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Coco shrugged the empty ammo belts off her shoulders into the designated Dust recycling chamber, listening for the satisfying clang and hiss before slapping the residue off her gloves and heading into the locker room. Sure, all the students had their own rocket-propelled cabinets, but during the tournament, having them flying around by the dozens was considered a safety hazard for the Aura-locked crowd, and prepping for a big fight meant needing plenty of space.
Her scroll buzzed, displaying a message in the team group chat across the screen: Fox sniffed out the best of the overpriced snack food over in block D. Come find us after you turn in our doubles picks. Love, Velvet.
“Good, I’m starving.” Coco said under her breath, propping the locker door open with one elbow as she started to unbuckle the cincher around her waist. It had taken plenty of hits, and the Dust-dispersing fabric wouldn’t hold up as well against a second ballistic barrage. Once she had the replacement on, Coco let the door slam shut, only to startle back a step at the figure waiting there right behind it. She blinked, recognition sinking in when polished gold eyes fluttered, quick and innocent.
“You Haven kids need to start wearing bells.” She laughed, playing off the brief nervous spike in her chest. Adels never had as many reasons to worry about assassination attempts as the Schnees, but that didn’t mean it never happened. “I saw your team steamroll the match this morning, though. Your girl in black’s got a brutal kick.”
Those bright eyes flashed in amusement, teeth bared with all the confidence of fangs. “She’s got a lot of stress to relieve.”
“I didn’t catch your full name on the board, though.” Holding out one arm, Coco was surprised to feel heat jolt all the way through her glove when the handshake was returned. “Coco Adel.”
“Cinder.” The other woman answered simply, and that earned a pause.
“It definitely wasn’t that. Didn’t start with a C at all.” Coco said, keeping her tone even.
“I had to use my birth name for the tournament records,” Cinder answered, hand withdrawing after a brief squeeze, an aggrieved sigh. “But I prefer what my team calls me.”
“Fair enough.” Nicknames rolled off her tongue as easily as anything else. “I thought you were pretty bold out there. Wearing bindings like that around your chest is asking for a set of cracked ribs, even if it looks good.”
Cinder promptly tugged on the taut edge of the fabric, baring the line of her cleavage and a black anti-Dust weave underneath. It was even reinforced with a ballistic plate underneath her breasts, although Coco did her best not to stare. “It’s just for aesthetics, promise.”
“Well, that makes me feel a little better.” Fashion was supposed to complement someone’s style, not leave them gasping for air. “What are you doing down here, anyway? Every other team went running for lunch at halftime.”
“Getting something out of my locker.” Cinder said simply, punching in the combination for the one next to Coco’s. When the door swung open, all of the shelves were bare but two: one stuffed to the brim with red Dust, the other with nothing more than a jeweled trinket with feathers spreading outward from the gem. That was what she retrieved, thumb running over it fondly. “But now that I think about it, I have a question for you.”
Coco raised a brow. “Yeah?”
“What do you fear the most?” The words were uttered so casually it took Coco a moment to catch onto the meaning, and she frowned deep enough to make her jaw ache.
“What kind of question is that?” She scoffed, resisting the urge to take a step back, follow through on the recoil in the pit of her stomach. “You trying to suss out a weakness in case our teams get matched up? It’s not slick.”
“That wouldn’t do me much good. Emerald and Mercury are the ones going through to the doubles round.” Cinder shrugged, the movement fluid and perfectly relaxed. “It’s a question I like asking a lot of people. Everyone has a unique answer, when they think about it long enough.”
For a moment, Coco’s teeth worried at the inside of her bottom lip. Cinder had just given up the pair for the next match, which could be used to great advantage if a particular team wanted to slant a line-up against them. She could play ball, give tit-for-tat. “I don’t–well. Having my team lose faith in me, I guess? If I’m their leader and they don’t trust me, what’s it all for, you know?”
“Oh, I know.” Something about Cinder’s smile left her uneasy, but the agreement didn’t read as a lie.
“How about you?” Coco asked.
“Mm.” For a moment she turned pensive, expression blank before the light rose again in shining eyes. “That I’m going to die before seeing the world become a better place.”
Left with a lead tongue out of sheer surprise, Coco swallowed past the knot that tightened in her throat after a brief nod. “Yeah, I can believe that. But for the time being, we’ve got a show to put on for the big crowd, huh?”
“That we do.” After tucking away her trinket, Cinder smiled and turned on her heel. “See you on the battlefield. Best of luck.”
Relying on luck was asking for trouble, but Coco didn’t want to say that out loud. “You too.”
Cinder’s laugh carried all the way out to the hall, and there was no making sense of that sound, part rapture and part pain. Chalking it up to unspent adrenaline, Coco pulled out her scroll to text Velvet and say she was on her way.
After all, when she wasn’t with her team, it felt like the world turned upside down.
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