Across the struggling crowd, Tryp saw Elfie lean to reach into her pants’ pocket again.
Before she could find something else to detonate, Nephi grabbed her arm and twisted, spinning her toward him and raising his other fist. Anger twisted Nephi’s face.
Tryp swam through the crowd, pushing people behind him with his long arms, but it would take seconds to reach Elfie, and Nephi’s fist was already moving.
Tryp leapt, trying to jump through fifteen feet of crowd before Nephi could punch her.
From behind, Sariah snagged Nephi’s fist out of the air and dragged it downward by bending her knees. She held a toddler on her hip, and a young girl clung to her skirt.
Sariah gave Tryp the seconds he needed to shove through the crowd to get to Nephi and unleash seven years of rage. His first punch slammed into Nephi’s face, making him drop Elfie’s arm. Sariah let go and stepped back, shielding her kids.
Tryp hurled his fists, connecting with Nephi again and again and battering him with his knuckles until the man staggered away. Nephi had tried to get a few punches in, but he had been hitting women for the last seven years.
Tryp had been training in bar fights.
He spun, his fists raised, hoping like Hell that Kumen was standing right there, but he wasn’t.
The crowd gapped open, and Tryp saw a weird version of his mother, her blond hair in one of those puffy buns, her lined face split by rage. She grabbed a girl of about eight and ran the other direction, their skirts swirling into the crowd.
Yeah, Tryp had endangered her standing with Kumen and in New Empyrean with his behavior again.
Hell, yeah.
Beside him, Elfie ignited another gerb and sprayed the crowd with cool sparks. They wailed and ran faster for the exits.
Flames licked up the curtains behind them.
That club in Rhode Island, The Station, had become an inferno in five and a half minutes after the insulation caught fire behind the drummer. Every musician watched the pyros in case they started a fire, no matter how safe they were supposed to be.
He grabbed Elfie’s other hand and pulled her toward the door. “Run!”