Page 45 of The Last Tiger

“She’s not a beast ,” Seung says, glaring. “The tiger—Eunji, she’s our only hope of freeing the colonies from the Dragon Empire.”

“Freeing the colonies?” I scoff bitterly. “Seung, the Tiger Colonies’ last hope of freedom died long ago. Long before either of us were born.”

I didn’t think it was possible for Seung’s face to sour further. Apparently, I was dead wrong.

What is he thinking ? I’d like to exchange some harsh words with whatever—or whoever —has driven Seung to this level of utter delusion. One tiger is not going to miraculously free the colonies from the might of the Dragon Empire.

I’m so mad I can hardly see straight. This bizarre concoction of confusion, betrayal, and…not longing, but… ugh . It’s infuriating.

“Seung, I’m done trying to explain myself to you,” I tell him, gritting my teeth. “Step aside, and hand over the tiger. Now. I’m not going to ask twice.”

Seung doesn’t budge. He digs his feet in place.

“Seung, move .”

“No, Eunji…”

I raise my fists. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And I don’t want to hurt you ,” Seung replies.

“You can’t possibly hurt me any more than you already have.”

“Sounds like a challenge,” Jin’s voice intones softly behind Seung.

I glance at the tiger. It’s peering at us with mild curiosity.

Then I spring into action.

I swing to the left and sprint around Seung, straight toward the tiger.

“No!” Seung shouts. But he’s no match for my speed—I dash past, leaving him in the dust—

Until a sudden, strange feeling slams into my chest—

I stumble, startled, losing my footing—

My heart is thundering with an inexplicable, absolute terror. A cloud passes over my eyes; I shrink to the ground, the sky darkening above me. I curl up into a ball, shaking with pure, unadulterated fear—

And the feeling is gone, as quickly as it came.

What the—

Seung turns around and extends a palm in my direction. This time, a wave of something that can only be described as total anxiety passes through me to my knees, making them wobble, causing my stomach to turn, queasy—

What…?

It feels eerily similar to what happened back in the tiger’s cave…

I struggle to stand. “What’s happening to me—”

“This, Eunji,” Seung replies, with the nerve to grin at me, “is Tiger ki !”

My legs give out. I lurch to the side, grabbing at a fallen tree branch for support.

“Tiger what ?” I swing the branch toward Seung, trying to throw him off. He ducks just in time. It sails right above his head and into the grass.

“Tiger ki. You heard right.”

Tiger ki…

From somewhere in my memory, I recall Governor-General Isao’s conversation with the messenger in my house: A young man…caused a severe disturbance in a gold mine yesterday in one of the provinces. It is believed to be Tiger ki.

The “young man.”

The tiger thief.

Lover Boy.

Spirits below. That was all him. Seung. My Seung.

Well, not my Seung. Evidently.

“ You’re the one the empire’s been hunting?” I gape at him.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I don’t know.” Seung smirks. “Maybe this is a little fun.”

I fume. “I’ll show you fun.”

Seung raises his hands again, and I freeze, bracing myself for whatever’s to come—

“Okay, that’s enough chitchat.”

I turn to see Jin, standing beside him.

“Eyes here,” she commands. “Look at me whenever I talk to you.”

Her pupils expand to fill her eyes again. They lock my gaze in place. I freeze, not understanding what’s going on.

“Come here.” Jin beckons with one finger.

Some invisible force takes over my mind, compelling me to move to her.

“Ugh—” I grit my teeth, struggling against the pale girl’s power.

What is she doing to me? I have to resist—I can’t let her stop me from accomplishing my mission—I’m so close . My legs shake as I fight against the urge to obey.

I can’t lose now. I can’t fail. I can’t—

Jin’s eyes widen.

“That’s some serious willpower,” she says with a note of genuine surprise.

“You—can’t—stop me—” I grimace, jaw clenched tight.

Her lip curls in disgust.

“Do you have any idea what the empire is going to do with that tiger once you turn it in, Yamamoto ?”

“I’m sure they’ll—hold another ceremony—”

“Oh, what a euphemism. Seung, I can’t speak to this traitor any longer. Do the honors, will you? Tell this girl what happens to our world if she succeeds.”

Seung turns toward me, the smile gone from his face. Beside him, I can just make out the tiger peering back at us, endlessly curious. I grit my teeth in frustration.

“Eunji,” Seung says soberly. “If the empire kills the last tiger, it means far more than just a dead animal. She’s a spirit, a guardian of the Tiger people.

“And if she dies, our country will fall out of balance. Monsters will roam over the land, the environment will swing wildly out of control. It’s already begun. But worse, we’ll lose Tiger ki forever. And without Tiger ki, the colonies will never be free.”

I remember the leafless trees, the droughts, the dust storms. Could it be? The cause of the destruction of our land…

No. No, no, no…

My knees buckle. As doubt swims in my mind, Jin’s spell takes over completely. My legs move of their own accord, leading me toward her.

“Good,” Jin says. She flicks her finger toward the earth. “Now, kneel .”

My knees bend, and I fall, quaking, into the grass. I suddenly want to cry but seem to have forgotten how.

Jin leans down, looking at me with absolute contempt.

“You people,” she growls. “You sit and feast on fine silver platters while your own kind suffer outside the walls. And you don’t just observe idly, oh no. You serve the Dragon Emperor willingly. You help them extract resources, punish the innocent and the poor. You worsen our suffering.”

Jin reaches down to her waist and unsheathes a small, blunt knife, advancing toward me.

A jolt of true fear passes through me. Jin bends over, gently, softly running the flat edge of the blade along my cheek.

I flinch under the icy metal, trying to move away, but she snatches a fistful of hair from the back of my head.

“Nuh-uh,” she says, wagging her finger back and forth. There’s a wild look in her eyes.

“Jin—” Seung’s voice rings out suddenly behind me. “That’s enough—”

“I’m not going to hurt her.” Jin’s voice takes on a singsongy air that totally belies the weapon she’s holding to my throat. “Just scaring her a little. Making sure she knows exactly what she and her family have done to people like us .”

I have to stand. To run. To do anything, anything at all to escape, but it’s useless. It’s like my entire body has been covered in cement.

Not everything can be solved with punching and kicking, Eunji.

“Hold on—let’s talk,” I say through gritted teeth. “Listen to me—”

“No! You listen to me .” Fire flashes in Jin’s gaze as she tightens her grip on my hair.

“You people have everything ,” she seethes. “You can do anything with your lives—whatever it is that you might possibly dream. So when you say that your grand plan is to take the last tiger, our last hope, and turn it over to the Dragon Empire …”

“I—”

“You know…” Jin pulls back, now eerily calm. “It would’ve been so easy for you. To open the door, share a crumb or two of your wealth. Do something, leverage your position to help us fight back, take back our country. But no, instead—”

“I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t know ?”

I cringe as a wild, enraged look takes over Jin’s face. It seems I’ve said exactly the wrong thing.

“You didn’t know that people were hungry outside?

You didn’t know that your father was Isao’s lackey, tracking down the Resistance on his behalf?

You didn’t know how they sent the secret police after us—had my friends rounded up, tortured, and shot?

You didn’t know that it was yangban, Tiger elites, who told innocent girls that there were good jobs waiting for them on the war front, and then shipped them off to the Serpent Queendom to have their lives destroyed ? ”

Spit flies from the edges of Jin’s mouth as she twists the glinting knife in the air, seizing my wrist and turning it over to expose the underside of my forearm.

“Jin, rein it in—” Seung steps forward.

“ Not now , Seung. Stay out of this. ”

He falls eerily silent. Whether it’s due to this power she’s using to hold me down, or because he no longer cares what happens to me—I’m not sure.

My every instinct howls for me to attack her, to strike back, to defend myself—to no avail.

Jin’s gaze has gone cloudy and her face ashen.

She’s somewhere else, somewhere far away, reliving some horror that I can only begin to imagine.

She looks numb, like she hardly sees me.

I watch, paralyzed, suddenly aware of an intense, immediate danger.

A bead of sweat trickles down her temple and plummets to the earth.

“You have no idea,” she says in a voice that’s frighteningly quiet. “You have no idea what you’ve done to us . And you don’t even care.”

It’s our duty as yangban, as the empire’s representatives, to see to it that these youth rebels and any other troublemakers do not compromise the Dragon Empire’s authority. Father’s voice echoes back to me.

Could it be true? Could Father and his associates be responsible for whatever it is this girl has suffered through?

And, in my ignorance, am I too?

“I’m so sorry,” I mutter uselessly.

Jin leans forward. Suddenly and without warning, she digs the knife deep into my wrist, straight to the bone—and twists.

I scream.

I retch, coming up empty, blind with pain, but still, somehow, behind my eyelids, I see those two swirling, violet eyes, the pupils swallowing everything, swallowing my mind. Jin pulls the knife from my arm and moves it to my neck. The once-cold blade is now warmed and sticky with my blood.

I’m about to pass out. My wrist has exploded, a white-hot hole ripped in the universe. I’ve never felt so much pain in my life.

Behind me, I’m dimly aware of Seung struggling against Jin’s order. He seems far away now.

Jin pays him no mind. Her face has gone blank with hatred. She grips the dripping knife, raising it into the air, preparing to plunge it into my exposed neck.

“Time to pay up,” she whispers.

As she raises the knife to strike, finally, I break. I scream out, begging now, for mercy.

“SEUNG—” I cry. “Seung, please . HELP me—”

Jin lunges forward. I brace for the impact, another explosion of pain—

A second passes—

Then another—

I open my eyes.

The tip of the knife is frozen in the air in front of me, shaking. Around it, the knuckles of Jin’s hand have gone white. Her neck convulses with tension; her face is ghastly pale.

Jin’s hand opens, and the blade falls to the ground as she begins to shake violently, her chest heaving, as she’s seized by some invisible force.

Instantly my body seems to have freed itself. I collapse into the grass, taking a desperate breath. I need—I need to gather energy—the energy to heal my left arm—it hangs limply by my side—

“Eunji—”

Seung runs to me, freed as well. I shrink away, and his face twists, mirroring my pain.

“What are you doing to her?” I manage to ask, petrified, my sight glued to Jin as she convulses under his powers.

Seung shakes his head, confused.

“I—that’s not me—”

But he cuts off suddenly as something behind me seems to grab his attention. I whirl around, following his line of sight.

The massive gate is sliding open. I shield my eyes as the light of the city pours in.

Striding straight through the opening, approaching us now, is a dark silhouette, outlined by the glow.

The tall shadow moves toward us, its hand extended and pointed straight toward Jin as the gate begins to reverse its course, sliding back shut.

I squint. There’s some kind of red fog coming from the shadow’s hand—

My mouth falls open.

“Leave her alone ,” Kenzo shouts, glowering. He drops his arm, shooting fresh convulsions through Jin’s body and sending her toppling to the ground.