⊱ ────── {⋆❉⋆} ────── ⊰

(Y/N) kept tugging and shaking Steven's body desperately while trying to wake him up. It had been a few minutes after he had passed out, and not seeing any reaction to any of (Y/N)'s calls was making her grow anxious.

"Steven. Wake up. Wake up!" (Y/N) tugged on his shirt but once again, there was no sign of consciousness from him.

"(Y/N)," Layla called, grasping her not injured shoulder to catch her attention. "Come on, we have to move him."

(Y/N) nodded in silence in a way to agree with her and the two used all their strength in their body to drag Steven through the stand, already starting to see some sort of movement to their pull until a bright car light shined on their faces.

(Y/N) knew they didn't have much time and grunted in effort once she hooked her arms under Steven's armpits to try and drag his body even faster while Layla grabbed onto the legs.

They were moving back in slow movements that they were close enough to fear and notice the guns firing in their direction and how the bullets sank in the sand. (Y/N) cursed under her breath and the two were forced to roll down the hill of sand they were in to hide away from the bullets.

Unlike (Y/N) and Layla, Steven had no way of stopping his body from rolling down the sand hill and collapsed face down onto the bottom part of it, while the two women ran the fastest they could to their car parked a few feet away from the sand and avoided getting caught red handed by the truck that was following behind.

(Y/N) and Layla were forced to hide behind the side of the car to avoid the headlights from the car to illuminate them, crouching down while moving to the back door of the car and slip inside without getting spotted.

(Y/N) was able to hear how the truck stopped a few feet away from their own car by seeing the bright headlights stop their movements.

"I saw two people running!" One man yelled out in Arabic, and (Y/N) was forced to hide her loud breathing behind her palm. "Check around the truck!"

The truck did a full circle around the car to check if there were anyone hiding behind it and luckily they didn't spot the two inside. (Y/N) shifted in her spot to see from the window how the truck stopped again, its lights now shining down on Steven's unconscious body in the sand.

"Looks like he's dead," the man spoke again.

Layla's posture straightened and she began to rummage through the bags inside the car for the package filled with flares. (Y/N) noticed what she was doing and her eyes widened in surprise.

"What are you — " she whispered frantically.

"Trust me," Layla muttered back before carefully and quietly slipping out of the truck with a very uncertain (Y/N) following behind her.

Layla stood up from her crouching position and lit up the flare in her hand, which began to let out a red smoke out of it. The new source of light alerted the man in the truck of their presence and he smacked onto the roof of the truck to catch the driver's attention.

"Turn! Turn!" the man yelled. "There they are!"

(Y/N)'s breath hitch when she saw how quickly the driver whirled the car around and the headlights were now shining brightly on her and Layla. Following the plan Layla had in mind, they dodged the firing bullets and hid behind the car with the flare still in Layla's hands.

Quickly, Layla dropped it in the sand as (Y/N) went to grab the other and lit it up too once the one in the ground made the men's attention to drift off. In a short notice, Layla grabbed the flare from (Y/N)'s hands and threw it to the back of the truck, specifically making it land in the bullets for the machine gun they had in the back.

This instantly caused a reaction and crackling noises began to echo in (Y/N)'s ears as she and Layla saw how the truck caught itself on fire and smoke and how the driver and the man on the tail dropped unconscious in the sand.

Once they realized they were alone again, (Y/N) dropped her guard and then felt a presence behind her. Steven was standing silently behind her and Layla with sand covering half of his face and clothes, a raised eyebrow decorating his features.

"What?" Layla asked defensively once she noticed.

(Y/N) shrugged her shoulders at him. "You're gonna have get used to it."

⊱ ────── {⋆❉⋆} ────── ⊰

The sun began to rise over the mountains of the desert and the new source of light brought comfort to (Y/N)'s entire being, finding the complete pitch darkness something uncomfortable.

The trio was driving off once again, now having (Y/N) drive while Steven sat on the copilot seat with her and Layla stayed in the back, wanting to rest back for a while.

"We can't lose more time," Layla broke the silence. "Harrow must be headed back to the tomb."

"Look, if he is, we're probably gonna need Marc, yeah?" (Y/N) added on while changing her gaze from the road to Steven beside her. "But I'm starting to prefer you over him."

Steven spotted the rear view mirror to his right and saw Marc nodding along with her. "Exactly. See, she gets it," he then registered her last words. "Wait, what?"

Steven swallowed before answering. "No."

"No?" (Y/N) looked surprised by his sudden confidence in his answer, raising her eyebrows at him in confusion.

"No," Steven repeated. "See, the thing is, we made a deal, Marc and I, that when he was done with Khonshu, he would disappear for good."

His words seemed to get right through (Y/N), since her defensive facade nearly collapsed completely when hearing this, as if she was dreading this.

"But that deal didn't involve you getting (Y/N), Layla and us killed, did it?" Marc spoke again. "That's not gonna fly with me."

"You guys made a deal?" (Y/N)'s tone was different, as if she was trying to keep her words at bay. "That he would just go away from my life? And you didn't think that maybe I had the right to know about that?"

Steven looked back to the mirror and saw how Marc nodded again with a face that silently said that he agreed, and Steven sat back down to his seat. "Oh."

"Well, hadn't he disappeared from your life already?"

(Y/N)'s muscles physically tensed and Layla scoffed at this. "Yeah. I mean, who cares? It's not like we're an item or anything, why should I care if he leaves. His suit was his best feature, right? Don't have that anymore."

"Steven, give me the body right now," Marc pleaded again. "This is a suicide mission."

"Plus, I know how he is," (Y/N) continued on her ramble. "He'd wanna do this whole thing like a lone wolf. It's not happening. We're not gonna do that, right Layla?"

Layla looked up from kicking the sand off her fingers. "Of course."

Steven nodded. "We are not. It's just you and me, and the open road."

But after that, (Y/N) pressed on the brake rather harshly right in front of a very narrow space between rocks, and this made Steven nearly press his head against the glass if it weren't for his quick reflexes. Layla unbuckled her seatbelt to follow after (Y/N) and had to clear up Steven's confusion since he looked frozen in place.

"We're gonna go on foot from here," she cleared out.

Steven nodded. "Yeah, all right."