Chapter 1 - The colour we hide
My name is weird.
Zylénna. Zy-len-na.
My mother gave it to me before she died. I have never met another Zylénna in my life. At school the teachers pause when they read the attendance list. The kids repeat it in that sing-song voice they use when they want to make something sound like a disease.
Zylénna the weirdo. Zylénna the freak.
It's 5:00 AM. The house is freezing.
Our house isn't really on any map. It's past the old train tracks, behind Dustin's garage, where the town decides to stop caring. The roof leaks in two places. I know exactly where to put the buckets.
Jérkah is still asleep on the mattress next to mine. His little white hair is everywhere. It glows, I swear it glows in the dark. He is eight, but he looks smaller because he never eats enough, no matter how many fights I win.
His eyes are like mine. One grey like a storm. One amber like honey. On him, people say it's cute. On me, they say it's creepy.
"Jerkah," I whisper, shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, little wolf."
He groans and rolls over. "Five more minutes, Zy-Zy."
"No five more minutes. We have to hide us."
That's our morning routine. Hiding us.
I go to the cracked bathroom mirror first. My natural hair is almost white. Not blonde — white, like snow that never melted. My mother had the same. I take the cheap black dye from under the sink and quickly work it through my roots. It burns. It always burns. Then the brown contacts. I have to stare at myself and push them in. Grey and amber disappear. Now I'm just brown. Boring. Normal.
Jérkah won't dye his. He refuses. "I'm not ashamed," he said once, and I cried because I was.
I braid his hair for him. It's the only thing I'm good at that isn't fighting. One long braid down his back.
"What do you want for breakfast?" I ask.
"Pancakes like Mom used to make," he mumbles, half asleep.
We don't have pancakes. We have half a loaf of bread and water. I toast the bread on the small stove and give him both slices. I tell him I already ate.
Dustin is waiting outside in his old truck at 5:45 AM. He always is. Big, scarred, beard, tattoos on his knuckles that say HOLD FAST. He was my father's best friend. He is the only adult who knows where we live.
He looks at my black hair and sighs. "You dyed it again."
"School," I say.
"Your mother would hate that you hide it, kid," he says, but he doesn't push. He never pushes. He just opens the truck door for Jerkah and gives him a juice box from somewhere.
He taught me how to fight in that garage behind us. Since I was nine. Not karate class, not pretty. How to take a punch. How to breathe when someone has their knees on your chest. How to win when you're smaller.
"Same time tonight?" he asks me quietly while Jerkah climbs in.
I nod. "The Pit. I need the money. Rent's due."
"You have school tomorrow. You have exams," he says.
"I know."
He looks at me like he wants to say something else. Like he's been wanting to say something for ten years. But he just says, "Be careful, White Wolf."
No one calls me that except him. I don't know why he calls me that.
At 6:30 AM, he drops us two blocks from school. So no one sees his truck. So no one knows.
Jérkah holds my hand tight. His hand is cold.
"Will you pick me up after?" he asks.
"Always," I say.
And we walk into the school where I am nobody. Where they don't know that at 10 PM tonight, I will be in a cage, masked, and I will be a champion.
They just see the weird girl with the weird name who dyed her hair badly.
They have no idea.
