Whisper (Riley Bloom 4)

4

While I’d been told more than once that I possessed all the delicacy and finesse of a bull in a china shop, as far as Theocoles was concerned, I was determined to take an entirely different approach.

Which is to say that I didn’t approach him at all.

Instead I approached the girl I’d seen watching him.

Or at least I tried to approach her. Though the truth is I didn’t get very far. The moment she saw me grinning and waving from the space just below where she stood, she vanished. Just poof and she was gone. But not before I caught the look of pure shock displayed on her face.

Unlike the others, she’d seen me. And at that point, with not much else to go on, it felt like progress. It felt like a start.

I wound my way past the gladiators, ducking and dodging around their fiercely punching swords—stopping beside the one the girl had been watching, wondering why I’d failed to notice him before.

From this angle he was even taller than I’d first thought. He towered a good foot above the rest, which is probably why he didn’t look nearly as bulky. Though that’s not to say he wasn’t strong, because he was. The circumference of just one bicep alone appeared wider than both my legs put together. And while his skin bore its fair share of battle scars, it was nothing excessive, or at least not compared to what I’d seen on his fellow fighters.

He dropped his sword to the ground and wiped a hand across his brow, clearing it of the heavy sheen of sweat that shone on his forehead, while sweeping aside the tangle of long dark curls that fell into his eyes. Revealing a face that, aside from a nose that had clearly been broken once or twice, was dark and smooth and surprisingly unblemished for someone in his line of work. And I couldn’t help but think that in another time and place—a more modern time and place—he would’ve been splashed across magazine covers and movie screens. But in ancient Rome, his fame was due solely to the grisly acts he’d committed with his sword.

Sensing I had only seconds to spare before he returned to his drills, I was just about to speak when he turned to me with eyes the color of deep gleaming topaz, causing the speech I’d prepared to sputter and spurt into an embarrassing garbled-up mess that went something like: “Um, hi. Excuse me for bothering you.” I waved my hand back and forth in a lame attempt at friendliness. “But would you happen to be Theocoles … uh, you know … the one they call the Pillar of Doom?”

He grunted, cleared his throat, and had the audacity to hock a big fat loogie directly at me.

A big fat loogie that landed in the exact same spot where I’d stood just seconds before I gasped and jumped out of the way.

I glared between him and the puddle of ick, shouting, “How dare you!” I shook my head, felt my cheeks grow red. “I mean, seriously! While I get that you’re from another, far more barbaric time in history—while I get that because of that we may not be on the same page where manners are concerned—still, you cannot tell me that you truly don’t realize just how incredibly rude that was!”

He stooped toward the ground, scooped a mound of dirt into his hands, and rubbed it into his palms before retrieving his sword and wiping the handle as well. Acting like he didn’t see me. Acting like he hadn’t just totally insulted me in the very worst way.

I was just about to really let him have it, when a soft voice drifted from behind me and said, “I’m afraid he cannot hear you.”

I turned to find the girl from the balcony.

“Neither can he see you. So please, do not take offense.” She glanced between the gladiator and me. “Theocoles sees only what he chooses to see. You and I are invisible to him.”

I frowned. Scowled. Slewed my gaze first his way then hers, saying, “From what I can tell, I’m invisible to everyone but you. What gives?”

I folded my arms across my chest and gave her a thorough once-over, unable to keep from noticing how her nearness only seemed to magnify just how different we were. And though I tried not to feel small, and insignificant, and completely outclassed by her presence, it was no use.

She was tall—I was puny.

She was pretty—I was forced to settle for cute.

She was curvy and girly—I was skinny, scrawny, and as shrimpy as it gets.

And even though her clothes were completely outdated, there was no denying her gorgeous red gown definitely worked in her favor.

There was no getting around it—she completely and totally eclipsed me in every conceivable way. She was a bright, shining star, while I was a planet so small and insignificant it had never been named.

My thoughts were interrupted by the lilt of her voice saying, “Unfortunately, those you see here are as enslaved in their afterlives as they were in their physical lives.” She paused, her perfect pink mouth pulling into a frown. “They refuse to let go and move on.”

I quirked a brow in response, it’s not like she’d just revealed something new. If anything, it was just the same ole same ole—definitely a scenario I was all too familiar with. All of the ghosts I’d met so far had been enslaved by their lives and unwilling to let go of their pasts—and believe me, they all claimed to have a very good list of reasons for choosing to linger. Not unlike me back when I was haunting the earth plane.

“And you?” I asked, refusing to let her off quite so easily. “Why are you still here? Why haven’t you moved on?” I paused, waited for her to reply. But instead of answering, she bit down on her lip and quickly looked away. “I mean, I’m assuming you know about the bridge that leads to the other side, right?” I cocked my head to the side, which caused my hair to fall into my eyes. But the longer I waited for her to speak up, the more silence I got. “I mean, it’s not like I’m going to take you there or anything. It’s not like that’s any of my business. I’m just curious. That’s all.”

I shoved my bangs back off my face and cast an anxious glance all around. The Council was privy to every single thing that went down, leaving me to hope they’d at least caught on to the fact that I’d finally learned my lesson. That I had no further interest in making up my own assignments, much less catching souls that weren’t mine to catch. Theocoles was my one and only concern, the only one I’d be crossing over on this particul

ar visit to Rome.

Still, I figured it couldn’t hurt to at least mention the bridge. Just in case she didn’t yet know about it … or something.