Elfie threw the hot tube of the spent gerb to the floor and followed Tryp into the thrashing crowd.
Tryp! Alive! And okay and healthy and beautiful and oh God her heart caught and started beating again.
His dark suit slacks clung to his narrow waist, and the white tee shirt that he had worn under the dress shirt bared the black, sapphire, and red tattoo ink illustrating the roses and irises on his strong arms. He looked like a time traveler in this little cult on the prairie, and she was so glad to see him that she wanted to cling to his back, but she held his strong hand in hers, reveling in his warmth.
He broke a path through the panicking crowd, leading her, and Elfie caught Sariah’s eye through the throng as they passed.
Sariah reached for her, past two wives between them.
Elfie reached for Sariah’s fingers, dodged a wife, and grabbed her hand. She yanked hard, dragging Sariah and her two little kids toward her and Tryp, and she didn’t let go.
Tryp pushed and shoved, both pushing people out the logjam at the doors and getting them through the crowd. Elfie and Sariah trailed.
They burst into the hallway, where people started running down the corridor to get out.
Elfie fought to walk sideways and jammed herself up against a wall, peeling Sariah and her kids out of the crowd. “The fucking sprinkler system doesn’t work?”
“It was never hooked up,” Sariah said. “Pipe is expensive.”
Elfie hauled the older of Sariah’s two kids off the floor and around her body, slinging the child onto her back like a backpack.
Tryp swam back and plucked the crying girl off Elfie’s back and the one out of Sariah’s arms. He settled them around his waist easily, his strong arms clamped around them. “Go. I’m right behind you.”
Elfie ran, pulling Sariah, who kept looking back.
“He’ll bring them!” Elfie yelled to her over the dozens of thundering footsteps and wailing women as they ran down the hallway. “I don’t think he’ll ever leave anyone behind again!”
They burst out of the temple into the heat of the afternoon, and the laser light of the desert sun flashed in her eyes.
Sariah tugged her hand. Elfie gathered her stupid wedding-dress skirt in her hand and wished she could rip it off herself like a stripper.
Tryp barreled out of the doors behind them, still carrying the two kids, and in a few strides of his long legs, he was ahead of them.
A few people straggled out behind them, but they had been at the rear of the pack. The empty doors of the temple stood open. Wisps of smoke trickled through the doors and up into the air.
Elfie followed Tryp and Sariah, but her long skirt jerked backward. She fell, flailing. The crowd trampled around her, and she tucked and covered her head with her arms.
Hands hauled her up, and she was still looking back to where Tryp was shoving the two girls at Sariah and staring at her, his eyes blazing with anger.
The man’s hands shook Elfie, snapping her head back.
Kumen, his white, crooked teeth bared, was unnaturally strong for an old man his age. His fingers vised around her wrist, squeezing the bones. She yanked her arm, trying to get away, but his fingers didn’t budge. His asshole grin widened as he yanked Elfie away from Tryp and Sariah.
Elfie slid her legs out from under herself like sliding into home plate and dragged hard at his hand, trying to throw Kumen off-balance or make him let go, but he had had decades of experience with physically overpowering women and girls. He pulled her up by her arm like a wrenching a corn stalk out of the ground, jerking her and sending a bolt of pain through her shoulder, and kept trotting through the crowd.
This time, Elfie swung a kick, trying to tangle her foot in his legs, but he hopped and kept striding fast. The cars were just ahead. He was going to throw her in a car and drive off with her.
Fuck, no.
She would jump out or yank the steering wheel to crash it into a fucking cactus first. No fucking way.
Elfie yanked harder on her arm, pulling with her weight and her hands, and she glanced back.
Tryp reached over her head and punched hard, cracking Kumen in his cheekbone with his fist. The side of Kumen’s face crunched inward. He collapsed, finally releasing Elfie’s arm, and she lost her footing and fell backward.
Tryp scooped Elfie up in his arms and ran back the other way through the chaos of the crowd, her white skirt billowing around them. She latched her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder for one moment, so relieved to feel his strong body around her. The shock of seeing him had to wait, but the world was brighter, and she would be okay if he was out there somewhere.
His voice rumbled in his throat, “You okay?”
She nodded, gulping air. “How did you get away? Are you all right? Oh, Tryfon!”
He ran a few more steps, settled Elfie on her feet, and gathered Sariah’s wailing children in his arms. “Come on, girls. It’s okay. I’m a friend. Let’s go.”
Elfie ran beside him around the back of the temple, Sariah sprinting just a few footsteps behind them.
Flames poked through the flat roof of the temple and slithered onto the roof. Black smoke bubbled into the flat blue sky.
Their rental car was the only sedan parked back there. When they got to it, Tryp nudged Elfie with his hip, and she dug into his front pocket to get the keys. She clicked it and got the doors open. Tryp shoved the two little girls in the back seat, murmuring, “You’re okay, you’re okay,” and Sariah climbed in behind them.
Elfie leapt into the passenger seat. Tryp slid into the driver’s seat, and he peeled out, rooster-tailing gravel in the empty parking lot.
Elfie held on tight as little girls cried in the back seat, but lots of wrassling and some seat-belt clicking suggested that they would be as safe as possible back there, even without car seats.
Within minutes, they were on the highway and speeding out of town.
The girls stopped crying, and Elfie hung onto the panic handle on the door until Tryp took the turnoff from the little country highway onto I-15. At that point, he reached over the cup holder console between them and found Elfie’s hand, and she clutched his warm fingers because she had thought that she would never have that chance again.
When they passed the state border signs and were out of Utah and into Arizona, she breathed a little easier, but when they hit the Nevada state line and started seeing signs for Las Vegas, then she let go of the door handle and believed they had made it.
New Empyrean’s tentacles might reach through their county law enforcement offices and even into nearby parts of Utah and Arizona, but Nevada, and especially Las Vegas, might as well be on a different planet.
Elfie and Tryp had rescued Sariah, and Elfie tried to be glad that the two of them could finally be together.