Ten minutes later, Clara was darting back down Market Street, going as fast as she could to reach the Fourth Precinct police department. Lionel was still laying, his slaughtered body still bleeding freshly, on the couch back at the house. Clara hadn't been able to bear looking at her husband like that again, and the communications in her house had been cut by the murderer, apparently. So, tears still streaming down her cheeks, Clara raced towards the police department at top speed.
People stared and gave her strange looks as she whizzed by them. Some actually looked concerned, and one or two even tried to talk to her. But she didn't listen to them. There was nothing they could do to help her. They weren't the police. They weren't anybody to her right now.
The Precinct now within her sights, Clara felt her speed increase, like she was running from the murderer.
And then, as if she didn't need anymore problems, she saw Michael looking at her from under a market awning. She turned her blurry gaze away from him, nearly slamming into a shopper, and ran by him.
"Clara?!" she barely heard him shout. "What's wrong?!"
She ignored him and kept pushing through the crowd, wanting to just be there so people wouldn't have to see her like this. And soon enough, she was dealing with Michael again, as he caught up to her in under a minute, asking the same as he had before. But she ignored him again, practically blinded by her tears now.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, she reached the Precinct, practically falling through the doors. Regaining her balance, she shrugged off Michael's hand on her arm, and bolted straight through the front-desk line.
The crimson-and-blue jacketed officer started in surprise, saying something in his native tongue. "Ma'am, what's wrong?" came the voice from the translation box on the desk.
Clara realized she couldn't breathe, and hunched over the desk, trying furiously to cough out her words.
"Okay, ma'am," the officer cautioned politely. "Just breathe...what happened?" He gestured to someone behind him. "Seter!" he called.
"Myhusbaneenmurder!" Clara managed to spit out at last, so quickly that even she hadn't understood what she said.
However, the officer must have heard the word "murder," because he suddenly jerked around, his red Tunesean eyes staring down at her crying face seriously. "What'd you say, ma'am?"
Clara heaved out some breathe, and gathered some more, chest heaving and mouth sobbing. "My husband's been murdered." The last word barely escaped her mouth before she began to cry heavily, her throat as dry as a desert.
The officer's eyes widened. "Seter," he said to the new officer that came up beside him. "Don't you know her?"
Clara looked up, tears blurring her vision, straight into the wine red skin of Seter Garadel's Tunesean face. Seter was a family friend she and Lionel had met when they first moved here.
"Clara!" Seter said in alarm. "What happened?" he asked the other officer.
Not wanting to hear what the officer would tell him, for the pain would be unbearable, Clara covered her ears as the officer delivered the news to Seter, who was taken aback by it. He looked down at Clara's crying figure in shock and sadness. Rushing out from behind the desk, Seter cried back to the other officer. "Get a unit up to her house. Dash-dash-slash-four-colon-colon-eight."
"You got it."
"Get your weapons!" someone suddenly cried. All eyes snapped over to Michael, who had cried out. He was backing up slowly towards a wall, his eyes locked to something, or someone, outside the building, an expression of fear entombed on his face. He snapped his head around at the officers. "Get your guns! There's a bounty hunter coming!" He looked back out the door, and his eyes widened. From outside came the sound of a laser firing. A moment later, Michael dove to the ground as the laser blast burst through the "blaster-proof" door, shattering the glass. The immense laser went straight through the spot where Michael had just been a second ago, and then proceeded blow a huge hole into the far well, shaking the whole floor.
Seter cried out. "Assault! Assault! Assault!" He grabbed Clara and half-carried her to behind the desk. The other officer and about fourteen of his comrades rushed to the front desk as screaming from the civilians escalated to practically ear-piercing. Seter ordered Clara to stay where she was and got out his handgun. He and the other fifteen officers rushed past the desk.
A few seconds later, Clara heard them return fire to whoever was assaulting the station. She guessed it was Lionel's murderer, and that he or she had followed her from her house. Wiping her eyes, Clara peeked her head out from behind the desk, risking a glance at the battle. As she did this, she heard Seter cry out again. "Bombs! Bombs!" The officer's bolted away from the main floor as more civilians screamed at the warning. Clara saw six tiny cartridges roll into the center of the floor, and she ducked her head back behind the desk as they all went off at once. She screamed as the orange flames hit the desk and roared over above and on both sides of her, the desk shielding her from any harm. Closing her eyes, Clara endured the force of the blast until it was gone. When she opened her eyes, the floor around her was ash black, and the edges of the desk had been singed off. Not moving, Clara began to shake ferociously, fear gripping every muscle of her body. She stared ahead at the empty offices, tears streaming down her cheeks again. Gathering up what courage she had, Clara once again peeked her head out from behind the desk again. The scene beyond the desk made her throw up in her mouth. The floor had been turned into an immense crater from all the bombs, and all the officers, including Seter, lay unconscious or dead all around. Some were bleeding profusely, one's neck looked like it had been broken, and two had holes gutted into their chest. Michael was no where in sight.
Like Lionel, Clara realized in sick fear as she stared at the gutted officers. It was her husband's murderer that had indeed followed her. Rising to her full height, she finally saw the murderer appear. The first thing she noticed was that the man was a Fedrellon. Like all Fedrellons, he was tall and muscular, his arms like cannons, his thighs and legs as large as light-weight pillars. His face was sculpted like a devils face, his lips long and stringy and orange, his eyes like a cats, and his nose small and long. The hair was long and brown and curly, and his body was encased inside a layer of lizard-like, green skin.
Clara stood up to her full height as the Fedrellon walked in, carrying a long, powerful-looking laser gun in both hands. His small eyes scanned the station, falling on Clara almost immediately. She didn't dare move, didn't dare to do anything except put her hands in surrender. He pointed his laser at her, and Clara prepared for her death by closing to her eyes. At least she'd see her beloved Lionel again soon.
But nothing happened.
Clara opened her eyes to find him just staring at her. He hesitated.
"No, you're too pretty to kill. I'll deal with you on my way out," he said in a ugly deep voice.
"Stay away from her, Cinnigis!" Michael shouted from behind a wall on the far right.
The Fedrellon named Cinnigis whirled his weapon around and fired a long blast at him. Michael ducked behind the wall as the shot went past where he had just been. Again the floor shook. Satisfied that he had some time, Cinnigis used his free hand to un-holster a handgun and point it at Clara's head. "Get out here!" he ordered her.
Clara didn't even hesitate following the man's orders, wanting to rip his head off and see his blood trickle onto the floor. As she was coming from behind the desk though, Michael reappeared for a moment and fired off a few shots from a police handgun at Cinnigis, but missed. Cinnigis didn't fire back though. He was still waiting for Clara.
"You try that again and I blast her head off!" he shouted at Michael. "You idiot! You should'nta told me to stay away from her! You know how I can't resist the urge to piss you off Michael!"
They know each other? Clara thought. Then she remembered what he had said earlier. "'There's a bounty hunter coming!'" he had shouted......
Then she saw it. On Cinnigis's ring finger. A plain golden ring, with what looked like the phrase "LC Thompson" carved onto the rings polished surface. Clara knew what it was the moment she saw it. It was her wedding ring. Lionel and her had agreed to have their initials carved into it as a gift to themselves on their wedding day.
Now she was sure. "It was you!" she shouted at Cinnigis. "You killed my husband!" Every part of her now wanted to tear this villain apart with her bare hands, but she held that urge back, knowing she would be killed if she tried that. And she wanted to live, to avenge her husband.
Cinnigis continued to stare over at Michael's spot, but talked to her. "Oh, so you're the wife of that man on Bates Street?" He finally looked over at her for a moment. "He really loved you," he said with a devilishly smile. "That ring though. That's a keeper." He chuckled. "And I'm keeping it."
At that moment, while Cinnigis was still looking at her, Michael jumped out from behind the wall, targeting the arm that the Fedrellon had extended at Clara, and firing. Cinnigis's return shot was pre-emptive and missed Michael, but Michael's shot caused Cinnigis to have to move his arm, and gave Clara the time she needed to fight him. She instinctively reached down and grabbed the energy baton of one of the dead cops, jabbing it onto the green skin of Cinnigis's waist. The baton sent a shock through the bounty hunter's body. As he yelped in pain, his attempted shot at Clara's forehead whizzed over Clara's scalp. He started to fall to the floor as a result of the shock. Michael fired too soon and missed, allowing Cinnigis to fire back with his huge laser. The gun and what seemed to be a couple of Michael's fingers, judging by Michael's painful reaction of grabbing his hand and crying out, flew off and were vaporized. Cinnigis began to regain his composure, so Clara had to think quickly. But as time flew by, she decided only one thing: run. And so she bolted through the shattered glass doors, and back out onto the dumbfounded crowd of Market Street. Michael soon followed, and the two ran as far away as they could from the crazed Cinnigis.