Chapter Seventeen

At these words, Quinn snapped her head up and looked frantically at everyone else in the room. Her mother's face was tense with worry; Daria's expression was blank, as was Amy's - as though she were past a point of feeling pain.

"No... I didn't..."

"Ms. Li has already had the fingerprints on Ms. Rowe's body checked against those in her database," said Phelps gently, "and your bloody heel marks on the hallway linoleum confirm your guilt. Right now, 'Lawndale's Finest Incompetents' are searching your house and questioning your friends, convinced that you are a fugitive from the law."

Quinn trembled, as the room began to sway a little harder. Cars jiggled up and down in their slots, though she didn't notice.

"Quinn," Helen said with difficulty. "Did you...?"

"They said the body was mutilated," Phelps said calmly. "The eyes had been completely gored out. She lost so much blood that when the paramedics lifted her onto the stretcher, she was as gray and withered as an eighty-five year old."

"No..." Quinn whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks.

"They thought it was your body at first, thanks to the heel marks, but somehow I knew it wasn't. Thought if I could get your sister alone, she could tell me where you were hiding."

"Quinn, look at me," Helen again attempted. "What did you-"

"She killed her best friend," Phelps responded. "Do I really need to spell it out?"

Quinn gazed at her mother, who was staring back with an anxious, searching expression, her head shaking a little as if to ward off the worst possibility.

"She murdered her," said Phelps.

"No! It was an accident!" Quinn cried in a high, shrill tone. She looked from her mother to Amy, then to Daria. "I didn't mean to!"

Her mother's face grew pale. Quinn wished that she would rush over and give her a hug, stroke her hair, and tell her that everything would be all right; instead she held back, and Quinn thought she knew why - out of fear. She saw Daria nod solemnly, and Amy look at her with shock and curiosity. Quinn would not look at DeMartino, but if she had, she would have seen an expression of empathy. The weight of the reality that she had tried to hold back now felt as though it were crushing her.

"I didn't mean to," Quinn repeated with desperation. "I was just standing there, and she just - her eyes just exploded!"

Oh Mom, please don't look at me that way...

"Yes, that's the truly sad part," said Phelps. His voice was barely above a whisper, but Quinn felt it ringing inside her head. "She likely had no idea what she was doing. The powers of Norlek are just that unpredictable; it was why Norlek, in his early days, wreaked so much havoc on Xulfanex before he learned to channel them toward a different purpose. Poor Quinn doesn't even have that luxury."

Quinn uttered a soft cry and began sobbing anew.

"So why do you resist? What awaits you on earth - a prison sentence?" Phelps's voice sounded very near, soothing Quinn like a father protecting his daughter. "A lifetime of worrying which friend or family member you'll kill next? Why stay here, where guilt and fear will rule you, when you can be a hero on Xulfanex? You know that I am decent, Quinn, that I would not let anything bad happen to you. Or to your sister."

Quinn kept sobbing, the warmth of Phelps's tone her only source of comfort. She weighed his words, and was horrified to find that they made sense. For one brief moment, she allowed herself to consider Phelps's offer. Her father could keep his life, her mother could forget...

"Accidental death isn't murder," said Daria.

Her matter-of-fact tone cut sharply into Quinn's thoughts. Quinn looked at her with surprise.

"Yes," said Helen. Her face was still pale with shock, but her voice managed to find its usual assertive edge. "It's manslaughter, which carries a lesser penalty. That is, if they can even prove Quinn reached into her friend's eyes and gored them out. No jury on this planet would believe that supernatural powers made her do it. More likely they would decide that poor Quinn was in the wrong place at the wrong time when she witnessed her friend's tragic death."

Quinn turned to her mother, cheeks flushing a little. Her mother would not return the look. Still, at least she was trying to help her.

Quinn's heart pounded, and she felt the swaying beneath her lessen. She turned to Phelps, almost apologetically. "I can't go with you. If there is a trial for Stacy's death, I have to be here. My friends might all grow to hate me, but that doesn't mean I've stopped caring about them."

Phelps gazed upon her with a mixture of pity and disappointment. "Oh," he said. "I'm so sorry you've made up your mind. All of my talk was simply an attempt to sweeten your fate - but really, you have no choice in the matter."

The power from his eye increased. Quinn tried to look away, but she almost felt as though she were being sucked toward him.

"You're not taking them," said Helen in a fierce, trembling voice. "I don't care if you kill me - you're not taking my babies anywhere!"

"Yes, mama bird, I could see that you'd be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. But sacrifice your husband as well...?"

His grip on Jake tightened, and Jake's agonized expression began to turn purple.

With all of her effort, Amy pushed herself forward, though Phelps's harsh power on her skin made it felt like stepping deeper into a fire. "Wouldn't bother me," she said in a forced cheerful tone. "I never really cared for Jake. But I do care for his daughters, so if you're going to take them, you might as well go through me first."

"Amy, no..." Helen whispered.

"What are you DOING?!" DeMartino asked, eyes bulging.

"Well... I could arrange that," said Phelps calmly.

"No!" DeMartino cried. "She isn't part of the DEAL!"

"There's an emergency door at the rear of this level," Amy hissed to Daria. "Use it to get upstairs to the garage entrance. Then run and don't look back!"

"We can't!" replied a stunned Daria.

"You have to!"

"Do as she says!" said Helen in a firm, low tone.

"What's that? Plans to run?" Phelps called out with unforced cheerfulness. "If they do, I'll find them, as I have before, and will again... and again... and again. It's really no use."

He increased his power a notch. Amy tried not to cry out, but it felt as though her insides were burning. The life inside of her thrashed about, and she felt tears in her eyes at the thought of it being sacrificed. Desperately, she turned to DeMartino.

"Help me, Gob! Please!"

DeMartino stood and watched her, then looked at Phelps. Phelps casually cranked up the power another notch, and Amy's skin began to resemble that of someone who had fallen asleep in a tanning booth. She gritted her teeth, trying to tune out the pain. With one step, DeMartino walked in front of her, breaking the power beam. Amy gasped as she felt cool air on her skin.

"I TOLD you... she's not part of the deal."

Meanwhile, Helen ran to her daughters to give them one final good-bye.

"This is what your father wanted," she whispered. "Forget about us - you're what's most important. You have to hide!"

She gave them a shove toward the emergency door, but neither Daria nor Quinn would budge.

"No! We won't let you die!" cried Quinn.

"We can fight him," said Daria.

"If he takes you, I'll never forgive myself!" Helen responded. "If you hide, at least you'll have a chance!"

"To get caught?" Daria shot back. "You said it yourself: Running away isn't any kind of life. It's not the life I want. So what have we got to lose if we fight him - unless you're more worried that we would win."

"What?" gasped Helen. Quinn's eyes widened, but she remained silent.

"Maybe you can't handle seeing us shoot laser beams out of our eyes, or the fact that we can kill just by thinking."

Helen winced, and her lips trembled.

"If we don't use our powers, at least you could pretend we're the same people we always were."

Quinn looked at Daria with amazement. She had no idea that Daria had felt the same things she felt about their mother. Helen opened her mouth to protest, then closed it, as her face grew solemn for a long moment. Then she reached over and hugged her daughters fiercely.

"You'll always be the same people you were, no matter what you do, or what happens in the end."

Helen reached over to stroke their hair, but suddenly saw that their eyes were locked behind her, widening with shock. She turned around.

"Oh my God!"

Phelps looked at DeMartino with surprise, but did not reduce the power of his beam.

"You seem to have taken an interest in this pregnant earth creature. What could she possibly have that would..." A smirk broke out over his face. "Oh no. Oh... oh this is too good..."

He laughed as DeMartino stood there, unflinching. The power of Phelps's beam was strong, but not nearly as intense as the one that had sent his skin up in flames.

"So you've decided to settle with an earth creature, is that it?" Phelps's tone took on an angry edge. "Give up on your people and be one of them, is that right?"

"I was unAWARE of the circumstances until this morning," DeMartino said grimly. "But her child is half-mine."

"And of course that changes everything," Phelps said with a sneer. "Now that you've planted roots like your dear friend Norlek, you'll have no more use for Xulfanex."

"That's not TRUE!" DeMartino said with quiet intensity. "There hasn't been a MINUTE of the day I haven't thought of my home planet!"

"So will you two be shopping for homes in the area? Three bedrooms, or possibly more, depending upon how many additions you'll have."

"She HAS a boyfriend."

"What sort of SUV? The standard Explorer? Or would you prefer to really wow the soccer dads with a Hummer?"

"It's not LIKE that!" protested DeMartino.

"While your people suffer and die day by day, praying for someone to release them from their misery. But help never comes!"

"I SAID I haven't forgotten!" cried DeMartino.

"Oh, don't try to deny it, traitor to your race," said Phelps darkly. "But that's all right. I certainly don't need your help in getting what I want. You'll be just another casualty, like your friend, Norlek!"

With that, he blithely tossed Jake over the side railing. His lifeless body hit the ground and lay there face-down.

DeMartino let out an anguished cry. Then his scarred eye shot out of its socket. Phelps watched with amusement and expectation as the eye swept past him, toward a row of cars with their hoods raised due to the earlier shaking. The sinew encircled a loosened hood ornament and tore it all the way off, its sharp, jagged edge facing outward. Phelps waited as the eye whipped in his direction...

... and passed him. DeMartino swerved around to face Amy. She looked at him speechlessly, but could not react before the jagged edge of the hood ornament had slashed a neat line across her belly.

The eye hurtled back toward its socket, loosening the sinew enough to drop the bloody hood ornament into DeMartino's hand. He turned to face Phelps.

"I've NEVER forgotten Xulfanex," he whispered.

It was at this point Helen turned to see what the commotion was about. She saw Jake's unmoving form in the background, but was more taken by the site of her sister gripping her stomach, trying to hold everything in, as a large red stain spread across her shirt. Amy cried out in agony as she dropped to the ground and rolled onto one side, then kept crying, over and over again, as she felt the life draining from her. Helen rushed over, taking her coat off and pressing it against the dark stain. "No... oh God, no..."

"Use your CELL phone, Mrs. Morgendorffer," said DeMartino, without turning around. "Call the hospital, or she'll DIE."

Helen's cell phone was hooked to her waist. All this time it had remained off, due to Helen's concern that a phone call could leave a clue to their whereabouts. Now, shaking, she pressed the on switch. Before dialing 9-1-1, she turned to look at her horrified daughters. Her look was unmistakable. Get them. Give them everything you've got.