TW for blackmail/threats, mentions of violence, presence of a gun (not fired)
She shouldn't be doing this. She knew it was wrong, but what choice did she have? She had run out of time, run out of options, run out of parachutes and exit strategies and magic wands and anything else that could miraculously fix the obliterated, catastrophic mess that her life had become.
Skye lay in bed, miles and miles from sleep, her stomach twisting and turning like a sour washing machine that couldn't do anything about her dirty laundry. The red glow of the alarm clock that sat on the desk burned into her brain, each flickering number that pulled her closer to midnight twisting like a screw in her heart. She shouldn't do this. She couldn't do this. But there was no other way.
Skye hadn't said a word in the car ride home from the high school, hadn't looked at anyone – not Phil, not Bobbi, not Jemma. The broiling shame of putting them at risk made her skin crawl, and she knew if she looked at them, she might not be strong enough to do what needed to be done to keep them safe. She finished her homework robotically, evaded every prompting question from Phil, avoided Bobbi's intense concern, dodged around Jemma's telepathy that she could tell was trying to find a way into her brain and start rooting around for answers. She didn't talk to May when she came in after work that evening, didn't complain about doing the dishes, didn't want to watch TV with the rest of them after dinner had been eaten and cleaned up.
She knew Phil had told May that something was wrong, and even if he hadn't, she was sure May would have been able to tell. It wasn't like Skye was trying very hard to pretend like everything was fine. Clearly it wasn't, but she could make it fine if she could just make it to midnight and put the whole thing behind them.
The clock blinked from 10:59 to 11:00, and Skye eased herself out of bed as silently as she could. She slid her bare feet down onto the floor and slunk over to her dresser to pull out some clothes. She was going to give herself fifteen minutes to get ready – dress, check for directions on May's computer, load her backpack with the few things she might need for her trip – and then the next 45 to get over to Halifax Park. She was going to meet with her father, beg him to leave her foster family alone, and hopefully, be home before the sun came up. It was all she could think to do.
She had just finished pulling on a sweatshirt over her t-shirt and jeans when a voice popped the silent bubble filling their room and nearly startled Skye out of her skin.
"Skye? Please tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing." The lamp clicked on and Skye winced, turning slowly to see Jemma looking at her with a look of mingled dread and disappointment that made Skye's heart go leaden and clunk down from her chest all the way to her feet.
"Please just go back to sleep, Jemma," Skye begged, her voice barely above a whisper. "This isn't what it looks like."
"Are you sure?" Jemma said doubtfully. "Because it looks like you're sneaking out. It looks like you're…"
"I'm not running away," Skye promised. "I'm not."
Everyone – Phil, May, and even Bobbi had already spoken to her about running in one form or another that night. It was like they could sense that whatever was bothering her was riling her up enough that the possibility of her hightailing it wasn't a totally outlandish one. Phil had been gentle, reminding her that they didn't want to lose her and that he was there if she needed help with something. Bobbi had warned her against a repeat of the Sheboygan incident, reminding her how badly that had turned out and how scared everyone had been. May had been the most direct, asking her outright if she was feeling like taking off. Skye denied it, of course, because technically, it was the truth. She didn't want to leave, and she had every intention of coming back once she had accomplished her mission. That didn't mean she wasn't planning to sneak away for as long as it took, however. That part she kept to herself.
"Well then where are you going? It's the middle of the night."
"I can't tell you," Skye said, guilt making her face grow warm. "It's better if you don't know."
"This is about Raina, isn't it? Whatever she did to you, whatever she said, she's got you thinking you have to slip out like a thief in the night…"
"I don't have time to explain." Skye was trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. "This is really important, okay, Jemma? And it's not just about me. I… I have to do this. To keep you safe."
"What are you talking about?" Jemma's whole face was scrunched up in confusion, and Skye could hear Jemma tapping on the side of her bedframe. Skye let out a huff of agitation and raked her hands through her hair.
"There's something I have to go do, and if I don't do it tonight, something really bad is going to happen, okay? To you and Bobbi and May and Phil. So I have to go, and I don't want you to stop me. I'll be back before morning."
"Why does this sound like Sheboygan all over again?" Jemma frowned. "Skye, please, just tell me what's going on. Let me help."
"You can't help. No one can. I just have to take care of it myself."
"Skye, you tell me right now, or I'm waking up May and Phil." Skye blanched at Jemma's threat, a little shocked that Jemma would resort to something so drastic.
"You wouldn't."
"I would," Jemma said stubbornly. She kicked back her covers and swung herself out of bed. "I'll do it right now."
"Okay, okay, just… just hold on," Skye backpedaled, stepping in front of their closed bedroom door to block Jemma's way. "I'll tell you. Just don't wake them up. Please."
"I'm listening."
"Raina cornered me today, after tutoring. She had my backpack and wouldn't give it back until I talked with her. She was trying to get me to go see—"
"Your father," Jemma realized, her face going pale. "Skye, no."
"I kept telling her I wasn't interested, because I know it's a bad idea. And she tried all her regular tricks, but then she… she got weird. Weirder than usual. It was almost like she was scared. I think she's afraid of him, my dad. And she said he was tired of waiting, and that…" Skye swallowed hard. This was the part she had wanted desperately to keep to herself. She wanted to spare everyone the worry, spare them the feeling that they had to try and help, because there was nothing any of them could do to help. This was her problem alone to fix. The ultimate way for her to make amends for all of the major screwups she'd committed since coming to live here. "She said he would find us. Hurt you all. If I didn't meet with him tonight, he was going to do something terrible. She didn't say what, but I can use my imagination."
"Oh Skye…"
"So I'm going to meet him. I'll talk to him, say hello, and ask him to please leave you guys alone. If he really cares about me as much as Raina says he does, then he'll listen, and you all will be safe."
"Skye, that's a terrible idea."
"Well what else am I supposed to do?" Skye asked hotly. "I can't just ignore him and risk putting you all in danger. I couldn't live with myself if something bad happened to you or Bobbi or May or Phil because of me and my crazy dad. He's obviously scary enough to make Raina do whatever he wants, and we both know he's already been in jail more than once for attacking people. I won't let him hurt you."
"Why not tell May? Or go to the police?" Jemma asked incredulously. "This isn't something a 13-year-old should have to handle. This is the kind of thing that grown-ups take care of, Skye. It's… It's extortion or blackmail or… something. It's illegal."
"What would I say?" Skye shook her head. "A random high school girl who's been telling me stories about the family I've never met – stories that I can't prove are even true – told me that I had to meet a man who might be my father, or else that man – a man who's name I don't actually know, who I don't have a physical description of – would come to my house and attack my foster family. No one in their right mind would believe a kid who came to them with that story."
"May would believe you. She trusts you."
"May would try and fix it herself. She would try and find him or something, but I don't even know if he's real, so who knows if she'd actually track him down. And she wouldn't let me go see him, which would make him mad, which would make him want to come after you even worse."
"But Skye," Jemma said softly, "you can't just go running off to meet with a stranger in the middle of the night. That's not smart, it's not safe. Especially if he's who you think he is, he's dangerous."
"If he's who I think he is, then he's my dad," Skye retorted. "According to Raina, he loves me and wouldn't hurt me. It's just the rest of you he wouldn't hesitate to hurt."
"There has to be some other way…"
"There's not," Skye said flatly. "I've been thinking about it all afternoon, all night. I've been trying to come up with another way, but there's just not. I don't have any other options, and I don't have any more time. I have to go." She turned her back on Jemma then, grabbed the door handle, ready to slip out into the hall before Jemma could try and talk her out of it again.
"I'm coming with you."
"What?" Skye whirled around, dumbfounded. "Jemma, no. That's insane—"
"The whole thing is insane," Jemma pointed out. She was already pulling on clothes of her own, and there was a look of pure determination on her face that Skye had only seen a handful of times. The face of a person who was not about to budge in any way, shape, or form. "You left me behind once before, and that turned out to be a mistake. I'm not letting you go off on your own."
"You can't," Skye gaped. "It's too dangerous."
"That's why I have to come," countered Jemma. "It's too dangerous for you to go alone. At least this way, you'll have backup." She paused, locked her eyes into Skye's, full of pleading and purpose. "You can't leave me behind again, Skye."
Skye didn't say anything for a long time, even though it pained her to think of the wasted seconds ticking by. She really didn't want Jemma to come along and put herself at risk, but she understood where Jemma was coming from, too. And if she was being honest, she didn't hate the idea of not having to face her dad alone. Eventually, Skye resigned herself to the answer, to the fact that there was no way she'd be able to convince Jemma otherwise.
"Okay."
They set to work quickly, Skye instructing Jemma to empty Skye's school things out of her backpack and replace them with supplies like a flashlight, some of the tools out of her computer repair kit, and the map that Skye sketched out after looking up the address of the park on May's computer. Jemma suggested they add in some first aid supplies and snacks, which Skye agreed to, and before long, they were almost ready to go.
"Don't clear the browser history," Jemma interrupted, placing a restraining hand on Skye's wrist before she could delete the search results from May's computer. She tapped a couple of times, probably without thinking, but it was enough to fully capture Skye's attention.
"Why not?" Skye wrinkled up her nose a little in confusion. Covering your tracks was computer-snooping-101.
"If… if something happens," Jemma said carefully, "and we don't make it back in time, this will give May and Phil a clue about where to look for us."
"Something happens like what?"
"I don't know," fretted Jemma. "Anything. We get lost. We get…"
"You mean if we get hurt," Skye realized. "If my dad doesn't let us go or if he tries to hurt us."
"I just think we should leave a trail of some kind."
"Okay," sighed Skye, exiting the browser without clearing the history. "That's actually a pretty smart idea. Not that anything bad is going to happen. That's not the plan. But still, it's…"
"It's good to account for all sorts of contingencies," Jemma finished softly.
"We should go," murmured Skye. She glanced at the clock on the computer before she shut the lid. It was already 11:22. They didn't have much time to walk all the way over to the park. "Last chance to stay back."
"I'm going," Jemma said firmly. "You shouldn't have to do this by yourself."
"You're a really good friend, you know that?" Skye smiled, a small smile, a little sad, a little loving. "The best person I know in the whole world."
Jemma ducked her head, embarrassed, but she smiled too. "We take care of each other. That's what we do."
"That's what we do," Skye echoed.
They crept out of the office and made their way to the front door, where they pulled on shoes and coats. While bulky, noisy coats weren't ideal for a sneaking out mission, the temperatures had been dropping the last few days, and they knew that it would be even colder now, since it was the middle of the night. Skye wasn't interested in having the plan ruined because they froze solid before they could even get to the park, and Jemma probably had the dangers of hypothermia filed away in her brain, ready to call to memory at a moment's notice.
With the skill and care of someone who had opened many a forbidden door in her lifetime, Skye eased the deadbolt on the front door open, going slowly to avoid the thunk that the door usually made when it unlocked.
"Go unlatch the front window, will you?" Skye whispered, pointing in the direction of the large window at the front of the living room. "Undo the lock, but don't actually open it. That way if something happens, if someone wakes up and happens to relock the front door before we get back, we can still sneak back in."
Jemma obliged, tiptoeing across the floor and making barely a sound. For someone who was new to sneaking, Jemma had a knack for it. Skye bit back a smile. Apparently some of her more unsavory skills had rubbed off on Jemma. Bad-girl shenanigans, Jemma would call it, if things weren't quite so somber as they currently were.
Window and door both now unlocked, the pair slipped out the front door and out into the inky darkness of near midnight. The sky was a rich black, with only a few stars visible here and there. The air was thin and cold, and their breath billowed around them as they set out across the front yard and down to the street. Frost had visited the world, apparently, and the ground crunched underneath their sneakers, glittery blades of grass crumbling in their wake. Skye did her best not to think of it as the usual path of destruction she left behind her, but she couldn't quite push the thought out of her mind.
Still, she tried to convince herself, this wasn't impulsive, wrecking-ball Skye that was doing this. This was Skye-with-a-plan, Skye-trying-to-do-the-right-thing, Skye-the-protector. Maybe the plan was a bad one, and maybe she was doing something bad in her attempt to do the right thing, and maybe her attempts to protect her foster family would fall short, but if she had learned anything from her time with Phil and May, it was that she at least had to try. The important thing was to try, and that's exactly what she intended to do.
They didn't talk much as they started walking down the sidewalk, illuminated by the yellow glow of sporadic streetlights and a weak, half-full moon. Skye couldn't say for sure what was going on in Jemma's head, but if it was anything like the hamster wheel that was churning in her own brain, then she was probably running over as many possible outcomes as she could think of, trying to calm her nerves and keep herself from turning back. The faint sound of tapping drifted into the frosty air, and Skye felt her heartbeat slow a little to keep time with the tap-tap-tap of Jemma's rhythm. As selfish as it was, she was glad Jemma was with her.
The journey through the winding streets of Manitowoc was slow going. Mostly they followed the path towards school that Phil drove nearly every morning, but a few times they had to stop and consult Skye's chicken-scratch map.
"I should have let you make the map," Skye said, puffing on her frozen fingers as she squinted at the lines crisscrossing over her sketch. "This doesn't make any sense."
"Th-that's supposed to say 'Bedlington,' right?" Jemma asked through chattering teeth. She pointed to a section of the map where Skye had written what looked like 'Bledginton' and Skye frowned.
"I guess."
"We just passed Bedlington," Jemma informed her, inclining her head back towards the street they had just crossed a few minutes ago. "So I think we're nearly there."
"That's good."
"If we're on the right track, then the next street should be Copeland, and then Halifax."
They were on the right track, as it turned out, and they passed Copeland and turned onto Halifax, just as Jemma said they would. After a few minutes, a wide space opened up between the houses, and the park came into view. Raina had been right; it was impossible to miss. Quickly, Skye scanned the lot and took in their surroundings. Lampposts lined a winding path that cut through the middle of the park. On one side was a playground and a basketball court, and off to the other was an open field. Trees populated most of the perimeter of the park, which Skye figured could block the view from the street if a person knew the right places to stand. She wondered briefly if that was why her father had picked this meeting spot.
"Do you see a picnic shelter?" she asked nervously. She hadn't spotted any movement or signs that another person was there at the park with them, but she knew that didn't mean he wasn't already here. She didn't want to be surprised by him.
"There." Jemma pointed, and Skye followed her line of sight to a tucked-away section near the back of the park, just off the path to the left. "Is that where we're going?"
"Think so."
Even though her stomach was flip-flopping like a frog trying out for the Olympics, Skye forced herself to take a steadying breath and start heading in, away from the brighter lights on the street, into the foliage and shadows, closer and closer to her father. She was more than a little afraid – she wasn't too proud to admit that – but there was something else that was flashing through her veins, causing her pulse to quicken. At this very minute she was probably closer to her father, her family, than she'd ever been. All her life, she had been looking for one thing, and now, despite the crummy circumstances, she was about to find it. As terrified as she was about what she was going to find, the fact that she was going to find something – a real, live person who had been looking for her, who wanted to meet her, who wanted her… well, she would have been lying if she said it didn't turn her blood to lightning with the anticipation of it all.
She wasn't stupid, she knew that things could turn sour in an instant, that she had to be careful, that the outcome might not be the one she had dreamt of, the wild imaginings of belonging that she crafted in the dark of night and cradled in the most secret place of her heart. But still, hope was a powerful, toxic thing.
"Should we… sit?" Jemma asked uncertainly, once they had reached the picnic shelter. A couple of picnic tables sat on a concrete slab under a metal roof.
"I guess so." Skye perched on the edge of a bench, straining her eyes against the dark, scanning for signs of life. Jemma sank slowly next to her and tapped anxiously on the wood of the picnic table.
"How long do you think we ought to wait?" murmured Jemma after a few minutes had ticked by. Skye shrugged, blew on her hands again. It had to be well below freezing by now.
"I don't know what time it is. I was supposed to be here at midnight, but I have no idea if we're late, or early, or—"
"My god," a man's voice said behind them. Skye jumped, and beside her, Jemma gasped at the sudden noise. "Look at you."
Skye leapt to her feet and turned to see a white man with a shaggy mop of brown hair, maybe the same age as Phil. He was wearing a baggy brown suit, a crooked tie, and an equally crooked smile. Something about him made the little feeling in the back of Skye's mind start working overtime, but she couldn't put a finger on it.
"Are you… are you Cal?" she asked. Without thinking, she slipped her hand into Jemma's and squeezed tight.
"I… yes," he said, blinking hard. "That's me, I'm… And you're… well, I'd recognize… You know, I wasn't sure you were coming."
"I didn't really have a choice. Raina made that pretty clear."
"I should probably apologize for Raina," he smiled awkwardly. "She's very good at what she does, but she's not the cuddliest person you'll ever meet. I should apologize for the out of the way meeting spot, too, I suppose. For a lot of things, really." He paused, stared long and hard at Skye and took a deep breath, like he was steeling himself. "Wow, you're… I'm sorry, I just… I've been waiting a long time, and… well, it's really you, isn't it?" He took a step towards her, and Skye instinctively took her own step back, pulling Jemma along with her. The man's face fell a little, and a muscle jumped in his cheek, but he stopped moving. "Sorry," he said again.
"What exactly do you want from me?" Skye asked sharply, locking her eyes onto his pale brown ones. If he was going to do anything sudden, his eyes would telegraph it first. The man, Cal, she supposed, laughed, startling her and Jemma.
"Such a spitfire," he chuckled. Just like a key in a lock, the word caught in Skye's brain and unlatched the thing that she hadn't been able to place before. Like a thunderclap, she realized—
"I know you. I've seen you before. At the hospital, in Sheboygan."
Cal's face lit up and he grinned. "Oh, you remember that? That was such a topsy-turvy day, wasn't it? Of course, you probably didn't recognize me then, but I… well, I saw you and I just knew. A father always knows, don't you think? And I couldn't help myself. I'd wanted to talk to you for so many years. Not exactly a cinematic first encounter, but kind of funny, when you think about it…"
"You were there with your friend," Skye remembered. "The one who got stabbed. Were you the one that did that to him?"
"Minor work disagreement," Cal said with a wave of his hand. "He survived, no harm done in the end."
"Skye, what's going on?" Jemma whispered. Her breaths were verging on panicky, and Skye could feel her fingers tapping against the back of her own hand, out of Cal's sight. The question must have caught his attention, though, because he looked over and seemed to register Jemma's presence for the first time.
"You brought a friend," he announced to no one in particular. "I suppose that's fine. I mean, I wish our first real introduction could have been a little more private, but this doesn't ruin too many things. She's got your name wrong, though."
"What?" Skye asked, before she could stop herself.
"Your name," Cal repeated. "Maybe you didn't know – well, how could you? – you're Daisy. My Daisy."
Something sharp lodged in the back of Skye's throat. She thought back to the flower that Raina had doodled on the back of her hand, to the birth certificate that she and May had looked at bearing the name Daisy Johnson. None of it had felt real, but now…
"Daisy," she said numbly. Cal grinned again.
"Sounds good, doesn't it? Your mother—" his voice snagged for a second before he cleared his throat harshly. "She picked it out. And Louise, that was my mother's name. Daisy Louise."
"My mother? Do you… is she coming, too?"
"I can't, um…" Cal squeezed his eyes shut for a second, inhaled deeply through his nose. "We'll get to her. We'll talk about her. Just not yet."
"I… I can't stay long," Skye told him. Jemma's grip on her hand tightened, and Skye could feel her shivering. Whether that was from fear or bitter cold was anyone's guess. "I just came to meet you, like Raina said, like you asked. My foster parents… they'll notice if we're gone too long." Something cloudy cascaded over Cal's face for a moment, something sinister and stormy, but he quickly caught himself and rearranged his expression back into the crooked grin that Skye was starting to find a little unsettling. One of his hands wandered to the hip of his slacks, like he was checking his pockets to make sure something was still there. His hands never actually disappeared from view, though, so Skye didn't think there was anything to worry about just yet.
"Do you know, I've been waiting for this for thirteen years," he started to say. He took another deep breath and the smile stiffened. "This was supposed to be a great reunion. I've thought about it so many times. You can't just say hello and dash away… there are so many things we're going to do together." He tried to take a step towards her again, and Skye retreated once more.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"I… I know this is all probably terribly overwhelming and new. I mean, it's our big day. Night. There's a lot we have to talk about, lost time to make up for, and I promise, we'll get to it all," he said eagerly. "You don't have to be afraid, though. I'm just so happy to finally see you up close, talk with you. There's nothing to worry about."
"What about my foster family?" Skye asked carefully. She didn't want to upset him, or make him remember the threat Raina had delivered on his behalf, but she needed to make sure she accomplished the one thing she had come here to do. "Do I have to worry about them? Raina said you would hurt them if I didn't come tonight."
"Did she?" Cal laughed. It was a stunted kind of laugh, almost the barking yelp of a seal. It didn't sound very natural, like he didn't laugh very often. "Well, I mean, I certainly could. That's true. But you're here. You came, held up your end of the bargain, didn't you? So I guess that means I'm at least not going to have to go and get you from there myself, am I?"
Skye didn't say anything to that. She wasn't sure how serious he was being. He was still wearing the big grin, like he was just playing around, but every cell in her body, every muscle and bone, was telling her not to trust him. Something about him – she wasn't even sure what, his voice maybe, or his eyes, or the fact that his hands kept checking his pockets – told her that the line between where his jokes stopped and the danger started was impossibly thin.
"Is that… is that why you came?" he asked abruptly, cocking his head to one side. He looked almost sad. "Not to meet me, but to…"
"Yes," Skye told him. She tried hard to make her voice firm, keep the nervous tremble out of it. Lying didn't seem like a smart choice right now. "Well, sort of. I did come to meet you. I… I've been looking for you, too. But mostly I came to tell you to leave my foster family alone. I know what you've done and I know what Raina said you could do, so I'm asking you to please leave them alone. They… they don't deserve to be hurt. I'll do what you want, but you have to promise not to hurt them, okay?"
"Skye," Jemma hissed, tightening her grip on Skye's wrist. "You can't just do whatever he wants."
"Her name is Daisy," Cal said coolly. "And Daisy can do whatever she likes. She doesn't have to listen to you. She said she wants to do what I want. Which is great," he added, smiling again. "Because I have so many things I want us to do. So many things I want to say to you, to tell you."
"Promise," Skye instructed. She glared hard into Cal's eyes. "Promise me."
"Sure," Cal agreed. "As long as I've got you, I don't really care one way or the other about those people. They're random. Insignificant. I won't lay a hand on them."
"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" Skye asked. She still hadn't dropped Cal's gaze. "How do I know you're not just making all this stuff up?"
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of lying to you, Daisy." He tried once again to take a step towards her, and this time, Skye didn't move. "No, I could never do that. But I suppose you'll have to trust me."
"I don't know you," she pointed out.
"Such a shame, too." He shook his head. "But we're going to fix all that, aren't we? We'll get to know each other, put our family back together. It's going to be the best day ever. We should get going soon, though. It's freezing out here."
"Going?"
"Well, we can't just stand out here in the dark and cold, now can we?"
"That wasn't the deal," Skye frowned. "I thought I was just supposed to come and meet you. Raina never said anything about—"
"I'll get you back where you need to be in plenty of time," Cal said quickly. "This isn't a good place to talk. Too out in the open. Much too cold. Your friend is shivering. I have a place, not too far from here. We can go and warm up there, chat, catch up. It'll be like a fun little field trip."
"We're fine right here."
"You said you'd do what I wanted, Daisy. This is what I want."
"Well, what you want sounds like a bad idea," Skye said stubbornly. She knew that she had told Cal she'd play along, but that was before she knew he wanted to take her somewhere else. Even she knew that was one of the worst decisions she could make right now. "I'm not going with you. We can stay and talk here, or I'm going home."
Cal winced, something almost like anger contorting his features momentarily before shifting into a pained, apologetic expression. "Please don't make this difficult, Daisy. I didn't want to do this the ugly way. I wanted you to like me."
"I'll like you fine if we can just stay here."
"I'm afraid that's really not a choice." His hand disappeared into his pocket, and instinctively Skye moved out of his reach, pulling Jemma along and maneuvering her so that Skye's body was now resolutely in between her and Cal. Skye's muscles tensed, ready to run at whatever he was about to pull out – a knife, something to tie them up, maybe. She had agreed to cooperate with him, true, but she was more than ready to go back on that promise if things went too far, which is exactly the direction she feared they were headed.
He extracted his hand from his pocket, and in it was cradled a gun. Skye's blood ran to ice. Moonlight glinted off the cold, sinister steel and she was filled with sickening dread. She couldn't run from a gun, and Cal knew it.
"I don't really like guns," he said quietly, tilting the weapon back and forth in his hand, examining it with a morbid curiosity. "They're a little too loud, too messy and uncivilized for my taste. But you have to admit they have a certain kind of power about them, don't they? It's amazing how much influence you wield with one of these in your hand."
"Please," Skye begged. Her hands trembled as she raised them up in surrender. "Please don't hurt us."
"I'd never hurt you, Daisy." He blinked, looked a little sad. "And I don't want to hurt your friend, but we all have to do things we'd rather not do sometimes. We all have to make sacrifices to get what we want." The sadness was gone, replaced with the blank expressionless of a man who meant business.
He pulled back the hammer, and the click as the gun cocked rang in Skye's ears. Every nerve in her body was thrumming, supercharged with electric fear and adrenaline. She didn't want to go with him, knew that it was the worst thing she could do, but her options were beyond limited. They were narrowed down to a single point, the barrel of the gun. He might not be willing to shoot her, but he seemed far too blasé about Jemma's fate for Skye to even think about doing something reckless. The whole point in her coming out here in the first place was to keep Jemma and the others safe. She was in too deep now to risk the original mission. She had to complete her objective.
"Okay," she whispered. "I'll go. Please just put the gun down. I'll go with you."
"Skye, no—"
"That's the spirit," he grinned. It was that stiff, plasticky grin from before. He didn't lower the weapon.
"Let Jemma leave, let her go, and I'll come with you. I'll do whatever you want."
"Oh no," Cal chuckled with a shake of his head. "No, she's coming too. I can't have her running home and telling on us. She'd lead them right to us, and then we'd never have time to do all the things I have planned."
It felt like someone had stuffed a wad of cotton balls in Skye's mouth. "What? No…"
"Come on, girls, time's a-wasting," he chirped, gesturing with the gun that they should follow him. "My van's just over here."
With leaden steps, Skye and Jemma tailed him dutifully. Skye kept her eyes ahead, watching Cal and not looking at Jemma. If she looked at Jemma, the guilt and the fear would crash over her and she would probably start crying. She knew that wouldn't help anything, so she settled for keeping her fingers locked up in Jemma's, for feeling the rapid fluttery tap of Jemma's finger on the back of her hand.
Something tugged on Skye's backpack, making the straps cut into her shoulders. "Jemma, what—?" She twisted her head around to see Jemma tugging her keychain, the one Bobbi had made with the letters S-K-Y-E on it, off of the zipper with her free hand. Surreptitiously, Jemma lowered the now free keychain and dropped it to the ground behind them.
"They'll know we were here," she breathed, her voice shaky but her tone sure. "They'll find it and they'll know we were here. Then they'll find us."
"They'll find us," Skye echoed softly. "God, I hope they find us."
Hello :) I'm glad you're here! Fair warning, the next chapters are a bit more intense than usual, but it's also a very eventful series, so hopefully that will help balance things out! Thank you all so much for reading, leaving such incredibly kind reviews, and sharing cyberspace with me :)
(Oh, also, to Jingles7576, who I couldn't write directly to - good catch! The 'gum in the gears' line from last time was absolutely a WandaVision reference ;) I enjoyed that show -and now TFatWS, too- very much! Anybody else been watching the new Marvel shows?)