Whisper Read Free Page B

couldn’t help but cringe as I watched him tend to the gladiator’s wounds with a bizarre array of pastes and salves and other grotesque concoctions that smelled even worse than the infections that oozed out of them.
    Still, even though he did his best to heal them, to my eyes it remained a scene lifted straight from a horror
movie—a scene I was desperate to flee. Bolting as fast as I could, I tackled the stairs two at a time, pushing my legs beyond all reasonable limits, wishing there was a way to outrun the shocking images that blazed in my mind.
    Finally reaching the landing, I paused against a sturdy stone column that fronted an open, shade-covered room that, judging by the number of gladiators sitting on long wooden benches, hunched over shallow wooden bowls, greedily slurping some kind of horrible, lumpy, gray porridge, I guessed it to be a cafeteria. And while unlike the hospital, there was no blood and gore, it was still pretty gruesome in its own way, leaving me to wonder, yet again, at the logic of some of these ghosts. I couldn’t even begin to fathom why anyone would ever willingly choose to stay in such a gawd-awful place.
    Spying the practice arena just a few feet beyond, I made my way toward it. My hand pressed to my forehead, shielding myself from the sudden rush of heat and glare, I took a good look around, noting how just like the barracks, the hospital, and the cafeteria before it, it was also crowded with spooks.
    Their long, wooden practice swords sliced through the air, as their round wooden shields jabbed and punched at some unknown opponent before them. My eyes darting furiously, searching for Theocoles among them, figuring if
he was to be found anywhere in this ludus it would be here. As the undefeated champion, it just seemed to make sense.
    Problem was, I was so clueless as to how it all worked, it was impossible to tell who was the best one among them—the one good enough to be champion—the one worthy of being called the Pillar of Doom—when they all looked so determined, so fearless, so eager to destroy whatever unlucky opponent stood in their way. All of them sharing that same ruthless eagerness to kill, to slaughter, to shred and destroy—burning like a flame in their eyes.
    I was just about to give up, just about to head over to the Colosseum and try my luck there, when I saw something so unexpected, I forced myself to blink a few times to make sure it wasn’t a mirage of some sort—make sure I hadn’t somehow dreamed it all up.
    It was a girl.
    A beautiful dark-haired girl standing on a balcony that overlooked the arena.
    The only other girl in the place besides me.
    Though unlike me, she was dressed in a way that was far more appropriate to the time. While I was in jeans, a (super-cute) tee, and my favorite ballet flats, she wore a gorgeous silk gown that draped and swirled and trailed over the ground.
    I studied her closely, taking in her smooth olive skin,
her sweep of long, glossy, dark hair—the front of which was fastened at the crown by a shiny jeweled clasp, while the rest was left to tumble over her shoulders and down to her waist in a riot of waves.
    Running a hand down the front of her elaborate red gown, she focused hard on the gladiators below. Her long, slim fingers picking at the embroidered gold sash at her waist, looking so elegant, so beautiful, so graceful and refined, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she might be doing in such a sad, filthy place.
    Or at least that’s what I thought until I looked a little closer and noticed how she focused on one gladiator in particular. The intensity of her gaze telling me he was someone special, not just to her, but to the arena in general.
    I followed the length of her flashing brown gaze, my eyes lighting on a gladiator who rose above all the rest. He was taller, stronger, his movements both brutal and graceful.
    He was a savage fighter. There was no doubt in my mind. But unlike the others who grunted, and