Chapter Eight

Remaining Innocents

"Car accident?" Chris snapped suddenly. "What car accident?" He demanded.

"Its nothing," Phoebe said quickly, waving him off. "I vote we get—"

Chris was not going to be ignored. Not about this.

"Damn it Phoebe!" He shouted, coming forward and grabbing both her shoulders. "What car accident!" He yelled giving her a shake.

Chris's actions and the burning look in his eyes, caused Phoebe to freeze. It even took her a moment to realize how painful his grip on her shoulders was.

"Chris..." Piper said carefully, putting a gentle hand on one of her son's. "There was a minor car accident yesterday," as she spoke she peeled Chris's hand off Phoebe's shoulder.

Chris stopped paying attention to Phoebe, and was instead staring at Piper. Phoebe took the opportunity to wiggle out of her nephews grip.

"This girl got hit by a car yesterday in front of the house," Piper said simply.

Chris shook his head. "No she didn't!" He snapped.

The sisters stared.

"Yes Chris... She did..." Paige confirmed, while Phoebe nodded slowly.

Chris stared at the unconscious girl, then at the sisters, shaking his head.

"I've got to go," he said suddenly. Before anyone could say anything he orbed.

The sisters all exchanged a confused look.

"That was weird..." Paige said slowly.

"Yeah..." Piper stared at the spot where Chris was.

"Back to the matter at hand!" Phoebe said quickly, gesturing at crystal cage. "I vote we get Leo to heal her," she said firmly.

"So that it can go all demonic and try to kill us again?" Paige asked sarcastically.

"It," Phoebe said in a grating voice, "is a she, and she, is an innocent."

"Possessed by a demon, yes we know all this," Piper said exasperated. "We aren't going to learn anything new by talking in circles," Piper bit her lip. "The book can't tell us any more, and she can't tell us anything while she's unconscious."

Phoebe nodded enthusiastically, but Paige looked hesitant.

"Oh alright," she said finally.

"Leo!" Phoebe quickly shouted, before either of her sisters could change their minds.

"What's up?" Leo asked as he appeared, his back to the cage.

The sisters simply pointed and Leo turned around.

"Oh my. What happened?"

"Well we found the demon," Piper said matter-of-factly.

"Her?" Leo asked, recognizing her as the girl from the accident.

"Yeah... The whole body possessing thing seems to be a bit deceptive," Piper said as blandly as she would when commenting on the weather.

"We want you to wake her up," Phoebe got straight to the point.

Leo looked incredulous. "Did you vanquish the demon?"

"Technically... No," Paige said simply.

"But we're working on it," Phoebe cut in, wanting to convince Leo to help her.

Leo glanced around the room.

"Where's Chris?"

"Out," Phoebe said simply. "Ready?" She gestured at the cage.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" He asked uneasily.

"No," was the synchronized reply.

Leo bit his lip and glanced at the unconscious girl. "Just wake her up right?"

"You can heal that nasty burn mark if you—" Phoebe stopped when her sister's glared at her. "Just waking her up sounds good."

Leo, still hesitant, moved towards the cage. Paige promptly followed him, and knelt by one of the crystals. Leo gave Paige a slight nod, signaling her to remove one of the Pyrite crystals from the circle. The second the shield dropped, Leo stepped forward and began using his healing powers. Suddenly he stopped.

"Um, Leo, she doesn't look much better..." Piper said slowly.

"I felt something... Odd... It doesn't feel like I'm healing properly..."

"Leo, come on! You've never done it wrong before!" Phoebe snapped.

Leo glanced at Piper and Paige and then placed his hands over the girl's head. After a few moments the girl groaned. Leo quickly stepped back, and Paige replaced the Pyrite crystal.

Her face gave a slightly twitch, and her head rolled very slightly to the side. Then she opened and closed her mouth as if trying to say something, right before slowly opening her eyes. Her vision was blurred, and she felt groggy, but she quickly concluded it wasn't her eyes blurring her surroundings, but something else. The wooden rafters above her had a slight gray aura around them. She turned her head to the right, and she found herself laying on a worn rug which, aside from being old and grimy, looked quite in focus till about three feet in front of her face where it was suddenly blurred by a semi transparent wall. Where was she? She rolled her head to the left, and made eye contact with a slightly blurred Piper.

"Hi there," Piper said easily, crouched down right next to the wall of the Pyrite cage.

Kayla Couter didn't need clear vision, or a clear head, to fully recognize the person who had murdered her parents.

Now of course Piper really hadn't excepted the semiconscious girl to just suddenly start screaming, and when one is crouched down in the way Piper was, one is rarely in balance. So at almost the same moment as Piper fell hard on her rear end, the girl made a futile attempt to sit up and crab walk away from Piper. The attempt was futile due to the sudden collapse of her left arm as she attempted to support herself on it. Had the shock of seeing her parent's murder not been enough, falling painfully on her left arm only to find it burned so severely that it was a wonder it was still attached (in fact, medically speaking she should have been able to feel her fingers, but medical logic rarely applies in the magical world), was enough to make anyone scream bloody murder.

Piper quickly scrambled to her feet, and began brushing dust off her rear end. "Now what?" She hissed to her sisters. She felt the need to whisper even though their guest was far too preoccupied with her arm to notice anything else at that moment.

Phoebe, knowing this was her pet project, and therefore feeling responsible, stepped forward. "Hey, we aren't going to hurt you," she said softly, kneeling down next to the cage.

"Get the hell away from me!" The girl snapped, as she successfully scrambled to her feet while her right arm was still occupied with clutching her left arm.

"Kayla, we want to help you," Phoebe said softly, slowly standing up.

She wasn't about to believe that. She was just slowly shaking her head and backing way. She backed away right into the walls of the cage. The small shock from the walls caused her to jump and turn her back on the sisters in her surprise.

However, instead of screaming deliriously again, she simply stared at the force field, then spoke calmly.

"Are you going to kill me too?" She asked, not looking at anyone. She was clearly terrified, but trying not to show it.

Kill her too? The sisters were confused. Of course they didn't know what lies the demon had told the girl, nor did they even know it was intelligent enough to communicate with its host, however they did know they hadn't killed anything, vanquished yes, but not really killed, atleast not recently.

"We don't want to hurt you," Phoebe said softly.

"You killed my parents," her voice went up sharply, and she spun back around to face her attackers.

Of course the three of them knew the girl had, however unintentionally and unconsciously, had killed her own parents, but this seemed like an inappropriate time to inform her of that little fact.

"We didn't kill anyone," Piper said slowly, keeping her voice and calm and even as possible. "We try to help people, we want to hel-"

"You did it!" Her voice moving above and beyond the point of hysterical, and, using her good arm, pointed accusingly at Piper, her left arm was still clutched against her chest. "You blew them up! You blew them up!"

Piper was taken aback by this sudden accusation. Was this perhaps the demon talking? She had blown up quite a few demons. Was this some sort of teenaged demon seeking revenge?

"I saw their bodies! Bloodied and mangled, and then you blew them up!" She shrieked.

Suddenly Phoebe understood. The demon must have been feeding her incomplete images and memories. It must have been just like when Phoebe experienced a premonitions; they were just series of snap shots of things to come. The demon must of shown her the bodies of her murdered parents, and then an image of Piper blowing something up.

"We didn't murder anyone, Kayla," Phoebe said softly, wishing she would be struck by some sort of inspirational thoughts on how best to explain that "Hey kid, we're witches in a never ending battle of good vs. evil and you happen to be possessed by one of those evil demons we are trying to get rid of."

"Yes you did," she hissed. "You murdered them. They never had a chance." She began visibly shaking with anger. "I'll kill you!!" She yelled and lunged forward only to be quickly knocked to the ground by the semi transparent walls of the cage.

The three sisters had taken an unintentional step back as the girl lunged forward, Piper had raised her hands defensively, and Paige had come within a hair of orbing.

On the floor, Kayla suddenly curled up into the fetal position, and started muttering to no one in particular. "What are you doing to me?"

Phoebe glanced at her sisters with a confused look, only to receive one twice back.

"You said you wanted to help me... What are you doing to me? ... This isn't helping... I don't know why we are here... Watch what?" In a sudden jerky motion, as if it wasn't entirely her own choice to do so, she popped out of the fetal position, and laid flat her back. Then, in a similar jerking motion, her right hand snapped to a position a few inches above the burns on her left arm, her fingers extended and spread.

"Oh my," Leo muttered.

The sisters jumped, they had forgotten Leo was still in the room. Neither Piper, Phoebe nor Paige found it comforting to see surprised look on Leo's face. They promptly found out why Leo looked so surprised.

Paige couldn't help but gasp when a bright gold light began emitting from Kayla's hand. The bright gold light glowed briefly, and when it faded away, everyone in the room saw Kayla's fully healed left arm.

"They could have helped you but they didn't," Kayla said, her voice raspier than it had been a moment ago. "They plan to kill you," her expression was blank and emotionless, but her voice was full of hatred. The sisters were quite sure Kayla's was no longer the dominant mind. "Kill them first!" She shrieked and lunged at the walls of the pyrite cage.

"She shouldn't have any white lighter powers," Leo said calmly, looking at the sisters as Kayla lunged and bounced off the walls of the cage several more times. "I'm going to go see what I can find out." He orbed before anyone replied.

"Okay, what are we going to do here exactly?" Paige asked, keeping her voice low (not that Kayla could have heard anything, she was too busy throwing herself against the cage walls and swearing loudly).

"Well obviously the demon can't fully possess her for some reason," Phoebe said mater-of-factly. "So that means there is probably someway to vanquish the demon without killing an innocent."

"Another innocent," Piper corrected softly, biting her lip.

"Huh?" Paige asked obliviously.

"Whatever we thought we vanquished before..." Phoebe said slowly.

"Was just whatever body the demon had possessed," Paige caught on and finished the thought. "But that means we killed an innocent?"

"No." Phoebe said firmly. "It wasn't innocent any more, the demon had fully destroyed it's host's soul. There wasn't anything in that creature other than evil."

"But you can sense some good here?" Piper asked, staring at Kayla.

"Yes." Phoebe said firmly.

"Then we have to figure out how to help her."

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" Kayla shrieked, oblivious to the conversation between the sisters.

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[A/N, #Cue Cheesy "Dun dun dun!" Music# What will they do? Will evil triumph and kill an innocent right before the Charmed Ones? Find out! Next chapter!.... Yeah... okay... so please review!]