Courting The Jester

Chapter Five

"You…" growled Rowen from where he stood behind Nikki. The short dark haired woman jumped at the sound of his voice, momentarily shrinking back. Then she squared her shoulders and looked up at him and gave him her best condescending look.
"Yes, me. And I would appreciate if people didn't sneak up behind me. If you want to spend your time, mister, snarling like a dog at people you don't know then I suggest you go outside where you belong. Find a tree or something to piss on."
Even Mia choked on that one. Cye snorted and Kento's jaw dropped. Nikki took a step forward and glared up at Rowen, head bent almost all the way back so she could stare him in the eyes. From across the room came a low growl and White Blaze stood, padding across the room to the doorway. He crouched down and watched the two, tailing flicking back and forth.
"What are you looking at?" she demanded, hands on her hips. Rowen clenched his teeth, and they could see his muscles bunched up with tension. If the guys hadn't have known better they would have sworn Rowen was ready to hit her. But that was ridiculous. Rowen had always ignored most females he came across, and the few he noticed or befriended he'd always been a complete gentleman to. Well…mostly a gentleman. He wasn't above having a little fun. But now he looked ready to toss her up against the wall.
"Uh, Rowen?" Sage asked quietly, "Are you alright?"
"Me?" Rowen asked, blue eyes continuing to drill into the person in front of him. His voice was harsh coming out. "Me, I'm just fine. As long as you're not counting the last four hours or so. If you are, then I've been better."
"Listen," Nikki said abruptly, turning away as she spoke, "I don't know what blue-boy here's damage is but…" She yelped as Rowen seized her arm and snapped her back around to face him.
"Don't turn your back on me," he snarled, "I don't trust you enough for you to do that." The guys stared in shock at him for a full moment before they closed in on him.
"Hey Rowen, back off dude," Kento snapped, trying to put himself between Rowen and the Mia's friend. "I don't know what's going on but this is one of Mia's friends, so chill. She's not bad."
Rowen refused to release Nikki's arm or acknowledge the big man next to him.
"What did you do?" Rowen demanded, giving her a little shake. Nikki tried to pull away and a brief look of panic crossed her face. Mia jumped up and pushed behind Kento, trying to intervene.
"Rowen, please, you're hurting her! She my friend! You don't know her; leave her alone. She didn't do anything!" Mia tried to convince him.
"Get off me you big jackass-" Nikki started only to be shook again, hard enough to rattle her teeth.
"What did you do?" Rowen roared this time, practically lifting her off her feet in his rage. Kento reached for him but Rowen roughly shouldered him off. "Tell me!"
"Rowen stop it!" Mia cried, and forced her body between Rowen and Nikki. She tried to strike his arm the way she'd seen Ryo do and make him drop Nikki, but instead found the Ronin of Strata suddenly turning his rage on her.
"And you! What the hell did both of you do!" Rowen pushed Nikki aside and loomed over Mia, shaking with fury. Suddenly two pairs of hands grabbed him and threw him backwards out of the room and into the hallway. Rowen's back hit the wall with a crunch. He looked up, trying to regain his bearings, only to find Sage holding down his torso and Ryo's angry blue eyes in front of his own.
"What ever the hell is your problem, Rowen, get a hold of yourself NOW!" Ryo snapped, staring down the other man. Rowen met his gaze for one long strained moment before dropping his eyes only slightly. It wasn't much, but it was enough and Ryo moved back. Sage slowly released Rowen, but stayed where he was crouched by his friend's side. Rowen straightened and regained his feet, content to glare at the girls from across the hall. Ryo remained three feet away from Rowen, arms crossed and tense, while Kento and Cye also placed themselves in the hall between Rowen, Mia, and Nikki.
"Is the whole world going completely psycho?" Kento muttered to himself, shaking his head and rubbing his shoulder where Rowen had caught him. Rowen might be the tall lean one of the group, but he was much stronger than he looked. Cye said nothing, only he went from staring at Rowen to staring at Mia, back and forth until he too was shaking his head and muttering under his breath. No one was saying anything so Sage finally spoke up.
"Rowen, where were you? We…needed you a while ago. Did anything happen?" Sage stressed his words, trying to covey his meaning to his friend without giving away too much in front of the stranger in their midst. Rowen only snorted at Sage's descretion.
"Don't worry about it Sage. She knows who we are, there's no point in hiding anything. In fact I bet she knows a hell of a lot more than the rest of us do right now, isn't that right?" The last he said in Nikki's direction, where she was shoulder to shoulder with Mia. Both women looked pale. Mia looked…worried. She was fiddling with her hands. Rowen met Nikki's eyes and she glared back at him.
"Oooookay," Kento said, scratching behind his right ear, "Why don't you start from the beginning, huh Ro?" The other Ronins nodded in agreement.
"Fine," Rowen agreed, shifting forward slightly. Ryo tensed and Rowen gave him an amused condescending look. Ryo bristled but Sage stepped between them and both backed off.
"I was at school. I was working with another student and started remembering stuff. Weird stuff. When I started driving over here I kept hearing people say things in my head, like I was remembering old conversations. Only I wasn't actually remembering them because I'd never heard these conversations before. Each time I'd hear one my head would hurt worse and worse. Finally I had to pull over because it got too bad, and I…"
"You what?" Sage pressed when Rowen drifted off. Rowen looked down and shook his head slightly as if coming out of a dream.
"I don't know. Maybe I passed out? Or maybe just fell asleep, I don't know. But I saw things. I can't really explain them. It's sort of like waking up from a nightmare that you don't remember but you still feel all cold inside. You just get bits of images from it, but don't know what they mean. And when I saw her," Rowen's voice lowered and got harsher, and he once again glared angrily at Nikki. "…When I saw her some came back to me. But not much and not anything good."
The others were giving Rowen disbelieving looks but he ignored them and turned to where Mia still stood silently. "And you, my dear little Mia, were right in the middle of everything. I don't really know who she is, only that I don't like or trust her. That doesn't bother me so much. But why the hell don't I trust you any further than I can spit?"
This last comment made Mia go still. Then her face flushed with color and she shook her head angrily.
"Fine Rowen, be that way. I don't know what the hell's wrong with you, but you owe both Nikki and I an apology for how rudely you've acted. We've both had a long and tiring day and neither of us needed your little temper tantrum right now. When you get your head on straight we can talk, but right now I have more important things to do than to deal with you. Come on Nikki, I'll show you where the towels are." Mia swept past them coolly, the dark haired woman silent at her heels. The five men just stared at her, still trying to take all of this in. Mia paused on the steps, regally addressing the Ronins.
"Oh, and I assume you've all decided to stay here for a while. That's fine, but whatever it is that you did to the outside of my house, please fix it. It looks awful." With that she disappeared up the stairs.
The Ronins continued to stare at each other in confused silence. Then they all broke out at once.
"What the hell was that all about?"
"Oh great, we're hearing voices and Rowen's seeing things. Perfect."
"I don't get it man, but how dare you go after two girls like that? Especially Mia!"
"Why didn't White Blaze stop you from going after them?"
The last comment shut them up and as one they all turned to look at Cye. Cye was looking at where White Blaze was still crouched by the doorway, where he'd been the entire fight. His tail had stopped flicking but he was now watching the stairs with one eye and the Ronins with the other. At hearing his name, the tiger stood and moved over to Rowen, rubbing his head against Rowen's leg. Then he gave them all only what could be called a pointed look before calmly padding up the stairs.
"You've got to be kidding me!" This time Kento threw his hands up in the air in defeat. "So the tiger thinks it's okay for you to beat up women, Ro. Great. Nice change from your usual ‘defend the mortal realm' stuff. Now it can be ‘hallucinations make me strip down to a little white wife-beater so I can show her who's boss and then defend the mortal real' stuff. Great. I'm going to leave this one to you guys. If you need me, I'll be outside trying to fix Mia's house. Mia being the beloved friend Rowen went crazy on who's housing us these days."
Kento headed for the front door, disappearing from sight. Then his head popped back into view as he added, "And by the way, if anyone figures out how to fight the demon voice that wants to eat my soul, please let me know."
Most people wouldn't have known how to respond to that. Rowen however wasn't most people.
"Sure thing cupcake."
Sage rolled his eyes at his now slightly relaxed friend.
"What?" Rowen asked innocently. Then his usual mischievous grin started to split his face. He looked around at each of the angry and confused men that surrounded him and clapped his hands together. "So, what'd I miss?"

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"You said we wouldn't see them. You said this would be a brief stopover at your home to get food and clothes. You said I'd get to use your grant money to play with new equipment but nooooooo. No, we show up, the boys are all confused and dressed for fighting, and your house is trashed like it got hit with a shock wave, a shock wave Mia, remember those? Remember Mia! Those aren't fun Mia. They were never fun. They hurt and they killed people and they can lift a freaking car off the road with no warning and slam it into other cars and do you know what that means Mia? Do you!"
Nikki took a short slightly hysterical breath before plowing on.
"This wasn't supposed to happen again! It's not! We took care of it, and now Rowen's walking around knowing that something's wrong and pretty soon he'll have everyone else convinced that something's wrong, and then they'll find out everything we did and and…and he's back. He's back. Oh god he's back…" Nikki's voice had reached panic octaves and Mia grabbed her hand and shook her hard. That had been happening to Nikki a lot that day.
"Stop. Stop okay, we don't know. We don't know what's happening yet, and we don't know exactly what Rowen remembers, and everything's still okay. If he was actually back don't you think he would've gone after us first? It's more fun to terrorize those that already know you. He'd come after us first Nik."
The comment was meant as reassurance but made the shorter woman go pure white. Quickly Mia continued on.
"But he hasn't. At least not that we know for sure. We wouldn't be the first people in the world to get into a strange car accident. Everything's still okay."
"You're really in denial aren't you?" Nikki said, voice suddenly hard. "You're just as freaked out as I am. But maybe keeping your head in the sand will make things go away."
Mia glared at Nikki and said nothing. She stood and went to her bedroom window. Outside she could see trees knocked over and bushes uprooted. Like something had hit them all in one giant wave. Her stomach sunk and she started shivering despite herself."
"What do we do Mia?" Nikki asked. "Do we tell them? Mia?"
Mia shook herself then looked over at Nikki, a determined expression on her pretty face.
"No. We don't tell them unless we have no other choice."
"What about Rowen? He almost ruined everything last time. It's in his nature to try to root this out again."
"Don't let him this time." Mia's words weren't meant to be harsh but Nikki inadvertently flinched.
"Do you think he remembers any of that?" Nikki asked softly. Mia sighed and shook her head, looking out the window again.
"No," Mia replied. "If he did, all hell would've broken lose downstairs. No, all he remembers is the bad, and only a tiny part of that."
"It was all bad," Nikki whispered to herself, so quiet that she didn't realize Mia had heard her. Then Nikki squared her shoulders and stood up.
"Well, there's nothing that can be done about it tonight. I'll just convince Rowen that he's imagining things. Or if I can't, I'll just piss him off enough that he'll be too distracted to figure anything else out. Then we leave here, Mia. Promise me." Nikki's voice had that ‘stubborn as a rock' tone and Mia had no choice but to smile and nod at her friend. Nikki nodded back and disappeared into the bathroom to take a much-needed shower.
Sadly Mia turned back to the scenery outside. A dark head bobbed around, trying to fix things. Mia touched the glass and ran a finger down the side of the figure below.
"It won't help Kento," she whispered, "you can't stop this now." Shivering Mia sat on her bed, reflexively gripping the small silver necklace she wore. Once upon a time she had gathered great comfort from that necklace. Now all she had for comfort was herself. Pulling herself together, Mia stood and headed for the door. She couldn't avoid them forever, and dinnertime was coming. Mia swept out of her room, lost in her own thoughts.
He grinned at her back as she shut the door.