black tiger (Black Tiger Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  PART I

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PART II

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  PART III

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Black Tiger Playlist

  black tiger

  black tiger

  the black tiger series—book one

  SARA BAYSINGER

  StarFinder Press

  black tiger

  Copyright © 2016 Sara Baysinger.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  Published by StarFinder Press

  Martinsville, Indiana

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events is strictly coincidental.

  Cover Design by Sara Baysinger

  Manuscript edited by Sarah Grimm

  Typesetting and formatting done by Perry Elisabeth Design

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Michael.

  Thank you for daring me to pursue my dreams.

  There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

  There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

  There is society where none intrudes,

  By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

  I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

  –-Lord Byron

  PART I

  the community garden

  CHAPTER ONE

  I always wondered what it would be like to be dirt. Dead and useless and ugly and walked on. Until a seed drops. Takes root. And grows into a sapling that grows into a tree that produces crates full of fruit every year. All because dirt gave it life.

  Dad says I put too much thought into the little things. But I don’t think so. Tomorrow is Career Day. I’ll leave my home—my family—to take up a new life in the city. And I wonder. I wonder if my life will have meaning then. If a seed will be planted, or if I’ll remain as useless as dirt. Unnoticed, unseen, disregarded, and overlooked.

  I pick up my crate of freshly picked apples and walk through the orchard toward my cabin. The brisk November wind whisks across the Community Garden and blasts into my face, filling my lungs. I absorb every last detail of my surroundings and commit it to memory, a picture to cling to when I need to remember what it’s like to live in the place city folk call paradise.

  And no wonder.

  My eyes scan the green rolling hills and blue sky. I’ve been told the surrounding megacity of Ky has gray skies and the only blade of grass for miles is planted in window boxes. As the only place that grows fresh food in this country, the Garden is like the heartbeat of Ky.

  I live in the apple orchard, in the midst of a mile-square patch of trees that I pruned and harvested from since childhood. Lush red fruit dot branches the way stars dot the sky. Apple trees grow bountiful fruit and are associated with the principles of generosity and abundance. So, of course, the apple tree is the sign of our charitable government.

  But to me, the apple tree means so much more than charity and generosity and every good thing Ky does for its citizens. I was born in this orchard. Mom’s laughter still dances through the trees. Musical. Vibrant. Alive. Almost like she’s still here. To me, the apple tree represents beauty and family and safety and home. But more than those, it represents life.

  The field hands have already left for the day, but farther down the row, my thirteen-year-old brother, Elijah, crouches in the branches of an apple tree, playing his harmonica. The music washes over me like melted butter on a piece of fresh bread—which I’ve only experienced once, when the older chief, Chief Aden, came to visit and our school had a picnic in his honor. The best food I’ve ever tasted.

  It was also the last meal I had before Mom was taken away.

  Strange, how two completely opposite events could happen within hours of each other.

  Elijah looks up from his harmonica, smiles at me, and swings down from the tree with the agility of a flying squirrel. Elijah and I look entirely too similar. Well, all of us Ky folk look the same, really. Eyes too big for our faces, skin the color of hazelnuts, and hair the color of mud. And we all possess the same unhealthy thinness, thanks to the meager rations of food provided by the government.

  Elijah picks up his crate of apples and jogs toward me.

  I grin. “Hey, kid.”

  “Ember!” His voice cracks, and I smother a snort.

  Poor Elijah, stuck in that awkward place between boyhood and teenhood, where his voice hasn’t quite figured itself out yet.

  “How many crates did you fill today?” he asks.

  “I lost count after lunch. Thirty, maybe.” I adjust my basket on my hip, then select a ripe red apple and sink my teeth into it. Sweet juice explodes in my mouth. After a long day of harvesting, the forbidden fruit—I mean, literally forbidden—tastes like pure goodness. I swallow and look at Elijah. “How many did you fill, little squirrel?”

  “Ew.” He scrunches up his nose. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just… just don’t.”

  I laugh and resist the urge to ruffle his hair, just to keep him in his little-brother place.

  “So?” I ask through my mouthful of heavenly bliss. “How many?”

  “Forty-eight. So… way more than you.”

  “It’s not a race, you know.” I roll my eyes.

  “I know.” He looks away, but not before I see the mischievous grin creeping on his lips. “But still. I beat you.”

  I shove him.

  “Hey!” He laughs and regains his balance. Then his smile slowly fades, and he looks at the ground, his features more serious than I’ve seen in a long, long time. “You’re leaving tomorrow.”

  My ow
n humor dissipates like an early morning mist.

  “Maybe they’ll let you choose your career,” he says. “And you can choose to stay here.”

  “When have they ever let anyone choose?”

  “What if you could, though?”

  “I can’t.”

  “But, like, use your imagination.” He looks at me, his dark hair falling into his eyes. “You’re not careered yet, so I know you still have one. If you had the choice, what would your career be, and why?”

  “What is this, some sort of interrogation?”

  “Sure. So?”

  He’s not going to let this go, is he? “Okay. Okay.” I let the question simmer as we continue walking. What would I be and why? I look ahead at the apple trees surrounding us. Farther down the rows, our cabin nestles between two hills, smoke curling out of the chimney, making it look like some painting hanging in the courthouse.

  A painting.

  I love to paint. If being an artist were a career, I could sketch and paint all day for a living.

  But I can’t tell Elijah that. I have to be a bit more practical for my little brother, set the good example of a responsible worker instead of a dreamer. Because dreams have no place in this world.

  “I’ll be happy with whatever career they give me, I guess.” The lie comes easily, and a piece of my hope deflates, because reality. Reality is a jackal. Reality strangles the fuchsia out of hope and leaves it black and blue and bruised in the dirt. Reality, I think, will be the death of us all.

  “Good answer,” Elijah says, mimicking the Patrician accent. “You get a Coin of Good Service for good citizen conduct.”

  “Just trying to be optimistic.”

  “Optimism is a good trait, Ember. But if you always choose to see the glass as half full, you’ll never have the incentive to change anything.”

  I grit my teeth. “Wise words from a thirteen-year-old. Is that something Dad said?”

  He shrugs. Elijah, ever the philosopher, wanting to take credit for every intelligent bit of advice he has to offer. Well, good for him for not wanting to conform to the brainless way of thinking that the majority of Ky adopts.

  “What about you?” I ask before taking another bite of my apple. “What career would you choose?” I look at him and grin. “And why?”

  “Oh, easy. I’d be a politician.”

  All humor saps from the marrow of my bones, and I almost choke on that last bite. “Elijah.” His name comes out in a strangled laugh-cough. “I thought I told you to stop talking about being a politician.”

  His jaw tightens and he shoves his hands into his pockets.

  “They don’t even offer that job to the Proletariat,” I press.

  “But, if I get good grades, they might offer it to me.”

  Mmm no they won’t, is what I probably shouldn’t say to my naive little brother.

  “I mean,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt to hope for it, does it?”

  Well, yeah, it kind of does. It hurts to want something so badly, to think, dream, dwell on it so much that your soul threatens to leave your body for it. But your soul can’t grasp this unreachable dream because it’s trapped in this body, and so a little piece of you is sliced off every time you allow one moment of daydreaming.

  Elijah, I should say, you could never be a politician unless you were born into a Patrician family. I should—but I don’t say. Because even though it’s not the law, it’s just the way things happen around here. Patricians get the elite education that politicians require. And we Proletariats are far from having royal––I mean, Patrician–– blood.

  “Come on,” I say instead. “It’s getting late, and Dad probably needs help bagging the apples.”

  I walk faster, leaving him behind and fighting my growing irritation. Because I honestly don’t really want to talk about dreams or careers or politicians or tomorrow. I’d be perfectly happy if this day, this moment right here, lasted forever. Because surrounding me are rows and rows of apple trees stretching over hills for a mile, and above, the sky is a canvas holding the merging colors of burnt orange, searing flames, strawberry red, and lavender wine. Right now I’m loving the way the grass brushes up against my knees, and I’m soaking in the evening serenade orchestrated by over-excited crickets. Every bit of this moment could go on and on and I really wouldn’t mind.

  But the city buildings of Ky rise on the horizon; uneven blocks of concrete, reminding me that my life is not my own and tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll join them. I’ll leave the sanctuary of the Garden and join these cold, stone buildings and become a workaholic robot.

  And maybe. Maybe a piece of me is terrified, because I’ve never been to the metropolis. Farthest I’ve ever traveled is the farmers’ square in the heart of the Community Garden, one mile north of here––just a few small buildings where we store food, pick up our rations, and hang out at our own tavern.

  But the city is a strange mystery of skyscrapers and factories and enclosed streets and recycled air and people people people everywhere and it’s suddenly getting too hard to breathe just thinking about it.

  The crunch of a rumbling vehicle sounds down the road when I arrive at the mailbox. I step back, coughing on the dust the jeep stirs as it drives toward the square. The delegate from Frankfort is most likely riding in that vehicle. He or she will assign me and everyone else who turned sixteen this year our careers first thing in the morning.

  I just wish I were a little bit more excited about it.

  When I open the lid to our mailbox, there’s a letter inside. I unseal the wax and unfold the crisp brown paper, though I already know what the white ink says:

  Your rations are available for pick up in the town square.

  The door to the cabin creaks when I open it, and I have to shove it closed with force so it latches. Dad is in the kitchen bagging the apples we picked this morning. He stamps each bag with a label. I notice his mustache twitch like it always does when he talks to himself. He’s tying a string around one of the filled bags but his fingers are struggling with the tie.

  His wiry fingers.

  His fingers that are stiff from the arthritis eating at his bones and his knotted knuckles. He’s skin and bones from eating too little, and sometimes I wonder how he’ll possibly survive against the cold and the wind and the rain and the snow that’s sure to come because all that cold, damp weather seems to make his arthritis worse.

  They used to have medicine for arthritis, or at least something to take the pain away, but it disappeared with all the other medicines when the White Plague struck. It takes a lot of time and brain power to recreate something like medicine, and we don’t have the resources. We’ve taken thirty steps back into the past. We’re rebuilding, trying to figure out this life thing again, clamoring back to where we were before the White Plague, and we’re failing miserably.

  And people like Dad are the ones paying for it.

  “I can pick up our rations tonight.” I drop the letter in front of him, then help him finish tying the string.

  “Hm. They’re finally in,” he mutters. “A week late, but at least they’re in.”

  “A week late is better than two weeks.”

  “Optimistic, as always,” Dad says. “But too much optimism will kill your incentive to change anything.”

  I snort back a laugh and shoot Elijah a look. “Sounds like something Elijah would say.”

  Elijah pretends not to notice as he finishes tying off one of the last bags, but I can just barely make out a twitch of his lips.

  “Well,” Dad says with a sigh. “If they delivered our food on time, we wouldn’t be forced to steal the apples we pick.” His shoulders shake with what I think is a chuckle, but I’m not sure because the sound is a little off, a little choked, a little…pitiful. “I don’t know what we’re going to do in the winter when there are no more apples to keep Elijah and me fed,” Dad says.

  Elijah and me. Because I won’t be here come winter. The veins around my heart tighten. What will happen to Da
d and Elijah when I’m gone? We’re already living on bare minimum when our rations actually do come in. Oatmeal for breakfast, a chunk of dried meat and cheese for lunch, and a small boxed meal for dinner—the kind where you just add hot water. So when our rations are late, when Dad’s and Elijah’s rations are late, where will they get their food? Come December, there won’t be any more apples to keep their bellies full.

  But, I shouldn’t worry.

  Because, I mean, I don’t think anyone’s actually starved to death in Ky. They make sure we don’t. They feed us just enough to keep us from dying off. To keep us working like bees. Somehow, when someone gets close to starvation, the government steps in and fixes it.

  That’s what the chief does. Takes care of us like a father to his children. Chief Titus Whitcomb and his host of politicians keep the chaos under control, the rations and clothing and shelter equally distributed among us so no one is overcompensated and no one is homeless. We’re all equal, all bees working for one big hive—a picture, a dream to bring this government back where it used to be. Parity is always preserved in this government and times are much easier now than they used to be.

  At least, that’s what the government wants us to believe.

  But Dad has other theories. Dad thinks Chief Whitcomb and his swarm of politicians are just milking the system. That they’re taking our resources—the apples we harvest and bag and send off—and not giving us the payment we deserve. That these rations they provide are maybe one-tenth of what they actually have stored up, and maybe they’re stuffing it away for themselves, for the Patricians, for the people who are born and raised in the golden city known as Frankfort.

  Dad has done the math in his head and seems to have figured out how many people are living in Ky and how much food they’re all providing and how much food is actually coming back to us.

  But me? I try not to question the system. Because that’s what we’re taught in school. Don’t ask questions and you’ll be okay. Don’t stand out and you won’t get in trouble. Blend in. Cooperate. The chief is great, the system is fixed, and don’t challenge it unless you want to die at the claws of a black tiger.