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Deus had a horrible tendency to repeat itself, bad situations inexorably reminding one of others, traumas becoming horribly cyclical.

Two memories blended and blurred: Maebe's screams through a warehouse door (screams he would forever hate her for, screams at the root of all his loathing, screams he'd insisted she had earned on her own and that echoed all your fault every time) and the heady, sick wailing of a woman who'd lost one child and prayed it had saved another, in some other life where his name was a prayer of loss and hope.

He let go of Hope to grab Grace's hand, and with the three of them in tow, not even hesitating and aching as much for the loss of last clean corner of his conscience as he did for her, he made them run.

He'd always wanted to sacrifice something to be a hero. He'd just thought it would be himself.

The girls, shocked and frightened, complied without thought and they all reached the van quickly. Back in the room, the crazed young woman laughed and then, face twisting, held Maebe down with one hand, lifting the other. Tiny flecks of black crystal began to swiftly coat and cover the nails, turning them into vicious claws that took the blonde's jaw in an unforgiving grip. "You think you have the...position to, as you say, make deals? With me?"

Another laugh, "You are weak, and if you do not give the answer then you give only disgust. I'll put his seed in you and make you a doll. I'll keep you until you're ugly and broken with use and I will have many answers, yes. But..." the hand tightened, bones grinding against bone just a whisper thin margin from breaking, "...the first answer is from me to you." She leaned in, "You have got her? Non, you have nothing that I cannot take away."

The girl casually broke Maebe's jaw with a smile, black welling up to obscure the whites of her eyes. "We will see."

By virtue of the numbness of shock Taym maintained surprising composure as he herded the girls into the car, trying again and again to no avail to make his phone cooperate.

The brisk, grim efficiency was a lie, of course: the thinnest shell of professional urgency overlaying bile-rising panic.

"If you have some way to contact Edith," he told Joy as he wrenched open the door, "do it and keep trying. And give me the phone when you do." He tossed his own to Grace, unlocked, with a barked order to keep resending the last text and trying the last call while he drove. The five of them bickering over Maebe's attempt to pry into his phone felt strange and dreamlike and distant.

Inasmuch as planning was possible--or no. What he had was not a plan but a pathetic series of chronological goals, and no idea how to achieve them: get the girls somewhere safe, call in reinforcements, go back for her..

(Somewhere treacherously a little voice suggested go back for it, flay it alive, end it. Revenge and petty fear in the face of what should have been so much larger.)

Maebe stayed exactly where she was, even as the woman got off of her and turned to walk away. She laid there, her hand holding the agonizing pain of her jaw, and she waited.

She waited, because notTaym was a golem, and she knew that now. She waited until the woman left her alone with it, so she could riddle it with trident punctures and pendant the ******** away. But she waited, because she knew she had one chance at this.

And she knew Taym wasn't really coming back.

Once she thought she was safe, she decided on plan B. The Taym clone was coming for her, and as satisfying as she knew it would feel to rip that head of his off (and make believe it was actually Taym), every time she thought about picking up Thaw and trying to wield him, her mind blanked out from the pain. She would get no satisfaction, tonight.

She bent her head up, stared at the Taym clone walking towards her, and used her free hand to blow it a kiss and touch her pendant, before doing the most painful thing she'd ever consciously done in her entire life. Talk with a broken jaw.

"Deus Ex Machina."

She was going to kick Taym so hard in the balls, the next time she saw him.

And then she was going to pat him on the back.

It was entirely possible that Taym had never appreciated a person more than he did Joy in that instant. He responded by indicating, with a swift motion miming pocketing a phone and then a quick sweep of his eyes to Grace and Hope, and a lips zipped motion, that she should maybe discreetly ready them to bail.

They'd barely left the parking lot but he pulled over in the first clear spot that presented itself, leaving the car running. He'd locked the doors the second they were in. The sudden sound of them all unlocking at once was practically an invitation.

"Stay close. Don't run unless I say," was all he said, as fast as he could get it out.

He did not get out of the car. He turned, weapon drawn, toward the back.

He would hate her, forever, for taking this away from him.

He gave chase, yanking the keys from the ignition and locking the thing in. Of course he did. And if he caught her he was going to--

--do nothing, of course. Grab her, bodily restrain her, yell at her what the ******** are you thinking but never hurt her, not even for taking this from him.

The woman reached Grace first, and seeing her, the girls' faces fell because to them that meant one thing: they were too late. A black clawed fist smashed into Grace's stomach, and the girl collapsed onto the pavement. She turned to look at the other two, and while Hope made an attempt to reach their sister, Joy held her back and tried to drag her behind Taym.

Eyes like oil slicks turned toward him and she smiled, "It will be very good. To kill one of you, and have it to stay dead."