Romanowski and Rosemary

15. The eye sellers

Their chit-chat was like oxygen in my lungs.

Even though my body was fighting to sleep for the last few hours, I wasn't stupid enough to pass out in an unknown place.

'I figured out from their conversation that Nael wasn't a higher authority. The cult members were, and one of them was claiming to decide my fate,' I informed them. The other slaves had gone to sleep, but I was wide awake.

'Apparently, Nael didn't have enough money to buy me and was denied to further the process of making me blind. At that time, I really wanted to laugh and scream You're broke! Suck it! to his face.' I snickered as I filled in my teammates about what had happened.

"Cors, babe, how are you just so... chill right now?" Lorenzo asked, spooked.

"Your girlfriend gave her virus. Don't blame Cors." Dunkin drawled.

"Yass! Cheryl is the chilliest! I'd say, she's hot as a chilly too-"

"Lorenzo, you lovesick fool! Coretta's in a near-death situation and that's what you are wondering about?" Aarmen grunted.

"Haha, jealous much leader? Dw, you'll find your girl too. A reallllyyy hot girl-"

"Shut up!"

"Nope. Wait, I think I know her name as well. It's Re-"

Lorenzo's side was silenced. Apparently, Aarmen had kicked him out of the group call.

"Apologies for the inconvenience," he sighed. "So, on a serious note, Coretta, what's your plan hereafter then?"

'Okay, so...' I took a deep breath and finally messaged. 'They were talking about the Drachma, which is the Greek currency. Um, like, deciding my value in drachmas, so uh, I guess they want to sell m-'

"What, what? No, fuck no!" Dunkin screamed. "Coretta, Coretta listen I- I have an idea..." My poor friend was breathing hard but what he said next stunned me.

"I'll... I'll return your book to... Julian. If it means that I'll be able to save you through him, I'll return the book. I'm willing to go to his Hades of a cellar, but I can't see you being sold. No, Cors, just no."

Tears pooled in my eyes, but I sniffed them up. 'God, Dunkin, no. As if I'd ever allow that?' I laughed stupidly, but the tears were already running down my face. Which goddamned situation were we stuck in?

"Hold on." Aarmen quirked up. "Did I miss something? Dunkin, how the hell do you have Coretta's book?"

I and Donut silenced.

"Oh, I spied along with Loren. No big deal." he shrugged. "Plus, Julian was out in Alexandria at that time."

"But how..." Aarmen thought it over, but I knew my bestie was beseeching for help.

'Dunkin, Julian may be good to me. But it's the exact opposite for you. He doesn't kill. He makes his culprit suffer. And don't think you'll reach home in a little pain. My eye is intact, and it hurts like hell. Still, there is no electric compulsion to transport me to the safety of my world...'

"But Cors, it's better to be a culprit than to be a slave," he argued. "Do you know the definition of slave? It says that you are no more the owner of your body, but someone else is. And I hate to point it out like this, but you're a woman Cors. It's going to be way worse."

'I- I can fight them off...' I messaged helplessly.

"But you can't fight five men. Even I can't."

"Listen," Aarmen said. "It means they probably wanna take you to Greece. Dunkin, there's no need to involve Julian in all this, because we can't afford to lose you so soon. So what we'll do is send Lorenzo to Greece and ask him to buy Coretta from the slave market. Coretta, you'll keep messaging your location coordinates and the situation around you."

My mouth hung open, realising how smoothly the idea glided into his mind.

Aarmen had been my dad. He could also be a teacher, Euclid's disciple, a prodigy and a salesman in a 4th-century marketplace. Along with being a perfect decision-maker in the most grotesque of situations while talking as if he was delivering a lecture in a hall of dumb students.

He was truly a diamond among us coals.

"One good thing the department did was to give us a leader like Our Man." Dunkin hummed. "Okay, I'll ask that crackhead about it. No, wait. I'll order him. He doesn't have a choice. He has to go to Greece and free Cors."

"I bet poor dude is already dying to step out of the Romanowskian palace after the shit you both pulled." Aarmen sighed.

I held my knees and buried my face, closing my eyes for a while. My body wasn't hungry for food anymore, but for sleep. Guiltily, I thought back to the time of Jakov's wedding celebration. In Julian's room, sleeping so peacefully as I'd stupidly told him that sleep was a pretty thing.

But the prettiest thing is, you happening to me, he had whispered, thinking I had fallen asleep. So softly as he'd kissed my hair. The thought alone gave me so much peace that I smiled, trying to imagine myself in his arms. Even with the wounds on my body, his sweet words brought me comfort.

I was not jealous of any other women in this world, as much as I was jealous of Althea Rosemary.