Dusk

Chapter Three

"I would wish you luck, but I know you don't need it." Ezra gives me the thumbs up in the mirror.

"I think a wish of luck would be nice, though," I say, taking a look in the mirror to make sure everything's in place, turning so I can see a bit of my back. "At least for my opponent." I wink at my reflection.

Ezra laughs. He's got tissues crammed up his nostrils, and a pack of ice pressed to his jaw. His wifebeater is stained with blood and grime, and his dark curls are filled with sand. He's paler than pale, even though he sits in a shadowy corner of the change room. In contrast, Ceres stands close to me, skin a lustrous ebony, his head bald and his attire clean and polished.

"So I was thinking," he begins, his voice the deepest I've ever heard, "that I should give you something." He pinches my bright yellow bodysuit where it clings to my hip. "This thing's getting old, and it doesn't even fit you."

"Well, you did say it was a man's originally," I point out. "It certainly smells like a man's."

Ceres wrinkles his nose. He takes a few steps back, going to one of the rusted lockers mounted on the right wall of the room. He swings the door open and produces a shiny black bodysuit that he tosses in my direction. I hold out a hand to catch it, my eyes still on my reflection.

"Was this in the locker the whole time?"

"Ezra was supposed to ask you to open it up," Ceres tells me. "But he forgot, as always. He can never be trusted."

Ezra makes a crude gesture and leans back where he sits, crossing one leg over the other. "I just got beat up. Cut me some slack, High Chancellor Ceres Ryder."

"High Chancellor," I snicker. "A bit dark to be a politician, isn't he?"

"More like he's on the opposite end of the colour spectrum." Ezra mutters.

I hold the black bodysuit up to my form as Ceres crosses the room to smack Ezra's head. It's soft and liquid-feeling, as if the tips of my fingers were dragging across the surface of water. When I stretch the leg out as far as it will go, it snaps back into position, no worse for the wear.

"Are you trying to buy my affection or something? Because I can assure you, Ceres, I cannot be bought. Moreover, my brother will have your head for trying to take me away." I raise a finger to lecture him. "He may look like a stoic man, but you haven't seen him at his worst."

"You definitely haven't." Ezra chimes in.

"Oh, be quiet," he snaps. "Both of you. Get changed and get out there."

I strip off my old yellow bodysuit and put on the new black one. Ezra tosses my boots towards me, discoloured and grey and more comfortable than any pair of shoes I've ever owned- not that I've owned many pairs of shoes.

"You've been filling out, haven't you?" He muses.

"Leering is rude," I say. I fasten the buckles on my boots, and take one last long look in the mirror to make sure everything's in place. I definitely look intimidating, what with the padding in the suit that makes me look way more muscular than I am. "Wait, are you referring to the padding? Because it's padding."

Ezra just laughs at me. I roll my eyes. Ceres puts his hands on my back and pushes me to the corner of the change room, where a cylindrical glass pod sits open, waiting for me.

"I'm going, I'm going! There's no need to push." I shake away Ceres' hands and hop into the pod, shaking out my muscles and stretching. "Thanks for the bodysuit, by the way. It feels great."

Ceres goes to the panel by the pod and keys in the command to take me up to the arena floor. His dark eyes meet mine, and he smiles widely, exposing his too-white teeth.