A/N: Here's another chapter. It's a little short, but I think there's enough drama shaking things up to make up for its length. (And either way, Chapter 8 should be up tomorrow if things go as planned.) Thanks for your support, and enjoy!


Zack rushed into the room, more or less dragging Dr. Simon behind him.

"I have decoded Pelant's message," Zack announced. "It's not good, though." He had a terrified look in his brown eyes.

"It is Pelant we're talking about. Can we really even assume he's going to send a coded message saying 'Hi. How are you? Have a good day.' or something like that?" Hodgins snarkily commented.

"He's after Daisy," Zack said bluntly.

"What?" Dr. Brennan exclaimed, taken a bit by surprise by his choice in targets. "Why Daisy?"

Dr. Simon piped up, "Because we don't expect him to go after her." Everybody turned towards her. She elaborated, "Naturally, we feel the need to protect leaders like Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth, but we assume that the interns, though crucial to our work, just fly under the radar. Thus, if we don't expect him to try to kill her, it only makes it easier for him to actually do it."

For a moment, everything went quiet. Everybody just stood there and stared at each other as they realized the horrific implications.

Dr. Brennan broke the silence. "We have to warn her."


Daisy was driving down the street when she heard her phone ringing. She knew better than to answer it while on the road, but then she saw the caller ID: Dr. Brennan. She picked up the phone and was about to answer it when it slipped from her fingers. She took a careful glance at the road in front of her, scanning for any threat, then quickly looked down to retrieve it. Fishing for her phone, she had no way of seeing the other driver at the crossroad running the red light. She quickly clutched the phone then looked back up just as she heard the honk of the horn. With her hands back on the wheel, she tried to swerve, but it was no use.

The collision was sudden. She was thrust forward, pushing the weight of her body against the wheel. Glass shards from the window and windshield rained down around her.

Daisy felt her head spinning as she looked up a few seconds later. When she saw the driver of the other car unconsciously draped over his steering wheel and covered with blood, she felt both her mind and body slowly weakening. It took only a matter of seconds for her light-headedness to escalate into a faint.


"Daisy?" she barely heard a male voice say.

"Miss Wick?" Was that...Dr. Brennan?

"Daisy, can you hear us?"

"Agent Booth?" she weakly answered back, still barely conscious.

"We need to get her to a hospital," Booth said.

"The ambulance is on its way," Dr. Brennan answered, trying to stay calm.

"Daisy, you're going to be okay," Booth tried to reassure her. "Just stay awake."

"I'll try," she barely whispered, though she could tell that it would be a hard promise to keep. The sunlight was hurting her eyes, so she could only barely hear what was happening around her.

Booth stayed next to Daisy, calmly whispering words of encouragement, while Dr. Brennan walked around, probably investigating the crime scene. Daisy heard her slightly gasp. "Booth, does this man look familiar?" she called out.

Booth walked over to the other car, his footsteps lightly thumping against the concrete road. "Is that...Pelant?"