Sorry this chapter was late, but I'm glad I took the week off, it allowed me to return to this story with a fresher mind, and a less peeved Muse!
Word to the wise, Muse thought it would be funny, honeys, (sorry, been listening to Abba all week) if I use some swear words in this chapter. There is only a couple of them, so it shouldn't be a big deal. They are the worser words though.
I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream – I have a dream
I'll cross the stream – I have a dream
Abba -'I Have a Dream'
Deaq was grinning like a fool as he danced; he had found a chocolate colored woman dressed in gold who had sensual moves that were giving him ideas of the sort that shouldn't be acted on while on the dance floor. Her glittering cat eyes held a knowing air, as if she what kind effect she was having on him as she slid against him.
"Whoo, girl." Deaq grinned down at her, "You sure know how to dance."
"Thanks, a friend taught me a thing or two." She replied, her lips curving in a smile. "Why don't you stop smiling like a fool and buy me something to drink?" She said coyly, smiling up at him so that he didn't feel insulted.
"Your wish is my command, Stella." Deaq vowed, giving her a bow before leading her off the dance floor to the bar. He looked around a bit and noticed that Billie was still dancing with Daniel, but still in sight if he watched in from the mirror behind the bartender.
"Who you're looking for?" Stella asked him, noticing how he had looked around. He looked down at her faintly surprised and gave her a smile. "What? Oh, nobody."
She gave him a skeptical smile, but didn't press any further as she accepted her shot glass from the bartender and with a smile, tossed the drink back and then asked for a martini.
They have been softly talking to each other when Stella looked up and focused on somebody behind Deaq. "Deaq, there's a white guy coming our way. I think he wants to talk to you." She told him, her brow furrowing. Deaq gave her a cocky, but reassuring smile as he turned around and nearly dropped his drink when he realized it was Daniel now standing right in front of him.
"Which one are you, Van or Deaq?" Daniel asked almost friendly except for an undercurrent of danger. Deaq's eyes flickered to where he came from and saw Billie looking pissed as she sat at a table, watching them with her arms crossed.
"What, man?" Deaq asked to buy some time and Daniel's eyes darkened, but his pleasant face didn't lessen at all, if at all, a smile grew instead, that reminded Deaq the smile of a predator read to attack.
"You're Deaq, right? You look like a Deaq. I think you know who I am." Daniel said in a friendly like way as he sat down on a stool next to Deaq. He reached across the bar to shake Stella's hand. "Hi, I'm Daniel, I'm dating Deaq's boss."
"Oh, I'm Stella." She replied, her eyes darting between the two men's faces, her own confused and unnerved. "Deaq, honey, I gotta go to the little girls' room, alright?" She got up, gave him a swift kiss on the cheek, disappearing into the crowd before Deaq could protest or even react.
"Oh, I'm sorry; did I make your mistress mad?" Daniel asked charmingly, but it was no longer friendly at all. "'Cause you made me mad. I don't like the idea of being watched while I'm with my girlfriend, your boss or not. What kind of job are you pulling?" He asked in a low sharp whisper, jabbing a finger in Deaq's chest for emphasis.
"Back off, man." Deaq retorted, swatting Daniel's hand away. "We just happen to like the same clubs. My being here has nothing to do with a job, just with a fine young woman you just scared away."
"I just might've believed that but for one nagging little thing. Every time I've gone out with Billie, I've seen you. No matter where we go, I see you." Daniel's eyes burned at Deaq with anger and something about his mannerisms rang a bell in Deaq's head but he couldn't come up with what it was.
"Look, man, I can't help it if you're paranoid, but leave me and Stella out of this shit." Deaq returned just as heated with anger and finished his drink in one swallow and walked away, leaving Daniel seething on the bar stool.
Deaq looked around for the ladies room, hoping to wait nearby and see if Stella would reappear. If not, he was gonna have to leave Billie to her devices and wits since his own cover was blown. He glanced quickly towards to Billie and saw her arguing furiously with Daniel before slapping him hard and huffing away with Daniel following her as they continued to argue, although it seemed that he was beseeching more than actually arguing with her now.
"Shit." Deaq muttered, realizing that it was time to disappear and Stella hasn't shown up and wasn't likely too. Besides, he didn't want to get caught by Daniel who was going to be very peeved with him. He muttered angrily under his breath as he stalked out the back exit, hoping to avoid Daniel.
"Deaq!" Stella screamed from behind him as Daniel punched at Deaq, catching him along the side of his face instead straight on. Deaq staggered to the side as his head reeled from the blow, he looked up just in time to see Daniel's fist coming down towards his face. He braced himself for the blow, but Stella jumped on the attacker's back and knocked him off balance, giving Deaq a chance to recover.
"Ah!" Stella cried out as Daniel threw her off his back into some garbage cans. Deaq saw red as he charged at the other man and knocked him to the ground where they rolled over and over, each trying to gain the upper hand as they pounded on each other.
"Stop it!" Stella screamed at the fighting men, then turned to run to the bar entrance and opened the door. "Help! Somebody help me!" She screamed inside and some people nearby caught notice of her and came to her assistance. A tall burly African-American took her arm gently as she tried to tell him what was happening, but noticed Deaq and Daniel fighting on the ground in the alley. He pushed her towards a woman and walked to the two men and grabbed each of them by their scruffs and lifted them to their feet, shaking them so hard that Stella could hear their teeth rattle.
"Now you tell me what you two bastards are doing, scaring a pretty lady like that." He rumbled deep down in his chest. Deaq peered up at him, one eye nearly swollen shut and blind from his blood from a cut on his eyebrow. Daniel just snorted and spitted out blood to the ground.
"Just expressing our opinions, sir." Deaq cheekily replied as he struggled to free himself from the giant's grasp.
"And now I'll express mine." He replied, giving them both a good shake until they started shouting for him to stop. "Now you boys go run on home and don't go scaring the girls again or I'll really give you a good shake." He threatened as he released them; Daniel scowled as he stumbled backwards before turning and leaving the alley at a slow stalk. Deaq just stood there wearily until Stella came to him.
"Aw, baby, look at you." She cooed as she gently looked over his battle wounds. The giant grinned as he walked back into the club, herding the curious spectators back in with him.
"Why don't I take you home?" Stella cooed as she put an arm around him and pulled him towards the parking lot. He grinned, even though it hurt because of the split lip, the evening wasn't a total lost after all, like he had feared.
"You didn't tell me you had a sister." Van groused from where he was sitting on the futon as Roxie came out of her room, still dressed in her pajamas and bathrobe as she made her way to the fridge.
"By the way, Van, I have a sister." She retorted as she opened the fridge and looked around for something for breakfast. "What are you talking about anyway?" She asked as she stood up and poured herself a glass of milk. Van didn't say anything, just held up a scrapbook.
"You got my scrapbooks!" Roxie squealed, the milk and glass sitting forgotten on the counter as she ran and scrambled over the top of the futon to sit down next to him and grabbed a book. "Wait, how did you get them?" She asked, looking up at him measuring. "You didn't?"
"I did, I contacted your mom, explained certain details, not about the part that you're at risk." He said quickly, foretelling her question as she opened her mouth and she snapped it closed annoyed. "Anyway, we agreed to meet at a safe place away from everybody's homes and she sent your sister in her place." He groaned as he leaned back and clasped his hands over his face. Roxie laughed and poked him in the side.
"She tried to seduce you, didn't she?" She said, trying not to laugh, but failing. Suddenly she sat up straight and punched him in the side.
"Ow! What was that for?" Van complained as he clutched his sore side, glaring at her as she returned his look.
"Who the hell was here making sure that I was safe while you were off fucking around?" She asked him coldly and he could tell that she was really mad at him by the way she was suddenly swearing, she never swore unless she was truly peeved.
"Roxie! I made sure that you were safe, I had Deaq sneak in here and watch over the place." Van quickly defended himself, knowing that if he didn't come up with a good enough excuse, she'll proceed to try and beat him to a pulp and she was getting better.
"And why didn't you just send Deaq instead of going in person?" Roxie asked, changing her position so that she was now kneeling on the couch and got a firmer hold on her scrapbook and started to slowly raise it up.
"I'm sorry! I just needed to get away for a bit!" Van yelled as he covered his head for protection, but the expected blow didn't come. He lowered his arms cautiously to see that Roxie was staring at him with a strange, almost hurt look. She got up quickly and grabbed her books, then marched to her room. He ran after her, but she slammed the door in his face and he could hear the lock clicking in place.
"Roxie, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way!" He yelled at the door, his hands on it as he leaned against it as he listened for a reply.
"Fuck off, bastard!" Roxie's reply could be heard faintly and he groaned and hit his head against her door and was rewarded with a thud that bounced his head off a good inch from the door before returning itto the door smartly. He rubbed his forehead ruefully as he walked away from her door and threw himself into the futon, mentally hitting himself.
"Smooth, really smooth." He muttered to himself as he noticed a scrapbook Roxie forgot to pick up. He picked it up and opened it, the cover page stated that it was her junior year scrapbook, and started to flip through it.
He found a picture of Roxie with two girls, one who he recognized from some dead Queen pictures, and a guy who had his arm around her in a familiar way standing in front of Hart Hall.
Casey, Roxie, Lena & Rita. Fall quarter of Jr. year! He read the caption under the picture. It truly saddened him to see a picture of somebody so happy and hopeful, not knowing in the future that they would be killed by a serial murderer.
Meanwhile, while Van was looking through her junior year scrapbook, Roxie was sitting on her bed crying as she stared down at her scrapbooks, most of them opened haphazardly all over her bed as she stared down at the pictures of happier and more carefree times.
"I wanna go back." Roxie murmured softly to her self as she traced a finger over a group picture of her and the other people who had lived in her dorm. She moaned softly as she picked up a picture that had her and Rita Hoffman being silly, they were wearing pink feather boas and tiaras as they posed on a pink high heel shoe.
She quickly reached behind her and grabbed a pillow and stifled her sobs into it so that Van couldn't hear her until her sorrow turned to anger.
"I'll show you, Van. You wanna get away from here? Then I'll just have to fix that and make you go away." She muttered angrily as she lay on her stomach on the bed so that she could look under it and grabbed a box she had shoved under there. She brought the box up onto her bed and upturned it, spilling all the pictures of the dead queens across the scrapbooks and cover.
She picked up her stereo remote and hit play and was please to note that it was one of her more moodier and depressing CDs, one she knew Van hated as she turned the volume up so loud she was sure he could hear it just fine. She then pushed through the pictures until she found one that looked remotely familiar and began to try and identify the queens that the cops were unable to identify, fighting back the fear of finding an old friend dead.
"Deaq!" Billie yelled as she stormed into the Candy Store the morning after her first fight with Daniel and she threw her purse as hard as she could into the red couch. Her voice echoed through the room eerily and she fumed when she realized that he wasn't there. She stalked to her office and sat down with a huff and started typing at the keys so hard and fast that they sounded like machine gunfire.
A couple hours later, Deaq walked into the place on Cloud Nine, he now had glorious bruises on his face and most of his exposed skin and he still can't see out of one eye and a rib that kept reminding him of last night. But he had spent the rest of that night with a fine woman who tended to him in ways that made him feel warm in all the right places just thinking about it.
He jogged up to where Billie was working and when he saw her staring angrily focused at her computer he did a quick 180 turn to escape before she caught notice of him and it was too late.
"DEAQ!" Billie fairly roared and he froze, groaning about his bad luck, he turned around slowly, careful to wipe away all signs of his elation so that all remained was emotionless.
"Deaq! What happened to you?" Billie exclaimed in concern, her earlier rage forgotten in the face of Deaq's more obvious problems.
"I expressed an opinion with someone." He glibly replied, reluctant to tell her who did the damage since he had never seen her happier with someone. "Don't worry about me, Billie; I had a good woman take care of me." He said, waving a hand dismissively. Billie ignored him as she came around the desk to get a better look at his battle wounds.
"You need stitches in the one over your eye, Deaq." She informed him matter-of-factly and he looked frantic for a moment as he looked around for a mirror, but stopped when she laughed at him.
"You an evil woman, Billie." He said ruefully as she smiled wickedly at him. "How do you feel?" He asked and mentally kicked himself when she got that tight angry look as she remembered what she was mad about.
"I don't know what the hell is up with Daniel, but he has been starting to pry more and more into my life and demand more from me." Billie ranted as she started stalking back and forth, gesturing angrily.
"He is your boyfriend and you do start sharing more of yourself the longer you're together." Deaq pointed out reluctantly, he really didn't want to encourage her relationship with Daniel after what happened between him, but he realized that there were some things about it that may need to be resolved or figured out. "Maybe you're holding too much of yourself back, forcing him to fight to know more about you."
"When did you get all Oprah?" Billie asked surprised.
"Stella likes Oprah."
"YOU TALKED TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND ABOUT ME!" Billie roared at him.
"Well, yeah." Deaq admitted, realizing that maybe he should've kept his mouth shut about that. "But I didn't say anything about what we do and our case."
"You better not have, after I read Van the riot act!" Billie told him angrily as she sat down at her desk and glared at him. Deaq winced at the memory, but chose to not say anything. Billie looked like she wanted to grind her teeth, but thankfully refrained.
"How's Roxie and Van doing?" She chose to ask tenslyinstead and Deaq jumped on that, he was relieved at the change of subject.
"Last I checked in on them, they were doing fine. Roxie was still asleep, so I talked to Van." Deaq reported as he sat down, Billie nodded, obviously waiting for him to elaborate more.
"Uh, he says that they might be getting closer to identifying the queens that we couldn't identify. Roxie seems to be in high spirits since the King hasn't been doing anything for the last week. And then the same ol' same ol'." Deaq supplied for her and she nodded as she thought it over.
"Is he still teaching her how to defend herself?" Billie asked as she laced her fingers as she propped her elbows on her desk.
"Yep, she's picking it up really fast, but then again, she was in karate for a couple quarters during college." Deaq said with a grin. "She's getting better at whipping his ass."
"Good." She replied with a chuckle. "We need her to be able to defend herself if she gets in a situation we can't help her with. So who's Stella anyway? She must be some woman if you're getting advice about your boss from her." She leaned forward with a wicked glint her eye and he groaned, time for twenty questions into his love life.
"Just some fine chocolate woman I met at the bar two nights ago and we've been going together when I go the clubs to watch your back. Helps with my cover." Deaq said, rolling his eyes upward in what was suppose to be a 'whatever' look, but instead it got dreamy. Billie grinned, she saw right through his act.
"Sure, Deaq." She replied.
Van was sitting on the futon watching TV, but not really paying attention to what was on due to his frustration. It did registered at the back of his mind that it was Desperate Housewives, but he couldn't muster up the energy to change it and he became engrossed in it instead.
He had spent the day trying to coax Roxie from her room, but she still yelled profanities back at him behind a locked door. He thought for sure that she would come out when he started cooking dinner, sauté shrimps and mushrooms with lemon, just the way she liked. But when he knocked on her door with a plate, he was rewarded with where she thought he should put it and he didn't particularly like it.
"Fine, stay in there and sulk." He muttered to himself as he pushed himself up off the futon and turned the TV off. "See if I care." He resisted the urge to kick her door as he went by and walked into the bathroom where he prepared for bed.
Roxie was far away from the world at that time, she was sound asleep amid the scattered pictures and albums. Her time was spent all day looking over each and every picture to see if she could identify them and crying when she found a face she knew and remembering the events she had with that woman. But more often than not, she looked upon strange faces and felt pity for them and their families and friends who don't know what happened to them.
The curtains fluttered from the open window and a shadow moved to close the window when she stirred from the cold breeze. The shadow made his way to her side and began to carefully pick up the pictures and albums, stacking them off out of the way.
"Jester." The shadow hoarsely whispered as he brushed a lock of unruly hair from her face and she sighed again.
"Hm?" Roxie murmured softly, still wooed by Morpheus, the dream god, as she snuggled deeper into her pillows. The King leaned forward until his lips were barely brushing her ear.
"Wake up, Jester." He whispered more loudly and her eyes slowly opened. Roxie looked around the room a bit dazed when she realized that she was no longer alone.
"Va-mmph!" She tried to scream, but he grabbed her and covered her mouth so that all she could do was struggle uselessly.
"Ah-ah, my Jester." He warned her in a hoarse whisper. "I don't want you calling for your knave, not while I have you."
Roxie stared back at him, his face still covered by his mask as she started to tremble from fear. He pulled her up so that she was now sitting and brought his face close to hers.
"You will not call for your knave and you will be meek." He ordered her, and at her nod, removed his hand away from her mouth, but still had a firm grasp around her waist so that she couldn't try and escape. She let lose a frightened squeak, but didn't make a single sound.
"Very good, Jester." He praised her, still speaking in the soft hoarse whisper to her. "Now I have something for you." With his free hand, he reached down towards the foot of the bed and picked up a present wrapped in black with red satin ribbons. Roxie hesitated as she took it from him when he offered it, her eyes darting up to his, panicky.
"W-what is it?" She asked shakily and he chuckled as he brought his face close to her neck so that she could feel his breath upon her skin.
"Open it." He whispered and she whimpered slightly as she tried to cringe away from him, but started to carefully untie the bow and slid a finger along the fold where the paper was taped together. The paper fell away to reveal a plain wooden box, but she stopped, quaking. He picked up one of her hands and placed it on the top of the box, just above the detailed latch.
"Open it." A hoarse whisper in her ear and she sobbed, shaking her head in mute denial. "I-I can't." She whispered softly to him. "I'm a-afraid."
"You are safe tonight, Jester." He promised her quietly and she slowly ran her fingers along the top of the box until they came to the clasp and she lifted it up, but stopped from opening the lid.
"Open it!" He whispered harshly and she flinched, opening the box quickly, but her eyes were closed as she took a deep, steadying breath. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked down into the box.
"No!" She gasped, covering her mouth as she stared at its contents.
"You are mine forever, Jester." The King left with a parting hoarse whisper through the window, but she didn't respond even as his burning heat left her side or the freezing breath of air from the open window. Instead, she stared down into the box, and then she began to sob helplessly and quietly as she turned away from it.
"Lord, help me..."
I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream – I have a dream
I'll cross the stream – I have a dream...