Tempted Tigress by Jade Lee

Author:Jade Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2012-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

From Anna Marie Thompson's journal

March 3, 1886

I saw. I'm sixteen today and I saw what Father had to show me. Another boy went with me. He was a little older—a half white, half Chinese boy they call Halfy. He's the son of a prostitute, and he had large hands and big eyes. He didn't talk much. I think he's shy, but we went together to celebrate my birthday with Father.

We went to an opium den. Father owns it. He showed us how to measure it, how to boil it—everything. He told us the amount of money that he gets every day, and we watched while a customer lit his pipe. I couldn't wait to taste it. I know how it feels! I knew and I thought we were there to smoke.

But we watched this man smoke. He was tall and lanky for a Chinese, and his smile lit his entire body. One puff and his eyes began to sparkle, his hands lost their tremble, and all the bad things fell away from him. I could see the smoke work in him, and I remembered.

Then Father—Samuel—asked him if it was good. "Very good," the man answered. Even his voice had changed. Instead of being high and nasal like before, it had dropped to a lower, sweeter tone. People are so much nicer when they're smoking. I even sat down next to him on the bench because I thought I would get my turn.

All the while, Samuel kept talking to the man, asking him about his last run. That's what the man did for Samuel. He ran opium into the interior of China, to a governor in a province where white people weren't allowed.

He answered easily enough. He talked about how happy the governor was, how much money he paid, and all the details. Father had told me and Halfy to listen carefully, so I was very attentive. He said he'd test us on it afterwards. I listened and I remembered, and then, just when the man was about to talk about the governor's wives, Samuel killed him. Stabbed him. Right through the heart. There wasn't even really a rattle. More of a gasp, and the man was dead.

Samuel pulled out the knife, wiped it on the man's pants, and then ordered me and Halfy to carry the body out to the back. Halfy didn't want to do it. He just stared at the body, his eyes huge and kinda watery. But I've worked in the mission hospital since I was seven. Dead bodies are nothing to me. Still., it was hard. He... the body was still warm and we had just been talking to him.

He was really heavy. Halfy went to get the wheelbarrow, but he wanted me to lift the body into it. At least I didn't have to strip the body. Halfy did that. And he did it so fast, I'm pretty sure he'd done it before. Not strip a dead body. But a drunk? Probably. It doesn't matter. Halfy did that, and then together we got the body into the wheelbarrow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.