She’s Poking the Tiger, and I’m Enjoying the Show Chapter 05

She’s Poking the Tiger, and I’m Enjoying the Show Chapter 05

I stayed exactly where I was.

The seat belt dug into my waist, and the lock on my door was pushed all the way down.

Aria grabbed the outside handle and yanked it once, then twice.

The door didn’t move.

She froze.

A second later, her face twisted with rage.

“You locked it?”

Of course I had.

Daniel had locked every door before she deliberately opened her own.

He had even left the sliding door on her side open after she got out, waiting for her to dive back

inside despite the tiger charging toward her.

The moment she ignored that door and raced around the back of the minivan toward me, he had no

choice but to close it.

“Get back in through your own door!” Daniel shouted.

Aria screamed.

“Emma! Have you been trying to kill me this whole time? How could you lock the door?”

I had heard that accusation before.

In my first life, Aria shoved me out and claimed I had fallen on my own.

Now, simply because I wouldn’t let her grab me again, she accused me of trying to kill her.

I looked at her through the glass and mouthed the words.

“I’m following the park rules.”

She wasn’t listening.

She kept pounding on the window.

“Cut the act! You’re doing this to get back at me! Open the door! I’m telling you to open it!”

Ethan shouted from the front, his voice cracking with panic.

“Emma, can’t you open it just a little? Just enough for her to squeeze through?”

I whipped my head toward him.

“Do you want everyone in this van to die?”

Ethan’s lips trembled, but no words came out.

The dispatcher’s voice came over the speaker again.

“Do not open any doors. Keep the vehicle sealed. A patrol unit is almost there.”

Sirens finally wailed in the distance.

Aria heard them, too.

But the tiger was much closer.

She glanced over her shoulder, and her knees almost gave out. Then she lunged at my door again, clawing at the rubber seal and yanking the handle as if she could pry the sliding door open.

There was no plea in her eyes now.

Only hatred and desperation.

It was the same look she had worn when she clamped her hand around my wrist in my first life.

She wasn’t trying to get inside.

She wanted to grab me, drag me out, and buy herself one more second.

When the tiger lunged, Aria’s scream seemed to pierce the glass.

*The tiger slammed into her and pinned her to the grass.

Blood spread across her pale sweater.

Everyone inside the van went silent.

I clutched my seat belt, my entire body shaking, but I didn’t close my eyes.

I had to see it through.

This time, I wasn’t the one left outside to die.

A patrol vehicle tore along the edge of the road.

Two patrol vehicles swung across the edge of the grassy slope from opposite directions while park staff blasted the tiger with high-pressure hoses. Shrill deterrent alarms pierced the air throughout

the tiger section.

A warning repeated over the loudspeaker.

“Stay inside your vehicles!”

“Do not get out!”

“Keep every door closed!”

The water forced the tiger back several steps, but it lowered its head and growled.

From the roof of a second response vehicle, a staff member fired a tranquilizer dart.

The first shot missed.

Startled, the tiger dragged Aria several feet toward the brush.

Maya threw up.

Ryan curled into his seat with both hands over his head, muttering the same words over and over.

“I didn’t tell her to get out. It wasn’t me…”

Ethan was crying into his phone, his voice barely holding together.

“There’s been an attack. Aria’s been mauled…”

With the emergency call still on speaker, I switched back to the camera. My hand shook as I resumed filming the scene.

I wasn’t being cruel.

⚫ I knew all too well how quickly people changed their stories once the danger had passed.