Control Issues
Rated ADULT
Angst Ahead!

Chapters 11-15
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ELEVEN
***
Pretending to window shop for hunting knives, Blair kept an eye on his target in the reflection of the window. The mall was the last place Blair expected Jim to go, but here he was, wandering through the mall with a shopping bag after coming out of a sporting goods store.

The detective in Blair was suspicious. The part of Blair that kept him up at night whispering that he'd unfairly stolen another's person's life was ecstatic.

Jim stopped at a food vendor and Blair wandered one store down to get a better reflection. He could see the kid behind the counter hesitate, his eyes scanning the crowd behind Jim, probably looking for his guardian. Jim crossed his arms. The kid jerked. Yep, Ellison had just verbally lashed him. And there went the kid rushing to fill Jim's order.

Take away the collar that warned the casual shoppers, take away the children who pointed at him and pulled on their parent's arms, take away the ones who slid away from him, and he was just one more shopper. Two months since getting out of the SI, just over three weeks since bonding with Keith Walker, and Jim was wandering the mall by himself.

Blair blinked and found himself eying pink underwear. Shit. Blair stepped away from the Victoria's Secret window and wandered to Barnes and Noble, casually sorting the discount books, as he watched Jim's reflection on a silver trash can. Jim headed for a table, and Blair shifted so that he could see him out of the side of his eye.

He looked good.

Jim shoved half a hoagie in his mouth and chewed while flipping through some sort of magazine or brochure. Seven months ago, Blair would have considered this proof that his work with the Sentinel division was justified. Seven months ago, Jim was dirty and tired and riding the thin edge of frustration. Now he sat in the middle of a mall flipping through a magazine and looking good. Really good.

But Blair remembered the man's fierce insistence on freedom, and that collar still sat on his neck. Okay, so some Sentinels were out of control and yeah, maybe society needed a warning that they were unstable. But what about Dooger? The senior punched out some clueless underclassman every single time he got drunk, and he definitely needed to come with a warning label. If his father didn't keep giving the university endowment money, he would have been kicked out long ago.

And that was just one more unfairness. Blair added a mystery novel to his small stack and headed for the counter to pay. Jim was busy with his fries, so he wouldn't move for a little bit.

Blair wandered back out the door, desperate to scratch his neck where he'd tucked his ponytail, but there'd be plenty of time to do that once Jim got on the bus and headed home. No way could Blair follow him there. Well, he could follow him, but he really wasn't sure what the point would be. Jim would go home and switch into a thin t-shirt before working on the front yard or the car, and Keith would come out with two beers, and Blair would decide once again that he hated the scrawny detective from Burglary.

Okay, maybe Blair was overgeneralizing. Maybe two evenings watching them had given him the wrong picture. Maybe Jim didn't look so comfortable with Walker on the other nights when Blair wasn't watching. Maybe on those other nights, Jim didn't brush his hand over Walker's back. Maybe he didn't spend those nights comfortably chatting with scrawny, stupid Walker. God, if someone had Blair under surveillance, he would sure notice, but not Walker. Idiot.

And Walker clearly didn't appreciate who had chosen him. If he truly understood Jim, the department would be whispering about how remarkable Jim was, and yet, Blair hadn't caught even a hint of rumor or awe about the new Sentinel. He did his job. He was protective of Keith. He had a fair amount of control. Every time Blair pumped someone from the Two-Nine, they shrugged their shoulders and repeated the same routine, ordinary comments about Jim, but Blair knew he wasn't an ordinary man. So, if there wasn't anything wrong with Jim, Walker was clearly an idiot. And scrawny.

Jim stood and picked up his bag and his tray. He dumped his trash into a can and headed for the exit nearest the bus stop. Blair sighed and headed for the exit just to the south. He'd parted his Toyota there.

His cell phone rang as he stepped out into the brisk fall air, and Blair pulled it out.

"Sandburg," he said.

"Hey sweetie," the voice on the other end answered.

"Dinah. How is the sweetest woman at all of Rainier?"

"Yeah, yeah, I bet you say that to all the secretaries you're trying to sweet-talk."

"You're the only secretary I sweet-talk," Blair disagreed as he headed out into the parking lot. Clouds wandered the sky so that huge nebulous shadows drifted over the cars. "Can I get on Edwards' calendar?"

"She has an opening next week, but Sweetie, you are running out of time with the woman. I don't think she would sign off on this dissertation change except that you really have some people talking about that last paper. Dr. Stoddard was in here saying words like 'ground-breaking,' and promises of good press turn her head nearly as fast as big donations."

"And I will bring her all the good press she can dream of, she just has to give me a little more slack," Blair promised. "And I owe you a huge box of really expensive chocolates."

"Make that chocolates and a kiss, and I might forgive you for putting me on the spot with the dragon-lady."

"A thousand kisses, all for you, Dinah," Blair promised.

"God you're a flirty little shit. I am so setting you up with my niece one of these days.

"If she looks anything like you, I'll be a lucky man."

"She looks thirty years younger than me, and she's still probably older than you," Dinah laughed. "You're on the calendar, and you have a nice day, Blair."

"You too. And thanks, Dinah."

"No problem. Bye."

"Bye." Blair clicked the off button on the phone. The next second the phone was plucked from his hand and Blair jerked away, his heart pounding wildly as he stumbled backwards... at least he did until he spotted the smirking face of James Joseph Ellison. The man leaned against Blair's car and looked curiously at Blair as he held up the phone.

"Charming the girls, huh? Good to know that I'm not the only one who's been taken in by that smile of yours." Jim tossed the phone, and Blair caught it.

"Oh man! You just about gave me a heart attack!" Blair complained as he took deep breaths.

"I doubt it."

"What the hell are you doing?" Blair demanded as he shoved the phone back into a pocket. A couple walking through the parking lot looked over, eyes wide, and then hurried for their car with worried looks towards Jim.

"What am *I* doing?" Jim asked, his eyebrows raising as he crossed his arms. Blair felt himself blush.

"Hey, you're the one scaring me into a heart attack," Blair pointed out. Jim just continued to stare. "I'm just shopping. You know, books." Blair held his bag up defensively. "Man, I know you are all special ops guy, but you do not have to pull that shit with me just to prove some point."

"Is that what I was doing?" Jim asked.

Blair glared. "I have no idea what you were doing, but that was so not cool."

"Why are you here, Chief?"

"I'm shopping. We went over this once already, right after you scared the shit out of me."

"So, you were shopping for women's underwear?" Jim asked with a wicked smile that made Blair blush to the end of his hair. "I'm wondering if that's so you can charm some lady or if you just have a secret kink. You were looking at that pink lace number a long time."

"I wasn't... I mean... I got books," Blair finally managed to say.

Jim shook his head. "Not buying it, Sandburg. You live on Prospect, you work at Central, and you have class at Rainier. This mall isn't anywhere near where you shop."

"Hey, I am not into the whole proxemics of consumerism. I mean, sometimes a person needs to get out of their comfort zone and just go explore the city, especially since Major Crimes covers the entire city. The whole city is my beat, man."

"So, you're parking a block down from Keith's house because you felt an overwhelming need to patrol the area?"

"What? No!" Blair hurried to say.

"If you keep tabs on all your old cases like you do me, you must not sleep much at night."

"Hey! I am not keeping tabs on you." Blair crossed his arms and tried to look just as annoyed as Jim, but from the way Jim raised one eyebrow, Blair was guessing he hadn't pulled it off.

"Sandburg, whatever game you're playing, please just leave me alone." Jim uncrossed his arms and stooped down to pick up his shopping bag.

"Jim, really, I'm not playing a game," Blair rushed to say. "And I know I don't have a lot of idiosyncratic credit with you, and I am totally okay with that, but I guess I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I don't need a babysitter," Jim growled. Blair hesitated a step, falling behind as Jim strode toward the bus stop, and he hurried to catch up.

"I never thought you did, man. I just... after you said you had less control after the SI, I wondered if you were getting your control back, and the anthropologist in me just sometimes gets a little curious."

Jim kept walking.

"I wrote a paper on that. Two of the other Sentinels I..." Blair faltered. What should he call them? Sentinels he retrieved or captured? He skipped the whole word-debate. "Anyway, I interviewed two of them about the long-term effects of life in the SI, and they both reported significant degradation of control, and then I did a study with short-term students who were in for just the required classes, two weeks, and I found significant changes after even a short-term stay. The paper isn't out yet, obviously. I just gave it to a couple of professors, but I have so totally caught people's attention. The professors are talking about it, and one sent it to a friend of his and it looks like it might be one of the lead articles in American Anthropologist and Eli Stoddard offered to co-author a piece with me for Anthropology and Humanism if we do something with a wider population because I just slammed through that first study." Blair took a breath.

"Chief, look," Jim snapped, turning around so suddenly that Blair found himself chest to chest with the man. Blair could see Jim's nose flare as he scented the air. "This doesn't have anything to do with me."

"I'm trying to do the right thing here. If I can show them the science, I might be able to get the SI to make changes in housing. It's not much, but man, I'm really trying."

Jim sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "I hope you get through to them. For the sake of the kids in there, I really do. But this still doesn't have anything to do with me, and I'm a little confused, and a little frustrated, about you watching me."

"Jim." Blair stopped he didn't really have an answer. "Let me give you a ride home."

"If you're looking for forgiveness..."

"No," Blair interrupted. "Hey, I'm totally okay with you being pissed at me. I'd be pissed at me too, if I were you. Hell, I'm me and I'm still pissed at me."

"So this is self-flagellation," Jim said dryly.

Blair blushed again. "Hey, if I have guilt, I deserve it, but that's not why I'm following you, honest."

"Then why?"

"I don't know," Blair confessed.

"Chief..."

"Hey, I am well aware that I'm not dealing with this very rationally, and as a cop, I know that I crossed the stalking line a while back."

"And you knew I'd catch you at it," Jim interrupted. "And I'm wondering why exactly you want me to catch you. Looking for an easy way off the force? A chance to stop being a cop without quitting?" Jim demanded.

"No!" Blair immediately insisted. "I'm good at my job; I don't want to lose it."

"Then why tail me?" Jim gave Blair a demanding look that made him feel about two inches high. "Are you so sure I won't turn your ass in? You certainly seemed okay with turning me in."

Blair cringed.

"Fuck," Jim breathed. "You screwed me over, and you're giving me a chance to screw you over? That it?"

"No!" Blair insisted. "Maybe," he amended it when he thought about that for a second. He took an uneven breath. "I just wanted to know. I guess I just have this academic curiosity going."

"Academic curiosity?" Jim repeated incredulously.

"I mean, you rearranged my world, and now I'm intellectually flopping around trying to figure out how much of what I know about Sentinels is bullshit. I mean, you're it." Blair struggled to explain something that wasn't even clear in his mind. "You're like this Rosetta Stone with the big answer... what's a Sentinel supposed to be like, and I just.... Fuck. When Naomi comes back, and I tell her what I'm thinking, she's going to cry over me finally getting it. Then she is so going to give me the lecture about how I totally just accepted the status quo, and I so deserve that lecture."

"Blair..."

"And she raised me better, you know? I mean, she raised me to look past society's shit. I was raised on the picket lines protesting the treatment of migrant farm workers and the dangers of nuclear energy, but I don't know. I just bought the company line about Sentinels hook line and sinker."

"And now?" Jim asked. Blair had taken to studying the buttons on Jim's shirt, and he looked up, flinching as his eyes skimmed past the collar. Jim looked genuinely curious.

"I'm an ass," Blair shrugged. "Took me a while to figure it out, but I got there. I mean, if you earn a collar by showing you can't control yourself, that's one thing, but no one should be judged without ever being given a chance. And if a Sentinel can earn a collar to warn people that he's unpredictable, then a non-Sentinel should be able to, too.

"And some of the Sentinel stuff? I mean, I went through that Sentinel class the SI puts on, and man, I would be ready to knock someone's block off for some of that shit. No one should have a right to... but they do that and if you tell them the truth, which is that they're all full of shit, they just put it down to you being a Sentinel and having no control." Blair turned away and pulled his ponytail out of his jacket, reaching back and scratching the itch.

"Man, I haven't ever fucked up this big before," Blair said quietly, "and then I go and discover that I've fucked so many people over that my karma is like this giant, overstuffed elephant... like huge. It's not good for my self-image, you know. And I guess I'm just trying to catch my balance."

"By watching me?" Jim's voice was soft now, and Blair closed his eyes.

"I don't know."

"I don't know either, Chief. But this watching me..."

"Shit. I'm sorry. I know I should just stop. I'm getting carpal tunnel from typing with the laptop perched on the steering wheel." Blair turned around and smiled weakly, but Jim's face was full of concern. It made Blair feel even worse.

"Blair, Keith and I are going camping for a week, just to get out of the city. Take the week off," Jim suggested. "Keith's going to notice you creeping from tree to tree behind us, and you need to get your head screwed on straight." Jim stepped forward and put his hand on Blair's shoulder. Blair leaned into the casual touch.

"I'm sorry," Blair whispered.

"I know you are, Chief. I'm sorry, too."

It wasn't quite forgiveness, but Blair managed a small smile, content to get what he could. "Let me drive you home," he suggested, looking up into Jim's dark eyes.

Jim stood silent for a moment and then shook his head. "No. You need to go home, Chief. I can take the bus."

"But--"

"No," Jim repeated. "Blair, this is it. I don't want to see you again." Jim turned and walked toward the bus stop, shopping bag in hand, and Blair bit his lip. He'd screwed with Jim enough; maybe it was time to admit that he wouldn't ever fix this mistake and move on. Blair turned slowly back toward his own car, for some reason, feeling worse than ever.

TWELVE
***
"Rise and shine, Sport. It's dark o'clock of the morning, and we need to get on the road," Jim said cheerfully as he shook Keith. Keith groaned and flopped a hand out.

"Too damn early."

"We talked about this yesterday. I want out of the city before the traffic starts," Jim said as he sat on the edge of their bed and pulled his shoes on.

"I don't mind traffic; I'll drive rush hour," Keith mumbled as he rolled over. Jim gritted his teeth. Okay, time to do something he really hated doing.

"Keith, the car exhaust on the freeway during rush hour is really hard for me. Don't make me do that," he said in the smallest voice he could muster, given how much he hated playing helpless.

Keith lay motionless for a second. "Right, moving," Keith answered as he rolled toward the edge of the bed groggily.

He reached out a hand towards Jim, and Jim took it, sitting on the edge of the bed by Keith.

Jim felt like a heel.

"Want to wake up properly?" Keith asked as he ran a hand over Jim's thigh. Jim could smell the desire on the early morning air.

"Keith..." Jim stopped. Up until now he had managed. He didn't always come, and the infrequent sex always left him raw and struggling with a grief that ripped into his soul, but he'd managed. However, now his emotions were too raw, his hope was too close to the surface to take the risk, not now, not when he could feel freedom crouching at the edge of his awareness.

"Keith, I want to do this properly. I don't want a quicky before we jump in the car."

Keith blinked at him, and Jim could feel the worry and stress.

"My first bondmate was in the jungle, Keith. It'll be easier for me when we're out in the woods, away from all this noise," Jim promised.

"We could try downstairs again," Keith suggested softly.

"After a week of getting to know each other, I'm sure downstairs will work fine," Jim whispered. He let his own hand trail over Keith's hip, feeling like six feet three inches of pure shit. Time enough to feel guilty later. Jim reached over Keith to the end table where he'd sat the mug he'd brought in earlier. Sex and coffee... two sure ways to get Keith moving in the morning.

"Got the coffee right here," Jim said, luring the man with the mug of coffee just outside his reach. Keith reached for it, and Jim surrendered the cup.

"So, are you actually awake?"

"Yep, awake, moving," Keith grunted as he took a sip.

"I'm going to get things ready; just get yourself dressed. Oh, did you call the social worker, let her know we were going out of town?"

"Yes, mother. God, you nag, Jim."

"God, you forget shit, Keith."

"Yeah, yeah. I called her, I told her we'd be back in a week. I stopped the newspaper. I have the neighbor picking up the mail. It's all taken care of, oh mother hen Ellison." Keith took a long drink of coffee and then put the mug down on the side table.

"Good," Jim said as he walked out of the room. He went back to the kitchen and picked up a box of non-perishables and took it downstairs into the Sentinel-safe room. Other than one of their "bonding" sessions, Keith had never used it. And after Jim hadn't come at all that time, Keith had locked the door and forgotten it. But just knowing it was down here.... Jim pushed open the door to the actual room. It had no windows, but when he turned the soft lights on, a filtration system rumbled softly behind soundproofed walls. The walls were soft brown, the floor a deep, padded carpet in beige. The only door led into a small bathroom. It reminded Jim of a padded cell in a nuthouse, and it really was used just about the same way.

Every guardian needed a Sentinel-safe room, but like with most things, Keith had gone a little overboard.

Jim put the box just inside the door and went upstairs. He could hear Keith in the back bathroom, turning water on and cursing softly about the time. Jim grabbed the radio and another box of food and a few books. He carried them down the stairs and then hurried back up.

By the time Keith came into the kitchen, Jim was packing the water canteens into a box destined for the trunk of Keith's car.

"I can't believe I'm moving before the sun is even up. I haven't done this since cub scouts." Keith scrubbed his hair, and the spikes were back.

"How much rent do you pay on this place?" Jim asked as he unfolded the maps, checking them before folding them back up and slipping them into the box. He had several maps. He hadn't yet decided on an escape route.

"What?"

"How much rent do you pay?" Jim repeated calmly. Keith looked at him a little strangely, and then shrugged. "Eleven hundred a month."

"How much rent do I pay you?" Jim asked as he picked up an apple and bit into it. Keith had torn open a breakfast bar, but he ignored it as he focused all his attention on Jim.

"Do you think I'd mismanage your money?" Keith asked, all the bleariness gone, his brows lowered in concern.

"I just think a man should know how much rent he's paying," Jim said easily. "So, how much?"

"Four hundred a month."

"And how much do I have in my account right now?"

"Is there something you need? Jim, you don't have to save up if it's something you really want. I mean, I don't really need that four hundred, so I'd be okay with kicking it right back to you." Keith put the breakfast bar down and took a step forward. Shit, this would be so much easier if the kid had beaten him or stolen his money, but Jim knew that Keith would never do either one.

"I just want to know how much money I have in the bank, Sport," Jim said as he put the apple down and stepped closer to Keith.

"Nearly two thousand," Keith answered.

"Don't you think that's something a man should know about himself? You know, I don't even know how much money I make a week. I mean, I know my salary is based on yours, but I don't know how much either of us makes. And I know that when I ran, I must have had at least sixty thousand in back salary. So, is that floating around somewhere or did the powers that be just decide that since I was a Sentinel now, they could save a little money?"

"If the army stole from you, we can call Ms. Bennett when we get back. That's not right, and if you have sixty thousand dollars coming to you, I'll make sure you get it."

"You will," Jim said quietly, dangerously.

"You know I wouldn't let someone steal from you," Keith assured. "Jim, are you okay?" He stepped forward and let his hand rest on Jim's arm.

"Keith, has it ever occurred to you that, as a man, I shouldn't have to ask you how much I make? I shouldn't have to ask you for permission to use my own money. I sure as hell shouldn't need you to fight my battles for me."

"Jim, what are you talking about?" Keith now started to smell of concern, and he studied Jim's face, his brows lowered in a tight frown.

"And your belief that I need to be protected is flat-out insulting."

"Whatever the problem is, let's just calm down here." Keith let his fingers circle soothingly on Jim's arm. The touch might have been calming except that Jim knew it was a calculated move meant to control him by short-circuiting his anger.

"The problem is that you, like all the assholes at SI, think you have a right to try and control me," Jim said softly. Keith's fingers hesitated before he started the petting again.

"Jim, I know that the instincts can get a little overwhelming at times..."

"No, the patronizing attitude can get a little overwhelming," Jim corrected him. "The having people assume that I can't control myself and the way that you all treat me like I'm a mentally damaged child is incredibly overwhelming. But the fact is that I have been a Sentinel for twenty years without having you manage my finances or give me permission to go to the mall."

"Jim..." Keith breathed the word, pulling his hand back as he inched a retreat.

"Keith, you look at me like just another Sentinel; you don't see me."

"I see you," Keith promised.

"Where did I train for the Rangers?" Jim asked. He crossed his arms and waited as Keith opened his mouth wordlessly. "What's my father's name? When's the last time I talked to him?"

"Hey, you aren't very big on sharing, and I'm okay with that. And your father is William."

"Which you got from my file," Jim said with confidence. "Which of us would qualify higher on the weapons range?" Jim mused. "I'm betting I would."

"You want a gun? Jim? Maybe I should call someone," Keith said shakily.

"You ignored my control, my real needs, my special ops training. Keith, you're going to be a good cop one day, but you have to start questioning what you see far more than you do now," Jim continued, completely ignoring Keith's comment, and the fear that now drifted through the air.

Keith suddenly twisted and lunged toward the phone, but Jim closed the distance between them in a single stride, grabbing Keith's arm and using the momentum to put him face first against the wall.

Keith struck out with a leg, but the kick was off-balance and ineffective, and Jim pressed his own body to Keith's back, trapping the man so that he couldn't move.

"Jim," Keith pleaded, and now the fear almost choked Jim.

"Keith, calm down," Jim muttered, unwilling to terrorize the man. Yeah, he was part of a whole system that had terrorized Jim, but the kid didn't know that. "Keith, I'm not going to hurt you, so just calm down."

"Jim, come on, you don't want to do this." Keith swallowed heavily and his words came out shaky.

"I want my freedom. That's all. I don't want you hurt."

"Jim, you don't want to put people in danger."

"I was helping people when you were still watching cartoons in your Spiderman pajamas," Jim pointed out. "So, we're going to walk downstairs. If you try to fight me, I will do what I have to in order to subdue you. The goal here is to get you downstairs without hurting you, so don't fight me on this one, Keith."

"Jim." Keith tried to turn, to face Jim; however, Jim captured Keith's arm and twisted it up behind his back.

"Downstairs."

Keith tugged once, and Jim wrenched his arm up higher, forcing Keith onto his toes and making him hiss with pain. When Jim eased up, Keith didn't fight any more. Slowly, Jim walked Keith downstairs and toward the Sentinel-safe room.

"You planned this. That's why you worked on getting me to agree to the camping trip. I thought the city really was making the bonding hard on you." God, the kid sounded like someone had just told him, for the first time, that Santa Claus wasn't real.

"You're a good kid, but no one has the right to own anyone else. I'm just doing whatever I have to do, here," Jim explained.

"When they catch you, they're going to give you to some hardass who keeps you chained and locks you in your room the minute you get home. Jim, I don't want that for you. Just let me go, and we'll forget this ever happened."

"Sport, if they catch me, they're going to lock me in some room in some Institute and leave me there until I rot," Jim corrected him. "But at least I'll rot knowing that I did what I could to earn my freedom. Besides, with a week's head start, their odds of catching me are not that good," Jim pointed out as he pushed Keith into the room.

Keith stumbled forward and then spun as if ready to take Jim on in hand-to-hand combat.

"Don't try it, Sport. You'll just get hurt," Jim warned. "I've left you enough food for a couple of weeks, but the captain will be calling as soon as you don't show up for work next Monday, so you shouldn't be down here more than eight or nine days. You have a radio, and some books. Is there anything else you need?"

"Answers, Jim," Keith said softly. He rubbed the shoulder Jim had twisted and looked at Jim in confusion.

"I deserve a chance to live free."

"But we bonded."

Jim shook his head. "No, we didn't. We had sex."

"That's why you sometimes had problems... why you couldn't come," Keith said softly.

"And I appreciate you not talking about that problem with the social worker," Jim nodded. "You're a good man, and if I had let myself, I could have bonded with you, but you aren't worth giving up my freedom. No one is."

Keith's confusion hardened into something darker. "So much for that whole story about the city causing your problems. You just played me like a fucking violin," Keith swore, which was totally out of character for the man Jim had grown to know.

"Keith, a Sentinel raised in the system would think himself lucky to get you as a bondmate. You're a good man, and I said as much in the letter I left upstairs. But you have to get this through your head. As a man, I have a right to be free. If other Sentinels don't fight for their freedom, that's their choice, but I won't walk away from a chance to be my own man. And I played everyone, from Nunez to the judge to you, so you're in good company."

Jim pushed aside the thoughts of Sandburg, who all the way up to the end seemed to sense something was wrong. Jim hadn't seen him today, but if the kid turned up trying to tail Jim again, he would have to do something drastic. He just had to fight the urge to grab the kid and make the run up the I-5 with him in the trunk.

"Jim, please," Keith tried one more time.

"You might want to spend the next week or so thinking about the unfairness of someone locking you up just because they can," Jim suggested before he pushed the heavy door shut. Sliding the bolt into place, Jim watched Keith for a second through the small shatterproof window. He stood with his hands hanging by his side, looking utterly lost.

Turning away, Jim headed up the stairs. The cool weather was the perfect excuse for him to switch into one of the turtleneck sweaters he'd bought with the allowance he'd begged from Keith. That would work until tonight when he could break into some place with heavy cutting equipment. Car body shop would be best. Sunday, and the gun shops were closed, so he could break into one and get something a little more effective than Keith's service weapon. By Monday, he could decide which escape route to use and head for Canada.

No more Sentinel Institute, no more guardian, no more chains or collars, and no more Blair Sandburg. He quickly changed shirts, grabbed the last box of supplies, and slipped out into the dark. No more putting his life on hold.

THIRTEEN
***
Blair stepped out onto the dark street. This tip might just turn out to be some cracked up homeless guy talking to the wall, but Ruby usually pointed Blair in the right direction when she called about Sentinels in trouble. Seven months ago, Blair would have called the Sentinel division and reported her call. Hell, seven months ago Blair would have *been* the Sentinel division. Now, nothing was quite as black and white.

Walking up to a graffitied door, Blair knocked on it, and then leaned back and watched his car. Okay, if he was lucky, he would come back to a car still mostly intact. If he hurried. Maybe. The door slid open with a screeching wail, and Ruby stood there, a solid shadow in the murky darkness.

"Hey, beautiful," Blair said as he stepped closer and leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek. Kids and gang members regularly shot out the streetlights, so even this close, he could barely see her smile.

"Blair, one day you're going to charm the wrong woman, and she's going to drag you to the church and make an honest man out of you."

"Never going to happen. I would never abandon you, Ruby."

She snorted. "Get inside before someone spots your white ass on the street," she stepped back into her kitchen and flicked on a light. Weak florescent lights flickered and finally illuminated the space.

Blair stepped into the immaculately clean kitchen. Huge pots hung from the wall and rows of spatulas waited for the morning rush when her volunteers would show up for a couple of hours of hard labor under Ruby while they fed hundreds of homeless and poor. And in the middle, stood Ruby. She was possibly the darkest black woman Blair had ever seen, and while she wasn't exactly fat, Blair, looked at her and thought of that old saying, 'built like a brick shit-house.' He wouldn't want to piss her off because she very possibly could break him in half.

"So, I hear you have a couple of Sentinels wandering around."

"Maybe," Ruby agreed carefully. "Some of the guys been talking about a couple of Sentinels down by the docks. You plan on tracking them down alone?" Ruby asked, her eyebrows going up.

"We don't even know if they are Sentinels," Blair shrugged. "So, what exactly have you heard about these two guys?"

Ruby cocked her head and considered him with narrowed eyes. "They say these guys are wandering down by the Wins warehouse. They're in bad shape if the rumors are true," she said slowly. "They're flinching away from noises no one else can hear and huddling in the shadows."

"Why do you think they're Sentinels?" Blair asked curiously. Ruby's eyes never left him; she studied him so intensely that Blair found himself squirming under her gaze.

"People down here are poor and uneducated, but they can spot a Sentinel," she finally said as she crossed her arms and silently dared Blair to challenge her. No way was Blair touching that challenge.

"Down by the Wins warehouse?" he asked, completely ignoring that creepy sensation that felt suspiciously like when his dissertation committee called him in and started demanding answers. Only, instead of facing 12 cranky, old, hide-bound men and women, he had to face one Ruby, and his dissertation committee freaked him out a lot less.

She stared at him for a second before she agreed with a simple, "Yep."

Blair sighed. Okay, choice one: call in the Sentinel division. And no way could he do that, not again. Choice two: find them and help them. Illegal as hell, but better for the karma. "I'll go check it out," he agreed as he turned toward the door.

"Hold on there, babe, where's your backup?"

"Ruby," Blair stopped. Funny, the minute anything Sentinel came up, Blair lost his bearings and struggled to make even the simplest of decisions. He took a deep breath and tried to find the certainty, the confidence in himself that he'd possessed eight months ago. He couldn't. "I'm not sure the Sentinel Institute is always the best option," he admitted softly. He turned around and faced her. "I think some Sentinels do just fine on their own, and need to just be left alone."

Ruby's eyes went wide and she stood silent as she considered him. Slowly she started nodding. "I respect a man's choices, but do you really think these two are going to be okay with just a helpful word and a meal?" Ruby asked without even batting an eye at Blair's confession.

She wasn't calling and reporting him, so that was a step forward, Blair thought as he gave her a smile and a shrug. "Probably not. But for all I know, they're two crackheads. I'll go down there and see what I can find. If I find two crackheads, I'll offer them a ride to rehab. If I find two Sentinels in really severe distress, I'll call in the Sentinel division."

"If you find two runners?" Ruby asked curiously.

"I'll clean them up, get them fed, and ask them what they want to do," Blair said honestly, well aware that he was admitting to a felony, which didn't generally look good on a cop's record. Simon would have a fit if Blair got caught.

"Honey, if I just thought they needed feeding, I would have fed them," Ruby said softly. "But you do what you need to do. If you think they're stable enough to hold themselves together, you bring them back here, and I'll help you get them cleaned up," Ruby offered.

Blair shook his head. "I wouldn't put you on the spot, Ruby. If someone's going to get his ass thrown in jail, I'm the better candidate. I mean, you're really needed down here. A lot of these homeless people count on you for more than just food, and if you get arrested.... I wouldn't put you in the middle."

Ruby laughed. Hell, Ruby howled. With one hand on a hip, she leaned against the gleaming prep table and laughed until her eyes crinkled at the sides and her eyes brightened with tears of laughter.

"Oh, honey. You are just such a little sweetie. First, I'm not going to jail. Second, I've been in the middle longer than you've been wearing long pants." She wiped a tear from her face and shook her head in amusement. Still shaking her head, she headed around the prep table to the large refrigerators and pulled out an apple. "You want one?" she asked.

Blair shook his head, struggling to understand when this conversation had gone south.

"Wrong answer, babe," she said as she pursed her lips and considered him. "Someone asks if you want an apple, you tell 'em how you can never resist the temptation, or maybe how you're tempted, but you shouldn't."

The words registered, but Blair's brain was still back on the Ruby being involved part, and it took a second for the meaning of her words to finally sink into his brain.

"Ruby?" Blair asked. He'd never been the kind of kid who sent off for secret decoder rings and played spy, but her knowing wink and the way she held the apple up told Blair just how big of a secret she had just entrusted to him. Fuck. How many doors would that open? Blair wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Hon, you're a good man. Sometimes men need a little more growin' up time than women do, but I knew you'd get there. So, you take my word for it that these two are hurting. I think you're going to have to call in for some help."

"Oh fuck," Blair breathed. A half-dozen times, Ruby had called him for some Sentinel that wandered into the area, lured by her food. But the Sentinels they'd retrieved from her tips had been traumatized, in one case, near coma. Their senses had been so out of control that they shivered in the corner or screamed and clawed their own skin. One woman had taken one look at Blair and had thrown herself at his legs, bruising and battering him in what seemed to be a psychotic attempt to climb into Blair's skin with him. Ruby never turned in a functional Sentinel.

Blair blinked at Ruby in surprise. She chuckled and shook her head. "Sometimes you men just aren't that quick on the draw, but the moment I met you, I knew you'd figure it out for yourself."

"But, Ruby," Blair nearly whispered. "I..." he stopped and looked around. "I have a white noise generator and a Sentinel safe room. I've got access to Sentinel medicines. I might be able to help them, even if you can't," he said, truly damning himself in the eyes of the law. Yep, he'd just gone from one to five years in prison to a good eight years... ten if he actually did take them home. Suddenly, Blair wished he wasn't a cop. It might be easier if he didn't know the law well enough to know how truly damned he was if he got caught. Well, at least Naomi would be proud of him at his trial.

"If I get there and they're that bad, I'll call for help," Blair promised. "But I can't just send two people to the Institute before I know for sure, and I'm not questioning your judgment because you have always been right in the past, but..." Blair stopped, unsure of how to explain this without sounding like he didn't trust Ruby.

Ruby nodded. "Knew you'd be worth your salt when you finally went and grew up. You do what you have to do. And if you think you can help 'em, you let me know and I'll get you some transportation."

Blair blinked at Ruby in surprise, wondering just how far her fingers went into the underground. Shit, Blair would have donated a kidney to get this much information eight months ago, and thank god she had never trusted him back then.

"You're a good woman, Ruby," Blair nodded as headed for the door.

"Damn right I am," she enthusiastically agreed. "But, Blair..."

Blair turned to look at her.

"You're a good man, and you always have been. Alls you've seen is the poor souls suffering under the pain of being a Sentinel. Maybe if you'd really seen the Sentinels who live just fine without all this Institute crap, you would have thought twice, but that's not your fault."

Blair stared at Ruby for a second, and then she sniffed, a sure sign of dismissal. "Get out there before those boys take your car apart one bolt at a time."

Not really sure what to think, and knowing that his car probably was in danger, Blair headed out the door. The cool fall air smelled of trash and coming rain. Blair headed for his car as pre-adolescent shadows darted away and ran for a nearby building with boarded up windows.

Blair pulled up on the south side of the Wins warehouse and reached into his pocket for the strip of metal he usually carried. This would be a hell of a lot safer in the day when dock workers from the nearby ships would be wandering through; however, since Blair wasn't on the right side of legal anymore, darkness was his friend.

He got out of the car, not bothering to lock it. In this neighborhood, the kids could open the door faster without the key than Blair could with it. Besides, hopefully Blair wouldn't have to go far; hopefully he could lure the Sentinels to him and get them into the car. Ruby might be willing to help, but Blair just wasn't sure he was ready to be part of the organized....

Blair stopped and considered the words he could use to mentally finish that thought. Underground fit best. And given the way society treated Sentinels, the comparisons with American slavery were pretty appropriate. Funny, until now, Blair really hadn't thought of people like Ruby and Magna as anything other than criminals; he'd pretty much lumped them in with traffickers. And bringing in a woman like Magna--Blair had thought of that bust as a way to save hundreds of Sentinels who she put at risk by helping them leave the country. Well, now he was picking up where she left off.

Walking closer to the building, Blair pressed his thumb to the metal strip and clicked it. The tiny strip created an almost inaudible, odd, off-key warble that tended to make Sentinels search for the source. He'd used it to find runners in a crowd when they'd had vague tips come into the Sentinel division. Now he used it to find the two Sentinels he wanted to help.

Blair clicked it again as he walked toward the west corner of the building. A crane rumbled in the distance, unloading some ship even in the middle of the night. Blair clicked the metal bit in his pocket three times and then stopped, watching the shadows for any movement. A van was parked near the corner, and a mailbox had bright red graffiti all over it.

Blair bit his lip to keep himself from just calling out and telling them to hurry before all three of them got spotted. Somehow he didn't think Sentinels were going to trust him if he went around yelling for them to get out there.

He clicked the metal again, and something caught his attention. He deliberately turned, slowly, pulling his hand out of his pocket. Simon thought he was nuts for going undercover without a weapon, but Blair had been working undercover with Sentinels so long that he had learned to trust instinct, and not a gun.

And his instinct had come through for him again. Leaning against a building stood a man. Blair couldn't see him in the dark, but from the way the shadow cocked his head, Blair suspected that the man could see him. Yep, a Sentinel.

"Man, this is not safe for you. People have seen you. Just come with me back to my car, and I can get you somewhere safe," he whispered. It felt like familiar territory. "I promise not to turn you in to the Institute," Blair added, a promise he never would have made in the past.

The man took a hesitant step forward, and Blair stood still. With a burst of energy, the Sentinel darted towards Blair and grabbed his wrist, yanking him forward. Blair gasped, but didn't fight as he found himself shoved between the man and the building. This close, Blair could see the ripped clothing and smell both the unwashed body and the sharp stench of blood.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm not here to hurt you. You just have to take some deep breaths and calm down."

Blair knew the Sentinel wasn't doing well with the calming down part when he gave a low growl.

"Hey, it's okay, there isn't any danger here," Blair reassured him, slowly reaching up and resting his hand on a trembling arm. The Sentinel started pushing on him, back towards Blair's car, and Blair let the man herd him backwards.

"Do you have a friend here? Man, I really don't want to leave someone behind if he's as freaked out as you are, but if you can get him to come out, we can all just get in my car and go," Blair said softly, well aware that the Sentinel might not be able to hear more than the tone of voice, and oh yeah, this really might be time to call for the Sentinel division.

"Hey, just say something so I know you're in there. Come on," Blair urged, his hand creeping into his pocket and fumbling for his phone. "It's okay, Sentinel; you're safe. Just focus on my voice."

Blair's fingertips found the plastic, and he closed his fist around it as the Sentinel looked down towards Blair in confusion. His blond hair had a streak of dried blood near the temple, and when he brought a hand up to touch Blair's cheek, the wrist was red and raw.

"Fuck," Blair breathed. This wasn't a runner, this was an escapee of some trafficker. Blair pulled his phone out and flipped it open. This was way beyond a meal and a couple of days in a safe room.

The Sentinel suddenly whirled, putting his back to Blair, and then backed up so that he pressed Blair between himself and the building so hard that Blair fumbled the phone. "Fuck," Blair cursed again as it clattered to the ground. Then he focused on the strong back that had trapped him and pressed on him so hard that he couldn't even take a deep breath.

"It's okay big guy. I'm just getting someone who can help. I know you've got to be hurting right now, and I know someone who can make that pain go away." Blair didn't add that they would also make the Sentinel's free choice go away, but right now, this man didn't have much free choice—he was injured and scared and functioning on just instinct.

Blair let his weight sag, struggling to squat down even as he slowly stroked the Sentinel's back. "It's okay," he crooned, wondering how much was getting through.

The Sentinel jerked and barked out the word "No!"

"Hey, just a phone. It's okay," Blair gasped, his air just about driven out of his body as the Sentinel slammed him back into the wall.

"No," the Sentinel repeated, his voice rougher, the word drawn out. He angled his head toward Blair. "Run," he whispered before he fell to one knee.

Jim walked down the street, ignoring a need to stroke his neck where the collar no longer sat. Once again, he could pass for any citizen. He still struggled with control, but that would return in time too; he had no doubt of that.

Detouring into an all-night café, Jim pulled out Keith's wallet with the trip money. A waitress smiled and nodded as she poured someone else's coffee.

"One coffee, black," Jim said as he passed her and wandered toward a booth.

Tomorrow he would collect some weapons, and then he'd hit the I-5 up to Bellingham, abandon the car somewhere that thieves would take it to pieces, and hike to the border. He'd considered taking the car all the way to Blaine, but he couldn't be sure thieves would get rid of his evidence there. He'd get into Canada, and then find Canada Highway 1.

Long before Peru, Jim had researched some of the tribes and their attitudes, and he figured on making a run for the Chehalis Indians or maybe even over to Kasabonika Lake Reservation. Despite what Sandburg thought, Jim had no intention of becoming prey for the Sentinel traffickers who bribed their way into Canada. If he could prove that he had a value to the society, Canada was famous for losing extradition paperwork even if someone did find out that he was an escaped Sentinel from America.

"Here you go, hon," the waitress appeared with the coffee and a menu. Jim handed her a bill and smiled at her attempts to flirt.

"Anything look good?" she asked, leaning on his table.

"Just some apple pie," he answered as he handed the menu back. She shrugged and disappeared.

Jim blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then blinked again. "No," he whispered to himself as the black panther came through the wall of the café.

He opened his eyes, and the cat was still there, pacing and sticking his nose in the air as he scented something that made him growl. Jim gripped the coffee cup and tried to ignore it as the cat leapt up to the counter where the waitress was now hitting on another late-night customer.

"Incacha," Jim whispered so softly that not even another Sentinel would have heard, "This is not fair. You can't send me away and then expect me to believe in this shit," he said as he forced his eyes away from the imaginary predator.

Twice he'd seen that cat before: once when he'd laid in the jungle dying after burying his men and the second time when Incacha had fed him some shit that the army definitely would have disapproved of before they went on their 'spirit walk.'

"The cat is your guide," Incacha said seriously as they walked through a blue jungle, which was Jim's first clue that he was stoned out of his mind. Back then, Jim had studied the animal as it leapt from a pile of boulders into the path ahead of them.

"The cat is a hallucination," Jim disagreed. Incacha looked at him with disappointment, and Jim tried to hide just how much that bothered him.

"The cat is part of your soul. You have chosen the form, but you cannot fail if you follow your soul, Enquiri," Incacha had said, calling Jim by the Chopec name with which Jim had just been gifted.

"I always do what I think is right, Incacha, you know that," Jim said as he turned to his companion. The discussion of failure… that wasn't where he wanted to go. He'd failed at being his father's son. He'd failed his men and had to bury their bodies because of it. He wouldn't fail as the Sentinel of the Chopec.

Incacha shook his head. "You follow your head, Enquiri. Sometimes you follow your heart. You must learn to follow your soul."

The drug-induced trip had simply gotten stranger from that point with temples rising out of the jungle floor and him tripping over a timber wolf that really had no business in a rain forest. Jim had woken the next morning with a hangover from hell and a new resolve to never again touch drugs.

"Not working," Jim muttered angrily as the cat snarled and paced the length of the counter. The cat looked at him with the same disappointment Incacha had in his eyes on that day long ago. Jim put his cup down so fast that the hot coffee slopped out onto his fingers. Ignoring the waitress who was coming over with his pie, Jim got up and left. He had a plan. The plan did not involve imaginary cats.

As he hurried back to his hotel room, Jim tried to ignore the black shadow that followed him, tail whipping angrily from side to side.

FOURTEEN
***
Jim turned the television up another notch. It helped him ignore the rumbles of the cat pacing the corner of the cheap hotel room. Shit, he hadn't slept more than three or four hours, and now he had to go check out a couple of gun shops. He had his eye on one across from a cafe. It seemed to have a lot of high-powered hunting weapons, and from what Jim had seen when he did a little window shopping, the security system was old. With the one obvious exception, the plan was going well. Grab some weapons and ammo, and then get the hell out of Dodge.

The cat screamed its displeasure, and Jim jumped.

"Don't you start. If I go flinching at sounds no one else can hear, this is going to be the shortest run in history," he complained to the cat. He got up and headed for the bathroom. The cat screamed again.

"You know, if I hadn't spent so much time thinking of Incacha lately, this would not be a problem," Jim complained as he started shaving. He could mark that one up to Sandburg, too. After all, he'd planned on just playing good little Sentinel so long that even the bitchy head of the half-way house gave up on the chains, but with Blair there in the background, Jim had to accelerate the time table. Blair had forced him into a corner where he'd been forced to fake the bond, and forced to hang on to the memory of his lost companion. God he was tired. The cat leaped into the bathtub and sprawled out.

"You wouldn't be so happy if I turned that shower on," Jim commented as he pulled the razor over his whiskers. The cat laid its ears back.

"And talking to an imaginary cat is not a sign of good mental health," Jim mused. "Maybe I'm getting pot fumes from the room." God knows the room had been used for drugs and sex more often than sleeping.

The cat jumped out of the tub and stalked out to the room, belly low to the ground in a classic attack pose.

Jim finished shaving and grabbed his shirt from yesterday off the towel rack. When he headed back into the main room, the cat was pacing near the door, a dark rumble in his chest.

"Feel free to disappear back into my subconscious," Jim told the animal as he pulled on socks and shoes. He'd left most of his gear in Keith's car, so all he had to do was tuck Keith's weapon into his belt and pull on his jacket. Unfortunately, the cat had other plans as he crouched near the door and waited for Jim.

Jim opened the door and headed for the car. The cat leaped past him with such a furious roar that Jim flinched. Fuck. Immediately he bent, pretending to look at his foot as though he'd stepped on something. Keeping his head bent, he used his hearing to check for any witnesses.

"Stupid cat," Jim whisper-growled before he stood up. Ignoring the cat's angry response, Jim pulled out the keys and opened Keith's car. The cat jumped on the hood. Jim stared out the windshield for a second, his fists squeezing the steering wheel as he fought the rising frustration. He had a plan, and the overgrown hairball was not part of the plan.

"Fine, we'll check out what you want to check out," Jim finally sighed. Whatever strange trip he was on, he obviously needed to do something before the cat distracted him into a mistake. The cat jumped down to the street and began trotting down the sidewalk. Jim started the car and headed down the road toward the warehouse district.

Jim parked the car near the docks. He'd lost track of the cat, but somehow he didn't think he had gotten rid of it yet. His luck hadn't been that good lately. Locking the car, he walked casually down the street. A pair of dock workers passed him, laughing and talking in Spanish, but Jim filtered out their voices as he scanned the area.

In the distance, two ships nestled up to the wharf: The Black Whale and the Choyang Zenith. The two workers angled off toward the Black Whale. More dock workers' voices competed with the sound of heavy machinery and trucks in that direction, but Jim turned away from the ships.

A faint snarl caught Jim's attention and he turned in time to see a black tail vanish behind a building. He wandered parallel to the water, past a block where a warehouse had burned, leaving a charred scar and a few steel girders pointing up to the sky. Construction and demolition equipment was already parked at the site, so it wouldn't take long for someone to put a new warehouse here. For now, the area was largely unused, only one large building nearby.

When he reached the burnt remains, Jim started feeling something prickling at his senses, like little ant feet crawling over his skin. He stopped and let his eyes scan the warehouses a little farther back from the waterline. A burly man leaned against a door of the largest warehouse, staring at Jim, and Jim forced his eyes away as he casually walked by.

Ignoring the danger of zoning, Jim pushed his hearing, visualizing himself listening past the metal walls of the warehouse. The building was huge, and at first, he could hear only the ragged breaths of someone panting and others sleeping. He could hear one person snoring, and a woman weeping gently. They were not the sounds Jim expected to hear in a warehouse.

Jim turned his back on his target and focused on the burnt building. Let the watchman think that Jim was some construction inspector or owner or something. Turning away made it a little harder to focus, but Jim could suddenly hear the clink of chain. It was a familiar sound.

"Asshole," a voice cursed weakly, and Jim cocked his head to better focus on the second floor of the warehouse.

"Comfortable?" another voice asked, and Jim could hear the sarcastic sneer in that voice.

"More comfortable than any Sentinel you strung up like this," Blair answered. Blair. Jim tightened his hands into fists and forced himself to wander the edge of the burned warehouse. Why was it that everything came back to Sandburg these days? Okay, sentry out front, probably that meant more inside. Jim certainly heard enough heartbeats from inside. And all he had was Keith's service weapon.

"Sentinels are sturdier than you do-gooders think. I've seen them hang for days, barely breathing, and then when you cut them down, they come out fighting. Sentinels are unpredictable, but you aren't. You'll hang there until your lungs compress and every breath is a struggle. Your muscles will spasm and swell and finally go numb, but all that swelling will make your lungs close in even more. And just when you're ready to pass out, I'll cut you down and watch you flop on the ground without the strength to even lift your head." The man laughed, and Jim could feel the rage swell up inside. Where the hell were the cops?

"You'll never get away with this Kincaid," Blair warned, but Jim could hear how the kid struggled for breath. He could imagine Blair strung up so that he could only stand on his toes. His muscles would eventually cramp, and as his arms bore more and more weight, he'd suffocate. It was an ugly death. Jim paced to the end of the burnt area and then turned and scanned the whole neighborhood. A second thug stood near the far corner of the warehouse. He didn't want to study the warehouse too closely, but he'd bet money there were sentries on the upper floors, watching out the dirty windows.

"I think I will, Sandburg. If you were on a case, I might worry, but I've been listening to the police chatter. And I know something you don't know, Mr. Natural. No one has even noticed you're gone. It does make me wonder what you were doing with two of my escaped Sentinels in the middle of the night."

"They aren't yours. Sentinels don't belong to anyone."

Jim could hear the fury and certainty in Blair's voice.

"Sentinels belong to whoever can bring them under control. You just don't like that I'm moving in on your territory," the other man, Kincaid, laughed. "You're just a tool of the dictatorial government that has hijacked our great democracy. At least here, these Sentinels will do some good; they'll bring money for the cause. With the money this bunch brings, I will buy enough guns for my army and finally restore freedom to the people."

"If you're really about saving people, you wouldn't do this to them," Blair argued. Oh Chief, how about worrying about yourself, Jim thought.

"They're tools. And the life I deliver them to is no different than the one you would deliver them to," Kincaid said, and Jim could hear shuffling and a grunt. He clenched his jaw as he realized that Kincaid was touching Blair, and Blair was doing his best to escape the touch. Jim started back towards his car. He couldn't take these guys on alone, so he needed to find a phone.

"The Institute does the best they can. They want to help Sentinels," Blair snapped, and Jim noticed that the man's description of the Institute had changed some since they'd last met. "They would never sell a Sentinel to someone who would turn them into a sex slave or abuse them."

"Aren't you the clever little self-deceiver? What do you call the way the system assigns Sentinels to people they've never met? What do you think a bond is, Sandburg? Whether a Sentinel is in my system or yours, they're nothing more than sex slaves; it's their destiny. Their instincts are designed to make them perfect slaves."

Jim cringed at the cold description that struck a little too close. Every time he'd laid down with Keith, he'd felt that pull to let himself focus on Keith, to allow himself to bond with the man. Before Incacha, Jim hadn't understood the power of the bond, but the fact was that it made it almost impossible to ignore the companion. Hell, here he was months later and thousands of miles away, and he had followed that damn imaginary panther because he could visualize Incacha's disapproval.

Of course, following Incacha's cat had led him to Blair, and Jim had no intention of even following that train of thought. If he did, he would have to admit that either he had sensed Blair in trouble from miles away or that Incacha's crazy talk about spirit guides had some credibility, and Jim really wasn't prepared to accept either theory. He was sticking to the belief that the animal was drug-induced.

"They aren't slaves," Blair disagreed.

"Such perfect self-deception," Kincaid repeated. "They are slaves, and you're part of the system that enslaves them, which is why it always pissed me off that you worked so hard to catch me. What I do is no different than what you do, Detective Sandburg."

"We're nothing alike. I'm not some narcissist who thinks he can use everyone else to get the power he wants. And that's all this is... for all your talk about restoring democracy, you're really just searching for power because you're a pathetic little man."

Flesh hit flesh, and Jim could feel his blood pressure rise. If he thought he had a chance in hell, Jim would rush the damn building himself right now.

"Now, play nice Detective Sandburg. Who knows, you might even survive this. Most of my clients prefer Sentinels; their senses do make them the perfect whores, but I know one or two that might like someone less willing."

Jim was so far away that he was surprised he could still hear the conversation, but his hearing seemed locked on that point behind him where he was leaving Blair alone. He gritted his teeth.

"You're scum."

Kincaid laughed again, the sound scraping across Jim's nerves. "I'm a revolutionary. It's better than being a dead do-gooder." Jim was nearly at the car and he broke into a trot. He'd seen a pay phone back by the bar on the corner.

"Long after you're dead and buried, I'm going to be remembered for saving this country from a threat others ignored. I'm giving this country back to the people who built it and made it strong, and you, Mr. Natural, are not one who will inherit this new world I'm going to create."

Jim opened the door and stood for a second. The voices were at the edge of his hearing, far beyond his normal range, and if he got in his car, he knew he'd lose that final connection to Blair. But if he didn't go, he couldn't do Blair any good. He stood, waiting for Blair's response.

"Dream on, Kincaid. You're never going to be any more than a pimple on the butt of the world, and no one is going to notice when someone eventually pops it."

Flesh hit flesh again, and Jim got in the car. The way the kid's mouth ran, he wasn't going to survive long enough to suffocate.

Jim didn't actually pay attention to the streets as he drove back toward the bar and the phone. Fuck. Whatever Blair had gotten into, it was bad. Yeah, Jim would admit to a fantasy or two about chaining the kid up with the same chains Sam Nunez had used on him, but even at his darkest moment, Jim never would have even imagined what Kincaid threatened. For the first time, Jim seriously considered that Sentinel laws allowed him to snap the man's neck with no consequences. After all, as a Sentinel, he was supposed to be irrational when it came to the tribe's safety.

However, Jim had never allowed himself to give in to his irrational side, and doing it now wasn't going to help anyone. He just needed to keep it together a little longer. He'd make a quick call and then get on with his plan, no more harm than an hour's delay.

Stopping the car outside the bar, Jim trotted to the phone. He pulled one sleeve of his jacket down far enough to prevent him from leaving any prints. If someone identified him and freed Keith too quickly, the plan was going to be more than just delayed. He dialed with the knuckle of one finger.

"911 emergency, what's your emergency?" a calm voice asked.

"There's a warehouse down near wharf 93, across from a burnt warehouse. They're keeping Sentinels in there," he reported quickly.

"How do you know?"

Well, Jim wasn't going to be telling her he followed his imaginary friend down to the docks and then used his senses.

"I work in the area. I saw two of them outside, in bad shape," Jim improvised. From the whimpering and crying inside, and from the fact that Blair had been trying to help a couple escapees, it was close to the truth, and Jim found that lies worked best when they were close to the truth. "They were pretty bad off, and these guys came out and dragged them away."

"And how did you identify them as Sentinels? Were they collared?"

Jim ground his teeth. If they'd been collared, they'd be from the Institute with guardians. "No, but they were flinching and hiding in the shadows. Look, I've seen Sentinels before, and I know what they look like."

"So, you saw two Sentinels. Can you describe the men who you saw take them inside?" the woman smoothly changed the subject. Jim glanced around. He needed to get off this phone quickly or he risked the officers showing up here.

"One was six foot or six-one. Dark hair, Caucasian but with a slightly darker tone, a couple of days growth on a beard, 220 pounds," Jim said quickly, describing the man at the door. "The other was five-ten or so, reddish-blond hair with a tribal tattoo around his wrist." Jim closed his eyes and imagined the second goon who'd stood on the corner.

"Can you describe the Sentinels?" the woman asked.

"I don't have time for this; I have to get back to work." Jim hung up the phone and walked back to his car. That should be enough. Part of Jim whispered that he should get in the car and go back to the plan. It was still early enough to do the job at the gun shop, and he could be on the road to Canada either tonight or tomorrow morning. It was the logical plan.

Instead, Jim drove the area. Kincaid had chosen well. On the west, the only neighbor was the burned out building, and during the week, the construction equipment probably helped hide any sounds, not that anyone other than a Sentinel would hear them. To the south, a chain link fence and security cameras protected a lot where extra equipment was parked. The west had a wide road. Jim parked his car on the next street over and walked to the warehouse north of the one where Kincaid was holding Sandburg.

With the cover of the smaller building, Jim could focus on studying the layout, and it didn't make him any more comfortable. Security cameras sat on the top of the building, which wasn't unusual for this area, but it was unusual considering that the rest of the building seemed largely unused. Unlike most of the warehouses, dust covered the loading bays and the windows were covered in grime. Focusing in, Jim could barely make out bars behind the dirt. Something glinted out of the side of his eye, and Jim could see the flash from a weapon in one of the second-story windows.

"Kincaid," a voice called. "The cops are dispatching a unit. Someone saw the two runners and called it in."

"Fuck," Kincaid swore. "We'll have to carry on this conversation a little later, Mr. Natural," Kincaid said in a voice that sounded friendly even while it sent cold shivers down Jim's back. Now that he focused, he could hear Blair's strained wheezing.

"Cut Mr. Natural down or our fun is going to end a little too quickly," Kincaid ordered. Jim could hear the fast footsteps out of the room, and then a body hit the ground. Oh yeah, Jim wanted to break every bone in Kincaid's body. The very strength of that desire drove Jim back to his car. He couldn't lose control now.

Jim waited almost an hour, but the only thing that had happened was that the warehouse fell silent. Jim recognized the odd hum of top-of-the-line white noise generators from his FBI training at the Institute. He struggled to filter the noise out, but he could only hear brief snatches of sound from inside the warehouse: a woman pleading, two men swearing over a poker game, a radio playing classical music.

A police car finally arrived on scene, the black and white unit driving slowly past the warehouse. Jim took a bite of the sandwich he'd pulled out of his supplies and tried to look like a dock worker at lunch. It must have worked because the Sentinel sitting in the passenger seat of the car didn't look twice at him. She scanned the buildings and cocked her head to the side, listening.

The officer slowed to a stop, and she rolled the window down as he got out of the car, one hand on his weapon.

"You have anything?" he asked as he walked around and stood next to her door.

"Nothing," she answered. "Just the guy down the street eating."

"I hate these prank calls," the officer sighed as he walked around the car back to the driver's side.

Jim silently cursed them, willing the Sentinel to focus her hearing long enough to notice the abnormal buzz. However, the officer got back in the car and drove slowly away.

"Hey, you want to have Chinese for lunch?" the Sentinel asked as the car passed Jim going back toward the street. Jim felt an overwhelming urge to start Keith's car and ram them, but that wouldn't exactly help Sandburg. Shit, without Sandburg, these keystone cops never would have caught him.

Sandburg. Jim glanced at the building again and started the car to head back to the bar.

"911 emergency, what's your emergency?" the voice asked. Different voice, but the calm cadence was exactly the same.

"There's a cop in trouble, Blair Sandburg," Jim said. "I'm down by Wharf 93, and there's a warehouse across from a burned out building. I saw them drag him in there."

"Who?" she asked, her fingers typing.

"Two guys. One was six foot or six-one. Dark hair, Caucasian, 220 pounds. The other was five-ten or so, reddish-blond hair with a tribal tattoo around his wrist."

Jim suddenly heard another voice in the background. "Keep the crackpot on the line, we have a car in the area," a man whispered. Jim hung up the phone and headed for the car. He wouldn't do Blair any good if he got caught.

Okay, it was time to take more drastic action.

FIFTEEN
***
Jim stood at the entrance to Major Crimes. This wasn't his department or even his building, but common sense told him to run for the hills before anyone figured out that he wasn't playing good little Sentinel anymore. However, he couldn't do it. He couldn't walk away from Sandburg. It had almost killed him to wait until Monday when Sandburg's boss would be back in, and the only thing that had made the waiting bearable had been sleeping next to the small warehouse where he could hear Blair's breathing once they shut down the white noise generators.

"What?" bellowed a voice. Rafe cracked the door open.

"Got a guy here who thinks he knows something about Blair."

"Get him in here," called a deep voice. Rafe threw open the door, and Jim walked into the lions' den. If this guy recognized him or spotted his senses, Jim was throwing away his last chance at freedom.

"Simon Banks," the man offered as he stood and held out his hand. He was huge, a towering figure even as he leaned over the desk.

"Joe," Jim offered a fake name in return.

"He does some work with Walker in Burglary over at the two-nine," Rafe said in the way of introductions.

"Snitch?" Banks asked, his eyes searching Jim.

"I tell him things I might hear from time to time," Jim answered almost truthfully. "But he's out of town right now, and I'm hearing some stuff on the street that I don't like."

"I don't know how much Walker pays," Banks said as he reached for his wallet, "but you help me get my guy back, and I will make it worth your while."

"Fifty," Jim answered quickly. He needed the cash, and a snitch who didn't ask for money would raise too much suspicion. Even so, he felt dirty as he accepted three twenty dollar bills from Banks.

"What do you have?"

"I was down at the docks, and some of the workers are whispering about Sentinels, a couple were wandering, confused and looking all wild-eyed."

"And you think Sandburg got wind of it? He would have gone to his old division captain, or he would have told us. This sounds like information for Rick Yaden."

Damn. Blair's old boss, no way would he not remember Jim. "That isn't the information. The word is some long-haired hippy type was trying to help them. Had his arm around one when the other dock workers were busy hiding," Jim said, making it up as he went along.

"That'd be Blair," Banks said fondly.

"Apparently they think it all ended well enough because some well-dressed guys came out and got all three of them."

"And now Blair's missing. You wouldn't be the guy who tried to call in with information on him yesterday?" Banks asked.

"Look," Jim said carefully, "I'm giving you the straight story here. If you act, fine. If you don't..." Jim let his words trail off, but the chances were that Banks wouldn't guess Jim's real thoughts. If the idiots didn't act on the information this time, Jim was going to commandeer large quantities of munitions and start blowing shit up until he got Blair out of there.

"Okay," Banks held up his hands in surrender, "I want the information, but I have to bring Yaden in on this."

"Yaden and I have had words. He may not remember them, but I'm not working with him, so if you call him, I'm out of here." Jim crossed his arms and gave Banks his most implacable expression, the one that had always frightened the recruits.

"Damn it," Banks cursed. "If there are Sentinels involved, that's his department. We don't handle Sentinel cases."

"I overheard the guys from The Black Whale. It's docked on the south end. They described a warehouse across from some burned out building. You bring Yaden in, and you can handle it from there," Jim turned to head out the office. It was almost a relief to have something force him away because the need to go into that warehouse had crawled under his skin.

"Would you know the sailors if you saw them again?" Banks quickly asked.

"In a second," Jim lied. "Look, Sandburg has a good reputation, and I'll go down to the docks with you to point these guys out, but Yaden... I'm not working with him."

"You really have issues with Yaden, huh?" Banks sighed and rubbed his hand. "If there are Sentinels, we'll have to pull him in. We don't have the resources to deal with traumatized Sentinels, but for now, we don't have any proof. We'll play this your way."

Jim nodded and turned toward the door.

"But Joe," Banks warned, his voice suddenly cold. "If you're playing us, if you waste my time when my man is out there, I will throw you so far under the jail, you'll never see the light of day again."

"Fair enough," Jim answered. "But I really hope this isn't your guy. If it is, Sentinel traffickers don't have much reason to keep him alive." He watched Banks, praying that this would make the man move a little faster because every second they were here, Blair was still in Kincaid's hands.

"Knowing Sandburg, he'll talk them into something," Banks muttered. Jim just hoped he was right. He just hoped Blair could hang on a little longer.

"Oh, and from the word on the street, these traffickers have an in with police... police radios, maybe even an inside guy or two," Jim said. Banks' face turned dark at the accusation, but he didn't deny it immediately.

"Rafe, get Brown and we'll check this out. If we find anything, we'll call in for back up. Get a secured radio."

"Yes, sir," Rafe answered as he hurried out into the bullpen.

"You want to follow us down to the wharf," Simon asked. Jim shook his head. He hadn't driven Keith's car with its police parking sticker into Central station. Keith's car and his weapon were hidden a couple of blocks from the warehouse, but at this point, Jim wouldn't be surprised if they were both stolen before Jim got back to them. He still had a week, though, and losing his supplies wouldn't be the end of the plan.

"I took the bus. If I could just ride with you," he suggested as both of them headed out of the office.

"No problem," Banks agreed as he pulled on his jacket and came around the desk. "Brown, Rafe, you follow in your car," he called. A second African-American in a horrible striped shirt had appeared in the squad room.

"You got it. And, Simon, we'll find Blair," the new man, Brown, said.

"Yeah, we will," Banks agreed grimly. He headed for the elevator, and Jim silently followed. At least one thing was going right; Blair had co-workers who obviously cared about him. For the first time since he'd heard Blair's voice inside the warehouse, Jim felt like there was an honest chance to get Blair out.

The drive to the wharf was silent. Banks smoked his cigar with the window cracked, but Jim still had to focus on keeping his scent dialed down. It'd been a long time since someone did something that Sentinel-unfriendly around him.

"There," Jim said when the dock came into sight. "Stop the car here."

Banks pulled the car to the curb and Jim got out next to the equipment parking lot. "The workers said they saw those guys pulling Blair into that building behind me," Jim said as he turned towards Banks. "You might want to have your guys park behind the smaller warehouse on the north side."

"I thought you said these workers were hiding," Banks said as he narrowed his eyes. "Where?"

"Plenty of places to hide if a person is desperate enough," Jim answered as he looked around. The place was fairly open with the exception of the warehouse to the north. Simon snorted as he picked up the radio.

"Brown, head to the north," he ordered as he put his car into gear and drove away, circling the block before heading for the north side himself. By the time Banks parked the car, Brown and Rafe were already there, peering around the corner at the warehouse.

"Something's stinky in Denmark," Brown commented. "Top notch security but no sign the building's being used."

"There's more," Jim said as he ducked down below the level of a stack of packing crates. He followed it down to the far end and then lay in the weeds, near where he'd slept last night. When he turned, he saw Banks had followed him.

"There," Jim said as he pointed toward the top row of windows.

"What am I looking for?" Banks whispered.

"Gun flash." Jim watched the window, using Sentinel sight to see the sniper casually sweeping the landscape with his rifle.

"Fuck," Banks swore when the sniper's arc brought the gun back in their direction for the third time. "You sure that's a gun?"

"I was a Ranger," Jim answered truthfully. "I know gun flash."

"How did you know to look if you just overheard some dock workers?" Jim's guts tightened, but he ignored the feeling and focused on the building. Whatever Banks planned to do, he needed to focus on Blair right now. They both did.

"How did you know where to look, Joe?" Banks demanded. Jim tensed. He had to tell at least some of the truth, and then hope he could get away before they figured out the rest.

"I could hear Sandburg in there," Jim admitted. "He was fighting with someone called Kincaid. Kincaid said that the Sentinels in there will be sold to finance his army, and Blair said some things that made Kincaid hurt him."

"Enhanced hearing?" Banks asked as he crouched next to Jim. The man visually relaxed at that news, which was ironic since he had to be at least considering that Jim was a Sentinel. Some people had one or two enhanced senses, but it wasn't the norm. "I've heard some guys will have their taste buds surgically removed to circumvent Sentinel genes from kicking in," he commented blandly, and Jim glanced over.

"No surgery," Jim answered as he refocused on the warehouse. "Shit, there are a lot of people in there. Two-three dozen at least."

"Sentinels?"

"No way to tell," Jim sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. "And no way to tell which is Sandburg until he starts talking."

"If he can," Simon said quietly.

"If he can't, someone is going to pay," Jim warned quietly. Simon shot him a curious look.

"For one of Walker's snitches, you seem pretty concerned about a missing cop from Major Crimes."

"I ran into Sandburg before," Jim said carefully. He'd all but outted himself already, but he could freely admit that not even the threat of getting put back into the Sentinel Institute could make him leave.

"He's a good man," Banks said thoughtfully.

"Yes, he is. And he's smart. He'll figure out a way to stay alive until we get him back." Jim said the words with as much conviction as he could. Leaving this morning, riding the bus to Central, had been the hardest morning of his life. He had lived every moment with the knowledge that Blair could be dying that very second.

"Keep an ear out, I'm going to check in with the others," Simon said as he moved slowly back, his movements suggesting a surprising grace considering his size. Jim opened his hearing and let everything flow in, knowing he was risking a zone, but willing to take the risk.

"He in there?" Brown asked when Banks got back to the shelter of the small warehouse.

"Joe thinks so. Joe also thinks we're looking at two or three dozen people inside, so we have a well-defended structure, either that or a lot of traumatized Sentinels, and neither scenario is particularly safe for us or for Blair."

"Joe thinks?" Rafe interrupted.

"He's definitely got enhanced hearing. Either that, or he's lying through his eye teeth, and if that's the case, he's going to regret ever being born," Banks threatened.

"So we're trusting him?" Brown asked.

"Until we have some other information, yes. I don't see that he gets anything out of lying. So, we're assuming that he's telling the truth."

"In that case, there's no way to grab Sandburg before someone puts a bullet in him, and not even Sandburg could talk a bullet into stopping." Jim could hear both the admiration and the frustration in Brown's voice. These people cared about Sandburg.

"And what about the other senses?" Rafe whispered.

"Maybe the conflict with Yaden is..." Brown's words trailed off, and Jim figured the man was probably silently mouthing the truth.

"Do we call Yaden?" Rafe asked.

Silence. Jim held his breath, trying to decide what to do now that he had a choice between his freedom or Blair's life. He heard the voice from inside he'd been waiting for. Blair cried out. The part of his brain the military had trained advised him to break for freedom, but he didn't move. He wouldn't abandon Blair.

Simon sighed. "He's not out of control, so right now, we have plausible deniability. I'm taking a chance that he'll help us get Blair back."

"Simon, how are we going to play this?"

"We get someone inside so that when we blow the front doors, our inside man can get Blair to safety or maybe just distract Kincaid."

"Kincaid?" Brown demanded. "Garrett Kincaid? The crackpot with the Sunrise Patriots?"

The three of them fell silent for a moment. Jim hadn't heard of the group, but between Brown's horrified reaction and Blair's weak cries as leather hit skin, he found himself digging his fingers into the dirt to control an urge to rip them to pieces with his bare hands. He had the training.

"That's a dangerous job. Kincaid's a whack job, and if he catches someone inside, he's going to put a bullet through Blair's brain."

"I can't ask any of you--" Simon started.

"I'll do it," Rafe and Brown both offered at the same time.

Banks paused, and Jim remembered that moment when as a commander you had to send someone into a situation like this. And the fact was that local cops weren't trained to deal with this. If someone didn't distract Kincaid, Blair was dead the minute a cop hit the warehouse door.

"We need uniformed officers, and let's get Joel and his guys out here to blow the front doors. Henri, I'm sorry, but Rafe's scores are higher than yours, Rafe's going in." Simon turned to the radio and started calling in the back-up that would save Blair, and that would eventually capture Jim again. Jim headed back toward the trio of cops.

He wondered if Keith would still have custody. If so, Jim figured he'd be spending a lot of time chained to the wall. Right now, he couldn't even blame the kid because after a few days staring at those blank walls, Keith was probably more into his own anger than really thinking about what Jim had said. Of course, it might not matter; Jim would probably get the Alex Barnes special: locked in a little room with a video game as company.

"I'll go in," Jim said as he came around the edge of the building. "Brown's right. If your man gets caught, Rafe and Blair are both dead long before the backup can get here."

"This isn't your business," Simon said with narrowed eyes.

Jim ignored him and grabbed a chunk of broken brick, bending down to the concrete where he drew a red square. "I can hear guards walking patrols here, here, here and here." Jim drew lines inside the square neatly boxing it. And there are stationary guards here and here at the windows." Jim drew x's.

"They have it covered." Banks growled.

"The front is covered just as well," Jim agreed. "That's why Rafe's not going in, I am."

"What?! No way. I may not know what's going on with you and Sandburg, but you are not to go anywhere near that building. They'd spot you in a second."

"I know," Jim answered. "I don't plan on trying to hide."

"And why the hell wouldn't they just shoot Sandburg and you?"

"Because," Jim said, "I'm going to give them what they want, a Sentinel."

"Fuck," Brown swore softly.

"Joe," Simon said, his voice low and dangerous, "I don't know what game you're playing, but if you get Sandburg hurt, I will personally skin you alive, Sentinel or no."

Jim smiled. "If I get Sandburg hurt, someone needs to skin me," Jim agreed. "But I can get in there; it will at least let him know that someone's out here, and it'll distract them from hurting him any more."

"I hate to be the voice of reason here, but we don't know if Blair is..." Brown stopped when both Rafe and Banks both glared him into silence.

"He's alive," Jim answered. "He's hurting, and every second I'm out here, he's hurting more, but he's alive. I go in there, and it will distract them long enough for you to get backup."

"Joe, what's really going on here?" Simon asked. "If you're a Sentinel, I don't have any jurisdiction over you. I'll have to call Yaden, but I won't stand in your way. I just have to know what your story is because this is my man's life hanging in the balance here."

Jim stared at the warehouse. He had the feeling if he walked right now, Banks wouldn't stand in his way. Rafe just looked confused. For a second, Jim allowed himself one last fantasy of Canada, of reaching some tribe and finding a companion and lover, of being a member of a tribe that respected him. Then he let go of the fantasy.

"I'm Jim, not Joe," Jim said quietly. "Captain James Joseph Ellison. Blair was the cop who finally brought me in, and he was a good man, a caring man. I won't walk away and let him die in there for trying to help other Sentinels."

"You're the Sentinel," Rafe said. "You're the one who ran for a year, Blair talked about you."

"Ellison. The one Blair requested. The one who turned him down," Banks said flatly.

Jim nodded. "Just stay out of my way once I let the Sentinel instincts take over. I haven't done this before, and I don't know how easily I'll be able to get control back," Jim warned. Simon opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it again as Jim focused his hearing. Now that he knew where to find Blair, he zeroed in on the heavy breathing punctuated with sobs. The sound of leather hitting flesh startled Jim, and he jerked at the sound of Blair's scream.

Jim let his anger rise up and wash away the part of his brain that considered angles and approached and strategy. To succeed, to distract them and put himself in a position where he could defend Blair, he had to become the one thing he hated more than all the Sentinel laws combined... he had be become an out of control Sentinel raging and focused only on finding his companion.

The emotions swelled up, and Jim allowed them to batter away his control. They were hurting his Blair. His. His companion. Jim summoned every sensory memory of that hour with Blair: the blue eyes that had looked at him with this trust as he held Blair close, the way he smiled, the way his body lay limp under Jim's. Blair screamed again, and Jim could feel the primitive surge crash into him.

"Mine," he growled low.

"Jim?" Simon asked. Jim swung his head toward the tall captain, his pupils black as his eyes searched for every detail.

"I'll fucking rip them to pieces for doing that to him," Jim snapped, and Simon took a step back. Jim shook his head and looked at Simon again. "If I don't make it, tell Blair that I'd rather go out this way than go back into the Institute. Don't you dare let him blame himself," Jim begged.

"You have my word, Jim," Simon vowed. Jim turned toward the warehouse.

"Blair," Jim breathed as he turned control over to the hungry predator in his chest. Without thinking, he started running, his body low as he covered ground as fast as he could, his senses tunneled forward.

The rear door posed a temporary problem, and he slammed his shoulder into it so hard that the metal shivered. With a growl, Jim yanked at the handle, shaking his head in frustration as it didn't immediately give. He jerked harder, pounding his shoulder against the door between each pull.

Something clicked, and suddenly the door swung open, Jim flung himself into the dark, his hands reaching for the figure standing in the shadow. His hands almost closed over the guy's throat when electricity ran through him, making him howl and drop to the ground. Jim twisted and snarled as he finally found the wires and pulled the barbs out of his skin. Turning toward the attacker, Jim dived forward, grabbing the man's neck as they both went down to the concrete.

Another shot of electricity poured into him, and this time both he and the man under him screamed in pain with him. The body under him struggled to wiggle away, and Jim landed a punch on the man's sternum that left him gasping and helpless. Then Jim sprang up and backed away as more men came running. Ignoring the men, Jim cocked his head and charged away from the group, toward a staircase.

"Fuck, intruder heading for second floor. It's a Sentinel."

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