I felt a hand on my upper arm shaking me. I shrugged it off and rolled over in the seat. I wanted to sleep for a little longer. The hand was persistent and shook me again. I opened my eyes slowly with every intention of closing them again. I was facing the passenger side window and saw the parking lot we were in.

I sat up straight and turned my head to look at Ward. He was holding a keycard for the room he no doubt booked for us.

"Can you walk?" He asked tentatively. If he was scared of me he didn't show it. I still didn't know if what happened in the server room was planned by HYDRA or Ward or both. He reached behind us and grabbed a messenger bag from the backseat. He slung it over his shoulder and got out of the car.

I nodded not trusting the stability of my voice. I opened the door and planted my feet on the asphalt firmly before I tried to stand up. My knees were wobbly and my thighs were protesting any weight being put on them but I stood. I tried to walk around the front of the car to the room but my right leg gave out and I fell to the ground in a heap.

Ward was at my side in an instant. He scooped me up in my arms and hurried me inside before any bystanders could think about the girl covered in blood. I tried to force myself down but Ward increased the pressure of his fingers on my thigh and that melted any protest I had when the warm sensation his touch always brought increased.

The room wasn't anything fancy, a queen sized bed, a TV and a table with a couple chairs were all that were inside the room. Ward laid me down on the bed and set the bag on the table. My eyes followed him across the room.

His body held no visible tension and his face gave no ideas as to how he was feeling. Why did he look at me like nothing was wrong? He looked at me like nothing ever happened and I was just injured and weakened from what happened from in the cell.

He walked back to me and held out his hand. I took it without question and he gently raised me from the bed. He tugged me to the vanity outside of the bathroom. He gripped my hips firmly and lifted me onto the vanity. Ward stood between my legs. He tugged on my shirt and hefted it over my head.

Ward turned on the faucet and soaked a washcloth under the hot water. He ran it gently over my arms and scrubbed the dried blood off. The cloth quickly turned into a dark shade of red as my arm gained back the olive complexion it usually held.

Once my arms were cleaned he took the washcloth to my neck. The warm cloth was soothing to the aching tension in my body and my eyes fluttered shut at the sensation. I leaned my head into Ward's chest, not caring if I got more blood on his body.

Ward put his fingers under my chin and tilted my head up. My neck protested the movement but I didn't voice any problems. I opened my eyes blearily and saw what etched into Ward's face looked like sadness. The emotion disappeared as soon as he caught my eye. What was he sad about? Did he finally realize I'm a monster? Was he going to leave me? Was he going to kill me?

The cloth started wiping across my face and the warmth was heavenly. I wanted to just close my eyes and go to sleep. Once my face was clean he squeezed the rag in the sink. I turned and saw the blood dripping out of it. A gnawing void started growing in my stomach and my skin felt disturbingly bare.

Ward threw the washcloth in the waste bucket and walked away. He opened the messenger bag and pulled out a roll of clothes. He walked back to me and handed me the clothes.

"I have to go pick up a few things and do a sweep of the area. The hotel's safe. Don't leave." He stressed those last words to me and took off his shirt. My eyes automatically swept over his bare torso. I could see a few bruises forming along his back and upper arms. He must've been beaten pretty badly by the guards when they took us prisoner. He pulled a fresh shirt out of the messenger bag and dressed himself in it.

I hopped off the vanity and walked toward him. "Where are you going?" I asked tentatively.

"I'm just picking up some essentials and dinner for the night. I shouldn't be long, an hour or two tops. Why don't you take a shower and get some rest?" He replied quickly. I could sense the undertone with his request though, he was avoiding the elephant in the room.

"You're not going to ask?" I pushed slowly as I stepped closer to him.

"We can talk about that after you've cleaned up and gotten some half-decent sleep." He dismissed.

Ward walked out of the room and closed the door. I heard a click from the outside and then I remembered, we're in HYDRA city basically. The hotel must've been a prison of sorts. Fairly nice for a prison but I could have slept long enough for Ward to get us to another town.

I walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I stripped out of my jeans and boots and slipped into the shower. The hot water rinsed off the sweat and grime of the past few hours. I couldn't scrub off the disgusting blood I think etched itself into my skin. I wanted to rip my skin off and vomit Raina's heart up, but some part of me was satisfied by the meal I had earlier. I ran my hair under the water and scrubbed the dried blood from my strands.

I wasn't exactly satisfied with it, but I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. I undid the roll of clothes and saw a button up as well as a new pair of jeans and underwear. I dried myself off and put the clothes on. They fit surprisingly well, Ward's had a couple close encounters with my body so figuring out my sizes was probably not very hard.

I walked over to the table and opened the messenger bag again. I see some more clothes but more importantly I see my laptop. I pull it out and turn it on. I checked to see what kind of Intel I got from the server rooms before I was knocked out. The Centipede soldier reports and the encrypted messages that Ward was sending to and from Garrett.

I kept scanning through the data and found that even after I was knocked out and tied up the download continued. I looked through the files and found that I had security footage from the building. I sifted through them and found one of Ward and Raina in a cell. It must've been before she had him moved to the cell I was in.

I clicked the file and it started playing.

/15_May_2014_14:27_P.M.

/Cybertek_Facility_501A

/Interrogation_Room_C

Raina was sitting across from Ward. She had those big sickly childish eyes boring into him. She had her hands clasped on the table. Ward was cuffed to a metal bar in the middle of the table. There was a guard behind him.

Ward was quiet, he wasn't saying anything and neither was Raina. She just kept looking at him with that knowing expression.

"Do you know what she is, Ward?" Raina asked casually. I knew she was talking about me. How did she know anything about me? There was no way that they could've opened that hard drive. It was impossible unless…

"It was by sheer luck that we were able to open that drive. One of the hackers just so happened to try as we got to 35,000 feet." Raina explained. Should've just used a thumbprint scanner.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ward replied numbly. The act of betraying the team then betraying HYDRA must've been taking a toll on him.

"Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time in the Hunan province in China, there was a baby. She was only a few days old. The baby came from a dark place. A Maiden found her by the river one morning and took her home. The baby looked abandoned. The woman took care of the baby and started asking the travelers if they knew of a couple who were missing their child. When none answered she decided that the child was an orphan and decided to care for the baby herself.

"She was wrong to claim the baby an orphan though, because the following morning there was a knock at the Maiden's door. When she opened the door, she saw two men in suits. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, agents who have been looking for the baby for some time. The Maiden refused to hand over the child, claiming that such an innocent one needed a life that would nurture her, not rob her of that innocence.

"The agents decided to stay in the village until the Maiden agreed to let them take the child somewhere safe. In the following hours an entire assortment of agents had gathered in the small village. Some were there to provide support in the case of violence, others were there to attempt negotiations with the Maiden who still refused to relinquish the child even when the agents explained to her that she could be a danger.

"The Maiden's only reply to that was 'how can you blame such a young child for the acts of their parents? A child is born of innocence, not violence or death.' The agents remained in the village despite the Maiden's protests. They changed their mission from acquiring the baby to providing a protective detail for the village.

"They were foolish to think that no one would come for her. The baby's parents entered the village only a day after the agents arrived. They laid siege to the village slaughtering the inhabitants. Blood littered the walls and floors of homes as children's screams filled the air.

"When the monsters got to the Maiden the agents tried to save her. The Maiden refused to let other people's blood be spilled for her and so she finally gave them the baby and told them to run while she distracted the beasts.

"She wasn't able to stall them long enough and the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. was massacred along with the villagers. The agents were able to keep the baby hidden though, among all the blood spilled the monsters were unable to find their baby among the chaos. The child merely slept through the turmoil and anguish of her parents' demonic rampage.

"Agents who were unable to arrive at the village quickly enough were spared the painful deaths of the villagers. Agent Avery was one of them. You know Avery, right, the woman who dropped Skye off of St. Agnes? She took the sleeping baby from the dead agent's arms and fled the village.

"She informed Fury of the massacre and of the child. She didn't know that the baby's parents were the monsters that destroyed the village. Fury redacted all documents pertaining to the child and had Avery place her in the foster care system. She was moved around every few months from foster home to foster home in an effort to keep whoever attacked the village from finding her again.

"Fury didn't think about the monsters finding the agents that helped hide their daughter from them. The agents were killed off one by one but none ever gave away the location of the child. Fury kept the child hidden from the world, even from S.H.I.E.L.D., that's why Coulson doesn't know the significance of the young woman he's taken under his care.

"There's a darkness in her. She has an evil fighting to break out. I see a world where her true nature will be revealed. You have a thing for evil, don't you Ward?"

I saw Ward tense in the video, was she really comparing me to Garrett? I'd never beat someone because they didn't do what I wanted them to or throw them in the woods for years!

"She's not evil. She's the last bit of light in this world. You and HYDRA want to extinguish that light." Ward replied.

"Poetic, but pointless. She's changing, you can't stop that. We found her bloodwork. The drug's waking her up. She's attracted to the darkness in you. She sees the broken spirit that reminds her so much of herself. It's why you don't hurt her when everyone else does." Raina said.

"Her hunger will grow, she may not understand it at first but she will."

"You're delusional." Ward growled.

"No, I just understand what's happening better than you." Raina said as she stood up and the guard undid Ward's bindings and pressed a gun to his temple. Raina left the cell with the guard pushing Ward closely behind her.

/End_of_Tape

I shut the laptop and struggled to get my bearings. How did Raina know about me? How did she know about my parents? None of that was on the hard drive. There's no way she could've known about what I am from just the hard drive. She had to have had access to other things.

She looked at my bloodwork. The same bloodwork that Simmons was studying after I was shot. The same bloodwork that had nothing out of the ordinary. It was human blood with no traces of the GH-325 in it. What did Raina find that Simmons couldn't?

Was this why Ward didn't freak out when I killed Raina? Because he already had suspicions of what I might do? It's not like I've been the most stable person lately. I'm always exhausted and I can't stand being away from him for too long.

I walked away from the table and curled up on the bed with my knees tucked into my chest. I didn't even realize I was crying until the tears were cascading down my face profusely. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to forget what I saw.

I cried myself to sleep while I waited for Ward to come back.