black tiger (Black Tiger Series Book 1)

by Sara Baysinger

  “But…I’m your sister!”

  He spins around. “And you think that you get off the hook for sharing my blood? If anything, you pose more danger than the average criminal.”

  “Because of my Alpha Blood.”

  His eyes harden. “Someone’s been telling you secrets.”

  “Rain has.”

  He smiles a little. “Well, Rain’s right. It’s because of your Alpha Blood and your ridiculous empathy for the brainless Proletariats. You pose a threat to me and my leadership, and I simply don’t need the extra burden of worrying about you overthrowing my position hanging over my head.” He locks his hands behind his back. “But, first things first. Leaf is your best friend, yes?”

  I look at Leaf. He still stands erect, his chin held high, his eyes void of any emotion. The Leaf I knew is gone. But he has to be in there somewhere. He just has to be changed back—reversed—given the antitoxin.

  Knowing I tread on dangerous grounds with Titus, I shrug and look back at him. “I knew Leaf in school. I wouldn’t say we were best friends.”

  “Except that you would give your life up for him, like you almost did on Career Day.”

  My spine tenses. one. vertebrae. at. a. time.

  “It’s sort of funny, isn’t it?” Titus asks.

  What? What’s funny? Nothing about this situation is funny.

  “It’s funny,” he says. “How you were willing to give up your life for Leaf, and now here he is, delivering you to your death sentence. It truly is ironic. Poetic, almost.”

  No. Nothing about this is poetic.

  Titus nods at two Defenders standing by the wall. They march to my side. One of them pins my arms behind my back, and my heart pounds because what the shoddy inferno is Titus planning on doing?

  “Close your eyes,” he tells the Defenders. And I wonder why he’s telling them that, and then I realize it’s so I won’t compel them. Because compelling requires eye contact.

  “Leaf,” Titus says.

  “Chief?”

  Titus pulls a dagger out of his belt and studies it. Then he presses it into Leaf’s palm and says, “Stab your wrist.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  That’s exactly what Rain told me to do during my Black Tiger Test. I didn’t do it. But Leaf does. Without hesitation, he presses the blade hard against the vein in his wrist.

  “Leaf, no!” I scream.

  But Leaf isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Titus. I try to bolt toward him, but the Defenders hold me tight.

  The blade slices through the skin, and crimson blood begins streaming down his wrist. I glare at Titus. “Now have him wrap it up.”

  Titus stares at me a moment with a look akin to pity, then after what seems to be an eternity, he nods at Leaf. “Wrap it up.” He pulls a kerchief out of his back pocket and tosses it to Leaf. Leaf, now extremely pale, obediently wraps the wound and my racing heart slows, the anxiety ebbing away.

  “I’ve learned my lesson,” I whisper hoarsely. “I-I won’t ever challenge you. I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll never even tell anyone we’re related.”

  “I’m afraid everyone who’s important already knows. You’re still dying tomorrow, by the way.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Let Leaf go, and I’ll be happy to die however you please.”

  He stops pacing. He looks at me. Then at Leaf.

  “You know what?” he says. “I don't really want you to die happy. Leaf here is a pathetically useless Defender. He’s small and weak and lanky and easily disposable.” He shrugs. “I think I’ll kill him.” And he looks at Leaf and says. “Take that knife, and stab your throat.”

  I hardly process what Titus is saying when Leaf sinks the dagger into his jugular.

  “No!” I scream. I twist my arms from the Defenders, but their hold is tight, firm as steel.

  Leaf begins gasping. A gurgling sound rises up from his throat and he coughs up blood. He falls to his knees, vomiting, choking on his own blood.

  “Leaf, stop! Pull the knife out!”

  But he doesn’t obey, and I remember I have to make eye-contact for compulsion to work, and Leaf isn’t looking at me.

  “Titus, stop him!” Tears sting my eyes, blurring the vision of Leaf, now convulsing on the floor.

  But Titus just stands there, arms crossed, as though watching some humorous show. And I’m pulling against the Defenders. I’m shouting out profanities. I’m wishing the whole world would just pause for a moment, let me butt in for once just let me stop the madness.

  Leaf’s body goes still. The Defenders release me and I race to his side.

  “Leaf!” I jerk out the dagger, tip his head back, trying to clear his airway. But it’s too late. He’s not breathing and blood is everywhere. His eyes are open and unfocused. When I check his pulse it’s non-existent.

  This time. This time he really is dead.

  My breath freezes in my lungs. Everything around me stops. I cover my mouth and tears stream down my cheeks—they stream down my cheeks onto the tile floor. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. He was dead and then he was alive and he was supposed to stay alive, but he’s not—he’s not and what the shoddy inferno is wrong with Titus?

  “You didn’t have to kill him!” I scream through my gulps of tears.

  “It’s the price of being close to a rebel, my dear Ember,” Titus says. I look at him through my tears, and he shrugs, his green eyes dancing. “You might as well go ahead and consider your family dead, too.”

  Red red red everything I see is red. And I’m on him. My hands wrap around his neck, and I’m strangling him, and I hate him I hate him I hate him.

  We tumble to the ground and my fist cracks into his nose.

  An electric current bolts up my arm, and my body crumples to the floor. I curl into a ball, the shock of the band making my body numb.

  “Leave my family out of this,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “After what you just did?” He stands and wipes the blood seeping from his nose. He looks at the blood on his hands, then glares at me. “No one has ever made me bleed before.” He laughs. “Of course it would be my own sister.”

  He walks to Leaf and picks the dagger up off the floor, then strides toward me. The look in his eyes is the very definition of evil. My blood races through my veins as he approaches, and I realize he’s going to end this quickly. He’s going to stab me in the heart. I’m going to be dead right now. I close my eyes, waiting for the blow. Instead, a sharp pain stabs my thigh.

  Titus pulls the dagger out of my leg, and I can’t think past the blinding pain as the dark crimson seeps through my green dress.

  “Just a little something to remember me by,” he says. “Tonight, while you bleed in prison, waiting for your death with no knowledge of how your dad and brother will die or how badly they will beg for their sorry little lives, you'll have this wound to remind you that I am all-powerful, all the citizens of Ky love me, and no one can take me down.” He leans in close, his breath on my ear. “Not even you, little sister.” He stands, then kicks me hard in the side, and it’s in that moment of excruciating pain that a hot flame grows inside me. It rises up and chokes me and I want Titus dead. I want him to pay for everything he’s done to me, to Leaf, to the Jacksons and every other Proletariat in Ky.

  I want to assassinate him.

  “Get her out of here,” he mutters.

  One of the Defenders grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, then leads me, one leg dragging, out the door. He shoves me into the jeep, and I cover my wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but trying even harder to stop my rage from completely blinding me. My leg is throbbing, but the pain is nothing compared to the pain in my heart. Leaf is dead. Killed himself, and not by his own choice. Now Dad and Elijah are in danger. And Titus needs to die.

  “Son of a jackal!” I kick the seat in front of me, but the rough movement sends searing pain into my leg, and I hunch over and puke on the car floor.

  Minutes later, the tall, round glass building
appears ahead. The prison. Midmorning sun glints off the windows, making the building look beautiful and glorious. But I know better. This is a place of death, not beauty.

  The Defender drags me down the concrete stairs to the underground prison that smells like the crotch-rot of hell. I can hardly process where we’re going, which turns we take, how long it takes us to arrive at the pit of the prison. I can’t stop thinking about Leaf, convulsing on the floor, a river of blood coating his neck.

  We step into the same shoddy room where I was kept before. Except the chamber is completely empty because all the other prisoners either escaped or died less than a week ago. And Judah. Judah’s not here to keep me company this time.

  The Defender presses a button, the electric shield goes down, and he shoves me into the first cell. I stumble to the ground, then stretch my throbbing leg out to ease the pain. Titus probably already has jeeps headed out to the orchard to collect my family. And since I’m dying tomorrow, there’s nothing I can do.

  Nothing.

  Letting out a moan, I lay my head on the cold concrete floor and give into my grief.

  ***

  Hours must go by. Hours and hours in this pit of loneliness and despair. The bleeding in my leg has stopped, but my dress is caked in blood, as are my hands. And I have a terrible headache, but then what is a headache when you know you’re going to die soon? I wish Judah were here to keep me company. Heck, I’d even take Mcallister. But it’s just me. Alone. With my fears of my impending death and regret that I didn’t take Rain’s offer to work with him to assassinate Titus.

  Because I really really really want to kill Titus now.

  But Rain is a traitor. He never cared about my life from the beginning, and I guess I knew that, but it still hurts.

  Because I was sort of starting to care about him.

  Everything he said last night tumbles around in my brain, begging to be heard. Not the assassinating the chief thing. The Emmanuel thing. About God being with us on a very personal level.

  Because I’m feeling it again. I’m feeling this very real presence begging me to call out to it. Maybe I’m hallucinating or maybe I’m desperate, but I feel it so strongly that it almost gives me hope.

  God wants to be known by you.

  How, though? How can I know this God who completely evades us? How can I find something that insists on staying hidden?

  SEEK ME.

  Chills spread across my body, making my heart shudder and my brain think things I shouldn’t be thinking. There’s something about facing death that makes me question…everything. There’s something about the great unknown that makes me want to know the Great Unknown.

  And I want to know Him. I want to know this Power, this Being, this Creator who created me with much thought and pride and affection. So I close my eyes. I focus on the energy surrounding me. And I whisper one word.

  “Please—”

  But I can’t finish the silent prayer, because praying to nothing is the first step to insanity.

  The door slides open, and Forest steps into the chamber. I sigh in relief. I can’t really stand with my throbbing leg, so I just sit here, pathetic, and look up at him. After hours of crying, I must look like a wreck. But Forest doesn’t look any better, honestly, with red-rimmed eyes and disheveled hair and his usually pressed politician’s clothes wrinkled.

  “Are you okay?” I glance over his body, looking for bruises, anything to tell me Titus beat him.

  “Fine.” He looks at my leg, frowns. “Faring better than you, obviously.” He glances back at the Defender who accompanied him, his jaw clenching. “They won’t let me take you out of here. Not even to talk. But I spoke to Titus. And he told me your sentence.”

  I look down.

  “Don’t worry,” Forest says. “I’m going to speak to him again in the morning to get you out of here.”

  Wow. Déjà vu.

  “It’s useless. Titus is useless.” I look at Forest, my heart pounding with hatred. “He made him kill himself––” My voice chokes off in a sob. “He made Leaf—” And I can’t finish. Because it’s too much. It’s too difficult to say aloud and I want to refuse to believe it but I can’t. I can’t. Because I saw it with my own eyes.

  Leaf is dead. Again.

  “What he did was obviously wrong,” Forest says. “I don’t know what came over him, but Titus….” He sighs. “I grew up with him, and he can be reasoned with.”

  I stare at him. “Are you out of your shoddy mind? Titus is psychotic! If you want to try to help, forget Titus. Go to the Garden. Find my family and save them.”

  “He’s not going after your family. He only said that to scare you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I already spoke with him once. And though he’s determined to believe you’re a threat, he doesn’t care about your family.”

  Somehow I find this hard to believe.

  “Listen,” Forest says. “If you want to be angry, take your rage out on Rain. He’s the one who smoked you out. He’s the reason you’re here. And don’t worry—I already gave him what was coming to him.”

  I wonder what he means by that, but then I decide that I honestly don’t care.

  “Whatever came over Titus today will pass. He’ll sleep on his dramatic decision tonight, and he’ll release you tomorrow. He’ll listen to me. I know he will.” But by the look in his eyes, I wonder if he really feels that certain. He plants his hands on his hips and looks at me. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?”

  I think. I think of my family and wish Forest would go save them because he sure isn’t going to be able to save me. I think of Leaf and wish Forest would give him a proper burial. I think of the government as whole and wish he would just fix it. But he can’t do any of those things any more than I could have.

  Because Titus is in ultimate control.

  “No,” I whisper.

  Forest nods. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.” He offers a smile that hardly sets my mind at ease, and then he walks out of my life forever.

  ***

  Forest doesn’t show up again before the Defenders come to my cell to escort me out of the prison. I get an entire bus to myself, similar to the one that brought me to Frankfort in the first place. The stink of exhaust fills the air. I lean back on the cold, metal seat and watch the city pass by in a blur of silvery blue- and gold-tinted windows.

  When we pass through the cupola, the day turns from sunny spring to overcast and cold with a light blanket of snow covering the ground. Winter has begun in the rest of Ky, and I can’t help but feel as though I’ve stepped out from a dream––or a nightmare—back into reality.

  After we cross the dam, the bus takes an exit off the interstate and veers toward the perimeter of Frankfort, a dusty plain containing the Rebels Circle. A place known as the Outer Ring. And I notice a crowd of people sitting on bleachers, like they’re about to watch some sort of sick show.

  Squinting through the front window, I can see the thirty-foot stakes standing in the distance, the sunlight glinting off the rings on the top. I shudder and look away. This is how I’m going to die. As the rebel who helped Jonah Walker and his gang. And where are they now? Why aren’t they helping me now? And do I regret my decision? I did for a while. But now that Leaf is dead by Titus’s hands, I want the Resurgence to revolt. I mean, if Walker’s comrades take down the government, take down Titus, then sparing Walker’s life that day in my apartment would have been worth my own.

  The bus pulls to a stop. When I step off, a freezing wind blasts into my face, and my body tenses.

  “Everyone has the freedom to choose their actions,” a Defender says as he grips my arm.

  “You chose to turn your back on our country. And with that decision comes your execution.”

  “Don’t kill her!” Someone shouts from the bleachers. I look over to see the Patrician spectators stand up.

  “Give her one more chance!” Someone else shouts.

&nbs
p; “Offer another trial!”

  Others begin shouting their agreement, telling the Defender to spare my life, to let me go, and I realize, all the people came here to fight for me. How touching. And how strange, that I was a nobody less than a week ago, and now the somebodies are speaking for me.

  But the head Defender pulls a gun out and pulls the trigger and a loud BANG consumes my eardrums, and suddenly I’m being yanked toward one of the posts. He ties the end of the cord around my ankles. Without warning, the cord sweeps me off my feet. My head hits the ground hard before the cord pulls me upside down into the air. I catch glimpses of the glorious buildings of Frankfort, glinting silver and gold within the Cupola. Then I begin to spin and the rest of Ky appears before me. Shabby and shaded by winter clouds, it’s never looked so cold or dejected. And then everything begins spinning faster and faster as I’m pulled into the air like a hooked fish.

  The spinning stops when I reach the top of the circle. Blood rushes to my head. My heartbeat thrashes against my eardrums. I can feel it pulsing in my neck and cheeks and behind my eyeballs, and I can’t breathe, I can’t remember a single time I’ve ever been this terrified. My hands hang limply in the air while my body swings helplessly like a freshly killed chicken being drained of blood.

  A whistle blows.

  The Defender lights the end of long post.

  And then I feel it.

  Extreme, unbearable heat radiates from below.

  I automatically look down, but heat burns my eyes, forcing them shut. This is what utter terror feels like. Like there’s no hope and these are my last few breaths of life. I’m going to die today—now—this very moment and I’m not ready I’m not ready I’m definitely not ready.

  And I wonder, what was it all worth? What was the meaning of my life? I was raised. Given a career. But before I could do anything worthwhile, I was taken to prison, refused to help Rain, and now here I am. Dying with nothing—nothing—to show for myself.

  Because I’m a shoddy coward.

  The fire grows hotter, the incalescence creeping around my body like a snake in flames. And for the first time in my life, I say a full prayer.