Chapter 86

"She did." There was a hesitance in his voice as he said it. "She saw beyond and wasn't afraid. Their relationship was mainly... sexual at first." I waited for him to say more. "After Hephaestus found out, they got an annulment, and Aphrodite and Ares got to be together."

"And they were happy?" I gazed back at him. The storm of his eyes battling between blue and silver caught me and held me there intensely. 

"Very."

I suddenly felt a plummet in my chest, like all the air had been knocked out of my lungs and I didn't know how to react. I began to ask myself why I was here; why did Roman take me here? What was the purpose? I knew this room meant something to him and Skye and it felt nice to know how comfortable he was around me to let me in. Yet, I could help but feel there was something more.

I turned my head to look away from his gaze and stared down at the floor. "Erm, it there a reason as to why I'm here." I waited nervously in the silence that came after.

Roman coughed awkwardly, "Um, yeah.... Follow me." When I had turned back around, he was already walking away, and I had to run to catch up with him.

He led me to another room in the same section but this one had tons of old artifacts such as vases and bowls, old helmets lined behind glass cases. The whole room seemed as if it was being held up by pillars to give into the Ancient Greece aesthetic. Near a corner was a gap made for a pair of double doors but instead caution tape and a 'NO ENTRY' sign was put out front. That was exactly where Roman was heading.

He walked close to the wall, looking back to check if security was there before walking straight to it.

"Um... Roman?" I called after him. "This feels illegal."

We got to the doors and he held up some of the tape for me to duck under. "It is." Was all he said before gesturing for me to go under. I bit my lip and went through, finding myself completely submerged in darkness. Yep, this is the start to a horror movie.

Soon after, Roman climbed in and grabbed a flashlight out of his jacket pocket.

"What the hell are we – "

"Shh!" he cut me off and placed his fingers on his lips.

"Sorry." I winced, "What the hell are we doing here?" I hissed.

He didn't reply and slowly surveyed the darkness, nodding his head forward, "C'mon, and watch where you step." This would probably be how I died. Death by museum, ironic, isn't it?

I followed him through the room, keeping close behind but sometimes sneaked a look behind me to make sure some mummified zombie wasn't chasing after me. When we got to the exact place Roman wanted, he flicked on a small lamp behind me and the whole room dimly lit up with a tender, yellow glow.

Books.

That was the first thing that came to mind.

Hundreds of books stacked in old, looking bookshelves like a labyrinth. A library. My breath got taken away as my eyes trailed over every single shelf, studying the dust-jackets of each novel, some with intricate detailing, others smothered with dusk. The whole of my heart pounded with pure excitement as I took one step forward and admired the sheer beauty of it all.

"Wow..." I gasped, holding my breath. Roman came up my side and smiled softly.

"C'mon, I want to show you something." He walked past and into the isles. They weren't astonishingly tall but they were certainly a good few meters taller than Roman. I followed behind, not being able to take my eyes of the books for one second. I had never been in a library like this before, it felt like I had stepped back in time to a Victorian bookshop.

He stopped in front of a shelf and pulled out a book, it was covered in dust and he carefully blew it off revealing the title. Pride & Prejudice.

"Here." He handed it to me. I took it between my palms, afraid it'd disintegrate at my mere touch. "Look inside."

I flipped over the cover to see handwriting marking the first page in smudged, black ink. "No way." I gasped, placing a hand over my mouth. This couldn't be possible. I was going to faint.

"The first edition of 'Pride & Prejudice' signed by Jane Austen herself in..." he pointed to a date in the corner. "1813, the 1st of February."

Holy shit, I was about to faint. "That's four days after the publication date." I whispered awestruck.

"Mm hm." Roman nodding, smiling to himself as he watched my reaction.

"This could go up for thousands."

"Hundreds of thousands." He corrected me.

"What the hell is it doing here?" I gazed up at him breathlessly. A frown took over his expression as he looked down at the book.

"This used to be an exhibit for old literature, tons of these were bought at auctions but when this was first opened, barely anyone came." 

I gawked at him. "Why the hell not?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "People just weren't that interested." I couldn't believe it. These books were goldmines. Pure goldmines that I could feel myself hyperventilating at. Yet no one was as interested.

"So, it closed down?"

He nodded sadly in response.

"What's going to happen to it?"

"The museum sees it as a complete waste. I came here a couple of days ago after I blew off some steam at boxing to take a picture of one of the statues to send to Skye because she wanted to draw a picture of it. I talked to the woman at the front desk to ask what they were planning on doing with it and she said 'nothing'."

"Nothing?!" I whisper-shouted. Nothing?! Fucking nothing?!

"They don't see a point in it because it flopped so bad. The only thing they could do is sell them in auctions, but they'd mostly go to people who'd place them in a glass cabinet for show and never make good use out of them."

"And what's so bad about that?" I always thought books as décor looked pretty.

"Don't you think these authors would rather someone read and fall in love with their work than admire the pretty cover and old date?" he had a point. He always had a point and it always made me look from a new perspective. People would write these stories to bring their readers on some many different journeys and fill them with a variety of strong emotions, yet the people who admired their work the most were easily overtaken by those who wanted some expensive décor to make them look educated when, in reality, they didn't care about what these things truly meant.

"So then why are we here?" I asked.

He looked down at me and smiled, "Take them." I could have died on the spot when he said that.

I blinked. "I'm sorry what?"

"Take them."

There was no way he was saying this. No way. "I... I-I can't." this was so... bad.

"If I was some famous author, I'd rather my work no matter how old or precious it is, be enjoyed and cherished by someone, not be kept behind a glass case for décor." He had such a good point, but I couldn't take these... they were so precious. They didn't belong with me. Out of everyone in the world, I was the last person that deserved them.

"But... But what if we get in trouble?" anxiety rose in my stomach.

"Please." He scoffed. "This whole exhibition has been here for years and no one has done anything about it. If there is one person in this whole world who would cherish these like their life depended on it, it'd be you, Sienna."

Take the books. No, leave them. Take them. Leave them. Take. Leave. Take. Leave. The angel and devil on my shoulders were having a raging argument.

"We could get in so much trouble for this." I whispered nervously, fiddling with my fingers.

"And is Sienna Callum scared of trouble?" he raised a brow and walked over to me. "Because last time I checked, trouble was her middle name." for fuck's sake, he knew how to get to me. Did I want these books? Hell yes. God, I'd read them again and again and again. Was it wrong to take them? Completely. Yet sometimes... you had to let the devil win.

"You got a bag?"

Roman smiled widely and took a folded, material bag from his pocket and opened it up. It looked like something his mom owned and I didn't doubt that she did for one second. He took out some tissue paper and carefully wrapped it around the Jane Austen book before placing it in.

I scavenged down the isles until my eyes landed on another book. 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. First edition and also signed. I tried not to faint as I passed it over to Roman as my heart pounded against the cage of my chest. Holy shit, I was really doing this.

'Little Women' by Louisa May Alcott, 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte, 'A Tale of Two Cities' by Charles Dickins, 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy, 'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett. All first edition, most signed. Some even with little messages from the authors in them. It astounded me how no one cared. These novels weren't just classics, they made history in so many different genres. They caved paths for more stories to come, and my eyes welled up just looking at them.

Stories meant so much to me. As a child, whenever I felt things going wrong, I fell into those stories to give myself comfort, to lift me up in a whirlwind of emotions. I couldn't even describe what holding these books meant to me.

"Will we get caught?" I nervously asked as Roman wrapped and placed the last book in the bag.

"This place is mainly forgotten about, so I don't think that –"

"Hello?! Who's in here?!" the voice of a security guard bellowed through the room. My stomach dropped to the core of the earth. Shit.

"Shit." Roman whispered under his breath.

"Come out! Whoever you are!" the security guard angrily demanded.

Within a matter of seconds, Roman grabbed my hand and bolted. "C'mon!" he exclaimed. Before I knew it, I was being pulled along, down the aisles as the shouts of the security guard got louder as he became to chase us.

"Shit, shit, shit!" I cursed as we sped through the dozens and dozens of aisles.

"Stop right there!" the security guard yelled but we had no plan to. My feet slammed down on the ground hard as we sprinted, my hand never leaving his in fear I'd fall behind. Holy shit, this was really happening.

"Where to?!" I called out to Roman who was busy running away. We took a sharp turn and he kicked open a small door, pushing me inside, following soon after. It was pitch black, but he used his flashlight to light the way.

"This way." He said and grabbed my hand again before we went chasing down. I could hear the slaps of feet echoing far behind us which let me know the security guard was chasing but far from being close.

I tightened my grip around him, only being able to hold two of his fingers due to how big his hands were and tried my best to keep up.

My pulse was hammering against my skin, sweat breaking out down my back and forehead from fear and exhaustion as he kept going.

A peak of light shone through a small window at the end of the hallways and a tinge of relief shot through my body. Hallelujah!

"Here!" Roman stopped and clasped his hands together to boost me up. I placed my foot down and he helped me up to undo the clasp. Shimmying my body through, I tumbled to the grass round the back of the museum and pulled myself up to pull Roman through. He fell down also but managed to pull himself up where we once again went bolting to his car.

"Oh my god!" I squealed when I jumped in the passenger's seat, sinking below the window in case anyone saw and caught us. Roman fumbled with his car keys before shoving them in the ignition and the vehicle rumbled to life.

"I think that was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me." I admitted, trying to regain my breath as the car took off. I glanced back at Roman and we broke into an abundance of insane laughter.

"Fuck." He laughed. "That's got to go down as the coolest thing I've ever done." My laughter erupted even more, and I had to hold my hand over my mouth to die it down a little. "That's something to tell my kids one day." He sighed.

I caught his gaze once more when silence came and it instantly broke as we both burst into another round of laughs.