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Gunshots rain down on them as they sprint down the dark, empty road to the getaway car. Marc leaps across the city rooftops high above, bright in the moonlight, taking the gunners down one by one. He promised to catch up with them later.
As soon as they reach the black convertible sitting on the left-side curb, Jake tosses the keys to Steven, who fumbles the catch. “You’re driving.”
“Me? Jake, I can’t drive!”
“You’re learning today.” Jake drags him by the wrist to the driver’s side and yanks the door open. Then he shoves Steven into the seat and slams the door shut.
Steven stares up at him, panicked. “Now?”
“Now.” Jake leaps into the passenger seat. “Strap in. Turn on the car.”
Steven is frozen, his gloved hands tight on the leather wheel. His index finger is curled around the small key. “This is illegal!”
“You’ve driven before.”
“That was an emergency!”
“This is an emergency!”
“Which is why I shouldn’t be driving in the first place—”
A grenade explodes across the street and they both crouch in their seats. As soon as the fire ebbs to smoke, Jake reaches across the middle console and straps Steven in himself. “You’ve been putting it off! Today’s the day, sweetheart!”
“I can't!”
“You’re learning on the job, it’s the best way to learn! I’m right here with you!” Another grenade explodes, about ten feet closer. The pavement vibrates beneath the tires. “Steven!”
Steven shoves the key into the ignition and turns it. It catches and the engine vibrates under their feet. Steven’s hands squeeze tight around the wheel.
“Good!”
A torrent of bullets rain down on the hood, loud and metallic. Steven screams and covers his head with his arms. Jake’s eyes snap up. A crescent blade glints in the moonlight as it soars through the air. The bullets cut off. The body falls off the roof and lands behind the car.
Jake sinks back into his seat and Steven slowly lowers his arms. “Now. This is the emergency brake.” Jake points to a lever. “We never use this.”
“Okay,” Steven says, his voice small. “Which one is ‘go’?”
“See the pedals at your feet—”
“Mhm—”
“Like riding a bike, Steven, that’s all it is. Right is go. Left is stop.”
“Okay. Okay, left go, right stop.”
“No, right is go. The thinner one.”
“Okay—”
There’s an explosion on the sidewalk to their left. Heat bursts across his mask.
Marc yells from the rooftop, “Just drive!”
Steven covers his face with his trembling hands. “This is so stupid!”
Jake grabs his wrists and lowers them. “Don’t panic, you’re doing great. Now look, here’s the gear shift. D is for Drive.”
Steven wraps his gloved hand around it and yanks. Then he yanks again. “I-It’s not moving! Jake—”
“Is your foot on the brake?”
Steven slams his foot down. The engine roars. “Sorry!”
“That’s the gas, sweetheart.”
“Sorry! Sorry!” He presses the brake and shifts the gears. “Now what?”
“Go.”
“Go?”
There’s a high whistling sound. Marc yells, panicked, “Go!”
Steven slams his foot again and the car rockets ahead, throwing their heads back. An explosion echoes where they were just parked, and heat radiates across their backs.
Jake whoops and slaps the side of the door twice. “¡Olé!” He releases his hood with a laugh and the wind pummels his face.
Steven unhoods too, revealing the terror pinching his brows together. The wind whips his hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“You’re doing great! Just keep going straight and ignore the traffic lights!”
Three black SUV's behind them turn the corner onto the main road, chasing them.
“Shit,” Jake hisses and opens the glove compartment. A gun sits there, loaded.
Steven looks over and gasps. “Wh— no! Jake! No killing!” The car swerves. Jake steadies himself with a hand on the door.
“¡Ojo! Watch the road!”
“No! Killing!”
The street opens up into a highway, still empty, with more lanes on either side of them.
A woman leans out the window of the first SUV, rifle cocked and aimed. Jake’s breath hitches, and he summons his hood again. In his peripheral, Steven does the same. Four loud shots fire off. Two hit the trunk. One hits the right mirror. The fourth misses.
Jake whacks insistently at Steven’s shoulder. “Drive faster!” He looks at the speedometer. His soul sinks. “Wha— why are you only going seventy?!”
“I’ve never driven above seventy!”
“Get it to a hundred!”
“A hundred?”
“There’s no one out here! Go!”
Steven slams the pedal to the floor again. The car jerks faster, and Jake’s heart jumps with it. He laughs wildly again.
“You’re doing great, honey! Now stay low, and keep your mask on!” Jake yells over the wind and unsheathes two golden crescent blades from his chest. He keeps one foot on the seat and the other over the trunk, balancing himself. His black cape billows behind him. “Hold the car straight!”
Then Jake aims for the front tires of the SUV and throws. They whirl through the air and slash through both. The car sinks forward. The woman fires off wild, desperate shots before the car overturns and rolls, sparks flying and metal crunching. Pieces fly off. The other two cars swerve around it.
“There’s a right turn coming up!”
Jake twists around to look. It’s a bend in the road. Good to know. “Okay, that’s fine, just follow the road. At this speed, you really gotta concentrate on holding that wheel steady.”
“O-Okay—”
Shots fire off, and Jake ducks on instinct.
“Jake, get down!”
“I’m fine!” Pellets rain on his chest and bounce off the plate. “Go faster!”
“I can’t, I’m scared!”
He turns around again to look. His eyes widen. “Turn, Steven, TURN—”
The car yanks right, jerking him out of the seat. He tumbles and scrabbles to hold onto the trunk, but slides off and smacks the ground at a hundred miles per hour.
Bones snap throughout his body in slow motion. Shocks riddle him. A loud engine gets closer. White floodlights bathe him. He flings himself out of the way of the charging SUV. It roars past him.
He lies there on the side of the road, stunned. Struggling to breathe evenly.
Breathe. Breathe.
The lacerating pain renders him immobile. His brain thrums like bolts of energy, crying what the hell did you just do? The suit pieces his bones back together.
Not fast enough. The final SUV screeches to a stop ten feet from him, kicking up a stench of burning rubber. Then it reverses until it’s merely a foot away. A gun cocks.
To his horror, the convertible screeches to a halt too. Steven yells into the night, “Jake!”
No, no—
“Go!” Jake screams back, struggling to pick himself up and falling to his knees when sharp pain whites out everything. His vision splits and rejoins, then splits again but he can see well enough that the first SUV isn’t going to stop charging forward. “Keep going!”
The gun shoots at him, round after round. The bullets don’t penetrate, but the harsh impact knocks him back down and keeps him there, sending sharp pain through his skeleton like stabbing knives.
A horrifying crash makes his ears ring, metal screeching and tires squealing. Fire explodes.
Oh gods.
Steven.
Steven Steven Steven Steven Steven Steven—
A crescent blade flies from his hand, through the window and into the person’s face. The shooting finally stops. The silence is loud. The gun slips out the window and hits the ground.
Jake forces himself to his feet with a pained gasp, bones not fully rejoined yet, and limps ahead. Tears sting his eyes. “Steven! STEVEN!”
Someone barrels into him. Through the jolt of agony, he grabs their arm, twists it, and throws them to the ground, pinning their chest with his knee as he raises a crescent blade—
Steven lifts his hands to block his face and unhoods his mask. “Jake, wait, it’s me!”
Jake unhoods as tension dissipates from his soul. He drops the blade and hauls Steven up into a hug, kneeling on the asphalt. “Oh my God, Steven.” His hand digs into the back of Steven’s head, cradling him.
Steven squeezes tight. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Jake’s rejoined bones creak with an echo of pain. He pulls back and holds Steven’s shoulders, then his face. “I thought you were dead!”
Steven’s face is flushed, but otherwise unmarred. No bruises. No burns. “I thought you were dead! Are you alright—”
“How did you—”
“I jumped out of the car at the last second.” Steven hesitates. “They had explosives in the back, so…” He glances back at the fiery inferno and shrinks into himself.
They’re probably not alive.
Jake rubs his thumb over his cheek. “They’re the ones who drove headfirst into a stopped car, honey.”
Steven nods, but the haunted look doesn’t go away. Which means nightmares tonight. Jake pulls him into another hug. Steven goes easy.
The wind shifts above them.
Jake looks up and finds a familiar white cape soaring towards them at a ridiculous speed.
“He’s gonna be pissed,” Steven mutters into his shoulder.
“Let me do the talking,” Jake whispers back.
Marc lands in a crouch, then rises slowly. “What the hell was that?”
“Driving lesson,” Jake says as Marc marches towards them. His yanks his hood back and his mask disappears, revealing his glare and harsh frown.
“In the middle of a mission, Jake? Really?” He kneels down in front of them, and Steven gives him room to check Jake over. “That was a rough fall.”
“I’m fine—”
Marc slaps him across the cheek. Jake massages his jaw with a low chuckle, meeting Marc’s eyes with ease. It’s all it takes for Marc’s anger to crack, revealing the underlying fear as he drags Jake in for a hug, arms tight around him. His voice wavers. “Idiot.”
Jake hugs him back.
Marc pulls away and turns to Steven, checking carefully. “Anything hurt?”
“No.” Steven fiddles with his hands before Marc lifts them to check every finger. “I’m all healed up. Um. Sorry about your car.”
Marc shakes his head and drags a hand down his face. There are bags under his eyes. “It’s fine, Steven. As long as you’re safe.” He looks at the raging inferno again. The corners of his lips turn downward as he mutters, “My mints were in there, though.”
Steven reaches into the pocket of his vest and pulls out three lifesavers. “It’s all I could save.”
Marc’s smile is sudden and beautiful, and Steven’s shoulders loosen as he smiles in return. “Wow. Priorities, huh?” He hands one off to each of them.
Steven tucks it back into his pocket and sits down, leaning back on his hands.
Jake sits next to him and sprawls on his back. Staring at the night sky, turning the mint over on his tongue. His saliva burns. “You did good.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t crash.” At Steven’s dry look, Jake adds, “You didn’t.”
Marc sits on Steven’s other side and crosses his legs, his cape pooling behind him. Slouched. It’s been a long night. “And you drove the fastest you’ve ever driven. That’s something.”
“Can we keep our driving lessons in the estate, please? For all of our sakes?”
Jake reaches up to nudge Stevens’ shoulder, and Steven cracks another faint, appreciative smile. “Sure, honey. Sorry for scaring you.”
The wind shifts again. Khonshu appears on top of the roof of the SUV in front of them, his robes billowing in unnatural wind. An ankle is crossed over his knee and his spindly fingers are wrapped around the cane planted in the ground below.
Do you have it?
“Hello to you too,” Steven mutters as Marc reaches into his boot and pulls out a small, folded up, hand-written note.
Jake huffs and sits up again, then leans against Steven’s shoulder. Steven wraps his arm around his shoulders. “Can’t believe we risked our necks for that.”
Steven.
Steven plucks the note from Marc’s fingers with his free hand and scans it over, brows furrowed in concentration. The symbols and letters and numbers mean nothing to Jake. But Steven shrugs as he folds the note back up. “It will take some time.”
How long?
“However long it takes,” Steven snaps.
Khonshu’s head tilts and cracks. You had no hand in their death, Steven.
Steven doesn’t look away, bitterly defiant in a way that only Khonshu can provoke. “It’ll be a couple of days. Less, with help.”
“Layla’s in Morocco right now,” Marc says around a poorly-stifled yawn.
“Days, then.”
Khonshu hums, not pushing any further. The echoey, low sound makes his ears vibrate. He looks at Jake next. Are you alright?
Jake waves off the hovering bird. “I’m fine. The pain’s almost gone.” Only fatigue remains.
Marc.
Marc glances up at Khonshu, then looks away. “Fine.”
Khonshu hums again, seeing right through it. Through them. Go home. All of you.
They perk up.
“Don’t gotta tell me twice.” Jake hauls himself to his feet on weak knees, ignoring the staff that appears at his back keeping him upright. “This rather convenient car oughtta do. Any cameras in it? Traps?”
Taken care of.
Good.
He releases the suit, leaving him in a short sleeve shirt and sweats, and his flat cap snug on his head. Expecting a body and blood, when he reaches the door he’s pleasantly surprised to find a clean, empty beige leather seat. “All clear.”
As he reaches for the handle, Marc appears on his left and slips into the driver’s seat. His suit is gone too, leaving him in his hoodie and pants. “I’m driving.” He shuts the door with a resounding slam.
“Agreed.” Steven appears on his right and opens the back door. “Lie down, Jake.”
Jake sighs, but obeys without a fight. It makes Marc give him another once-over and Steven looks wary all over again. Jake simply crawls into the backseat until his back is against the far door, and stretches his legs over the entire row with a sigh. He pulls the cap over his eyes.
He listens to Steven climb into the passenger seat and shut the door. This car is electric. It hums underneath them, and Marc and Steven’s conversation is lost on him as he falls into a light doze.