Chapter Text
The night was coming way too quickly for your taste, or peace of mind. Almost against your will, you dwelled on this date with that man. Steven, you reminded yourself. You didn’t want to go, to say the least. Your foot taps impatiently on the bus, taking a seat all the way in the back and away from the usual crowd. You had asked a friend to borrow a nicer shirt, and you put on your only pair of jeans that didn’t have any holes in it, though it did sport a stain on the upper thigh. You picked at it nervously.
The sun was just starting to set, its orange glow lighting the sky. You and Steven didn’t talk about a time, but you guessed night was the usual societal time for dates and romance. You hoped Steven wasn’t going to go all out, you weren’t sure if you would be able to catch up to his speed.
The bus rolled to a stop, and you clambered out of your seat, pushing people lightly out of your way. You held back a curse and an inappropriate remark when some guy elbowed you in the side on your way out. When you were out of the bus, you took a deep breath. The air wasn’t fresh, and it smelled faintly of trash, but at least it was cool. The walk to the museum was short thanks to the bus ride, but it would be open for about an hour or so. You took a seat at a fountain stationed in view of the front entrance of the museum, waiting for Steven to walk out.
You didn’t get many moments as relaxing like this, and you drank every second up. You thought about where you might go, what Steven was planning for you. You hoped it wasn’t a fancy restaurant. Or any restaurant, really. You hated when people watched you eat. Growing up on the streets didn’t earn you manners. Maybe you could convince him to cook something at his place, it definitely would give you a reason to snoop. You felt more confident with a plan now, and maybe even a deadline. It would only take the night, or if not, the following morning.
Then I never have to see him again, with the added bonus of Harrow getting off my ass.
You waited the hour there, watching people go by. A street performer was singing a soft tune, mixing with the melody of the acoustic guitar that he held precisely in his hands. He wasn’t very good, but listening to him passed the time. The sun was completely gone by the time the anxiety started to sink in. The lights illuminating the great pillars of the museum shut abruptly off, plunging the street into blue darkness. A glance at your phone showed that closing time was fifteen minutes ago. Surly Steven should be off by now.
He must be talking to that blonde bitch.
Just the thought of her makes you frown, and you give Steven the benefit of the doubt by waiting a while longer. The minutes ticked by agonizingly slow, with you fidgeting and agitation growing throughout it all. When ten minutes have dragged their way past you give up with a huff. As you get up, you keep glancing at the doors of the museum. Just when you were about to turn your back for good, you see the doors swing open and a body pop out. Hope builds in your chest, probably more than was necessary, and you take a few steps closer. Instead of a nervous, sweaty Steven, your eyes land on a dark blue uniform-clad man. You recognize him instantly from the front desk and you narrow your eyes. You still haven't forgiven him, so what? You march up to him, but he keeps his gaze down at the phone in his hands. He seems to be in his own little world and doesn’t notice you standing in front of him until almost a second too late.
“Oof, sorry ‘bout that,” he mumbles, his eyes finally flickering up from his phone.
“Where’s Steven,” you ask, a touch of that agitation slipping through.
“How should I know? I ain’t his mum, am I?”
Your roll eyes, throwing a hand out when he tries to walk away. The security guard's eyes widen, and he stumbles to a stop. He puts his phone down, and he's now fully facing you. Your lips thin out and you glare at him.
“Listen, lady, he didn’t even come to work today! If you’re so desperate you should have just gotten his number, yeah? Now leave me alone.”
“He doesn't work on Fridays?” His eyebrows raise and he lets out a short laugh. He dips under your arm and makes his way down the stairs.
“Oh, he does. Playing hooky I suppose. Reckon he’s gonna get fired if he keeps playing that old trick.”
You stare after him as he walks away, and a good thing too. Any other word from his mouth would probably end with a right hook from you. Twats just seemed to infest this museum, you suppose. Though you had to admit, you didn’t expect Steven to be the kind of guy to ditch a date.
You never see them coming.
You feel a drop of rain land on your bare shoulder, spending a small spark under your skin, and you sigh. You didn’t have enough money to get you a ride home, so you start your walk instead. Halfway through your trek home, it starts to pour and you are left soaked. The chill of the wind and rain clears your mind.
Plan B then.
You wouldn’t see him right away, maybe wait a week or two to really drill in “how pissed you were” about him ditching. You’ll have to go back to the museum to confront him, a factor that made you start to wish you really did get his phone number. Steven will most like stammer out apologies, and you’ll decide to accept whatever excuse he imagines for himself. You’ll get him to his house, and then you’re gone for good.
By the time you are back into your apartment, you are soaked straight through. Your apartment was small, barely livable for one kind of small. It was in the side of London that people usually avoided, mostly because they can’t stand the thought of another person who is financially unwell, and you must be separated from the rest of the world in case you would contaminate their privilege. Though the lack of crowd is nice. You fish for your key from your pocket, and once you have it, you reach for the door.
You couldn’t tell from the low light in the hallway, but the door was unlocked and cracked slightly. Your hand reaches for the lock, and when the door creeks further open, you pause. Your apartment is drowned in black shadow, and the yellow flickering light doesn’t do much more than light the door. You clench your key in between your knuckles, the sharp metal piece jutting out as a make-shift weapon. You push the door further open with your foot, peaking your head around the corner. Your eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, but you can just make out shapes in the darkness. Your heart beats rapidly as you take slow tentative steps inside, each creak of the warped wooden floorboards echoing throughout the room.
You reach your hand over slowly and feel for the light switch. Your fingers brush the cool metal and, in what you hoped was a fast shocking movement, you flipped the switch. The light flickered to life, dosing the room in soft yellow light. You held the key in front of you, ready to fight. You make eye contact with the body sitting at your dining room table, and you find no relief.
Harrow sat professionally at your table, looking out of place at the reck around him. He seemed to be studying your reaction with a sense of curiosity and amusement that sent goosebumps over your skin.
When he said your name, as a form of greeting, the sound of his voice makes you recoil slightly.
“How was your date?” he asked, propping his cane against his lap, flipping the handle over and over again. You forced yourself to put your key down, but you stayed a good distance away from him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Asking about your date, it was a ‘mission’ after all.”
“You could have called.”
He hummed. Harrow stood up from his seat, leaning on the cane while taking measured steps toward you.
“Do you remember when I found you? It still feels like yesterday that I saw you in that alleyway. Bloody nose, no shoes, sleeping by a trash bin. You were so young, back then. Just a kid.”
You couldn’t meet his gaze, so you focused on the ground instead. You could feel his eyes borrow into you, his gaze watching every move, analyzing every reaction.
“I know you have never been Ammits biggest follower. I took it upon myself to not judge you on your decision. Your scales are balanced, it is not my place. I gave you a home, food, clothing—“ he gestures around himself—-“a community! If you won’t do it for Ammits sake, then do it for mine.”
You wrap your arms around yourself, hunching your shoulders. Guilt sits heavily in your stomach, and suddenly you feel like crying. You know all this. Harrow has given all this to you, and you haven’t really done anything to thank him. If it was anyone else, they would have kicked you to the curb by now. You’ve certainly been there. But he hasn’t, at least not yet, and he asks this one thing from you, and you can’t even do that.
“You act like I’m not trying,” you whisper. You feel a hand against your shoulder, and you pretend you didn’t jump from the touch.
“I know you are. This was just a one-time thing, right? We all make mistakes.”
You nod along to his words, never looking up. He removes his hand, but the ironclad of his phantom touch lingers. He meanders his way past you, to the doorway. You don’t turn to look at him, but you know he’s still there.
“Don’t fail me again.”
The door slams shut, the frame rattling in his wake. You stand in the middle of your apartment, subdued to complete stillness. Even when Harrow had left, the guilt never did. Once you had changed out of your damp clothes and into warm ones, laid in bed, in the dark, it still hadn’t gone away. Your emotions had shifted into something else instead. Like a ball of yarn, you couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended, each indistinguishable from the rest. You were guilty, yes, but you were also upset. You hated having this debt to Harrow that he can use against you as a ploy. You hated hating him, someone that you should be looking up to, as one does to a savior or maybe even a father.
You shut your eyes tightly against the noise in your head. You toss and turn that night, struggling to sleep, but when you do, it's a dreamless one. The next morning you wake with a newfound determination. You spend most of the week that you wait to confront Steven by stalking him. It was strange to do at first, and you definitely felt like a weirdo, but each time you think about bailing, an echo of Harrow's words is whispered in your ear. You didn’t come out empty handed at least. You ended up finding where Steven lived–a relatively small apartment a bus ride and a short walk away from the museum–which would be helpful. You pondered just breaking into his apartment while he was at work but by that security guard's words, Steven had a habit of being sporadic with his work schedule, and you would risk getting caught red-handed.
When the week was finally coming to an end, you made your way to the museum. You practiced a little speech about how you were so upset and how you really liked him. You thought maybe throwing in some tears would really seal the deal if you knew how to cry on command. It was late and the museum was just minutes away from closing. You managed to slip by the security guard, silent on your feet and hood pulled up over your face. You make a direct path to the bathrooms, waiting in a stall until you could hear the announcement of the museum closing. You hunkered down for a little while longer, before quietly unlocking the stall and slipping out the bathroom door before the janitors walked in.
Finding Steven was easy considering he had a talent for blending in the crowd. He was just leaving his post at the gift shop. You pull your hood down, hunker your shoulders a bit and walk up to him. He doesn’t seem to even notice you're there. He was mumbling to himself a bit, looking far off into the distance toward one of the other rooms of the exhibit. When he doesn’t notice you behind him, you tap him on the shoulder.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, turning on his heel wide-eyed. He looked the same, if not worse than he did the day you met him. His hair looked more unruly than usual, the curls framing his nervous face. The deep eye bags under his eyes hadn’t left him either, and you begin to wonder if he ever slept. For a short moment, he didn’t seem to even recognize you—his brow furrowing and lip jutting out a bit. You saw when recognition filled his eyes, and instead of dread or maybe even guilt, his entire face softened with nervous glee. He said your name with a matching smile that made your lips turn down.
“Steven,” you say in return, letting an icy resolve slip into your voice. His smile faded slightly, and his eyes wandered around for a bit (back to the exhibit room) before landing on yours again.
“Uh, yep that’s me! Is..there something wrong?”
“Oh, there’s definitely something wrong alright. Aren’t you going to apologize?”
The genuine confusion on his face made something inside of you twist, and you had to hold back…something. You don’t know, a smile or maybe a glower. Stevens's eyebrows shoot up and he looks down at the watch latched on his wrist.
“Oh! Am I late for our date? We never actually discussed a time, so I was thinking after work. Maybe I should have called out?”
You were shocked, honestly. You would have never gauged Steven as the type to ditch a date, but you suppose it’s possible. But to mock you, right to your face? Something inside you twisted again, and this time you knew exactly what it was.
“Are you serious?”
“Or maybe not? I'm not quite sure. Did you, uh, want to go now? I just was about to head out. Honestly, I thought you wouldn’t show-“
“Steven stop, just stop.”
Steven was still mumbling after you interrupted him, and you had to lay a hand on his shoulder to silence him. His stammering faded out and his eyes drifted to where your hand was touching his shoulder. His shoulder was firmer than you expected for a guy who worked at a gift shop, but your surprise was buried by the awkwardness when you felt his breath stutter at the touch. You pull your hand back quickly and shift on your feet. You seem to remember suddenly why you’re here and your brows furrow as you look back up at him.
“Steven. We aren’t going on a date.”
His face crumbles into one of crushing disappointment, and then poorly tries to school his features. Despite yourself, you pitied him.
“O-oh shit. Sorry, must have been a misunderstanding. I’m a right idiot, I am. I probably pushed the idea, a-and you are so nice, so polite, you didn’t want to turn me down. Well, I’ll get out of your hair, yeah? So sorry!”
Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong about that.
He began to walk away, shoulders hunched and head down low. You roll your eyes and catch him by the strap of his bag. He stumbles to a stop and turns to you like he was surprised you were there in the first place.
“Steven, what are you talking about? You ditched me!
“D-ditched? I thought you said Friday night?”
“I did…last week.” You were talking to him slowly as if he was a child. Did Steven really not know a week had passed? Or was he still playing with you? He shook his head furiously at your words.
“No, no, I saw you just yesterday. You asked me on a date for Friday night!”
“Steven that was a week ago! I waited almost two hours outside the museum for you, just for the front desk guy to tell me you didn’t even come to work!”
You saw that he was about to argue again, so you pulled out your phone and shoved it in his face.
“Check the date!”
He craned his head back to better see the screen. You could see his eyes move over and over the tiny words under the time, telling him the date. His head moved side to side frantically, his curls bouncing along with him. You could see his reality breaking around him, and the look on his face made you almost believe that this wasn’t a joke. Steven began to stammer again, cursing and rubbing his temples.
“I swear–I could have sworn , I–I just saw you! I have a sleeping disorder, maybe…”
“So you slept the whole week away?! Unbelievable!”
“God, I’m going fucking mad. First that-that man , then I start seeing people in the mirrors, now this?! What is wrong with me and–does anyone else hear that?!”
Steven’s voice raises suddenly, and you take a small step back. He snapped his head toward the other room again, eyes wide and mouth hung agape. His forehead shines with nervous sweat and he begins to shake. He takes tentative steps towards the other room, trying and failing to be silent.
“Steven? Where are you going? I’m not gonna fall for that!”
He is now out of view, and if he hears you, he doesn’t make any move to respond. You take a quick glance around yourself, before heaving a sigh and following him.
He just has to make things difficult.
The other room is filled with small artifacts, most of them in glass cases. The room was dark, the only light coming from the moon streaming through the windows and the soft emergency lights. Steven is poking around the room, seemingly looking for something. You walk quickly up behind him, and then out of the corner of your eye, you see something glow green. Two small pinpoints of light. When you turn your gaze toward it, it disappears. Steven was looking the same way, but whatever he saw made his eyes go wide and he stumbled back.
“Steven? What is it?”
He doesn't answer you, instead backing up slowly, running into an open-cased artifact. He caught the vase quickly, steadying it before slinking behind the stand. You furrow your brows and walk up to his huddled form. Squatting down beside him, you gently touch his arm again. He seemed to be having some sort of panic attack, or maybe a manic attack. You go to open your mouth but before you could even breathe in to speak, he brings his hand to cover your mouth. He puts his free hand to signal for you to be quiet. He was visibly terrified, breath coming out in short puffs of air.
What the hell is wrong with him?
He tugs you closer to him until you were also hiding behind the pillar, practically on top of him. You tried to push him away, but his hands were large and desperate. Fluttering over your upper arms and looking at you with wet eyes.
The chime of the museum intercom goes off and Harrow's voice echoes throughout the room. It made your blood run cold, and suddenly you believed, if only slightly, why Steven was afraid. Anything involving Harrow couldn’t be good.
“Steven Grant. Hand over the scarab or you, and your friend, will be torn apart.”
You froze at Harrow's words. He knew you were here, and he was planning to hurt you, and Steven. It looks like your time was up. Harrow was kicking you to the curb.
Steven glances behind the pillar, startles, then hides behind the pillar again. He grips his bag to his chest tightly. Steven glances over one more time before throwing the bag far to his right. You hear something thud and then the bag skid forward and swings side to side in the air. Your heart stutters to a stop as you watch the bag thrash seemingly on its own. Steven stands up suddenly and is running down the hall, grabbing your wrist and pulling you along almost as an after-thought. Whatever was tearing up the bag, started chasing after you. You wouldn’t know that unless you saw the bag drop to the floor and heard Steven’s frantic screams pick up a notch.
He leads you down a staff-only hallway, and the invisible force was knocking down gift shop stock items, littering the floor. You could feel the heat of ragged breath at the back of your neck, and feel drops of slick spittle land on your cheek. It spurs you to run faster, throwing carts behind you and dodging obstacles. Steven, using the hand that was still gripping your wrist, drags you in front of him. You don't stop running, but you look behind your shoulder to see Steven pull one of the many tall metal racks down, its contents falling loudly to the floor. You watch as the invisible monster slams into the rack, and you hear the screeching of what you can only imagine as claws scrape against the steel. Steven turns swiftly and ungracefully around, pulling a white card from his jacket pocket. He slammed the card to a security reader at a staff-only door, but the door wouldn’t budge. You felt a rush of air, and in a second of indecision, you grab Steven by the back of his jacket coaler with one hand and pull him into the bathroom behind you. You both push the door shut with a groan. The metal doors dent, shocking you a few steps away. It rattles and shakes, as the creature pounds into it.
You look over at Steven as he starts talking to himself. You couldn’t really blame him. You didn’t know what was happening, and you were scared beyond all belief. You also knew that if you didn’t do anything, you would die. You scramble around the room, peeking in stalls as you look for something you could use as a weapon. You find a discarded mop in the back corner, toward the lockers. You grab it, gripping the wood tightly. When you look at Steven he was shaking violently, hitting his face.
“Go away, go away, go away!”
“Steven!”
His head snaps up, but he doesn’t turn to you. Instead, he looks intently at himself in the mirror. The banging is getting disturbingly louder, and the door is starting to shake. He looks at you, deep into your eyes with eyes filled with fear. Then he looks back at his reflection.
“Okay…okay yeah,” he mumbles nodding his head. You watch as Steven’s eyes roll back, his chest puffing out. The banging becomes deafening. Off-white wraps start to wind around his shoulders, over his chest. They seem to come out of nowhere, and they were everywhere, all over Steven. You stumble back and fall on your ass as the dirty wraps form a mask with a hood and a cape. Shining gold glistens in a crescent moon on his chest. His eyes glowed a bright white that shined in the dim room. You stopped breathing for a moment, eyes wide as you take him in. He looks straight at you, his fluorescent eyes watching as you scramble back.
Just then, the door bursts open, the metal slamming against the mirrors and shattering them. Steven turns on his heel, his cape flying behind him in a flourish of fabric. He raises his fist and slams into the creature. You huddle against the far wall, holding your broom in front of you as a shield. You watch as Steven tared a ceramic sink from the wall and slammed it down, shattering against the invisible creature. A geyser of water bursts from the pipe and rain down on the room around them. You watch in horror as the water droplets trickle down the face of a long-snouted creature. Steven doesn’t hold back any of his strength, landing punch after punch into the face of the monster.
At one point, the creature scrambles against his grasp towards you. You get ready to swing your broom as hard and fast as you can, but before you do, there is a woosh of air and Steven was dragging it back toward the bathrooms again. He lands one, two, three more hard punches until you hear a sickening crack and the room falls silent. Steven gets up from the bended knee position he was in, turning quickly in your direction and marching toward you with vigor. Out of instinct, you raise your mop again and swing the handle toward his head. He catches it easily in one hand, pulling it from your grasp and throwing it aside. You found no comfort in his eyes, nor the way he set his shoulder and leaned down toward you. You bare your teeth at him, raising your leg to kick him in a spot that would really hurt.
The wraps unfold from his face, then his body, retreating back where they came from. The last thing to leave was his eyes, the white slowly fading until you saw deep pools of brown again. He looked… different. His frown was a little deeper and his shoulders set more confidently than Steven’s had been before. A moment passes between you two, studying each other as if seeing for the first time.
“What are you?” you whisper. Not-Steven leans back, grabbing you gently but firmly by the elbow and guiding you upright.
“Do us both a favor, and forget this ever happened.”
Your body buzzes, you could feel the blood racing through your veins and your erratic pulse beat down to your fingertips–or you would have if your mind wasn’t so preoccupied trying to process what just happened. The second you found your feet from under you, you ripped your arm from his grasp and pressed your body against the cool tile wall behind you. Not-Steven’s eyebrows lower and it casts even darker shadows over his eyes. He was looking at you as if he was evaluating a particularly difficult riddle.
What the fuck is happening!
You have been in tough situations before, but nothing could have prepared you for that. It suddenly becomes harder to breathe, and the walls start to close in around you. You think maybe you’re having a panic attack, and you suddenly feel bad for looking down on Steven earlier. Not-Steven jerks his head to the side, though this time not to a mirror.
“No, we are not gonna kill her,” he says out loud to seemingly himself. You just notice then that his accent is different. He no longer has that posh, sweet British accent, and now sports a more American-sounding one. You wonder if anything about Steven was real, to begin with.
“You will not kill me.”
You were hoping that you sounded threatening but with the way you were practically gasping for breath, it sounded more like begging. You pretend that that thought didn’t bruise your ego slightly.
“I won’t,” Not-Steven confirms.
“You’re American?” you ask, and it's a silly question–you know this–but it's the only thought you could manage to grab from the tornado of thoughts in your brain and force out your mouth. Not-Steven raises a sharp eyebrow at your question and his frown deepens.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Another moment of awkward silence fills the space between you two, but you can’t do much more than stare at him. He was shifting from foot to foot like Steven does, and of course, he looks exactly like Steven, but the accent and posture were all wrong. Not to mention the mummy suit he seems to be able to summon at very convenient, if not late, times. Your thought slows down to a manageable pace, and you start throwing questions out as soon as you can grab ahold of them.
“What the fuck was that? Who the fuck are you Steven? Is that even your real name? Is this one large elaborate trick to mess with me? Will you stop staring at me! God, this can not be happening right now!”
Not-Steven blinks a few times at your outburst, mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish. You press the heel of your hands to your eyes and press hard. You take a deep breath and refocus. Harrow said that Steven was a difficult obstacle, you figured the ability to turn into an archeologist's wet dream was why. Harrow also said that Steven had that special little object that he needs.
Harrow also tried to kill you.
No, stop. You didn’t know why Harrow did what he did, but you doubted his real intention was to kill you. Maybe he didn’t know it was you or knew that you were smart enough to get away. Maybe…he was giving you a clue. What did he say when you and Steven were hiding?
Hand over the…sachel? No. Sandal?
“Scarub…”
“What did you just say?”
You remove your hands from your face slowly. Not-Steven had walked away from you, towards the gaping hole where the door used to be. His whole body is rigid and he’s looking at you with caution. You panic. You hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and now it was too late to deny anything.
“You…have a scarab. That’s why Harrow, over the intercom, tried to kill you with…invisible monsters.”
You recognize his stance shift; one that was once guarded to one that was ready to flee or fight. It’s a stance you’re all too familiar with yourself. You wonder if he will go back on his promise to not kill you. It would certainly be your kind of luck.
“Do you work for Harrow?” Steven’s accent stretched out the vowels in a funny way even with the way he kept his words short and demanding.
“No. I’m…working to stop him actually. He’s after the scarab.”
Not-Steven doesn’t say anything for a very long time. Your fingers itch to leave; tearing down an entire bathroom isn’t exactly quiet and no doubt someone heard. You didn’t want to be around long enough for them to be pointing any fingers. You were about to accept his silence completely and just walk out before he spoke up.
“So you know I have it?”
“Well, yeah. It’s the whole reason I talked to you in the first place. Asking you out wasn’t the way I wanted to go about it, but you know. Once I get it from you, and I will, I’ll destroy it–or hide it somewhere Harrow could never get to.”
“Then you don’t have to worry. It’s in safe hands.”
He turns his back to you and walks through the doorway.
Crap.
You scramble after him, almost tripping over the discarded mop from earlier.
“Hey! Wait! Steven!”
He doesn’t slow or stop. You grind your jaw and pick up your pace to grab the sleeve of his shirt. He sees you coming and steps out of your grasp.
“We could work together!”
What are you doing?!
“I have information about Harrow. His locations, his allies, shit like that. You’ll never see him coming without me. He has eyes all over the city,” you continue. This seems to perk him up and he lays his gaze back to yours. Not-Steven looks you up and down.
“Where do you get it from?”
“Like I’ll tell you,” you spit back. He glowers and makes to turn away.
You’re supposed to be convincing him, not driving him away.
“Wait, I’m sorry. Listen, I’ll tell you everything I know but I need your word.”
He looks over your shoulder and his scowl deepens. You look behind you but all you find is an empty hallway with flickering lights. You drag your gaze back to his but he keeps his eyes steadfastly to something down the hall. A spike of fear rushes through you with the thought of another one of those things coming after you. But Steven doesn’t seem particularly afraid. Just kinda annoyed.
“I can do it on my own. I don’t need help,” he says, but he isn't looking at you.
“Please Steven.”
His eyes flicker down to yours briefly before going back behind you. He lets out a long sigh, and shakes his head, before looking at you again. He scouts the floor around him before reaching down to snatch a discarded mummy-themed pen. He tests it on his own hand before reaching out and grabbing yours. His fingers are thick and large compared to your wrists, and despite every fiber in your being, a heat settles over your face. He pulls back and you look down to find a number scrawled along your forearm.
“And it’s Marc.”
You’re rubbing at your arm distractedly, but you look up through your lashes to peek at his face.
“Huh?”
“My name. It’s Marc, not Steven.”
“So…is Steven an alias? If it is, I would recommend becoming an actor in the future. Fooled me.”
“You and me…have a lot to talk about.”
Steven–or Marc you suppose, turns his back from you, and this time you let him go. A smirk lifts your mouth as his body disappears around the corner. For the first time, you actually feel good about the progress you’ve made with this little project. Yes, you knew that you would have to be careful. And yes, Harrow really did give you a lot of hints for this, but to be fair if he just told you what he was looking for in the first place he would have gotten it a lot faster. It didn’t matter anymore though. You did well.
You let a huff of a laugh before going the opposite direction that Marc did.