there. Who is this kid? Not the little flying squirrel I grew up with, who played his harmonica in the branches of an apple tree.

  “Dang, Julius.” Elijah says. “You just had to put your rear-end in my face, didn’t you?”

  We all burst out laughing.

  “Hey, be grateful,” Ash says. “I’m getting his slobbery end over here. And the breath. Seriously guys, Julius smells like he ate a dead skunk and then threw it up and ate it again.”

  “Ember?” I hear Levi say from the front seat. “What’s your view of Julius? Ember? Can you hear me?”

  “Fur,” I say my voice muffled against Julius’s coarse side. “Lots and lots of fur.”

  They all laugh, then begin reminiscing on everything that just happened, and all I can do is turn my head, lean it against Julius’s warm body, listen to his black tiger heartbeat, and think I would give my life for this cat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Aurora turns her head, too, so we’re facing each other. We have to if we want to breathe, what, with Julius’s giant, furry body pressed against our faces. She turns her head. And she looks at me. And I gasp because I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing someone else in my body. She stares at me, a strange fear in her eyes. Her struggle makes me infinitely satisfied.

  “You don’t know what you did,” she whispers. There are fewer than six inches between us, and her breath fills the air, smelling too much like cinnamon. Too much like Forest. And I hate her even more.

  “I know exactly what I did,” I lie. Because inside I’m wonder if I really did the right thing.

  “Titus is going to rip this city to shreds looking for me.”

  “Yeah. I bet. I mean, how much money did he waste creating you? We can’t very well let his little clone loose, walking around Ky in my body.”

  “I’m not a clone!”

  “What’s going on back there?” Levi asks. “Hey, who’s that talking?”

  Ash laughs out loud. “Um. Ember brought a friend.”

  “Wait—what?” Kate’s voice from the front seat. “No, no. What are you talking about?”

  “I have Fake Ember,” I say, bracing myself for whatever lecture is about to come.

  “No,” Kate says. “She’s kidding, right? Someone please tell me she’s kidding.”

  “Not kidding.”

  This is going to be so hard to explain to everyone. What am I going to say? A politician—Rain’s mom—told me to bring her? Great. Even Rain’s going to be pissed.

  “See?” Aurora says beside me, as though reading my mind. “Now your little rebels are going to have a fit. Seems like you can’t even get your own people to like you.”

  “Shut up.” I turn my head so I’m facing Elijah. “Did you guys get the antitoxin?”

  His shoulders sag and he looks down. “No. It wasn’t where we thought it was. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any left or if it’s all been destroyed,
because we can’t find it anywhere.”

  More bad news. I turn my head away from him and lean my forehead on Julius, inhaling another whiff of Aurora’s cinnamon breath. Cinnamon? Seriously? She’s so obsessed with Forest she has to smell like him too? Maybe she’s trying to condition me to hate him by smelling like him. It almost works.

  We finally pull to a stop. Julius leaps out, and we all tumble out of the vehicle behind him. Finally. I can breathe. I stretch my aching legs, and when I look up, I almost gasp. Gray stone building. Red arched doors.

  We’re at the church.

  I grab Aurora’s arm when she crawls out so she doesn’t bolt.

  Isaac and Digory step out of the church. Digory stops on the top step and shoves his hands into his pockets. Isaac looks at me, then at Aurora.

  “And who,” he asks Aurora, jerking his chin at me, “is this?”

  Aurora stares at him a moment, then bursts out laughing and looks at me. “They don’t even know you. Your own people think I’m you. It could be so easy to make them turn against you.”

  The flames of humiliation heat up my face. “Just Isaac,” I snap at her. “The least observant of everyone in Ky.”

  Isaac looks between us, clearly confused, when Ash finally steps up, gestures toward Aurora, and says, “This is Fake Ember. The real Ember is the one who doesn’t look a bit like herself.”

  “Wow,” Digory says, descending the steps. “Whoever gave you a makeover sure did a good job.” He grins at me.

  “You can thank Kate’s mom for that.”

  Kate grins. “She’s pretty awesome, isn’t she?”

  Isaac stares at us. He blinks. Twice. And then says, “And why exactly did we bring Fake Ember?”

  “Ember brought her,” Levi says with a roll of his eyes.

  “You did?” Isaac asks. “Without my instruction to do so?”

  “Hey,” I say. “You’re not my boss. I’m your future chief, so I’m technically your boss.”

  “Future chief?” Aurora snorts. “Some chief. Can’t even keep order among your own people.”

  I glare at her. Resist the urge to stuff her bouncing curls down her throat.

  “Well. At least you did one thing right,” Isaac says, studying the gun I brought with me. “We could use more weapons.”

  “Come on,” Kate says. “Patrols are going to start roaming around. We have to hide now.”

  Tightening my grip around Aurora’s arm, I follow them into the building, and a wave of memories hits me. This is where Rain first brought me to try and make me work for the Resurgence. Although I didn’t know he was working for them at the time. My heart squeezes. I hope Rain is okay. This place is also where Forest told me to leave…and then stayed behind, risking his life to save mine. I wonder if he regrets that decision.

  The hole in the ceiling is still there, allowing sunlight to illuminate the sanctuary. Wooden pews, nailed to the floor, collect dust and moss. The carpet is wet and moldy. But when I look up, my heart melts at my favorite part of this church.

  The stained glass windows.

  Rain compared me to those windows, once. Glass, he’d said, placed together in perfect precision can create something beautiful. It was the first time I saw something in him other than a spoiled aristocrat.

  In the front of the church is the statue of a man hanging on a post. No, a cross. Like the one tattooed on Rain’s side. Looking at the statue now, the statue of the Son of God, as Rain said, I’m feeling the familiar pull again. He came to me in a dream, this Emmanuel. He was light, his robe brighter than the sun. And I was terrified and comforted all at once.

  PREPARE THE WAY.

  For what?

  I stare reverently at the cross a moment longer, as though God would answer, but there’s nothing. So I shove down my disappointment and turn back around to the activity going on around me.

  “We have to search Fake Ember,” Kate is saying as she approaches Aurora. “She might have a phoneband or something that will give our location away.”

  “Or a chip,” Levi says when he enters the room. He shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Titus might have placed a chip in her specifically to track her.”

  Oh, rot. A tracking device. Why didn’t I think of that?

  “What?” Aurora says in shock. “I have no chip! Do I look like a robot?”

  “You look like a clone,” Levi says. “And created as such, Titus could have put something in your skin or your brain to track you. You might not even know about it. In fact, you might not even know you’re a clone. He might have programmed you into thinking you’re really Ember.”

  “I’m. Not. A. Clone.” She enunciates every word through gritted teeth, then looks at me, and laughs in disbelief, shrugging. “I’m not a clone!”

  “Wow,” Kate says, looking at me. “She sounds exactly like you when you’re angry, Ember.” She frowns. “We need a way to address you separately. You’re not allowed to have the same looks and the same name.” She looks at Aurora. “What’s your real name?”

  Aurora presses her lips firmly shut, lifts a defiant brow.

  “For the love of Pete,” I say. “You’re already captured! You don’t need to keep your name a secret anymore.”

  She looks at me. “Then why don’t you tell them? And why do I have to give up the name? You’re already renamed, Flame Waters.” She gives shallow laugh, her lips quirking up in a mocking smile that makes my blood boil. “What kind of ridiculous name is that, anyway? Flame? Waters? Seriously? Like, two completely opposite things in one name?”

  I hate that she echoes my exact thoughts on the name so precisely, and find myself repeating Rain.

  “Flame,” I say. “It’s stronger than the embers. It’s a sign of hope, because I’m no longer an ember burning in the fire pit. I’m a flame preparing to burn this country down.”

  Aurora glares at me, and I hold her gaze, not daring to back down. She might be a snotty Patrician. She might have caught Forest’s eye. She might maybe be Titus’s favored sister. But I will not avert my gaze. I will not bow down to her. I will not let her win—

  “Whoa, whoa, okay,” Isaac says. “Time out. Staring competition’s over.” He looks at me. “And you…you sound worse than Titus now, almost like a terrorist.”

  I finally break my gaze and glare at him, instead.

  “I mean,” he continues, lifting his hands in mock defense. “I’ve no doubt you could burn this country to the ground with your embers and flame voodoo, but please, try to be a bit less dramatic about it.”

  I roll my eyes and hunker down along the wall. Julius approaches and plops down beside me. I never thought having a black tiger lay so close to me could be this comforting. But after he saved my life…I don’t really ever want him to leave my side. Reaching out, I stroke his coarse fur. I can just barely make out the stripes marking Julius’s coat. Obsidian on onyx. Black ink on charcoal paper. Julius’s stripes are like a thief in the night. The strange design and colors used to terrify me. Now I find them fascinating.

  “So,” I say, looking up from Julius. “How much longer before we leave?”

  “Um, well, we were going to leave tonight,” Ash says. “But since you kidnapped Fake Ember here, they have patrols boarding the city. So we probably won’t be able to leave until tomorrow. Hopefully.”

  Well, shoot. I put a damper on the Six’s plans by kidnapping Aurora. I hope they don’t hate me too much for it.

  “So is this where you guys have been staying?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Isaac says. “While you’ve been living like a queen in the Turner mansion, we’ve been freezing our behinds off in this dump.”

  “Oh please,” Kate snaps. “You’re still in the cupola. It stays a perfect seventy-two degrees night and day.”

  “Oh. Right. The fake weather.” Isaac smirks. “You think there’s, like, radiation here?”

  “If there was, the Patricians will be the first to go.” I look directly at Aurora. “So… maybe it would be a g
ood thing?”

  “Look at that,” Levi says. “Titus’s sister has a sense of humor!”

  “She’s hardly his sister,” Aurora says. “I’m closer than she is. And of course she has a sense of humor. Sarcasm is a sign of a weak mind. Isn’t that what they say?”

  “Her name is Aurora,” I tell the others. I suddenly don’t care why she might be trying to keep her stupid clone-name a secret. I look at the others and grin. “Forest told me. Her real name is Aurora.”

  “Aurora?” Isaac tests the name on his lips. “Is that even a name?”

  “Of course it is, you ignorant jackal,” Digory says, laughing. “It’s an ancient goddess of the sunrise.” He looks at Aurora and grins, as if his knowledge of her name origin should suddenly make them friends. Aurora just narrows her eyes at me, stalks to the corner, and sinks to the floor. Alone. I don’t really feel any satisfaction in revealing her name. Ash offers her a blanket, and she takes it.

  “Thank you,” Aurora says, and that one small sign of gratitude shocks me. She wraps it around her bare shoulders and looks at the rest of us. “You should send me back, you know. When Titus finds you—and he will—he’ll have you all strung upside down on the Rebels Circle.” She looks right at me. “I don’t know what sick ideas you have to do with me. But for your own sakes, I suggest you let me go.”

  “Not going to happen,” I say. “I’m the one who kidnapped you, so let Titus’s wrath settle on my head—assuming he could hate me any more than he already does.” I offer a cold smile. “Get some rest, princess. Because where we’re going tomorrow, you’ll be lucky if you aren’t tortured to death. We have Ky’s most renowned interrogator, Captain James Mcallister, on our side, and I’m sure it would bring him the utmost joy to torture a royal Patrician.”

  Her mouth opens in shock, and she narrows her eyes.

  “Elijah,” Isaac says, holding out two cords. “Bind her hands and feet. Not too tight, but tight enough that she can’t get away.”