Synergy (See #3)(32)

I wanted to run to my room, but I couldn’t make my feet work. The desire to know whom this breathtaking stranger was holding me in place. I needed to know if he would tell my father I was in there, if I could trust him.

I felt him moving closer to me and glanced over my shoulder. The sight of his strong body left me breathless. I knew I didn’t know him. I’d never seen him before; no one this beautiful lived in this city.

“Name?” I said shortly.

“Silvanus.” He smiled. “Julia, correct?”

I nodded. “How did you know?”

“I’m a guest of your father’s ... I suppose you would call me a guest.” His eyes moved slowly across my body. “Though he spoke of your beauty, he did not capture it properly.”

I looked at the abrasions on his arms and took in the sadness of his eyes. “What happened to you?”

Before he could answer, my pounding heart caused me to lose the hold on that memory, and I found myself back at the park, leaning against the oak tree with Silas next to me.

“Julia ... I think I like that,” I mumbled as I looked away to hide the blush in my cheeks. Though I couldn’t remember most of my existence, I doubted that any other moment could be as revealing as the first time I met Silas.

Silas laughed under his breath. “I loved that name. You carried it for over a thousand years. You thought of changing it more than once, but those dark eyes could only belong to Julia.”

“Why were you hurt? Where were we?” I asked, gazing into his eyes, regaining my composure and slowing my heartbeat.

“Pompeii,” he whispered as his eyes fell from mine.

“The city of ash,” I breathed, as my eyes grew wider. I remembered writing a report on that city when I was in eighth grade. I was always so far ahead of my classmates that my teachers would give me additional assignments to keep me stimulated. I chose that city. I don’t remember why. I just remembered the grief I felt as I wrote the report. My history teacher was so taken by my words that he suggested to my mother that I should travel to Italy to see the ruins. I told my mother that that was the last place I wanted to see, that it would be too heartbreaking to see the molds of the ones that lost their lives there.

“I see Charlie knows her history,” Silas said as he stretched his legs out before him.

“A little, but I don’t know why you looked hurt. Why you were a stranger just days before my nightmare began?”

“I was a Gladiator.”

“A criminal?” I asked in an unbelieving tone, suddenly understanding why he’d so fearlessly fought those Escorts before: he’d fought like the warrior.

He slowly moved his head from side to side as he locked his jaw and sadness filled his eyes. “No ... I was mistaken for my brother in Rome, forced to fight.”

“You brother never stood up – told them they were wrong?”

He nodded once. “He did, but I told them he was lying.”

“Why?”

“He had a family. A wife. Children. His crime was petty. He only stole food he needed, and he paid it back when he could.”

“So you were a sacrifice?”

He moved his head from side to side. “Even though my brother was older, I was built differently. I was stronger, more of an athlete. I knew he wouldn’t survive one battle. I’d already won three before he discovered that I was mistaken for him. By that time, I’d become a favorite. If I’d denied that I was him, they would have forced us both to fight, fight each other to the death. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

“How did you end up in Pompeii?”

There was a chilling silence before he finally spoke. “Your father bought my freedom. He visited me in my cell. He told me he saw innocence in my eyes. I thought it was a trick to get me to confess that I wasn’t my brother, so I tried to act tough, but I didn’t fool him.”

“Why did he want to buy you?”

As Silas’ eyes stared into the distance, I watched every emotion ripple though his outwardly calm composure. “He didn’t want to own me; he wanted to set me free. He told me that he dreamed of me before he saw me fight, that the Goddess of Venus wanted me to live in Pompeii. He traded land and goods that he’d won in Rome for me. On our journey to Pompeii, I told him I’d pay him back, but he insisted that the land and goods were given to him by the goddesses and that I couldn’t pay him back.”

“So you were free in Pompeii to start a new life?”

“I was asked to fight once. To kill a man that wronged your father. Once that fight was over, my freedom would be given to me, a home would be given to me, and I could seek a wife.”

“Did that fight ever happen?”

He nodded. “On August 24th.”

“The day of the eruption ... how long did I know you before that?”

“Seven days,” he answered quietly.

“Was it a good seven days? How come I feel like I was mad at you?” I asked as flashes of time I couldn’t grasp echoed in my thoughts.

“I’d like to think it was a good seven days ... at least they were for me.”

My heart began to race as the memories became more vivid. I saw myself sneaking off to meet him by the pool each night. During the day, we acted as if we didn’t know each other. I was even rude to him when my father introduced him to me.