Chapter 4 - THE RED CARPET
"Kayla, look out!" I screamed, tearing myself free from Marcus's grip.
Everything fractured into chaotic, slow-motion violence.
Kayla shrieked and dropped the heavy plastic gas can. It hit the carpet with a dull thud, the remaining gallon sloshing violently across the center aisle, soaking the hem of my mother's periwinkle dress and splashing against the wood of the front-row pews.
Kayla raised the lighter, her fingers trembling wildly, but terror paralyzed her. She couldn't flick the wheel again. Tyler closed the twenty-foot distance between them in four savage, athletic strides. His face was twisted into a snarl of pure butchery.
"I'll snap your neck!" he roared.
He never reached her.
Marcus and Leo reacted with the primal instincts of men who had played college rugby. Marcus launched his two-hundred-pound frame across the aisle, tackling Tyler around the waist just as Tyler reached the fourth pew. The impact sounded like two freight cars colliding.
Tyler let out a wet, furious grunt as he crashed violently into the side of a mahogany bench. The heavy wood splintered with a sharp crack.
"Get off me!" Tyler screamed, thrashing like a rabid animal.
He drove his elbow upward, catching Marcus square in the cheekbone. Blood sprayed across Marcus’s white tuxedo shirt, but he didn't let go. Leo dropped onto Tyler’s legs, pinning his knees to the gasoline-soaked carpet, while my father—a sixty-year-old retired civil engineer who had never thrown a punch in his life—lunged forward and grabbed Tyler’s right wrist, twisting it brutally behind his back until the joint popped.
"Don't you touch my daughters!" my father roared, his face purpling with a rage I had never seen in him. "Don't you dare touch them!"
"He's got a lighter! Watch the floor! Don't let anything spark!" someone yelled from the back.
Two more wedding guests—an uncle and a cousin—piled onto the thrashing mound of bodies. Tyler was screaming obscenities now, vile, toxic threats that stripped away every lingering illusion of humanity. He cursed my mother, he cursed Kayla, he vowed to burn our family home to ashes.
Through the chaos, the high-pitched, mournful wail of police sirens pierced the air, growing louder with terrifying speed.
I didn't watch the fight.
I gathered the heavy, suffocating layers of tulle and silk in my fists and ran. I ran down the aisle, slipping on the spilled gasoline, not caring about the chemical stench soaking through my white satin slippers.
Kayla was slumped against the heavy oak entrance door, her knees pulled to her chest, the silver lighter lying discarded on the floor three feet away. She was hyperventilating, her entire body shaking so violently that her teeth chattered audibly.
"Kayla," I sobbed, collapsing onto my knees beside her.
She flinched away, throwing her arms over her head as if expecting a blow. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't find another way—he watched my apartment, Rach, his car was parked outside every night, he said he'd kill you if I sent a text—"
"Kayla, look at me!" I cried, grabbing her wrists, pulling her hands down from her face. "Look at me!"
Her bloodshot eyes found mine.
"I'm here," I wept, pulling her violently against my chest, burying my face in her tangled, greasy hair. "You saved me. Oh God, Kayla, you saved my life."
She broke. The terrifying, manic armor she had worn when she kicked open the church doors completely dissolved, leaving behind only my terrified little sister. She buried her face into the curve of my neck, her tears soaking through the delicate lace of my bridal gown, her small hands clutching my back with the desperate grip of a drowning child.
Behind us, the heavy oak doors were thrown wide open.
Four uniformed Seattle Police officers burst into the vestibule, their service weapons drawn, shouting commands over the din of crying children and shouting men.
"Police! Nobody move! Stay on the ground!"
Within seconds, the officers assessed the situation. Two of them moved swiftly to the pile of men, taking control of Tyler. They yanked his arms behind his back with practiced brutality, the metallic *click* of handcuffs echoing through the vaulted ceiling like a death knell.
As they hauled Tyler to his feet, his tuxedo jacket torn to shreds, his face smeared with carpet dust and Marcus's blood, his eyes locked onto me one last time.
He didn't look defeated. He looked at me with an empty, reptilian malice.
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"You're going to die poor, Rachel," he spat, blood bubbling between his teeth. "And every time your heart skips a beat, you'll wonder if I left something behind."
***
