Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Sulla
Day four begins differently.
No formation in the rain. No packs. Instead, Mac directs us to a smaller tent set up away from the main camp. Inside, it’s divided into sections with canvas walls. Individual rooms.
Sixteen of us left now. Started with twenty-five. Lost four on the first ruck march, two during navigation, three in the cold water. The attrition is steady, brutal.
“Same as I told you last night,” Mac says. “You’ll be taken in groups. Any questions?”
Blake raises his hand. “What kind of questions?”
“The kind you won’t like.” Mac’s expression doesn’t change. “First group. Numbers one, two, four, and five.”
In the ludus, we had similar tests. The lanista would question gladiators before fights—test their resolve, find their weaknesses, exploit their fears. The ones who broke under questioning usually broke in the arena too.
I never broke.
Not under questioning.
The ergastulum was different. But that wasn’t questioning. That was… something else.
I push the thought down. I wait.
The camera crews are filming everything. Drones can’t operate inside the tent, but there are cameras mounted in corners, body mics on all of us. They’ll capture every moment of this.
Let them.
Around me, the nervous energy is familiar.
I've watched men wait for worse than questions.
Sienna is stretching like she's preparing for a fight.
Juno—the woman with purple hair and tattoos—is sitting very still, jaw clenched.
Zay sits calmly, eyes closed. Former athlete—he's been through pressure before.
Zay sits calmly, eyes closed. Former athlete—he’s been through pressure before.
Jacks is meditating. He does this every morning before challenges. Finds his center, he calls it. I don’t understand it, but I respect the discipline.
Reid is reading the room the way I am. Cataloging reactions, assessing who will break first.
Our eyes meet briefly. She nods once. Professional acknowledgment.
I nod back.
The first group emerges after about an hour. One woman is crying. A man looks shaken but composed. The others seem mostly fine.
“Second group six, eight, nine, eleven.”
More waiting.
The voices through the canvas walls are muffled, but I can hear the tone. Aggressive. Confrontational. Designed to provoke.
Someone is shouting back at the interrogators. Someone else is crying.
This continues for another hour.
“Third group. Twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen.”
I’m in this group.
Mac directs me to a room at the far end. “Seventeen. Inside.”
I enter.
The room is small. A single chair in the center, one overhead light, and three Directing Staff members standing against the walls. All men, all built large, all watching me with expressions designed to intimidate.
A camera is mounted in the corner. Recording everything.
“Sit,” one of them says. Not Mac—someone new. Younger, aggressive energy.
I sit.
He steps closer, looms over me. “What’s your name?”
“Sulla.”
“You’re one of the Fortuna survivors. The frozen Romans.”
“Yes.”
“That must have been quite an adjustment. Two thousand years of change.”
“It was.”
“What did you do in ancient Rome?”
“I worked in a ludus. A gladiator training facility.”
“So you were around violence. Death.”
“Yes.”
“Did that bother you?”
“At the time? No.”
“And now?”
I consider the question. Does it bother me now? The memory of standing over bleeding men, whip in hand?
“Sometimes,” I say.
He circles behind me. I don’t turn to follow him. Keep my eyes forward. In the ludus, you learned quickly not to show fear. Fear invited more brutality.
“What are you hiding?” he asks.
“Nothing you’ll find in the next hour.”
One of the other staff members steps forward. Older, calmer. “Everyone breaks eventually.”
“Not everyone.”
“You think you’re special?”
“I think I’ve survived worse than this.”
“Yeah?” The aggressive one is in front of me again. “What’s worse than this?”
For a moment, I’m not in Scotland.
I’m in darkness. Complete darkness. Water dripping somewhere—constant, maddening. The sound of rats skittering across stone. My shoulders screaming because they’ve been dislocated, my body hanging from chains.
The domina’s voice, “You’re nothing. You’ll die down here, and no one will remember your name.”
Days. Weeks. I lost count.
The worst part wasn’t the pain. It was the emptiness. The certainty that she was right.
“Sulla.”
I blink. I’m in Scotland. Tent. Overhead light. Interrogators.
“What?” My voice is steady.
“You went somewhere,” the older one says. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere.”
“We saw it. Your eyes. You were remembering something.”
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“About how this isn’t as bad as you think it is.”
The aggressive one slams his hand on the back of my chair. The sound is loud in the small space. Designed to startle, to intimidate.
I don’t flinch.
In the ludus, I stood over men while they were whipped. The sound of leather on flesh, the screams, the begging. I didn’t flinch then either.
I learned not to feel.
“You don’t react,” he says. “Why don’t you react?”
“Because you want me to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
They try different tactics. Good cop, bad cop. Shouting, then quiet. Personal questions about adjusting to modern life, about why I’m here, what I’m running from.
I answer each question with the minimum required. Don’t volunteer information. Don’t show emotion. Don’t break.
Compared to the ergastulum, this is theater.
After what feels like an hour, the older one steps back. “Alright. That’s enough.”
“Are we done?”
“Yes. You can go.”
I stand, walk to the door.
“Sulla.”
I turn.
The aggressive one is watching me with something like respect. “That was impressive. Most people crack, many break.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Yeah. We noticed.”
I leave the room.
Reid was in my group and is already out, her face is composed, professional. Whatever they threw at her, she handled it.
She catches my eye as I’m about to pass her. I pause.
“That was impressive,” she says.
“What was?”
“Whatever they did to you in there. You came out looking like nothing happened.”
“Nothing did happen.”
“Sulla.” She steps closer, lowers her voice. The cameras are still recording, but the noise level in the tent is high enough that we have some privacy. “I’ve done interrogation resistance training. I know what it looks like when someone’s suppressing a reaction. You’ve been through worse.”
I don’t answer.
She doesn’t look away.
“I’m not asking what,” she says. “I’m saying I recognize it.”
“Recognition doesn’t change anything.”
“No,” she agrees. “But it matters.”
Silence stretches between us.
“You did it too,” I say.
“I’ve had practice.”
“So have I.”
“At what?”
“Not breaking.”
Her gaze sharpens. Not pity. Not curiosity. Assessment.
I let her look. Most people glance away when they realize there’s nothing easy to read. She doesn’t.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Fair enough.”
She turns to leave, walking toward the exit with the others.
In the main area, other contestants from my group are emerging. One man looks angry. A woman is shaking but composed.
I find a spot against the tent wall and wait for everyone to finish.
The fourth group is called. Trevor is in this group. He enters his designated room, pale but determined.
Minutes pass.
Then I hear it through the canvas wall—Trevor’s voice, breaking. “I can’t—I don’t—please—”
The sound of someone crying. Trying to stop and failing.
I remember that sound. I made that sound in the darkness. When I finally broke. When I begged the domina to let me out, to kill me, to do anything but leave me in that cell.
She laughed.
Trevor’s interrogation continues. I hear the staff members pushing, asking more questions. Trevor’s voice getting smaller, more desperate.
Finally, he emerges.
Red eyes. Tear-stained face. Shoulders hunched like he’s trying to disappear.
He doesn’t look at anyone. Just walks to the far corner and sits down, head in his hands.
Blake comes out looking furious. “That was bullshit,” he’s saying to anyone who will listen. “Fucking mind games. Bullshit.”
Aiden emerges looking grim but intact. Jacks looks the same as when he went in—calm, centered.
Now that everyone is finished, Mac gathers us in the main area.
“Good work today. Some of you handled it better than others. That’s expected. But no one quit. That’s commendable.” His eyes scan the group. “Psychological pressure is part of this program. If you can’t handle people getting in your head, you won’t make it. Questions?”
No one speaks.
“Dismissed. Dinner is at 1800. Rest up. Tomorrow will be different.”
We move toward the opening in the tent.
One of the men from the fourth group doesn’t move right away. He stays seated, staring at the floor.
By the time I reach the entrance, Mac is speaking to him quietly. The man nods once.
When I look back, a production assistant is walking him toward the transport.
No announcement. No explanation.
The afternoon light is gray, overcast. More rain coming.
I walk back toward the barracks with the others. Around me, contestants are clustering in groups, processing what just happened. Talking, comparing experiences, supporting each other.
I don’t join them.
But Trevor is ahead, walking alone. Not toward the barracks. Toward the supply tent. He sits down on a crate and puts his head in his hands.
I should keep walking. Not my problem. Not my responsibility. This is individual assessment. Everyone is responsible for themselves.
But I stop.
Why?
In the ludus, when gladiators broke for whatever reason, I ignored them. Their weakness wasn’t my concern. If they couldn’t handle pressure, they’d die in the arena. Better to know early.
I was good at not caring.
But now—
I remember being broken. I remember the darkness, the dripping water, the certainty that no one cared whether I lived or died.
I remember how that felt.
And I don’t want Trevor to feel that way.
When did I start caring about that?
I don’t know.
Maybe when Flavius started teaching me about therapeutic touch, about grounding, about treating people like they matter.
Maybe when I watched the other gladiators build families at the sanctuary while I sat alone.
Maybe it’s been building for months and I’m only noticing it now.
Or maybe I’m just tired of being the person who doesn’t care.
Either way.
I change direction and walk toward Trevor.
He doesn’t look up until I’m standing in front of him.
“You okay?” I ask.
He laughs, a bitter, broken sound. “Do I look okay?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because sometimes people need to talk.”
“You want me to talk? To you?” He looks up, eyes red. “You don’t talk to anyone. You eat alone, you walk alone, you do everything alone.”
“Yes.”
“So why do you care if I’m okay?”
Good question.
“Because I know what it’s like,” I say. “To break. To think you’re not strong enough.”
“I’m not strong enough. They proved it. I lasted maybe ten minutes before I started crying.”
“You finished, though.”
“Barely.”
“Finishing barely is still finishing.”
He wipes his face with the back of his hand. “What did they ask you?”
“Personal things. About my past. About violence.”
“And you just… didn’t react?”
“I reacted. They just couldn’t see it.”
“How do you do that?”
I consider my answer. How much truth to give him?
“I learned a long time ago that showing fear makes things worse,” I say finally. “So I stopped showing it.”
“But you still feel it.”
“Sometimes.”
He nods slowly. “They asked me about my family. About why I’m here. About whether I’m good enough.” His voice cracks. “And I just… fell apart.”
“That doesn’t make you weak.”
“I feel weak.”
“Weakness is giving up. You didn’t give up.”
“I cried like a child.”
“You stayed in the water yesterday and you didn’t give up today. There are ten less than when we started. You’re still here. That’s what matters.”
He looks at me for a long moment. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“I’m not being nice. I’m being honest.”
“Same thing, sometimes.”
Maybe he’s right.
“Get some rest,” I say. “Tomorrow will be hard.”
“Tomorrow’s always hard.”
“Yes. But you’ll survive it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you have struggled every day but you are still here.”
I turn to leave.
“Sulla.”
I stop.
“Thanks,” Trevor says. “For checking on me.”
I nod and walk away.
Behind me, I hear him stand, hear his footsteps heading toward the barracks.
I don’t know exactly when I changed. When I went from being the person who wouldn’t care to being the person who stops to check.
But I did change.
And for the first time in my life, I chose to help instead of hurt.
Not because someone told me to. Not because it benefited me.
Because it was right.
That’s new.
Either way, I helped. That’s something.
I return to the barracks as the rain starts again. Inside, people are resting, talking quietly, preparing for dinner.
I lie on my cot and stare at the tent ceiling.
Four days in.
I haven’t broken. Haven’t quit. Haven’t failed.
Yet.
But there’s still a long way to go.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the darkness waits. The dripping water. The rats. The certainty that I’m nothing.
I push it down.
Focus on tomorrow.
One day at a time.
That’s all I can do.