"Up! Now! Line up at the door!"

I startled upright, adrenaline pounding through me. Where was I? Where was Xyla? Where—

It came back to me like a slap.

Around the room men groaned and stretched, rising off the floor and blinking at the sudden influx of light from the hallway. I must have fallen asleep. The room was ripe with the scent of stale, unwashed bodies. My teeth were mossy, my throat dry, my back ached—but none of that hurt like the crushing knowledge that Yaneli was gone. Never again would she smile, tell me to hurry up, tell me to study my doctor books so I could help others.

Fight.

Her final instruction. It didn't feel like nearly enough. It was all I had. As the room of men groaned and came awake around me, I touched the necklace beneath my shirt.

The cold prickle of the necklace digging into my skin brought a new reality into focus— one I'd been too preoccupied mourning Yaneli to consider. Xyla hadn't been in the Tuv Pit. And if she wasn't in the Pit, it meant she could still be alive somewhere. A flood of hope rushed over me at the thought. Could it be possible the Top was looking for the necklace, and were keeping Xyla alive till they found it? And if that were true, if I found her, could I trade the necklace for her life?

I was grasping at straws. Even so, the knowledge gave me a sudden clarity and purpose. Yaneli was gone, but Xyla was still out there somewhere. Yanelie had told me to watch after Xyla, and now she needed me. I was a Z—and I'd fought my whole life for everything I had. Now I'd fight to find Xyla and save her.

Dagger was the first at the door, straight backed as a soldier. I wondered if he'd slept at all... and why I cared.

The Kaptain stepped into the room and cracked a burrowing whip against one of the men still sleeping. The ends of the whip dug into his skin, corkscrewing through the flesh, his screams echoing through the cell. The rest of us jumped up and formed a line in seconds, and now I tried to make note of everything, to remember it all like some adventure to tell Xyla. You won't believe it, Xy, Dagger's even scarier in real life. Also, I killed him, brought him back, and now I'm worried he's going to pay me back for it. I'm just not sure which bit.

"Hold the line," a K-guard called out when we were all in place. Two guards began moving down the line and handcuffing the men to a heavy chain they'd dragged into the room. Even with my head up and back straight, the men around me dwarfed me in both height and size. In the Belly, being small was an asset— I could fit into machines a grown man never could. But I suddenly wished I were tall like Xyla. Even the thin man with light blue eyes had at least 50 pounds on me. It doesn't matter— I don't need to win the Letter Trials. I just need to find Xyla.

"Wrists up," the baby-faced guard, Kovu, said when he stood before me. I held my hands up, one metal, one flesh. He paused, eyes trailing up my arm's machinery, as if wondering if I could slip it off and escape. I couldn't, at least, not without considerable pain: I'd fused the arm to the nerves in my shoulder. He snapped the handcuffs on both hands and seemed to decide it would do. When he moved on, I lifted the chain, examining the lock. It was strong, but simple. Easy enough to pick.

"Alright, move out!" The Kaptain called. The line shuffled forward, the clanking metallic noise of metal underscored by the shuffling of feet. Blinding light lit a long tunnel-like hallway and I suddenly understood why civilians weren't allowed in this part of the level— the hallway had glass walls that showed cell-like rooms on each side— all with a single cot on one side, and a toilet on the other. All empty. That's where they keep all of the Letter Trial prisoners. It suddenly made sense why they had all been happy last night—even if we were all about to kill each other, at least they were out of those depressing rooms.

At least thirty guards surrounded us as we marched out of the cell corridor. I wondered what Yaneli and Xyla would have thought, had they seen me here, in a forbidden part of the Beast, chained to a line of criminals. But I suppose I was always a criminal too. Maybe this was exactly where I belonged.

The K-guards marched us down the long hallway and towards the entrance hall, where a distant roar began to grow. I didn't understand what the noise was, until we turned the corner, and the crowd exploded.

"LETTER TRAITORS!"

"THIEF! ROT IN HELL!"

A hundred other ugly words rang out, and if not for the chain pulling us along, I would have turned and ran.

"MOTHER PUCKERS!"

I ducked as something rotten flew towards me, and the guard nearest me pulled out his burrowing whip and raised it threateningly. The crowd pulled back a bit but the taunting didn't stop. Maybe they knew the guards couldn't punish them all.

I'm one of you, I wanted to say, but I realized that wasn't true. I'd never been one of them.

In the crowd, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a bandage over his forehead stared at me.

"Wesson!"