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WATCHING YOUR BEST friend be shot is like a knife to the heart. But finally seeing their deceased body along with the crimson blood that coated the wound? That was like the knife was being twisted while still present in your body.
The only thing Juno and Layla could do was watch as Harrow's workers pulled Marc's body out of the water was stare and attempt to withstand their emotions that threatened to burst out at any moment. Next, one of Harrow's workers pulled the ushabti out of the dead body. It was handed to Harrow, who merely stared at it for a moment before glancing down at Marc's body.
"I'm sorry it had to be this way, Marc Spector," Harrow said, though there was barely any sincerity in his voice as he spoke. He then placed the scarab on Marc's chest. "Steven Grant, whoever else might be in there." Layla, tears fresh on her face, turned to Juno to see the brunette staring straight ahead at the wall, her eyes dead. "Sometimes we need the cold light of death before we can see reality."
Suddenly, Layla revealed herself and elbowed the worker in the gut, sending them to the ground. Harrow noticed Layla, but paid her no mind as he held the ushabti in the air. More of his henchmen came into the room, all looking at Harrow in wonderment, as if he were some sort of god.
Harrow held the statue of Ammit up in the air, making her followers kneel immediately.
"Who wants to heal the world?" As Harrow asked the question, his cane began glowing a brighter purple while the two heads of Ammit that made up the handle transformed into one. As quickly as he arrived, Harrow and his people left, leaving Juno and Layla in their wake.
The minute everyone had exited the room, Layla made her way over to Marc's dead body, while Juno was slow to follow. It wasn't that she didn't care, it was that she wasn't sure to do. Juno had spent years of her life mastering the mystic arts so she could prevent the deaths of anyone she was close with, yet here she was, back at square one. Standing over the body of a loved one, unable to do anything.
"Marc. Marc," Layla gasped, grabbing onto his jacket with clenched fists. She looked around for a moment, uncertain of what to do with her husband's dead body in front of her. Layla soon broke down into tears, then rested her head on Marc's chest.
Juno blinked, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to leak from her eyes. Tears wouldn't do anything. Tears would not bring Steven Grant back to the land of the living. Tears were useless.
"Juno," Layla whispered. The brunette lifted her gaze to lock eyes with Layla, then allowed her stare to drift downwards where one of the scarabs rested. "We have to go."
"No," Juno said. "You have to go. I have to leave you here."
Layla frowned. "You're leaving me?"
"Yeah," admitted Juno. She exhaled, her breathes unsteady. "I can't- I can't stay here. I can't deal with this," she gestured to Marc's body. "right now, because if I do, I think I'll fucking explode. Everything's so fucked up in here," Juno tapped her temple. "and I'm scared that I'm going to hurt someone if I don't- If I don't leave this goddamn place."
