Julian made his way out the back doors of the auditorium, a huge box of slides, pictures, and power point equipment in his arms. As he crossed the few feet between the door and the black SUV they had parked behind the building, he was smiling, in a very good mood.

The presentation had gone very well. The speaker, the man he still thought of as his master -- though he had never treated him like a slave -- was still inside, answering questions, talking to people about the cause he was so passionate about.

Now -- a lot of other people were becoming passionate about it as well.

Nearly an hour after the lecture, the speaker and his vampire companions were still surrounded by concerned, interested members of the audience who wanted to know what they could do to help. That was a small problem -- though a very *good* problem to have -- because they were supposed to be leaving as soon as possible, on a trip out of town, and they were already running behind schedule.

Julian's master had pulled him aside a few moments ago inside and asked him -- not ordered him -- to begin loading the car while he finished up the conversation he was having. Julian had been more than happy to do it. He thought that if he was asked to, he would lay down his unlife for the soft-spoken, gentle man who had become his unlikely savior.

And the way things were going, it was beginning to appear that he would be again, in a much more permanent sense -- when as a result of his efforts, Julian and his kind were finally granted their freedom. It no longer seemed the impossibility he had once thought it to be.

Julian was so caught up in his optimistic thoughts, his good mood, that he was completely unaware of the presence of anyone else in the parking lot, as he set the box of equipment down in the rear compartment of the SUV, closing the door firmly. By the time he caught the familiar, sickening scent that paralyzed his mind with fear, the unnatural, acrid, medicinal smell that was unique to the soldiers who worked for Riley Finn -- it was too late.

He whirled around to face the as yet unseen threat, finding himself surrounded by five uniformed soldiers, circling him, hemming him in against the back of the vehicle. One of them, whose uniform indicated that his rank was slightly higher than the others, stepped toward him with a cruel smile.

"Well, what have we got here?" he asked, his tone both mocking and threatening as he advanced on the terrified vampire. "Little slave out here all by himself?"

Desperate, Julian tried to dart past the man, who merely caught his arm and slammed him back against the back of the SUV, hard enough to knock the breath from his body. Julian had almost forgotten how incredibly strong Riley's men were; whatever concoction of drugs he had come up with to feed them made them physically stronger than the vampires they controlled.

"What's your hurry?" the soldier asked softly with a smirk, his large, stocky frame moving in front of Julian to block any further attempts at escape. The other soldiers closed in tighter around him, and he began to feel a claustrophobic feeling of panic.

In an instant, the past year of safety and security vanished, and he was right back in the training facility, at the whim and mercy of men just like these, hand-chosen by Riley Finn specifically for their sadistic delight in cruelty, experts in terror and suffering.

He turned panicked eyes toward the door, wishing desperately to see his master appear. He wanted to scream, to yell for help, but could not make his mouth work. He was trapped; he couldn't escape. They were going to kill him. He couldn't scream, couldn't breathe...oh, *God*, he couldn't breathe...!

In his mind-consuming panic, he had forgotten that he did not need to.

"We just wanna talk to you," the soldier's voice was mockingly soothing. "What are you freaking out about? You *like* talking...don't you?"

The other soldiers found that little joke hilarious, and in their cruel laughter, Julian heard the sound of his own doom. This was not a random attack, a group of rowdy soldiers engaging in one of the beatings, or worse, that were a constant threat to any slave out without their master. This was a deliberate, purposeful ambush. They knew who Julian belonged to, and what he had told him -- and they planned to make him pay for it.

"N-no," he managed to choke out, shaking his head, his eyes wide with terror. "No -- please..." he whispered, gasping for breath, nearly out of his mind with fear. All he could think about was the terrible threats that had been repeated over and over during his training, of what would happen to him if he ever dared to talk about it to anyone.

He knew that these men would show him no mercy.

"No?" the solder laughed, deliberately misunderstanding him. "You mean you're *not* the loud mouth little snitch we're looking for? Is that what you're saying?"

Julian opened his mouth to try to reply, stammering and struggling, his mind too frozen with fear to come up with a coherent response.

"Maybe we've got the wrong guy," one of the other soldiers suggested with wide-eyed mock dismay.

"Maybe so," the leader smirked, his soft, menacing voice driving a cold terror deeper into the heart of their petrified captive. "Who's your master, huh, pretty boy?" he asked, and the suggestive note in his voice made Julian flinch with the memory of past brutal degradations. He had heard that tone in the voice of other soldiers, other times, and the violations that had without fail followed that tone left him devastated to that day.

The new implied threat had him shaking with terror as he tried to respond, ,"M-my -- my..."

The soldier grabbed a fistful of Julian's thick, dark hair and yanked his head back, cutting off his stammering attempt in a little yelp of fear and pain.

"Y-y-you gonna answer me sometime today, pretty boy?" the soldier mocked his terrified stutter. The sharp-eyed man had not missed the vampire's reactions to his suggestive tone a moment before, and he pressed it to its full advantage, bringing his free hand to rest low on Julian's hip, giving him a cold, predatory smile.

Julian jerked away from his invasive touch with a strangled little cry of fear, and the soldier's face twisted in anger at the resistance, however slight. He grabbed Julian's hip again and slammed him back against the SUV, hard, sending a jolt of pain from his tailbone up his spine, then pressed in, oppressively close, to warn him in a low, threatening voice, "*Don't* do that again."

"Please -- please, I'm s-sorry, please..." Julian begged, his voice coming out a whimper, his hands raised in front of him in a pitiful gesture of defense.

The soldier's smile was cold as his strong hand jerked the vampire closer to him, bringing him into sudden contact with the evidence of just how much he was enjoying Julian's fear, and heightening his terror all the more.

"Maybe he doesn't *have* a master," he said softly to his friends, never taking his eyes off Julian's face. "Maybe we oughta take him with us. What do you think, guys?"

As the other soldiers voiced their approval of that idea, Julian shook his head, rapidly, desperately, managing to get out in a whisper, "N-no...no...please, no..." He was quickly breaking under the menacing presence of the men surrounding him, in combination with the traumatic memories it brought back.

"Then answer my question," was the immediate, cool response, a hard edge of disgust and anger suddenly in the man's quiet voice, calm and measured as he asked again, "Who's your master, you little piece of shit?"

His tone, his hardened hand on his body told Julian that the man was bored with his game, and the real pain was about to begin. If he did not reply, he would surely be viciously beaten, at the very least, and taken away from the protection of his kind master and into the power of these savage soldiers.

If he *did* answer, he would be beaten or tortured or otherwise made an example of for his crime of telling his master about his horrific ordeal. Still, he knew it would be better to suffer for revealing the secret, but be left in the hands of his master, than to be taken away to suffer indefinitely. He knew he had to answer the man's question.

If he could only force his mouth to speak.

But then, unexpectedly, the question was answered for him, as the most welcome, beautiful voice he had ever heard spoke clearly and authoritatively, cutting sharply through the mocking laughter of the soldiers.

"He belongs to me. And I would be greatly pleased if you would take your hands off him at once."

The soldiers turned to face the man standing behind them, his stance one of calm anger and authority. He was an older man with a cultured look, dressed well in a tailored charcoal gray suit jacket, over a collarless black shirt, matched stylishly with a pair of dark blue jeans. The overall effect was to give him a look that was both intelligent and commanding of respect, and casual and approachable, non-threatening.

But at the moment, there was nothing non-threatening about Rupert Giles at all.

His expression was tight, severe, one of barely repressed violence as his eyes passed between the soldiers and their terrorized victim, sobbing now with mingled relief and fear...because it was not over yet.

The leader stepped toward Giles with a knowing smile, still not releasing his captive. "Oh, so this is one of *yours*," he sneered, jerking the frightened creature forward in front of him. "Maybe you ought to keep a better eye on him."

"Maybe you ought to return him to me," Giles shot back, the even, calm sound of his voice belying the rage that Julian recognized, though well-hidden in his ice blue eyes.

"You know," the leader objected slyly. "I'm not so sure about that. He was behaving suspiciously. We might have to take him in for questioning." There was a cruelly smug smile on his face at the shudder that passed through the vampire at his words.

"I don't believe that's going to be necessary," Giles replied, his voice cool, visibly unaffected by the soldier's threat. "He was out here on an errand I sent him on. Now if you'll kindly release him -- I've an engagement in another town tomorrow and I must be on my way."

As he spoke, the other two vampires that had accompanied him on this trip came out the back door of the building with the remaining supplies to be loaded, stopping, stunned at the scene they had unwittingly walked into.

"Well you might want to be on your way without him, then," the soldier sneered. "Because I don't see how you can stop us."

The male vampire behind him, whose name was Aaron, started forward a step with a snarl, heedless of the fact they all knew was true, that his chip prevented him from doing any actual damage to the soldiers. All he saw was that his friend was being threatened. Giles did not turn, but his quickly raised hand in a halting gesture stopped him before he could make the situation any worse.

"Mara," Giles addressed the female vampire with the large dark eyes and olive complexion that she had somehow miraculously retained after her death. "Would you be so kind as to go back inside and ask that nice reporter I was speaking with to come outside for a moment? And he might want to bring his photographer with him as well."

As she turned to obey his request, he graced the frowning soldier with a smile that was actually genuine. "Quite a story, this. If your organization actually stoops as low as to steal a person's personal property on a whim. How convenient that I'm scheduled for a television appearance this weekend, as well."

The soldier's eyes narrowed at the thinly veiled -- or rather, not veiled at all -- threat. The man *did* have a point. Vampires in this society had no rights of any kind according to the law, but there *were* laws governing them as property. One could not just take someone else's slave with no legal repercussions.

The whole issue of slavery was a very controversial one, and a constant public relations tightrope. The soldier knew that if it got out to the media -- as it certainly would, if Rupert Giles had his way -- that soldiers in Finn's organization had been taking it upon themselves to seize the property of citizens just because they felt like it... Well, whoever was responsible would most certainly lose their job -- at the very least.

Riley Finn was a very powerful man; it would not do to get on his bad side by doing something to make his organization look bad.

In a poor attempt to conceal his anger at being bested in their little battle of wills, the soldier replied in a casual, almost pleasant voice, "Fine. No big deal. You're in a hurry, we'll overlook it this time. Just try to keep this *thing* on a tighter leash."

He leaned in close to Julian's ear for just a moment to add, too low for anyone but him to hear, "Watch your step, you little snitch. It might not be me, but someone's gonna make you pay for running your mouth." He released the shaking vampire with a rough shove that sent him stumbling off balance, falling to the ground.

"Come on, boys," the soldier smirked. "Let's go."

Grumbling irritably at the loss of their sport for the evening, the men followed their pack leader away in search of fresh prey.

Giles immediately dropped to one knee beside his fallen, trembling charge, seething fury filling him at the cruelty of the men who had so heartlessly terrorized him.

*Months of progress,* he thought with bitter frustration. *Possibly destroyed in the space of a few minutes.*

"Are you hurt?" he asked softly, placing a firm hand on the vampire's shoulder to steady him.

Julian shook his head, his eyes closed, raising a trembling hand to brace himself on Giles' arm.

"Good. Now then, let's get you up," Giles encouraged him gently, helping him get to his feet. "Bloody berks," he muttered, the anger he had concealed from the soldiers now revealed in his tone. "If they did a thing like this to a human they'd be in prison."

Mara came running back outside, her expressive, deep dark eyes wide and anxious. "I couldn't find them, Mr. Giles! They must have already left!"

"That's all right, dear," he said with a small, tight smile, not looking at her as he looked Julian over closely to be sure that he was unhurt. "The threat of the press was enough to scare them away."

"This time," Aaron inserted darkly, his striking green eyes smoldering with fury, as a flash of gold flickered through them for just a moment.

"I shouldn't have sent you out alone," Giles said with quiet irritation at his own carelessness. "I didn't think that here, so far from Finn's direct influence -- and at a bloody abolitionist convention, for pity's sake!" His words broke off suddenly, when he realized how he had been raising his voice, how he was letting his anger show a bit too strongly for the comfort of his badly shaken newest charge.

*Never thought in my days as a Watcher that I'd be playing psychologist to a lot of traumatized vampires,* he thought with a smile in spite of it all as he unlocked the SUV's front doors to allow his little crew to get in. They went absolutely everywhere with him these days.

He had never expected things to end up the way that they had.

As he got into the car and turned on the ignition, his mind began to play over the chaotic events of the past few years. Lost in his memories, he turned onto the highway, headed out of Arizona and back to California…back to the Hellmouth.

And back to his Slayer.