black tiger (Black Tiger Series Book 1)

by Sara Baysinger

  It reminds me of Judah. The blood in his cough. On his neck. His shoulder. Soaking through his shirt. Black creeps around the edge of my vision, and a faint ringing sounds in my ears, and I close my eyes, think of something else something else anything else when Rain says, “All finished. You can open your eyes now.”

  Nando places the cylinder full of my blood into a bag, takes off the tourniquet, and walks out of the room.

  “Now we can officially begin the test.” Rain steps in front of me. “Look at me, Ember.” His voice is lucid and full of authority.

  I do as I’m told, and look into his cold, steel eyes. Holding my gaze, he pulls out a pocket knife and switches it open. “Take this knife.”

  A knife. Heart pounding, I accept the blade. The small handle is cold in my hands, but my palms are sweaty and trembling, and the knife slips from my fingers and clangs across the tile floor.

  Rain’s lips disappear entirely in obvious irritation. He bends down, picks up the knife, and presses it into my palm. “Try not to be clumsy.”

  I begin to withdraw my hand from his, but his grip tightens, and he looks into my eyes and says, “Now. Slit your wrist.”

  “What?” I jerk away from his grasp. “That will kill me.” I may have grown up in an orchard, but I’m still smart enough to know a major artery lets out at my wrist.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Rain shrugs. “Do what I say.” He wraps his long fingers around my chin, kneels in front of me so we’re eye-level, and he’s so close, so incredibly close that I can smell the peppermint on his breath. And he whispers, “Slit. Your. Wrist.”

  Then he steps back. And waits.

  I’m barely breathing. With trembling hands I place the edge of the knife on my wrist, away from the artery, and lay on pressure until a spot of red blood appears. The sting isn’t as bad as the shot. I’ve had worse scrapes. Removing the knife, I hand it back to him and force a shaky smile.

  He smirks. “Not deep enough, Carter.” Reaching out, he taps a long finger directly over my artery. “I want you to cut deep. I want you to cut into the vein.”

  “No way.”

  His eyes harden. “Do you want to pass this test, or fail?”

  “I don’t want to make myself bleed out.”

  “Cut the vein, Carter!”

  “No!” I stand up and throw the knife across the room. It clangs on the floor, skipping across the tiles until it hits the wall.

  Rain straightens, stares at me for a moment, then jots a note down on his tablet. “Fine. We’ll just have to move on to step two of the test.”

  I’m surprised he’s not sending me directly back to prison for my disobedience.

  “How many steps are there?” I ask.

  “Two.”

  “Did I pass the first step?”

  “Do you think you passed?”

  His question implies that I didn’t. My heart sinks a little, but I don’t have much time to ponder what I could have done better before Rain lifts his hand in the air and snaps his fingers. A door across the room flies open. Blinding light pours in from the outside world, then the door slams shut. It takes a moment for my eyes to readjust to the dim room, but when they do, all my thoughts trip over each other.

  Because prowling around the edge of the room, crouching in the shadows, is a black tiger.

  And it’s staring right at me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Memories from last night pound into my mind. Unwelcome. Unexpected. Black tigers surrounding us, their loud roars echoing through the street and make my bones tremble. And I think of Judah lying on the ground while the tiger sinks its teeth into his shoulder and now that same horrifying, terrifying, awful beast paces in front of me. Golden eyes lock with mine.

  And. I. Can’t. Breathe.

  “Remember him?” Rain asks. I tear my gaze from the tiger and look at Rain.

  “Is…is this the test?” I squeak.

  He nods slowly, then walks to the center of the room, looks at the tiger, and says, “Kill the girl.”

  And all hope vanishes out of existence because the black tiger crouches down.

  Then saunters toward me.

  I whirl around, stumble in the opposite direction, race to the door I came in, my body practically slamming into the steel as I frantically search for the handle. But it’s locked.

  Of course it’s locked.

  Behind me, I hear the paws advancing toward me, drawing nearer and nearer and nearer and then a roar—a roar so loud it’s deafening and blood chilling and—

  You can communicate with black tigers.

  The idea is ludicrous but my only hope. Turning fully around, I glare at the beady eyes of the black tiger and shout, “STOP!”

  The tiger halts to a stop just a few feet away from me. His ears lay flat back and his golden eyes watch me warily.

  “Now—now, go away,” I tell the tiger, struggling to keep my voice level. The tiger turns and walks toward the center of the room.

  Unbelievable.

  I look at Rain. He’s grinning. Grinning! He was about to watch me get devoured by the tiger, and he’s grinning. He covers his smile with two fingers and looks back at his tablet, then types something.

  “Very good, Carter,” he says through his smile. “For a second there, I was afraid you were actually going to die.”

  As if he wasn’t rooting for my death.

  He places the tablet snugly in a pocket on the inside of his jacket and whistles a strange tune. The black tiger walks calmly to Rain’s side like some sort of kitten. Rain scratches the animal behind the ears. Then to my astonishment, he kneels down in front of it, and says something too quiet for me to hear. For a brief second, I’m terrified he might be telling the tiger to kill me and not back down. Instead, the tiger trots to the door. The door opens, and two Defenders with spears guide the beast out of the room.

  I’m relieved when the door closes behind it.

  Letting out a breath, I look at Rain. Swallow the saliva that’s somehow gathered in my mouth, then say, “What the shoddy inferno was that?”

  “The Black Tiger Test.”

  “The Black Tiger—” My voice chokes off in a strangled laugh of ridicule, but there’s absolutely nothing funny about it. “So—so did I pass?”

  “With flying colors.” He grins. “I’ll send your results to the Assembly of Politicians. They’ll look over your records and all that boring stuff to figure out how you’re Patrician, but yes. You passed.”

  Relief. It’s a strange thing that makes my bones melt and my muscles relax, and now my brain doesn’t have to be quite as sharp and I can actually take a breath. “So…so I’m free? I mean, I can go home now?”

  Rain looks at me with an expression akin to pity. Pity? From Rain? They must have taken more blood from me than I thought.

  “You won’t be able to go home yet, I’m afraid.” He looks away and bites his bottom lip. This is so unlike the arrogant Rain I’ve come to know. And I’m not exactly sure how to respond, but I don’t have to before he says, “They’ll want to test you.”

  My body goes hot, then cold. “I was just tested.”

  He looks at me, his eyes once again steel and cold. “You were tested to confirm you are Patrician, which you are. Now they’ll want to know how you’re Patrician. Apparently someone went behind the back of the government without them knowing, which is how you came about.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He rolls his eyes and drags his hand across the back of his neck. “Either someone slipped you an antitoxin, or someone in your family is actually a Patrician. Now the blood test will confirm whether you’re fully Patrician, half, or one quarter. So you can save any lies you have to tell.”

  He’s peppering me with way too much information, and too many thoughts filter through my mind so I grasp the one that raises the most questions. “Antitoxin?”

  “Against the White Plague. You know, the thing that wiped the outside world to extinction?” He gestures wit
h his hand impatiently.

  “Y-you have an antitoxin against it?”

  He blinks several times. “Well, yes. Of course.”

  “But, how? When—”

  “There’s a lot of history here. I’m afraid I don’t have permission to share it with you.”

  His eyes swivel to the ceiling. I look up. At the flashing blue lights. In every corner of the blasted room.

  Right. Cameras.

  “But when I get the okay to do so,” he says. “I’ll tell you everything.” He grins.

  The door opens and Mcallister walks in flanked by two more Defenders. I look between him and Rain for any signs of bitterness between the two, but he just nods at Rain in greeting and Rain offers nothing more than a mirthless smile before returning his attention to his tablet. Then Mcallister leads me outside to sunny Frankfort.

  I’m so sick of Defenders escorting me everywhere. But even more sick of this uncertainty. I want to go home to familiar territory. I want to be surrounded by apple trees, not Defenders. I want to talk to Dad and Elijah, not Rain and Mcallister. But apparently going home is out of the question until they figure out the big mystery about how I’m a Patrician. I honestly don’t know why it matters. Couldn’t they accept that I’m somehow Patrician and forget about it? I mean, seriously, who cares?

  Mcallister gestures for me to enter the jeep.

  “Where are we going now?” I ask.

  “They’re placing you in Frankfort Hotel until they figure things out.”

  Wow. From Frankfort Prison to Frankfort Hotel in twenty-four hours.

  “In the meantime,” Mcallister says. “Chief Whitcomb is hosting a party to celebrate the holidays, and he’s invited you to attend.”

  “Holidays?”

  He looks back at me. “This is the first week of December. We’ve begun the month of Christmas. You are very lucky to have been invited to his royal occasions.”

  The hotel we pull up to is probably a hundred stories high. The glass shines like gold in the sunlight. We enter wide doors and walk across a white marble floor.

  “I can take her from here, men,” Mcallister says to the other Defenders. “Wait for me in the lobby.”

  They both nod and march off while Mcallister leads me to the elevator. He presses a pearl button and the doors slide open. After the doors shut, I look through the glass wall at the street below as it grows smaller and smaller. When we arrive at the top floor, the door dings open, and Mcallister leads me down the hall to my room.

  “This is where you’ll be staying until Congress decides what to do with you.”

  Congress. My being a Patrician actually garners attention from Congress. But starving people in the Community Garden don’t deserve a second thought, apparently.

  I step into the hotel room and stop short. This place is fit for a Patrician. A plush white carpet covers the floor. A black piano graces the wall, surrounded by black leather couches. A kitchen harbors the other side of the apartment, and a large window stretches across the opposite wall, peering out to the golden city. Plants line the base of the window, and black drapes frame the edges. Another doorway branches off the living room, probably leading to the bedroom.

  My eyes automatically dart to the ceiling, looking for cameras. Sure enough, one small round globe above the kitchen, another above the living room.

  Mcallister walks up to the window, his arms locked behind his back. “Your test results came out positive. You’re a Patrician.”

  “It’s a mistake. My dad manages the apple orchard. My mother was a seamstress.” This is common knowledge by now, surely. “I wasn’t born into an elite family. I’m a common Proletariat.” I shrug. “They’ll see the truth when they study my blood, I’m sure.”

  Mcallister shakes his head. “One of your parents lied to you.”

  I stare at him. “My parents wouldn’t lie.” I step beside Mcallister and look way down at the streets below. The wide gap from my windowsill to the street is dizzying. “Why does it matter whether or not I’m Patrician, anyway?”

  He turns to face me, his dark eyes glittering in the dim light. I used to be afraid of him, this tall, built man/boy who took me deep into the dungeon. But somehow, over the course of a few days, he’s grown on me. He’s not as cruel as the other Defenders. Maybe because he’s still significantly young and hasn’t been hardened liked the seasoned Defenders. And unlike the Defenders who don’t give me the time of day, Mcallister answers my questions, looks me in the eye, more like a human than a robot. He’s kind of grown on me.

  “The Patricians have a power over us,” he whispers. “But they can’t control you, and that’s why they think you’re Patrician.” He turns from the window. He looks so stiff, his back straight, his chin high. “I should go.” He eyes swivel to the cameras and he turns to leave.

  “Wait,” I say. He pauses, then turns to face me. “You’re not—you’re not as mean as the other Defenders. I mean, you actually have a grain of humanity. Why are you being so nice to me?”

  A strange emotion flickers in and out of his eyes, as though holding onto some secret too valuable to share, then he smiles politely. “I’m just a Defender. I do whatever I’m told.” And he walks out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I can’t sleep all night. Everything that happened the past few days––the escape, my test, questions about how I’m Patrician––keeps me fully awake. So I rise and walk to the window. By the bright lights of the city, it doesn’t seem like midnight. Skyscrapers rise hundreds of stories into the air, their windows illuminated from within, making them shine like glowing pillars.

  Bright yellow lights speck the buildings. Green and red lanterns line the sidewalks below. Mcallister said it’s December. A holiday lingers in the air, one that only Patricians celebrate. And with that holiday comes the decor of tiny lights, spruce trees, and the heady smell of cinnamon.

  A smell that now reminds me of Forest.

  On the street below, musicians play lovely acoustic instruments and women wearing togas stand by and watch. Across the street is a park illuminated by lanterns and marked with lamp-lit trails. Foreign trees rise from the ground, their trunks long and bare, and fronds billow out from their tops. The deep green grass is neatly mowed in elaborate designs like artwork, and benches line the walkway. Everything is too green for winter. But if what Mcallister said was true, it never snows here, or even gets cold. The weather is controlled.

  After digging around the kitchen and stuffing myself with food I’ve only heard about, I go back to my room, collapse on the most comfortable bed I’ve ever lain in, and pull the covers up to my chin. After over a week in the stagnant cell, this mattress feels divine. I close my eyes, exhausted, depleted, and mentally and physically spent.

  Thoughts weave in and out of my mind and back again. And I try to decide which one to grasp onto, but sleep takes over and my thoughts dissolve into nothingness.

  ***

  Mornings are beautiful creatures. The sun blooms on the horizon, searing off every last nightmare and flooding the planet with light. It welcomes the earth with a warm embrace, kisses it with sun rays, lifts our hearts and makes us look up into the sky where hope lies.

  I might be going home today.

  I’m not sure, but if they get the results they’re looking for, they might just let me go.

  My stomach growls, despite the buffet I had for myself last night, and I walk into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. The shelves are packed with more food than my entire family receives in their monthly rations. They have real eggs, not the powdered dust we get. The bacon looks like it’d been freshly sliced, not heavily salted and dried. I pull everything out, when a gentle knock sounds at the door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  An older, plump woman steps in. She wears thick-rimmed glasses, and her black hair is pulled back into a tight bun, marked with graying streaks. “Oy. You’re already awake.” Her voice is bright and heavily a
ccented, every word like a note in a song. “I was going to make breakfast for you.” She welcomes herself inside, dragging a giant suitcase with her, and shuts the door firmly behind. “My name is LeighAnn. I’ll be your maid during your time in Frankfort.”

  “M-maid?”

  She frowns. “Yes. You are Miss Ember Carter, no? I’m assigned to serve you.”

  “Oh.” I don’t need a maid, or a server, but I guess she was assigned this career just like I was assigned one of a farmer. “Good to meet you.”

  Her frown turns into a brilliant smile. “I’ve a few outfits for your wardrobe in this suitcase.”

  “Outfits?” I look down at the dress I wore yesterday, that I slept in, that I planned to wear today, because it’s so comfortable. I’m really not used to having multiple outfits.

  “For the dinners and parties. The feast of St. Nick is tomorrow night. You should look your best for the chief.”

  I cringe. “Feast of St. Nick?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not planning on staying for any…feasts.”

  “Ah, but you were invited! No one refuses an invitation from Chief Whitcomb.”

  I briefly wonder why the chief even cares whether or not I’m there, but LeighAnn belligerently rolls the suitcase into the bedroom before I get a chance to ask. I follow, listening to her list off words too foreign for me to understand. “Emerald taffeta, black pumps, silver laden hoops…” She begins unpacking the suitcase, hanging up the most elaborate gowns and togas I’ve ever seen, and all I can think is, why? Why am I suddenly being showered with gifts? Are all Patricians treated like royalty? Why me?

  The phone rings.

  “I’ll get that,” LeighAnn says in her sing-song voice. Before I can object, she hurries out of the room.

  I run my hand over the crimson gown on top of the pile. The fabric feels rough beneath my fingertips but shimmers like the scales of a fish. It’s so beautiful, so…rich. Fit for one of the queens I’ve seen pictured in our old history books.

  LeighAnn returns with an earpiece. “For you.” She hands me the earpiece and a phoneband.