black tiger (Black Tiger Series Book 1)

by Sara Baysinger

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Flanked by two Defenders, I’m taken back outside, led into the jeep, and driven through the city to the capitol building.

  A Defender is waiting at the front door. He opens the car door for me. “Come with me, Miss Carter.”

  I follow him into the building, up the stairs, and into the large square chamber with the bronze statue of Quentin Whitcomb where the ceiling arches up into a dome. The Defenders lead me up the marble stairs to the second floor, which overlooks the first floor, then down an open hall lined with tall marble pillars, to a pair of double doors. The Defenders by the door immediately wave us along. No waiting period, not even for a minute, and I wonder, what could be so urgent that the chief could just drop everything to meet with me?

  We enter a large room that smells ancient and looks ancient, and I feel like we took a step one- or maybe two-hundred years into the past. The hardwood floor creaks beneath our feet. The ceiling is high. It’s engraved and painted with odd designs, and two chandeliers hang from it. There are two fireplaces for this room—one on either side of the room. Beside one fireplace is a door that branches off into another room. The other fireplace is flanked by tall bookcases, packed full of books. A large mirror hangs above the mantel. Tall windows line the opposite wall, and right in front of them, in the center of the room, is a marble desk where Titus sits in a gold-fringed chair.

  He props his elbows on the desk, his chin resting on tented manicured fingers. “Miss Carter.” His voice is exuberant. “Please, come in.” He gestures for me to sit.

  I do, in one of the plush, red chairs in front of his desk.

  His eyes meet mine, and they’re suddenly not friendly anymore, but hardened, forced, and I realize, he hates me. This chief, this supreme leader of Ky, has some beef against me and I have no idea why. Well, maybe I do. Maybe it’s because of the rebels breaking into my room and that explosion that I had nothing to do with.

  “I assume you know why you’ve been called here,” Titus says.

  “Um. Because of that explosion this morning?” I feel like a child answering to a father. “And maybe because you assume the rebels were in my apartment?”

  “They were in your apartment,” Titus says, leaning back in his chair. “We now have evidence of that.”

  “Yes. I had no idea they were there, though.” The lie comes easily with my life at stake and all.

  “Their gun shots should have been loud enough for you to hear.”

  Actually, no. Not with their fancy guns. The blue lasers flared out of those pistols as quiet as wind. But I can’t tell that to Titus without giving myself away. “I-I didn’t hear a thing. And if those guns were so loud, why didn’t one of the Defenders on my hall hear it?”

  Titus narrows his eyes.

  “I don’t know how you expect me to believe you, Carter.” The way he says my last name is full of loathing…and something else. Sarcasm? “We have proof of your rebellion, so no more lies, please. Now, I’ve another matter I would like to speak to you about, and that’s concerning your conversation with Sonega.”

  “My results?” I sit up a little straighter.

  “Yes.” Titus’s lips thin out. “What did he tell you?”

  “My mom was a Patrician, and that’s how I have Patrician blood.”

  “Anything else?” He leans forward.

  “Not that I know of,” I say carefully. “Sonega told me I’m Patrician. A man in a lab coat came in and handed him a tablet. Then Sonega called you, and then he sent me away.” I briefly remember my stupid mention of the antitoxin.

  Oh. That must be what this is about. Maybe I should just spill.

  “If this is about my knowledge of the antitoxin, I learned that prior to my meeting with Sonega. He had nothing to do with that.”

  “Good.” Titus shuffles some papers on his desk, not even phased with my mention of the antitoxin. “Very good.” He looks at his Defenders, all six of them standing around the room, and says, “Please leave. I would like to speak to Miss Carter. Alone.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I hear the door click behind me. All the Defenders are gone.

  Why does Titus trust me enough to be alone in a room with him when I’m supposedly a rebel who could essentially kill him? Then I remember the cameras in every room and Defenders, who would rush in and shoot me.

  I sink deeper into my chair and peek up at Chief Whitcomb.

  He stares right at me with a hint of amusement in his green eyes. “I know your secret.”

  My hands begin trembling. Is he planning on torturing me until I admit to working with the Resurgence?

  “I’m not—” I begin, and then decide I need to be a bit more convincing, and I straighten in my chair and look him in the eye. “I swear to you. I am not working with the Resurgence. I promise. I never even heard of them until Leaf told me, just before he died. I don’t really want to work with them, and I didn’t help them—”

  “Not that secret,” he snaps. And he laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs and says, “I know you helped Walker. That’s hardly a secret so quit lying. Holy Crawford. If you insist on being a liar, at least learn how to be more convincing.”

  My blood grows hot.

  “Tell me your other secret,” Titus says, still smiling that cold, insipid smile. “The one that neither Forest Turner, nor Rain, and not even your little brother, Elijah, knows.”

  And I’m breathless and so incredibly confused, and I’m racking my brain for some piece of information that Titus is digging for, but I find nothing because my life is an open book and Titus know everything about me. What secret can he possibly be talking about?

  “I don’t—I don’t have any…other…secrets.”

  He blinks. Twice. His smile vanishes and his green eyes harden. “Look at me, Ember. Do I look stupid to you? Tell me, do I look completely naive?”

  I blink because this is not the way I expected a conversation with Titus to go, and now my heartbeat is tripping over itself and I’m honestly hoping that whatever information he’s digging for will magically appear so he can get off my shoddy back.

  He stands. “Do I look like a brainless commoner, whom you can just look at and say you don’t know anything, and expect me to believe you?” He laughs and his smile is back. His wide, brilliant smile that is so incredibly deceiving. “You expect me to believe you don’t know?”

  Has he gone mad? Officially lost his shoddy mind? But he appears completely level-headed as he pulls out a gun and studies it.

  My heart stops. I grip the armrest of my chair, wondering if maybe I should bolt because this psychotic man-child is holding a gun, and he clearly hates me.

  “Kn-know what?” I ask.

  He laughs out loud. The sound seems friendly and jovial, but I know better. And he looks at me, smiling. “Did she seriously never tell you? Your mother never told you the truth about who you really are? Are you serious?” And he laughs again. “What a brilliant surprise this must be for you, then. To find out that you don’t have just any Patrician blood. You have the chief’s bloodline. You’re royalty. To find out from me that you, Ember Carter, are my sister.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The chief's sister? Me? Can’t possibly be true...can it?

  “I—I think you might have me confused with someone else,” I whisper.

  “Oh, no. Absolutely not.” Titus places his pistol back into its holster. “I just received a call from Sonega. I’m sure you were in the room when he made it. He gave me the code. I had the results sent over and the numbers translated for me. You see, Ember. We have the same DNA. We share the same mother and father—”

  “Wait. No. That’s where you’re wrong. My dad is Andrew Carter.”

  “That’s what your parents told you, yes.” Titus walks around to the front of the desk, leans back against it, and crosses his arms. “Andrew Carter took our runaway mother in. But he’s not your real father. Aden Whitcomb was your real father.”

  My
thoughts crash all around me, and I’m trying to think, I’m trying to think straight, I’m trying to process this information that simply cannot be true. Because Aden Whitcomb has been an untouchable icon all my life and there’s no way he could be my father. “You’re lying. You—you’re a liar.”

  He frowns. “I don’t believe anyone’s ever called me that before. Fitting, that it would be my own sister.” He sighs, straightens. “What reason would I have to lie to you? Why on earth would I want a suspected criminal to be my sister? The idea is completely absurd. Almost embarrassing. If Sonega never found out we were related, I might have kept the information to myself. But, here we are. I guess you have a right to know. And now the country will know. You’re real name is Ember Whitcomb, and you’re the chief’s sister.”

  I stare at him. I blink. I shake my head, stand, and pace. I’m Ember Carter, a farmer’s daughter. From the Proletariat. My mom loved my dad. She couldn’t have been with Chief Aden before my dad. That’s simply impossible. And how could I be Titus’s sister? No.

  No, no.

  I find myself sitting back down, all these thoughts whirling around in my head like the whirlwinds of a winter vortex. Because, if Whitcomb is telling the truth, then my identity—my entire childhood—was a lie.

  “Why didn’t they tell me?” I look at Titus. “Why on earth would Mom have kept this information from me?”

  “I don’t know.” He sighs, walks back around his desk and sits down. “According to Father, she was a flighty thing. Overly dependent on her emotions. Never thinking through her actions. Mentally unstable, that one.”

  I can feel heat rising to my face, but I bite back any remarks that might piss Titus off.

  This is a strange, strange situation. The chief, the person I’m most uncomfortable around, happens to be my brother. Maybe. A reunion like this should end with happiness and tears of joy and maybe even a hug, but here we are. Chief Titus Whitcomb, my brother, sitting at his marble desk, staring at me with cool indifference.

  “I’m just glad I found you.” He breaks the silence. “You’ve heard the rumors, I’m sure, about my long-lost sister. Mother was caught red-handed working with the Resurgence, and that’s why she was executed—”

  “So she was executed?”

  He looks at me, shrugs, and nods. I guess I knew. I knew she was executed. I just hoped I was wrong.

  “So,” he says. “I had reason to believe that wherever my sister was, she was working with rebels, too. See, when Father arrested Mother, he didn’t bother taking you with him, the fool he was. He figured you were harmless. But he never got around to telling me your whereabouts before he died suddenly of a heart attack. So I knew you were out there somewhere, and I hoped Father was right—that you were harmless. And when I found out you were my sister, I was quite disappointed. Because, your records don’t exactly scream innocence. I thought you were a spy living inside the Cupola. We do not like spies in the Cupola, you know.”

  I nod.

  “But, I’m a good judge of character,” he says. “And I believe you’re telling the truth about your innocence.”

  He does? He believes me now?

  “I’m just glad that you’re not conspiring to rise against me. I’m glad that you seem like a decent girl who really doesn’t care for drama or fame.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly right.” And my heart pounds because finally—finally—things are going my way. “So…what now?” Because I just found out I have royal blood, and I’m not entirely sure what to do with that. This information kind of gives me the same thrill that finding out I was a Patrician did. None. What does give me a thrill is the fact that Titus might just clear my records.

  “Well,” Titus says. “If you’re really as innocent as you claim, and if you can avoid raising any more doubts in my mind about you, then I suppose you could have whatever you want and be on your way.”

  “Wait, what?”

  He regards me carefully. “If you agree to return to your home and avoid stirring up drama,” he says, “I’ll give you whatever you ask for. Within reason, of course.”

  “You mean I can go home?” Hope. I grasp it. “I can work in the Garden with my dad?”

  He nods.

  “And…food? You’ll provide my family with plenty of food for the rest of our lives?”

  He smiles. “I want you to draw up a document stating exactly what you want, and it’ll be granted to you.” And now he’s smiling. A warm, genuine smile that sets me completely at ease. “It’s the least I can do for my long-lost sister.”

  PART III

  home

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  News has a way of spreading at the speed of electricity through Frankfort. News of my royal blood reaches the ears of the citizens that night, and the next morning, I’m showered with gifts, welcome cards, flowers, sweets. The kind of gifts that would make me particularly fond of the people who sent them. It’s a popularity contest among Patricians.

  I’m treated like royalty by Titus himself. Defenders line the hallway outside my room and even the street below. Titus assured me it was to keep me protected. I’m not sure if that’s really the reason, or if he still suspects I’m working with the Resurgence. But it doesn’t matter. He’s letting me go home. Finally. Not only that, but he’s letting me have whatever I want.

  I spend the morning drawing up a document. More food to last us the rest of our lives. For Elijah to get to choose his career when he comes of age. Pain medicine for Dad. Art supplies at my request. I feel very Patrician making demands for things we had absolutely no access to, but I might as well take advantage of my position in society.

  I wish I could ask for more food for everyone in Ky. And equality and justice and basically an entire government makeover, but I doubt that’ll pass over smoothly. By the way Titus said I could be on my way, I’m thinking he wants to get me out of his hair.

  Because of my royal blood, he sees me as a threat. Because that’s how Patricians think. It’s all competitions and one-upping each other. Family and friendship and integrity don’t really get much value around here, which is why I’m dying to get out. When I finish the document, I have a Defender deliver it, then LeighAnn begins preparing me for the afternoon.

  Because I have a major interview.

  Apparently, I’m the talk of the city. I’m popular now. More so than I was before, when they just thought I had Patrician blood. Amazing how status alone can make people adore you. I was taught to be nice in school. Be honest. Be kind and do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. And that’s what makes people like you. But not here. Here, your popularity depends on your status in society. And right now, I’m at the top of the chain, just below Titus.

  And I’m not really sure how I feel about that.

  A gaudy lavender toga, silver heels, and black ribbons are laid out for me to wear. River fixes my hair in a series of bouncy curls. I’ve never even had curls until I came here. Now, since that’s the only way I’ve ever been seen in public, it’s how everyone else perceives me. Would anyone even recognize me with straight hair and farmers clothes? Probably not.

  And I’m not sure how I feel about that, either.

  ***

  The interview is intense. People watching me. More people watching me on their televisions at home. And I briefly wonder if Dad’s heard the news yet. Probably not. This sort of news doesn’t usually make it out to the Garden.

  After the interview, a host of people line up to meet me. I’m still shell-shocked from being on camera. I mean, the interview was easy enough. I just had to answer a series of easy, shallow questions that were written down ahead of time by the audience. How does it feel to be the chief’s sister? What do you plan to do with your new power? Why do you want to return to the Community Garden? Aren’t you happy you found your family? As if I was some sort of lost orphan. I don’t tell them that my Proletariat father and brother are more family that Titus will ever be.

  And now, all I want is to return to m
y hotel room and soak in the silence, recuperate from all this exhausting socializing that really leaves me depleted. Better yet, I want to return to the Community Garden. And I will. I will get to return. First thing in the morning, according to Titus.

  After the cameras have shut off, people line up to greet me, welcome me home, and pepper me with more questions and shower me with more compliments. Because now that I’m famous and rich, everyone suddenly wants to be my friend. I honestly don’t care about making any friends in this shoddy place.

  By the time the studio is finally empty, I’m wiped out. Relief washes over me when Forest appears amidst the lights and cameras. We haven’t talked since that kiss, but I’m still infinitely grateful for his company, awkward or not.

  “You look exhausted,” he says. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” We step outside to the brilliant sunlight. “It’s a beautiful day for a stroll,” Forest says. “Do you want to walk?”

  As if there’s ever a bad day in Frankfort with the Cupola.

  “Yes,” I say. “Let’s walk.”

  He extends his elbow and I take it. I need air. I need to exercise my body, make my heart pump a little extra blood to my brain so I can process everything that’s going on.

  “So how does it feel?” Forest asks. “Do you feel a little more appreciated? A little less…invisible?”

  I smile and look down at the sidewalk. “Yes and yes. Although it’s hard to accept appreciation when it has more to do with my family line and less to do with who I am.”

  “But the chief’s sister is who you are.”

  “I did nothing to put myself there. I didn’t come to this higher status by my own work. I just happened to be born to two people.”

  He nods. “Either way, you have the chief bloodline, which means you have power.”