Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Sulla
The flight from Missouri to Scotland takes fourteen hours with a layover in New York. I don’t sleep. Haven’t slept well since I made the decision to leave, and the cramped airplane seat isn’t going to change that.
The Atlantic passes beneath us through the small window. Endless gray water under endless gray sky.
The woman in the seat beside me tries to make conversation somewhere over Greenland. “First time to Scotland?”
“No.” A lie. I’ve never been to Scotland. But truth invites more questions.
She takes the hint and stops talking.
In my pocket, my phone feels heavy. Strange thing, this device. I’ve had it for more than a year now—learned how to use it, learned how to navigate this new world through its glowing screen. Laura insisted all the gladiators needed them. “For emergencies,” she said. “For staying connected.”
I used mine differently.
While the others gathered in the evenings, speaking Latin and laughing, I sat in my cabin with the phone and books Laura brought me.
Learning grammar. Watching television programs. Reading about this strange new world where people film everything, where fights are entertainment but sanitized, where slaves are illegal but poverty is not.
The isolation gave me time. Hundreds of hours with nothing to do but study.
My English is better than most of the others.
Not perfect. May never be perfect. I still think in Latin sometimes, have to translate before speaking. But good enough that people won’t immediately know I’m not from here.
Good enough to pass.
The phone won’t matter soon anyway. The instructions said they’ll confiscate all electronics upon arrival. A month without contact with the outside world.
A month where I’m a contestant, not a villain in someone else’s story.
I can do this.
The transport from Inverness is a military-style vehicle with bench seats in the back. There are three other contestants already inside when I climb in. We eye each other warily, exchange nods, say nothing.
Good. I’m not here to make friends.
The driver—production crew, not a contestant—doesn’t offer conversation. Just pulls onto a narrow road heading northwest into increasingly desolate terrain. A camera drone paces us for a few minutes—an insect hum outside the canvas—then peels away into the rain.
The Scottish Highlands in late April are brutal.
Rain hammers the vehicle’s canvas roof. Wind buffets us from the side.
Through gaps in the canvas I catch glimpses of mountains—massive, dark, treeless—rising into low clouds.
The landscape is beautiful the way a blade is beautiful.
All stone and water and endless gray-green moorland stretching toward mountains.
We drive for two hours. The road gets worse—more holes, less paving. Eventually we turn onto what’s barely a track at all, just two ruts through scrub and mud.
Everything here is foreign. Unknown. I don’t know the name for the low purple-flowered plants covering the ground. Don’t know these mountains or this weather. I guess that’s what I came for.
“Base camp, five minutes,” the driver calls back.
I straighten. Check my pack. Prepare.
This is it. Fresh start. Anonymous.
The light is already fading, thanks to the overcast skies. Google said the sun usually sets around eight thirty at this time of year. Variable weather: sun, rain, wind, even snow in the higher elevations.
Base camp is a cluster of military tents arranged around a central stretch of churned mud.
Light spills from the mess tent, voices carrying over the rain.
A few crew members move between stations, heads down against the wind.
Cameras perch on poles at the edges of camp, small dark eyes aimed inward.
My late arrival means I missed the social hour. Good. Less small talk.
Everyone I pass looks wet, cold, and already regretting this.
I grab my pack and jump down from the vehicle. My boots sink into mud. The rain soaks through my jacket immediately. The wind cuts through everything.
A crew member—clipboard, headset, bored expression—points at a tent.
“Surrender all electronics here. Phones, watches, anything with a battery. You’ll get them back in a month.
Then drop your personal gear in that tent, change into the provided clothing, and report to the main tent for briefing in thirty minutes. Move.”
I pull out my phone, turn it off, and hand it over. The crew member drops it into a labeled bag with my contestant number, seventeen.
Then I move.
The gear tent is organized chaos. Rows of identical packs lined up on tables, each labeled with a number.
Inside number seventeen: black tactical pants, black long-sleeve shirts, thermal underwear, socks, hooded waterproof jacket, boots in my size—I provided measurements when I applied—wool cap, gloves, water bottle, basic toiletries.
I change quickly. The clothes fit well. Not new—already washed. Smart. New gear causes blisters.
Around me, other contestants are doing the same. A few try to introduce themselves. I nod politely and don’t offer my name. Not yet. Let them wonder.
There’s a Black man built large—gladiator-sized, though his muscles are from something other than combat training. He moves carefully, like he’s used to being the biggest in any room. Former athlete of some kind, probably.
A younger man with his hair tied back on his head and muscles that look built for show, not work. He can’t stop moving, fingers tapping his thighs, shifting his weight. Nervous energy.
A blonde woman who looks soft and decorative—the kind the domina would have kept as a personal slave—but her eyes are sharp when she thinks no one is watching.
And others. Ten, maybe twelve people total in this tent.
I catalog them the way I cataloged gladiators in the ludus. Who’s strong. Who’s weak. Who will break first.
Old habits.
None of them look like they’ve done anything harder than gymnasium training.
This might be easier than I thought. I shake my head. That kind of thinking can get me in trouble.
When we’re all changed, the same crew member from before returns. “Main tent for briefing. Let’s go.”
We file out into the rain and cross the muddy central area. My new boots are already caked with it. The main tent is warmer, barely, with a propane heater struggling against the cold. More contestants have arrived. Maybe twenty of us now, sitting on benches, waiting.
A man enters, and the room goes quiet.
He’s maybe fifty, weathered like old leather, gray hair cropped close to his scalp, eyes that are pale blue and sharp as broken ice. He wears the same tactical gear we do but with an air of authority that needs no introduction.
In the ludus, we called it gravitas. The weight of command.
This man has it.
“I’m Sergeant Major James MacAllister,” he says. His midwestern accent is clipped and precise. “You will call me Mac or Sergeant Major. I am the lead Directing Staff for this program. What I say is law. Clear?”
Murmurs of agreement.
He’s American. Rumors say he’s former U.S. Army with thirty years of service.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major!” A few of us get it right. The rest stumble through it.
His expression doesn’t change. “Better. You are here for one month. Elite Crucible tests physical endurance, mental fortitude, and psychological resilience. Some of you will quit in the first week. Most of you will quit before the end. A handful—maybe three or four—will finish. There’s no scoreboard.
No points. You either make it to the end—or you don’t.
Those who finish face the final challenge. That’s where the winner is decided.”
He paces as he talks.“Twenty-five of you were selected for Elite Crucible—thirteen women, twelve men. There are no formal eliminations. You quit, you tap for medical, or I dismiss you for conduct unbecoming. Those are the only ways out. You can quit at any time. No shame in it. But once you quit, you’re done. No second chances.”
I listen without reacting.
Fear and intimidation to weed out the weak early.
The ludus used the same tactics, just with different words.
The lanista, the owner of the school and all the gladiators, would stand before new gladiators and tell them most would die in the arena.
Make them afraid. Make them desperate to prove themselves.
It worked on boys.
I’m not a boy anymore.
“Challenges begin tomorrow,” Mac continues. “Today, you will undergo medical screening, psychological check-in, and preliminary interviews. Questions?”
No one speaks.
“Good. First group for medical, numbers one through eight. Move.”
I’m seventeen. I wait.
Numbers one through eight file out. The rest of us sit in uncomfortable silence. No one speaks. Smart. Nothing to gain from showing your hand early.
Some time passes—I don’t know how long without my phone to check. Maybe twenty minutes. Then one of the assistants enters. “Numbers nine through sixteen. Medical tent. Move.”
Still not my turn. I stay on the bench, listening to rain hammer the tent roof. The heater hisses and pops.
The man beside me—the big Black one—clears his throat. “Long day, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Where you from?”
“Missouri.”
“Long flight.”
“Yes.”
He waits for me to ask where he’s from. I don’t. After a moment, he stops trying.
Finally, “Remaining contestants. Medical screening. Let’s go.”
I follow the group across the muddy central area to a smaller tent marked with the red cross. Inside, the tent is divided into stations. Equipment on tables. Staff in medical clothing. Efficient and fast.
The medical screening is thorough but quick. Height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, range of motion tests. The doctor—a woman in her forties with kind eyes—checks my feet, pressing on the soles.
“Old injuries here,” she says, touching the faint scars. “What happened?”
For a moment, I’m eighteen again. Iron rods. Bastinado. Five strikes, ten, twenty, until I couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk, couldn’t—
“Training accident,” I say. “Long time ago.”