Ezra P. Standish frowned as he shifted uncomfortably. Still more asleep than not, he rolled to his right side, trying to find a better position. The slight thump of his forehead against a wall caused him to blink his green eyes open in bleary surprise. Since when had the side of his bed been pushed up against a wall? And who had painted the walls such an awful shade of beige? And when? And… wait a second...this wasn't his wall. Ezra rolled to his back and slowly brought his surroundings into focus.

The waking sixteen year old would be the first to admit, and quite proudly too, that he was not a morning person and just barely an early afternoon sort of individual. Owls had nothing on him. The last time he had actually witnessed a rising sun had been due solely to the fact that he had gone entirely without sleep for over twenty-four hours. To put it bluntly, his brain didn't do mornings. And yet, judging by the color and intensity of the sunlight streaming through the dirty window high on the opposite wall, it was indeed morning. Early morning.

Ezra groaned and tried to think past the wool in his head. Awake early in the morning. Looking at a wall that wasn't his wall. At a window that wasn't his window. And apparently he had been sleeping on an old cot that was definitely not his full sized bed with its down filled comforter. Where the hell was he and how had he gotten here?

Shakily Ezra pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the side of the cot. Three things struck him at once. The first was that he felt absolutely awful; much like he had the previous year when he had gotten the flu followed immediately by pneumonia; weak, achy, just this side of nauseous and with a head that felt both too full and too empty at the same time. The second thing he noticed was the fact that he was fully dressed in the clothes he remembered putting on the day before; everything from his dark blue Polo shirt to his Harrington loafers. The third and most terrible thing he took note of was the fact that he had to use a restroom something on the scale of an emergency.

Staggering to his feet and seeing nothing in the small room besides the bed and the window, he stumbled to the door and reached for the knob. And missed. No, that wasn't quite correct because he couldn't miss what wasn't there. Ezra stared blankly at the smooth surface where a knob should have been. Maybe the door didn't need a knob? He placed his palm against the panel and pushed. He pushed a little harder. He placed both palms on the door and shoved with all his might. He tried his shoulder next. When none of those things worked it just seemed natural to begin pounding and yelling for someone to come and let him out.

A few minutes later he dropped his hands to his sides and barely made it back to the cot before a wave of dizziness could send him to the floor. Laying down again he tried to catch his breath and actually think past his demanding bladder.

'OK, Standish lets take it one thing at a time. First, what day is it?' Ezra looked at his watch and noted that it was Wednesday and it was indeed an ungodly hour of the morning. 'Right. So what is the last thing you remember? Let's see, Tuesday afternoon is my class on Shielding followed by English and World History. I attended each of those. Following History, I … had dinner. I wanted sushi. Rengee's. Yes, I went to Rengee's and had sushi. And Tosh slipped me a beer in a Styrofoam cup. Then…'

Ezra stared at the ceiling as he tried to remember anything after the beer. What did he usually do after he ate dinner at Rengee's? Talk to Tosh?… A few hands of poker in the back room of Ralph's? … A cab ride back to Thornton's Gifted Guide School?… Climbing back up the ladder to his second floor dorm room some time after midnight?...

Nothing. Not one memory past dinner, and now a locked room and an overall feeling of unwellness. It all pointed to just one thing.

"Good lord! I've been drugged and kidnapped!" Ezra sat up straight on the cot. "And I really need a bathroom."

Making it to his feet once more, he tugged and pushed on the cot until it was positioned beneath the small window which was apparently the only other exit besides the door and about a foot higher than his own 5'5". Balancing on the thin mattress, Ezra grasped the windowsill and peered out at his surroundings.

"Gyahh!" Standish yelped in surprise and almost tumbled from the cot as he jerked back from the glass. He'd expected to see a road, another building, a field or an empty parking lot. Objects that would give him some idea of what kind of building he was in if not exactly where. What he had not expected to see was a pair of intense, blue eyes staring straight back at him. Catching his breath and his balance, Ezra again looked out the window.

The eyes were still there but this time Ezra noticed the pale, narrow face that surrounded them and the brownish blond hair that partly obscured the eye on the right. It was a very young face but the expression and the intensity of the stare added years to the boy's appearance. Boy, yes definitely a boy. Twelve? Thirteen? Ezra gave his head a slight shake and focused on the task at hand.

"Can you hear me? I need you to call the police. I've been kidnapped and locked in this room." Ezra paused and waited for a response but the boy continued to simply stare at him. "Hello? Did you hear me? I need help!" He refrained from mentioning his urgent need for a bathroom, deciding to stick with the most pertinent facts. When the boy didn't move Ezra realized he might need to sweeten the deal. "Alright, I'll pay you..." He reached for his wallet and discovered that it was missing. "I'll pay you twenty dollars as soon as the police get here." Surely one of them would spot him the money once he explained that he was the son of Maude Standish, widow of the extremely wealthy west coast shipping tycoon. Ezra fully expected the offer of money to get some kind of response. He was surprised when the boy continued to simply stare at him.

Ezra opened his mouth to try shouting louder but hesitated as it suddenly occurred to him that he had not seen the boy blink the whole time he'd been yelling at him. Lifting his right hand, he waved it in front of the glass. Nothing. Not even a flicker of an eyeball. Ezra felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. The boy's frozen state seemed familiar somehow but he couldn't think why. He quickly cataloged the boy's appearance; silently standing, immobile, staring out as if in some kind of trance or...

"Zone!" Ezra gasped the word aloud as it suddenly clicked. This was a textbook description of what a Sentinel looked like when they were Zoned. But Sentinels didn't start zoning until they were old enough to Bond and that never happened until around the early twenties. So, it couldn't be a real Zone. For that matter, the boy might not even be a Sentinel. Maybe he was just having some kind of seizure? Well, there was certainly one way to find out. And focusing on this new puzzle helped to take his mind off his own situation.

Deciding to stay on his feet, he first propped his shoulders against the wall putting his back to the window. Then taking a deep breath, Ezra began a silent meditation exercise to calm his nerves and temporarily ignore the distractions of his physical surroundings. It took a little extra effort to block out the increasingly painful demands of his bladder but he eventually managed a mostly serene state. It wasn't perfect but it would have to do. 'Now, picture the box, finely crafted, rich mahogany with delicate inlays. The hinges and clasp are polished brass.'

It was perhaps a bit more detail than the Shielding instructor had intended when he used a box as an example but Ezra had been raised with a taste for quality and an eye for details. 'Now, release the clasp and slowly raise the lid.' Which was actually more difficult than it sounded. The imaginary clasp tended to stick and the hinges were determined not to move. Ezra struggled with the lid of the box that represented the shield blocking his empathy. He knew that once he was Bonded with a Sentinel he would have the exact opposite problem. Where as he currently had to struggle to release his gift, once Bonded he would be constantly expelling energy to keep the 'box' tightly closed. And if his strength tests were anything to go by, he'd also be working to keep the sides and bottom intact. He would have to be paired with a Sentinel equally as strong to act as a psionic 'white noise generator' to give him sufficient time to rest and rebuild his energy levels.

"But that's years away and I want this...box...open...now!" Ezra sagged against the wall as he finally opened his shielding enough to make use of his emphatic abilities. Now he merely had to channel it outward in a slowly expanding orb until he encountered the emotions of the boy standing on the other side of the wall. In theory it should have worked and it would have, if there had been anyone around him producing psionic vibrations.

Every human produced psionic vibrations when they experienced an emotion. Depending on the intensity of the emotion and the person's mental strength, the vibrations could be quite strong, painfully so to an empath. Sluggish, dull vibrations of contentment or boredom could be also be aggravating to a very strong empath hence the need for mental shields or a strong Sentinel to block the psionic waves. Even a sleeping person produced the psionic vibrations. If there was brain activity, there was a signal. The only times a living person failed to give emotional pulses was when they were brain dead, in a deep coma or...

"A Zoned Sentinel." Ezra whispered his shocking discovery. "But that's...that's..." He would have eventually said impossible but at that moment he did begin picking up emotions, very strong waves of anger and fear. He knew instantly they weren't coming from the boy who still stood frozen, so that just left..."The kidnappers!" Ezra's concentration slipped but he managed to stop his shields from completely closing. He focused his limited powers on the men approaching and his mind raced as he stared at the locked door. He could move the cot back over to the other wall and chances were good they would never notice the child Sentinel. Not from inside the room anyway. But what if they searched outside and found him? Or worse yet, what if no one found him and he stayed frozen until he slipped into a coma and died? Ezra suddenly realized he had no idea how long the boy had been trapped in the Zone.

"Damn it all to hell!" Frustration and an overwhelming sense of helplessness made him lash out both verbally and physically. Turning back to the window his right hand slapped against the glass directly in front of the young Sentinel's face. "Why did you have to Zone right here?!"

What Ezra had failed to notice was that while his head was turned, the blue eyes that had been frozen before in an endless stare were blinking as awareness slowly returned to their owner. The noise and sudden motion of Ezra's hand caused the underage Sentinel to jerk in surprise. For one brief moment Standish had a glimpse of the boy's shocked expression before it suddenly disappeared with a startled cry and the sound of crashing wood.

"What was that?!" The voice was muffled by the door but Ezra easily matched it with some of the dark emotions he was picking up.

"How the hell should I know? Hurry and get the fucking door open! The cops are going to be here any minute!"

Knowing there was no time to move the cot, Ezra merely dropped down and took a seat on its edge, doing his best to project an image of innocence. While he listened anxiously to his kidnappers fumbling with the lock, he forced his empathic powers outward, searching for the young Sentinel. His training came in handy as he filtered out most of the strong emotions of the two men on the other side of the door and found the distinctive pattern of the boy outside his window.

Fear. Pain. Confusion. The first hints of panic. All the expected emotions of a Sentinel coming out of a Zone in desperate need of guidance. Instinct kicked in and Ezra began projecting calmness and comfort. He became so focused on mentally aiding the boy on the other side of the wall that he almost failed to react to the opening of his prison door.

"On your feet kid!"

Ezra needn't have worried about the cot. His abductors were in too big of a hurry to even notice its new position.

"I demand that you...ahhh!" Ezra reeled as the palm of a broad hand struck his cheek. Never having been hit in the face before, the teenager found the experience both painful and terrifying.

"Shut up!" The slapper, a dark haired, heavyset man with thick eyebrows and bad breath, jerked Ezra to his feet and shoved him toward the door. "Make another sound and I'll rip your tongue out."

Standish stumbled and fell against the door frame. He barely had time to catch his balance when a shove between his shoulder blades sent him staggering across the warehouse floor. Tripping over his own feet he fell heavily to his knees and cried out as something sharp penetrated his slacks.

"What did I tell you?"

Survival instinct took over and Ezra rolled to his side, drawing himself up into a tight ball with his arms over his head. Panic began to set in as he realized he couldn't shut out the kidnapper's emotions. It was as if the lid of his mental box was jammed open. Emotional lances of hate and anger pierced his unshielded mind leaving him disoriented and nauseous. He tried to clamp his jaws shut as a bruising grip on his upper arm yanked him to his feet but the sudden, jerking motion acted as a trigger for his volatile stomach.

"Shit! Gawd dammit!" The kidnapper released his hold and jumped back as a gush of vomit struck him right in the chest. "Son of a fucking bitch!" His foot lashed out in anger catching Ezra on his left thigh as he continued to heave.

The second man stepped forward and caught his partner's arm before he could land another blow on the helpless teen. "Frank! Just leave him! The cops are going to be all over this place in another minute. We've got to get out of here. We'll just give the guy back his money."

"Dumb ass! We spent most of it. And you don't just hand money back to a buyer like that and say, 'Oh, sorry; here's your fucking refund!' All that time wasted! Damn it!" Jerking his arm free, Frank reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a gun.

"What are you doing man?"

Frank glared at his partner as he chambered a round. "What does it look like? The Guide's seen our faces and now, thanks to you 'Bill' he knows my name. No way we're going to risk him getting to the police. Killing him may buy us enough time to cover our tracks."

Bill shook his head and moved as if to reach for the gun. "No way man. Kidnapping and selling a kid Guide is one thing but I ain't about to go down to a Sentinel hunting pack for killing him. Don't you remember what happened to that rapist in New York?"

"That's just bullshit. They didn't really..."

"It made the news man! They tore his dick off and fed it to him. And that Guide lived! What do you think they're gonna do to someone that actually kills one?"

"We're wasting time! This is just a kid! He's not Bonded! Now go get the car started while I finish this and stash the body."

Bill swallowed any further protest and stepped back. He had been partnered with Frank long enough to tell when arguing was useless. Maybe if he got clear of the room before Frank pulled the trigger, he could convince the Sentinels that he was innocent of anything other than kidnapping and that he hadn't actually harmed the young Guide. Taking one last look at the boy lying barely conscious in a puddle of vomit, Bill shook his head and hurried away. His body jerked at the loud report made by the gun and he fought the urge to take off running like an athlete at a track race. Bill forced himself to continue walking and not look back, and so he never saw the lead pipe that connected with the back of his neck hard enough to crush bone. In fact he never saw anything ever again. He was dead before his face hit the ground.