Page 36 of Thawed Gladiator: Cassius

“No, it’s not enough,” I snap back at her. “Thesestultiare massacring our heritage. They’re taking the noble language of Cicero, of Virgil, and reducing it to… to this plebeian drivel.”

I turn back to Thrax and Skye. “If you’re going to create a program to preserve our language, at least have the decency to do it properly. Use the patrician pronunciation, the speech of the educated and the elite. Not this… gutter Latin.”

The silence that follows is deafening. I stand here, chest heaving, glaring at Thrax and Skye. Thrax looks as if I’ve physically struck him, while Skye’s eyes are wide with hurt and confusion as her gaze avoids mine.

It’s Quintus who finally breaks the silence. “Cassius,” he says quietly, “what are you talking about? Yes, there were differences in how patricians and plebeians spoke, but that was two thousand years ago. And most of us here… we weren’t exactly from noble families. So who, exactly, are we preserving our language for?”

His words are like a bucket of cold water, dousing the fire of my anger and leaving me feeling hollow and confused. I look aroundthe room, at the shocked and hurt faces of my friends—my new family. What have I done?

“I… I don’t…” I stammer, suddenly unsure. The memories that felt so real just moments ago—of a life of privilege and education—begin to fade, leaving me unmoored once again.

Diana approaches me slowly, her mouth pinched in disappointment. “Cassius,” she says, her voice tight with barely contained emotion, “that’s enough. You need to calm down.”

Her words, meant to soothe, instead ignite a new wave of irritation within me. “Calm down?” I snap, rounding on her. “You don’t understand, Diana. None of you do. You can’t possibly comprehend what it’s like to have your entire identity ripped apart and reassembled incorrectly.”

Diana’s eyes widen, hurt flashing across her features. “Cassius, please. We’re all trying to help you. You don’t have t—”

“To what?” I interrupt, my voice rising. “To remember who I am? To try to make sense of these jumbled memories? To figure out why I feel so out of place in this world, in this time?”

The room is full of awkward silence, all eyes fixed on us. I barely notice, too caught up in my own turmoil.

“You claim to want to help,” I continue, the words pouring out of me like poison, “but how can someone who hides from her own reflection possibly guide me? You can barely look people in the eye because of your scars, yet you presume to understand mystruggle with identity? At least my parents didn’t throw me away like garbage.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve gone too far. Diana recoils as if I’ve struck her, pain etched across her face as she covers her mouth with her hand. Fuck! I’ve wounded her so deeply she’s hiding herself from me even though I thought we’d gotten past that the first night we laid together.

“Hide from my reflection?” Diana repeats, her voice barely above a whisper. “Garbage?”She shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes. She turns as if to leave, then completes the circles to stare at me. Gone is her surprise and disappointment of moments ago. Now, she’s fully enraged.

“Cassius, I don’t know who you are, but I know one thing. I fucking hate you.”

She takes a step back, then another. “I guess I’ve been fooling myself all along.”

“Diana, I—” I start, the anger draining away as quickly as it came, leaving pure regret in its wake.

But she holds up a hand, stopping me. “No. I don’t recognize you anymore. This isn’t just a bad moment or a phase. Every day I watch you slip further into cruelty. I can’t stand by and watch you destroy everything we’ve built. I can’t keep walking on eggshells, waiting for the next outburst. I can’t keep making excuses for your behavior.”

She turns to leave, pausing at the door to look back at me one last time. “I think it’s best if we take some time apart.”

With that, she’s gone, the door closing behind her with a soft click that feels as final as a tomb being sealed.

I stand there, frozen, the full weight of what I’ve done crashing down on me. The room remains silent, the air thick with tension and disappointment.

“Well done, Cassius,” Sulla’s voice cuts through the silence, dripping with sarcasm. “Truly a lesson in how to alienate the only person who’s stood by you through all of this.”

His words break the spell. Shame and regret wash over me in waves. Without a word to anyone, I turn and flee the room, desperate to escape the accusing stares and my own crushing guilt.

As I stumble out into the cool night air, Diana is nowhere to be seen. The enormity of my mistake hits me in full force. I’ve pushed away the one person who made me feel whole, the one person who saw the best in me even when I couldn’t see it myself.

I sink to my knees in the grass, my head in my hands. “What have I done?” I whisper to the uncaring night. But there’s no answer, only the quiet chirping of crickets and the weight of my own foolishness pressing down on me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Diana

I storm into my cabin, slamming the door so hard the whole structure shakes. My hands tremble as I fumble with the lock, desperate to put something solid between me and the outside world. No, not the world—between me and Cassius.

The moment the lock clicks, the tears I’ve been holding back burst free. My legs give out and I slide down the door, burying my face in my hands as sobs wrack my body. Each one feels like it’s tearing me apart from the inside.

How did we get here? My hands shake as I replay his cruel words, each one a knife twisting deeper. The man I fell in love with would never have been so deliberately cruel, so calculated in his attacks. This wasn’t just arrogance or confusion—this wasmalice.

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