TW: attempted (but averted) sexual assault, with some pretty bloody vengeance taken out on the assailant.
Also, see ch. 9 for notes on how I've retconned Artie. That will be a little more evident in this chapter, I think. Try to think of him as an OC rather than as the Artie we know and love. Apologies for that.
You should never have accepted the gift of the dagger.
Right? Right.
It's clutched in your right hand. The sharp edges of the blade are painted in blood. Your left hand and forearm are covered with it. Your face is spattered.
None of it is yours.
You know, with this, that you have surely run out of chances.
Here's how it happened:
\\
It's the day that Myka visited you. You are sitting on the floor in Pete's cell when the gladiators file back in down the corridor after their training is done. Several of them catcall and crow at you as they pass the cell you're in; they make lewd jokes about how great you must be if Pete still isn't ready to share, they pound on and rattle the cell door, though they never open it. Theirs are no different from the insults and barbs the procurers at MacPherson's used to throw at you, but after your afternoon spent making yourself vulnerable, it's hard to remember how to make yourself hard again.
When Pete bolts into the cell, he is frantic and red-faced with rage.
"Tell me I was imagining seeing Myka up here," he growls, stepping to stand over you menacingly. "Tell me."
You stand and hold your hands up in front of you, defensively. "She was here, but—"
He interrupts you with a hand to your chest, pushing you back against the wall. "You better make this good: What. The hell. Was she doing here with you."
"She just came to talk to me, Pete," you say, swallowing the defensive edge that wants to creep into your voice. "I understand why you're reacting this way, but I promise, I wouldn't hurt her."
"Really? Really? You wouldn't hurt her? You expect me to believe that?" He slams his open palm against the wall, close enough to your head to make you flinch.
"Pete," you say, gently. "I swear it on my daughter's soul: the only injuries Myka had when she left here were the ones she had when she arrived."
He stares at you for a minute, eyes dark, nostrils flaring with every breath. He pounds the wall one more time before backing away and dropping onto his bench.
"She had injuries when she arrived?" he asks.
You nod. "Her… her father. I guess she tried to call off the wedding with MacPherson and her father wasn't pleased."
Pete shakes his head. "It's amazing how one person can screw up so many things."
You furrow your eyebrows. "Myka?" you ask.
He lets out a dry laugh and meets your eyes. "You," he says, like it should be obvious. "She understands that it's dangerous for her to be in here, right?"
You nod. "I made her promise not to come back."
"And she agreed?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Well, that's one thing you did right, at least."
You've withstood stiffer blows. You inhale deeply, and release it. It's not too late to work on becoming a better person, on managing your anger better.
Pete bends down to untie his laces, then stretches out along his bench, arms folded across his eyes. You sit down on the floor again, against the wall.
"Could I ask you a question?" you say, after awhile.
Pete chuckles. "Can I stop you?"
"You love her."
"That's not a question."
"Do you?"
Pete sighs. "Our relationship is complicated. I love her like family. Like a sister. I've known her for a very long time."
You fold your hands in front of you, thumbs rubbing against one another nervously.
"I love her too," you say, eventually.
"You've got a hell of a way of showing it."
"I wasn't in my right mind," you retort, and he responds with a harsh laugh. You take a deep breath and try again: "I was broken. Surely you can understand, in some way. Gladiators and brothel slaves aren't so different. We both know what it feels like to have our bodies reduced to objects bent to the whims of other people's pleasures."
"Yeah," Pete says, throwing his hands aggressively into the air above him. "I get that. So when someone like you threatens maybe the only person who makes me feel human, I'm going to get protective and I'm not going to apologize for it."
"I know that feeling, Pete," you say quietly. "Now, imagine losing that one person who made you feel human. Imagine what that would do to your mind."
He lies still for a long moment, breathing deeply. Then he rolls onto his side to face you, tucking both arms under his head. He squints at you across the cell.
"Okay," he says, his voice softer. "But I don't forgive you."
"I wouldn't ask you to. I don't forgive myself."
"But you love her."
"I do." You smirk a little at him. "Definitely not like a sister."
"Oh oh owwwwwwch," he groans, covering his upturned ear with his hand. "See, the thing with the whole 'like a sister' thing is that I really don't ever want to hear about that."
You laugh at that, and bite your lip. "You're a good man, Pete Lattimer."
"It's a thing I'm working on," he says.
There's another question you want to ask, but it unnerves you. You sip an intake of breath and hold it.
"What's on your mind?" he asks.
You let the air out. "You're Roman, aren't you."
"Yep," he says, nonchalantly, as he stretches his arms up and shifts back onto his back. "Born and raised here in Roma city, as were my parents and their parents."
"How did you…"
"End up here? A slave and a gladiator?"
"Yes." You cock your head toward him. "If you don't mind my asking."
"Ah, well," he sighs, "I guess I know most of your dirty secrets, don't I."
You shrug, and nod.
"Wine," he says.
You raise your eyebrows. "Wine?"
"I couldn't stop drinking it."
"I see," you say. You fold your hands in your lap and wait.
"I was in the army, a long time ago. Myka ever tell you about Sam?"
You smile, sadly, and envision a shelter in a clearing near a stream. You nod. "Yes."
"We were in the same regiment. That's how I met Myka, originally, was through him," Pete says. "But I thought back then I had a small problem with wine. Turned out it was a big problem. I couldn't sober up. I'd get sick if I tried. Eventually the army kicked me out because I couldn't function. Family gave up on me, too. I went into debt to keep myself in drink, and couldn't pay it back. After a year of defaulting, my creditor claimed me in slavery as repayment. "
One of the many bizarre Roman traditions: that they enslave one another. Fathers can sell their children. Lenders can claim their creditors.
As Pete speaks, his tone blurs, becomes more distant. You see his eyes lose focus as he calls up his memories.
"I started off with the high-ranking posts: tutoring, actuarial stuff, because of course I could read and write and I was good with numbers. But the drink still haunted me and I could never hold those positions for long.
"Couple of years passed and I kept getting downgraded, job to job. Found myself in one of the low-end marketplaces about to be sold with no guarantee. That's where people like Bering go to find gladiators: they choose from among the slaves thought to be expendable." He looks at you and you nod. You know that feeling.
"Myka was really into the fights back then," Pete continues. "Sometimes she would go with her pa to the sales. And I just—I got lucky, I guess, because she recognized me and convinced her father to pay whatever tiny sum they were asking for me. Brought me back here and she got Artie and the doctor to dry me out. With the army training, I made a damn good gladiator for them for about three years before my shoulder went to hell. And now I'm a trainer here."
"So Myka made you a gladiator," you say. The idea twists your gut—it seems so unlike her.
"Myka saved my life," he retorts, louder than necessary. He exhales, loudly. "Sorry. Touchy subject." He sits up and gazes at you steadily, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. When he opens his mouth again, his voice is the measure of soft control. "I don't want to be here any more than you do, or any of the other guys. But I'd rather be here than dead in an unmarked grave, which is where I would be if Myka hadn't taken a chance on me that I didn't really deserve. And you've gotten some good out of my story, too, because I'm the reason Myka's soft on slaves. She used to be as bad as everyone else, until I came along, a guy she used to hang out with as a friend who'd had a rough time and made some bad choices. She had to realize that we were people just like everyone else. And I'd lay everything down for her to this day, Helena, because she did the same for me."
Pete's words shake you and soothe you, they make you love Myka and fear for her all the more.
You open your mouth to respond to him when a knocking sound rattles through the wall you're leaning on—three loud raps. You glance back over your shoulder instinctively, as though you could see where the sound was coming from. Then you look at Pete and he shrugs, brow knit in confusion.
A moment pauses and you hear it again. Pete stands up.
Then you hear the voice, coming partly through the wall and partly through the door, echoing down the corridor: "Hey. Hey. You two having fun in there? I'm sure looking forward to when I get to have fun. Didn't your parents teach you to share, Pete?"
"Can it, Diamond," Pete yells back.
"I'd love to, but you're hogging the goods."
Your eyes slip closed for a moment and you rub the back of your neck.
"Ignore him," Pete says, looking at you with what seems like true kindness for the first time. You try to smile back at him even as you struggle to tear your gaze fully from the wall behind you.
"Come on," Marcus yells again, "I've got a sharp spear that needs a polish and I know I'm not the only one in here who's waiting his turn for a shine!"
A chorus of voices roar out their approval from the cells down the corridor.
Pete shakes his head, angrily, and walks to his cell door. He tilts his head up toward the window there and shouts, "The next man to make a sound other than snoring will complete his full day of training tomorrow barefoot in the sun."
That silences them quickly. You smile a little, imagining just how hot the sand must get without shade.
Pete turns and looks at you. "I'm sorry," he says.
"It's hardly your fault," you reply. You're feeling a little shaky, there's no point in denying it. When you meet his gaze this time, there is a softness there that you've never seen before. For the first time, you're truly struck by the risk he's taking on your behalf, by protecting you.
When you lie down together to sleep, he says, "I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be able to sustain this."
You prop yourself up on your elbow and when you look down at him, he's just tired. Defeated. Oddly, you feel more upset on his behalf than on your own. You wish you could reassure him somehow, or thank him with more than words. For a vaporized moment you contemplate giving him, willfully, what you were sent here to have taken from you. But you don't want him, not that way, and while you bet he wouldn't mind sex, you're pretty sure he doesn't want you—and he's a good man, a kind man, who wouldn't take your offer of your body given under duress.
"I'm incredibly grateful for everything you've done for me, Pete," you say, instead. "Truly. There are no words for how grateful I am."
"Stay safe in here," he says. "That's all the thanks I need."
\\
The next evening, Pete returns early with his good shoulder blackened and swollen, patched up with bandages.
"What happened?" you ask.
"Marcus," Pete replies tightly, as he rolls his neck. "I'm officially a wingless bird."
"Pete—"
"Listen," he interrupts, "I can't sugar-coat this. Things are getting personal and I think Artie's going to interfere soon."
You close your mouth and nod. You'd figured as much.
"I know I said Artie doesn't believe in this whole thing, but he needs to keep the calm among his gladiators, especially with the big games at the Colosseum coming up in two weeks. It's his ass on the line if our fighters do badly. Mine, too, but I'm less concerned about—"
"Pete," you say, to interrupt his rambling. "It's all right. "
"Not really," he says, with a frustrated shake of his head as he sits down on his bench. "I got something for you, though. You don't have to take it, but…"
He reaches behind himself and begins to unroll the back of the waistband of his subligaculum. When he extends his hands in front of you again, he's holding a small dagger with a thick leather sheath, and a strip of cloth as long as your arm.
"I don't even know if this is a good idea," he says, "but I had to do something. Smuggled this out of the Armory."
For a long moment, you look at the dagger in his outstretched hand. Then you look at him.
You take it.
\\
The next morning, you use the cloth to strap the dagger to your inner thigh. Your tunic conceals it easily.
By the same time the following day, you will wonder whether it was miserable or wonderful fortune that inspired Pete to gift you the knife on the day that he did.
You are sweeping out a gladiator's cell as a favor to Leena when you hear heavy footsteps walking down the corridor. A man's footsteps. You don't know whose they are, but you flatten yourself against the inside wall of the cell in the hope that you won't be seen.
The steps continue past you.
Suddenly, the steps break into a run and you hear Marcus' voice yelling: "Hey, stop!"
And then you hear another set of footsteps, lighter, also running, followed by the sound of a scuffle and then—silence.
You don't know why Marcus isn't in the yard or who the other person is.
You could sit still. You could wait out whatever is happening-
But curiosity, impatience, and poor impulse control are your weaknesses. That, and while you're certain that Leena knows the gladiators' movements well enough to avoid them, you have a fear deep in your belly that the lighter footsteps you heard might have been hers.
Slowly, you open the door of the cell where you were hiding and you poke your head out.
There, between the doors a half-dozen cells down, Marcus has Claudia pinned to the wall.
\\
You duck back into the cell. Your heart is racing and stuttering like a chariot wheel over cobblestones and your hands tremble with nerves. Phrases of anger flash through your mind: what is she doing here and how did she get through the locked gate and gods, Myka, keep track of your handmaiden! but you know two things:
This is about you, not Claudia.
You cannot—will not—let Claudia suffer for your sins.
You take three calming breaths and cautiously tip your head out into the corridor. Claudia's head is turned to the side, against the wall, facing you, but her eyes are closed and Marcus is pressed fully against her. You can see that he's saying something, but he's speaking too quietly for you to hear, and she's flinching, her brow furrowed in fear.
You scan his body quickly. He has no weapons on him. He is a fighter who trains for hours every day and you are years out of practice, so he has a strong edge in skill, unquestionably. He is also easily twice your size. But you have a dagger and the element of surprise working in your favor—and those are substantial enough to be significant.
You bend down and unsheathe the dagger, rolling it in your grip.
Slowly, so slowly, you open the door and stalk close to them, one finger pressed across your lips in case Claudia opens her eyes and sees you. The distance to reach them is brief. Marcus turns his head and sees you just before you are upon him, the heel of your left hand immediately jabbing up at his nose where it collides with a sickening crack. Blood gushes out over your palm and down your forearm but Marcus stumbles back, freeing a whimpering Claudia from the wall. You notice that her clothing is undisturbed—you made it in time, thank the gods—but a gladiator requires more than a broken nose to be stopped; before he can recover, you grab a fistful of his hair to pull his head backward, pressing your dagger to his throat as you hook your heel behind his knee and pull. He tumbles backward to the ground like a fallen horse, head bouncing once off the stone floor. You land on top of him. It will be hard for you to immobilize a man of his size but you've got tricks; you press your thumb over the broken bridge of his nose and he howls. Then you release it but keep your hand there, your other hand pressing your blade to his throat just above the adam's apple. Your knee is pressed to his solar plexus and your other foot is braced on the floor.
"I've been trying to figure out what I needed to do to get you on top of me, baby," Marcus sneers at you through the blood still oozing down his face.
"You're a sick bastard."
He laughs once, then grimaces against the pain. "Maybe. But I'm given to understand that I'm a sick bastard who is also your master, along with every other man in here. I wouldn't have touched that kid if you'd been giving me my due instead of hiding out with Lattimer."
You press the edge of your blade harder into his throat. "When I kill you, you'll be nobody's master."
A soft sound comes to you from off to the side. You flit your eyes up and realize that Claudia is still standing there, terrified and dumbstruck. Her eyes are red and watery and her hands are both fisted in her hair as she watches the scene playing out before her.
Marcus notices your hesitation. "You won't kill me in front of the girl," he says, when you look down at him again.
He's right.
"Claudia, go," you say quietly, in your language, not lifting your eyes from Marcus' venomous gaze.
"No way, HG. I'm not leaving you with him," she responds, in hers.
"It's not safe here. GO," you growl, louder this time, as you press the edge of your knife hard enough to nick Marcus' skin.
"HG—" Claudia says. You hear her take a step closer to you. "Don't—don't kill him. He's not worth the punishment you'll get."
"If you're still here when I'm found then you'll be blamed for this, too. Let me take the fall for whatever happens. There's not much more they can do to me."
"HG—"
"GO!" you shout, angry now. "If you want to help, go tell Myka what happened."
"Okay. Okay," Claudia says, nervously. You hear her footsteps retreat slowly, and then faster.
"All right, whore," Marcus spits up at you. "Kill me or don't. I'm tired of lying here."
You stare at him, at his dark, broken eyes and the red blood spilling over his chin. A slave, like you, of course. From the east somewhere. Thracian, maybe.
"You like attacking defenseless young women," you say, bringing your face close to his.
"I should have attacked you," he says. "You're not defenseless." He spits and suddenly your face is flecked with his blood. "Kill me or let me up and you'll see how a gladiator fights through a broken nose."
You realize you don't want to give him the satisfaction of killing him. But he's right: if you get up right now, he'll come after you, broken nose and all.
"You're too low to die by my hand," you growl, and that's all the warning he gets: in four swift movements, your dagger leaves a long wound, just deep enough to scar, along the length of each cheekbone, and then it flies to each of his hands and slices through the thin skin between both thumbs and forefingers, all the way to the muscle.
He doesn't howl like most people would, but he grunts loudly and you know you've disabled him.
You stand and back away from his prone form as he clutches his hands into fists, and his fists against his face, blood pouring from all of his wounds.
The dagger is still clutched in your trembling hand.
\\
You should never have accepted the gift of the dagger.
You tell yourself this, over and over. The dagger made you feel you had the strength to interfere. You should have learned, by now, not to interfere; to keep your concerns to yourself and let others deal with theirs.
Even if those others are young Claudia.
Right? So you shouldn't have accepted the dagger.
You tell yourself this over and over but you can't bring yourself to believe it, even though you know, with every certainty, that you are out of chances now.
You had barely had time to wash the blood off when Artie came wondering why Marcus was taking so long in the latrine, only to find him crouched in the corridor, covered in blood, his thumbs all but dangling uselessly.
He found you in the bathing room, washing your hands.
You didn't resist when he took the dagger from you. He grabbed you by the wrist and led you to a vacant cell – the same one where you were with Myka, the day before.
"The Dominus will hear about this," he'd said, tiredly, as he locked the cell from the outside. "You've just taken one of his strongest gladiators out of commission for the big games at the Colosseum. And I really want you to not be my problem anymore."
You didn't respond. You had nothing to say. You still don't.
You sit on the bench, now, back straight, hands on your knees, and think of Myka.
Myka, who loves Claudia and will surely be grateful that you did what you did, even at the expense of her father's gladiator.
Myka, who has helped you to see that there remains something in this life worth living for.
Myka, who is surely your only hope for salvation now.
You wait.
