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black tiger (Black Tiger Series Book 1)

Page 5

by Sara Baysinger


  I wrap my ice-cold hands around the chair arms. Here it comes, the piece of paper that will determine my fate. I watch her pinky slit the envelope open. She reaches in and randomly pulls out a blue, plastic card.

  “Nathan Van,” she says. She lifts her gaze to us in the front row, her eyes catching Nathan, who stands and slowly walks up the stairs of the stage.

  “Nathan Van, you have been chosen for a career in the Line of Defenders.”

  He takes the I.D. Card, and with a faint nod mumbles, “Thank you for your generosity.”

  “Adriana Smith.” A girl whose father works in the bean fields walks up to accept her card. “Adriana Smith, you have been chosen a career in the Line of Defenders.”

  Another Defender career. As far as I know, the entire outside world has been consumed by the White Plague. We Ky citizens are the only remaining survivors. Who on this forsaken planet are we fighting? Ourselves? I don’t want to be drafted to the military. I don’t. But my chances of getting any other career are slim as name after name is called onto the stage, each person being assigned to the Line of Defenders.

  “Leaf Benedict,” Olivia Doss calls out.

  Leaf mutters a curse under his breath. “Wish me luck,” he whispers beside me. He walks up to the stage, his shoulders rigid, his steps stiff, as though he already knows what his fate is going to be.

  “Leaf Benedict, you have been chosen a career in the Line of Defenders.”

  The words are like a punch to my stomach. Leaf takes the card, and then, almost sarcastically, says, “Thank you for your generosity.” But he doesn’t look thankful with his nose pinched, his gaze dark. He returns to his seat beside me, and I’m almost afraid to look at him.

  “Leaf,” I whisper. “I-I’m sorry.”

  He stares at the concrete ground, his Career Card in his fist and his jaw clenching and unclenching, and I realize, I’ve never seen him look so angry. Leaf is carefree and smiling, but right now he’s scowling.

  “Don’t be,” he finally says before looking at me. “You’re going to be drafted, too.”

  The certainty in his voice knocks the breath out of my lungs. But, of course he’s right. He’s right. I am going to be a Defender of the Peace. I’m going to have to learn to conceal my emotions and arrest people for stealing, arrest starving people for trying to feed their families. That’s going to be me. I’m going to be a monster.

  I imagine firing guns and mushroom clouds. Pictures I’ve seen in our history books. And then I imagine the calm life I’d grown up with, surrounded by apple trees, with the sun on my face and a warm fire waiting for me at the end of the day. But now, I’m going to have to completely lose my humanity or be killed for refusing to be a Defender—

  “Ember Carter.”

  I jump when my name is called, and my heart drops into my stomach. I feel myself rise from my seat, though I don’t remember making the decision to do so. But my stubborn feet carry me up to the stage, one step in front of the other, matching the rhythm of my chaotic heartbeat, until I’m standing in front of Olivia Doss.

  “Ember Carter,” Olivia Doss says.

  Inhale. Exhale. Replenish bad air for good. Everything’s going to be okay.

  “You have been assigned the career of a—” she stops mid-sentence, blinks several times, furrows her brows and looks at me. “A… Farmer.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I blink. “What?”

  Olivia Doss pinches her lips together, waiting for me to take my card. I accept it, my hands trembling. I’m supposed to return to my seat. But I can’t exactly move. I read my I.D. just to make sure I didn’t hear wrong. Beside my name is the label: FARMER. How? They never give farming careers to girls, and why did I get this career when everyone else was assigned to the Line of Defenders?

  I don’t understand.

  Doss clears her throat, bringing my head up. She lifts a brow. Oh. Right. Time to return to my seat.

  “Th-thank you for your g-generosity,” I whisper, and stumble down the stairs to my seat.

  As Doss begins a short speech about how our labor doesn’t go unnoticed, and how we are all part of a community bringing this country to a better place, I try to comprehend what, exactly, just happened. Because nothing is going to change for me. I’ll go to the governor of the Community Garden and he’ll assign me as a field hand somewhere and my training will begin. But I’ll still live here in the Garden, close enough to visit my family often. My muscles relax and I look at my card once more, just to be sure. FARMER. I’m a farmer. I’m going to be a farmer. I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

  “Good going, Ember,” Leaf whispers beside me. “Fate must really love you.”

  I look sharply at him, the guilt suddenly eating me from the inside out. Here I am, busy basking in the glory of my own career, I forgot that he got the career he wanted least.

  “I’m so sorry, Leaf,” I whisper.

  “Don’t be.” His eyes are still dark with a certain passion I’ve never seen before. “Listen, you’ve been a great friend, and you’ll be a swell farmer.” He grins a grin that’s so out of place for this very moment. “Keep our parents in line, will ya?”

  “Of-of course.”

  He takes my hand in his sweaty, trembling ones and locks his gaze with mine. The deranged look in his eyes scares me.

  “No matter what happens,” he says. “I want you to stay strong.”

  “Um. Okay?” Why is he telling me this? Why can’t he wait until we say our goodbyes at the end of the ceremony?

  “And always remember this, Ember.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small piece of paper and hands it to me. There’s a picture of an apple in flames drawn on it.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s the sign of the Resurgence. Remember that Jonah Walker guy?”

  The picture of the green-eyed man flashes through my mind. “The criminal?”

  Leaf presses the small paper into my palm and forces my fingers to curl around it. “If you ever need anything, find Jonah Walker and show him this. He’ll help you.” He smiles, but it’s not the boyish smile I’m used to. It’s more of a sad, I’m-sorry-for-what’s-about-to-happen smile.

  Then he stands.

  And walks toward the stage.

  “Leaf,” I whisper. We’re not supposed to walk to the stage when the politicians give their speeches. We’re not supposed to leave our seats until we’re dismissed. I squeeze the paper in my hands, the shock of what Leaf is doing hitting me like a blow in the stomach.

  If they draft me in the military to fight for a cause I know nothing about, he’d said, I'm resisting them.

  Oh.

  Oh, rot.

  Leaf is going on a suicide mission.

  Everything seems to slow down in an instant. And I’m watching him walk toward the stage, and then I’m looking at Olivia Doss who has stopped talking mid-sentence and is staring at Leaf, and then I’m scanning the room at the Defenders who are already taking aim, and suddenly I’m shouting out his name but he doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even seem to hear me as he takes the steps two at a time, and bolts toward the microphone. He shoves Olivia Doss aside and begins talking. It takes a moment for my shock to subside enough for me to understand what he’s saying, and it’s not good.

  “Spies,” he says, “are watching our every move at the bars and in the fields. Our food rations,” he says, “have been late for the past six months, but if we miss one day of work, we’ll be arrested. Your children’s bellies,” he says, “are swollen with malnutrition. And what is our beloved Chief doing about that? What kind of utopian government are we living in, people?” He speaks fast and loud and clear with the authority of a leader.

  Defenders jog toward the stage and my blood runs cold.

  “We Proletariats live in poverty while the Patricians live in luxury. We slave away while they do nothing. And when we take a tiny portion of the food we grew in order to hold us over until our rations come in, we are sentenced to an execution.
” He slams one fist into the palm of his other hand. “We have to take a stand, people! We have to rise up! There are more of us than there are of them! Let’s fight!”

  The Defender closest to me cocks his gun and takes aim at Leaf, and I realize I’m the only person with the brains to stop him. Because everyone else is going to just stand there and watch and do nothing. So I shove the paper in my pocket and race toward the Defender.

  “Stop!” I scream.

  The Defender sees me and swerves his gun to me, but he’s too slow. I leap on his back and wrap my arm around his neck and a loud bang fills the air and my ears are suddenly ringing and my head is pounding, and I think I must have been shot, but I’m not entirely sure because there’s no pain except my ears and the pounding pounding pounding in my head. And we’re tumbling to the ground. The force of the fall makes my eyes open just in time to see his gun skid across the floor as he tries to pry my arms from around his neck.

  Defenders pour in from all directions. They grab me and yank me off the Defender’s shoulders. My arms are pulled behind my back. Something cold and hard wraps around my left wrist. I still don’t feel the pain of the bullet, though, and when I look up, I see why. Another Defender lies on the ground, not twenty feet away, blood oozing from his chest. When I jumped on the Defender’s back, I must have knocked his aim off so that he shot the other Defender.

  Oh, rot.

  I’m going to die for this.

  The Defenders drag me toward the door. I glance at the stage, hoping to catch a glimpse of Leaf. But he lies limp.

  So limp. I think…I think he might be dead.

  “Leaf—” My voice chokes off and I suddenly can’t breathe.

  Defenders crowd around him with their guns aimed, as if he would come back to life. As if, even if he did come back to life, his lanky form could overpower even one of them.

  “Leaf!” I try to twist my arms from the Defenders’ grasp, but they tighten their grip and jerk me around.

  I catch a glimpse of Dad in the bleachers. He’s shouting something as he tries to fight the crowd to get to me, but more Defenders block him on the stairs. By the way his mouth moves, I know he is calling out my name, but I can’t hear him. I can’t hear him above the chaotic noise of shouting people. I can’t hear him above the ringing in my ears. I can’t hear him above the rhythmic sound of my pounding heart.

  I try to pull free again. I twist and turn and jerk my arms and kick my legs. I feel like a wild animal, working with all my strength to get out of the iron grips holding my arms, when a hand grips my chin and forces my head up. Olivia Doss glares at me with doe-brown eyes that defy the hawklike claws of her fingernails digging into my cheeks.

  “Enough,” she orders. “Stand. Down.”

  What do I look like, a Defender? Does she think I’ll obey her command like a dog, the way the Defenders obey the politicians?

  I spit in her face.

  Her eyes widen and she slaps me. “Enough!”

  The sting of her hand on my cheek throws me over the edge, and I rip my arm from the Defender, curl my fingers, and crack my fist into her perfectly delicate jawbone.

  She lifts her hand to her face and stares at me, wide-eyed. I’m about to shout out a bunch of curses on the Defenders, on Olivia, on everyone, when a shock bolts up my left arm and electricity vibrates through my body. The edge of my vision goes dark. I hear Olivia talking, but her voice is a distant echo, drowning in the haze that consumes my mind.

  Then everything goes black.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I jolt awake. I’m sitting in the backseat of a military jeep. I’ve never been inside a vehicle. It’s nothing like riding a horse. The movement is too smooth and the scenery passes by so fast until I have the sudden urge to puke.

  Or maybe it’s the fact that Leaf is dead that sickens me.

  The thought rocks me until I’m sure I’m going to hurl. I cover my mouth and hunch over until the nausea passes. Someone is squeezing my brain, and when I look out my window the Community Garden passes by in a blur, and it only makes me more nauseous, so I look out the front window.

  The city buildings draw closer than I’ve ever seen them. They’re taller up close. A little more foreboding. A little less intriguing. Judging by the sunset on my left, we are heading north. I traveled north of square once when I was Elijah’s age. Leaf and I were exploring after school one day and ventured as far as the pumpkin patch, less than halfway to the city. There wasn’t much to see. The north end of the Community Garden isn’t nearly as exotic as the south end, where all the trees grow. Leaf and I never bothered going back.

  Leaf.

  Leaf is dead.

  Every thought in my head collapses at the one reality. And I’m breaking, fracturing, falling apart all over again. I want to scream. I want to weep. I want to rewind and redo the entire scene. I want to tell Leaf not to fight this time.

  Instead, I swallow my grief, think of something else so I don’t completely lose my sanity. We arrive at the Garden border. Giant black gates creek open. The jeep passes through them, and we’re immediately swallowed up by the buildings. No fields here. Only narrow roads filled with too many people and vehicles, surrounded by the towering structures that block the sun. Weeds pop up in the cracked pavement, but otherwise there is no greenery. Only brick and concrete and people.

  So many people.

  In the Community Garden, everyone wears similar clothes––farmers uniforms, which are provided by the government. The people here all wear different clothes, marking their careers. The uniforms are plain. Gray, navy blue, mustard yellow. The only people wearing red are the Defenders of the Peace, and there are at least two on every corner.

  The jeep steers through the city roads. Left. Right. Right. Left. The city is a giant maze. I couldn’t find my way back to the Community Garden if I tried. I wipe my palms on my pants, then squeeze my hands into fists and remind myself to inhale. Exhale. Replenish bad air for good. Everything’s going to be okay.

  Maybe.

  “Where are you taking me?” I ask the Defender in the front seat.

  “Shelby Prison.”

  Prison? Of course. This is exactly how I wanted to spend my first day as a careered citizen. In prison.

  We finally arrive at a one-story concrete building. The jeep pulls over and the Defender leads me through the doors. Behind the desk sits an older man with a graying beard and the red uniform of the Defenders. Except he has multiple pins lining his uniform.

  “Crime?” the Defender at the desk says without looking up.

  “Murder,” my captor says.

  “M-murder?” I say with a shocked laugh, but the Defender squeezes my arm, and the excruciating pain is enough to make me stifle my laugh.

  The older man writes something on a slip of paper and hands it to the Defender. “Lock her up.”

  And without a word, the Defender leads me down a long hallway and through a door to the prison stalls, which are packed full.

  “H-how long will I be in here?” I’m almost too afraid to ask.

  “Not long.” The Defender leads me into a cell at the end of the hall. “You’ll be taken to trial tomorrow.”

  “So, I’ll actually get a trial? Like, to defend myself?”

  He gives a grave nod, then sends me into my cell. A trial. Perfect. I guess the system isn’t as messed up as I thought. I’ll be able to defend my case in front of the judges and prove myself innocent, and by this time tomorrow, I’ll be home again, taking up my career as a farmer. Assuming everything works out okay.

  When he leaves, the room goes dark, save for a dim light glaring from the ceiling where a camera hangs. The majority of the cells are full. A man in the cell across from mine sweeps his gaze across my body, then gives out a low whistle. And the look in his eyes is enough to make my skin crawl. I wrap my arms tighter around my torso, both to fight off the unnerving chill and to block off his open stare.

  “What did they put you in here for?” he asks. “Pros
titu—”

  “Mind your own shoddy business,” I snap.

  His mouth clamps shut and he looks at the floor. But catcalls sound from the other cells, and no matter how much I tell them to shut up, my anger only seems to entertain them. So I curl into a ball. I face the wall and ignore the hoots and leers of these incarcerated men. The excitement eventually dies down until all I hear is the breathing of the other prisoners and the steady beat of my own heart.

  I take a moment to go over the past events in my head. I try to figure out what exactly went wrong. Because it all happened so fast. And Leaf is dead.

  Leaf is dead.

  That thought pinches my cerebral cortex like cold steel fingers, halts all my memories, and forces this one piece of information down my throat, and I can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe—until I do. And I hunch over and cover my mouth, the shock hitting me all over again with a force stronger than a gale.

  But, no. Leaf can’t be dead. He—he just can’t. I mean, we were together this morning. We were laughing. We were rolling our eyes at his mom’s reminiscing. I squeeze my eyes closed, seeing Leaf as he was just before he died. Angry, passionate, and a little sad. And then I remember the last conversation I had with him.

  Ember, he whispers beside me.

  Yes?

  You’ve been a great friend…

  So have you.

  No matter what happens, I want you to stay strong…

  I will.

  And always remember this…

  I open my eyes. Always remember what? The slip of paper. I reach into my pocket and feel the smooth, stiff paper brushing against my fingertips. What did he say about it?

  It’s the sign of the Resurgence. Jonah Walker….

  Jonah Walker. The green-eyed criminal. He’s the leader of the Resurgence. No wonder Forest didn’t want to tell me who Walker was. And no wonder Walker’s so notorious.

  He’s leading an uprising against the chief.

  Not that any of this matters now. I pull the paper out, stare at the picture of an apple in flames. So much treason in one scratched drawing. The apple represents the government, that’s obvious enough. And it’s burning. It’s burning in flames. I scrunch the paper into a tiny ball and flick it into the corner of the cell. There’s no way this Walker can help me now. I’m on my own. I’ll tell the judges the truth in the morning, and if God is real—and if he’s in my favor—I’ll be home with Dad by this time tomorrow.

 

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