A guard put his foot on my back, kicking me so hard that I sprawled face first into a dimly lit room. After the Tuv Pit fight I'd been marched through dark hallways, to a section I'd never entered on Level T—a place forbidden to civilians and rumored to hold criminals destined to fight in the Pucker Letter Trial.

My arms trembled as I pushed up off cold metal, and then rolled over just in time to watch the door open again. Two k-guards shoved Dagger inside after me. On instinct I lifted my metal arm, holding it defensively before me. I needn't have. Dagger looked as if he barely managed to stand.

Our gazes locked.

He stared at me, eyes wide, uncomprehending, almost vulnerable. A thin cut ran across his cheek, water still dripping down his closely shorn hair and running down a face of hard angles. And then, like a door slamming, the emotion disappeared, replaced by coldness.

"Well, what do we got here?" A deep voice called from the darkness.

Dagger and I both turned, facing a room lit by a single dim bulb with only a metal bench across the back. Sitting or leaning against every wall, so that they fully surrounded us, was a group of dangerous looking men. There were at least fifteen, all older than Dagger and I.

I was the only woman.

"Tuv Pit winners." This came from a thin man tucked in the left corner behind us, so that I had to turn to see him. It was an uncomfortable feeling— men watching us from every side. The man who'd last spoken held spider-thin fingers steepled against his lips. His ice blue eyes reflected the light, giving them an eerie glow. "It's the last round. They'll move us up soon."

"Could be. Or maybe the girl's for us." This came from the man who'd first spoken. He sat in the very center of the bench, dead ahead. Even though the room was small, and the bench the only place to sit besides the floor, there was a careful space around him. He had a mane of black hair, golden brown skin, and tattoos down heavily muscled arms. A very ugly skull tattoo covered half his neck and disappeared into his shirt.

The door opened behind us again, a slice of light cutting the room open. Guards flooded the space, and I recognized the round-faced one with worried eyes in the background. But it was the guard who had kicked me, the Kaptain, who stepped into the room. I'd never seen him before. He looked older than most of the K-guards in the Belly, but his back was ramrod straight, his eyes a pale lifeless blue that somehow reminded me of a corpse's glazed over stare. One of his hands rested on his gun, and his burrowing whip was already drawn, as if he was looking for any excuse to use them.

"Take off your clothes and put them in the bucket, then put on the red uniform." The dead-eyed Kaptain tossed a bucket on the ground, between Dagger and I. The men sitting around the perimeter of the room watched the guards with a sort of malice, but none got up. The baby-faced guard shoved a deep red bundle into my hands, not meeting my eyes, and then a larger bundle into Dagger's.

I met Dagger's eyes. There was no trace of the earlier panic, only that cold, even look. He lifted off the remains of his shirt, his chest lined with hard muscles. Then he hooked his thumbs on his pants and dragged down. I flushed and turned away— only to immediately regret it.

A room of men leered at me.

Just get it over with.

I tucked the necklace into my bra, then lifted off my shirt, ignoring the catcalls as I stripped down to my underwear. I wasn't self-conscious of my flesh body—life in the Belly made me strong in more ways than one—but I'd never had my metal arm on display like this. Judging from the catcalls, it wasn't the craftsmanship they were admiring. The clothes the guard had given us were soft and dyed a deep, beautiful blood red, by far the nicest thing I'd ever worn, even if it was uncomfortably close to the color of fresh blood. I slid on the pants, rolling the waistband down twice to make them fit, but when I pulled on the shirt, found it sleeveless. So much for hiding my arm.

I tossed my old clothes into the bucket, and then turned back to face the guard. Dagger was already clothed in the same deep red fabric— though somehow it looked more menacing on him. The cold metal of the necklace dug into my chest, but I didn't dare reach down to adjust it. I'd just lost everything; I wasn't going to let them have the necklace too.

"Kovu," The Kaptain said. "Deactivate the girls' chip." I froze in terror at the words. My chip. As in, the chip I stole. The Kaptain noticed and smiled with a sort of vicious pleasure, probably thinking I was terrified to lose my letter. If only he knew—the chip in my arm was I'd cut from the cold flesh of a girl I'd found in the Chute four weeks ago.

It doesn't matter if they find out I'm unlettered— I'm already in the Trials. The thought didn't stop my heart from thundering as I stared at the approaching guard. I'd replayed this moment over so many times, dreamed it even. Never once had it looked like this.