Jarod was more than a little surprised at the man's violent reaction.  "Whoa, whoa.  I just want to talk to her."

 

    Giles wasn't buying it.  "We were warned about you Jarod."  Giles let go of his Jarod's coat and shoved him. "You're not going to get anywhere close to Willow.  I suggest you get out of town.  You try to hurt Willow, and I will cause you unbelievable amounts of pain."

 

    "Look, I have no intention of hurting her.  I'm here to help her.  I don't know what Mr. Lyle told you, but I'm not the bad guy here, he is. I'm trying to save her from him, from The Centre."

 

    Giles rolled his eyes. "He told us you'd come here saying that."

 

    In his mind, Jarod was cursing. "You have to trust me..."

 

    "Get out of my shop!  And stay away from Willow.

 

    Jarod realized that there wasn't anything he could say to change the man's mind right now.  He held up his hands in surrender.  "Okay, okay.  I'm leaving."  He backed out the door and headed for his car, wondering how the hell he would convince Willow that Lyle was the one who was out to hurt her.  If he could just talk to her he might be able to do it.  But it looked like he would have a hard time even getting close to the girl.

 

 

    As soon as Jarod left the Magic Box, Giles was one the phone.  He called an emergency meeting of the Scooby gang, telling everyone to meet that evening as soon as the shop had closed down.  After everything he had been told about this Jarod, Giles was quite worried about Willow's safety.  He was even worried enough that he had called Spike.  He wanted to make sure they had as many people on guard as possible.

 

 

    As soon as the sun set, Spike began to make his way to the Magic Box.  Rupert had sounded really nervous on the phone.  Part of Spike still couldn't believe that he was helping out the slayer and her little friends.  But another part of him, a very small part he didn't want to acknowledge, was rather fond of the gang.  Willow had always been nice to him, and had often stopped the others when they went on their Spike bashing rants.  He didn't want to see the chit hurt.

 

    The thing was, Spike wasn't exactly sure whom she needed protection from.  Sure, this Robert of her's had warned them all about Jarod.  But Spike wasn't positive.  He hadn't told anyone else, but there was something about Robert Lyle, that Spike didn't trust.  The man was too good, too nice, too smooth.  Spike knew that that could be hiding something very bad.  After all, he had often used the prefect guy ruse to seduce women back in the good old days, before he had gotten that bloody chip in his head.

 

    But if Robert was telling the truth, then they really needed to be wary of Jarod.  Spike would help deal with him if that were the case.  But if it weren’t, he'd be there to take care of Robert Lyle.  Chip or no chip, he wasn't going to let someone hurt his friend.