Connecting two new monitors to her laptop should have been an easy task, but Skye found her fingers fumbling with the cords. Her concentration was shaken by the presence, in the Cage, of a certain leather-jacket-clad fellow agent who was slumped on the fold-down seat, leaning his head back against the wall with his eyes closed.
When May and Hunter had brought the monitors in, May had informed Skye that Hunter would be remaining there until after May had gotten the Bus into the air. Apparently Coulson trusted him enough - or needed him desperately enough - to send him after Raina, but not enough to allow him free rein on the Bus while May was occupied with taking off and landing.
Agent May had slipped Skye an ICER, just in case, which now lay on the table next to her laptop. Skye could hardly look at it.
Her gaze flickered over to Hunter for what felt like the millionth time in the last five minutes as she tried to sort through the confusion in her heart and mind.
Watching constantly for signs of betrayal was a habit she had let die a few months after Providence. You could only expect people to turn on you at any moment for so long before you became a stark raving paranoid psychopath. Bobbi and Mack's apparent defection was resurrecting all those old fears, sending tingles of alarm through her body. But somehow she just couldn't make her brain reconcile the alarm with the guy who'd been bringing her smoothies and dorky comedies and generally saving her sanity for the last four weeks.
Of course, she hadn't been able, at first, to reconcile Ward's treachery with what she thought she knew of him. She couldn't put nearly as much faith in her intuition as she used to. Not in this world.
Skye took a slow, deliberate breath, willing her heart rate to stabilize.
If he was in on Bobbi's plan, I can't trust him. Our friendship could have been just a cover, everything he's done just a show to win our confidence. It may not be a body in the rafters this time, but it's a betrayal.
Skye's stomach churned as the image of Eric Koenig's pale face flashed into her mind's eye. She shoved it away, blinking back tears.
But if he didn't know, then he just got betrayed more deeply than any of us.
The thought made her heart ache for him.
The tug of war between empathy and suspicion was making her dizzy.
Hunter rubbed his face with both hands, then dragged his hands down his face, leaning forward to rest his chin on his fists. "This place looks bigger from the inside," he cracked feebly, surveying the interior of the Cage.
Skye's smile was more forced than genuine. "Yeah, well, it starts to feel pretty small after a while."
He nodded and fell silent.
Skye's instinctive compassion momentarily overwhelmed her guardedness. "How are you holding up?" she asked quietly.
"Crappy," he answered dryly. "But you already knew that." His eyes met hers, and she saw in them a muddle of pain and firm resolve.
If he wasn't ripped up over this, he was a good actor.
Hunter's gaze flicked briefly to the ICER on the table before returning to her. Skye was overcome by a surge of self-conscious guilt, though it was still tempered with wariness. She knitted her eyebrows together, torn between apologizing for and justifying the presence of the sidearm.
Her ambivalence must have been clear. "It's okay," Hunter sighed with resignation. "I understand how all of this looks."
Bad. It looked bad. Skye broke eye contact, looking away as her heart twisted painfully. She just couldn't handle any more betrayal, any more loss, any more of the people she trusted and needed being exposed as false, as people against whom she had to defend herself. Somehow, the uncertainty of this situation made it even worse.
She couldn't keep herself from asking. She needed to know what he would say, even if she couldn't fully trust the answer.
"Did you know?" She watched him closely, reading his reaction with a critical eye.
"No." Hunter met her gaze frankly, giving her no sign that he was being evasive. "She never brought me in on her plans."
Skye really wanted to believe him.
The low rumble of the engines started up, and May's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Prepare for takeoff."
Hunter scooted to one side of the fold-down seat and nodded toward the space next to him. Skye swallowed hard, palming the ICER and coming over to join him, and they both buckled in. Skye's tight grip on the pistol, held out of Hunter's reach, felt like she was holding on for dear life.
She shot a sidelong glance at him. He had his elbows on his knees again, face buried in his hands, rubbing his temples with both thumbs.
"Were you two still together?" she asked quietly.
His reply was muffled by his hands. "Until last night."
Skye closed her eyes against the bitterness in his voice. Almost without thinking, she lifted her free hand and placed it on his back, rubbing gently to comfort him.
"I'm sorry," she murmured.
Hunter looked over at her with surprise, eyebrows lifting. "You're not assuming the worst of me?"
Skye shook her head, just barely. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "But if the worst isn't true, then it sucks to be you right now."
Hunter let out a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah."
They sat there in silence as the Bus reached altitude and leveled out. After a few minutes, they heard the beep, beep, beep, beep, beep - scrape of the door unlocking, and Agent May came in.
She quickly took in the scene - the two of them sitting on the fold-down seat, Skye's comforting hand on Hunter's back, her other hand still clutching the ICER. "Come on," May said curtly, but not unkindly, to Hunter.
Hunter unbuckled and stood up, and Skye wasn't far behind. She handed the ICER to Agent May, who studied her thoughtfully for a moment before giving her an approving nod. Skye exchanged a quick, sympathetic glance with Hunter before turning back to her computer setup.
It was time to get to work.
"Ok, here's what we know," Skye began matter-of-factly, pulling up aerial surveillance on her second screen and, by extension, the screen in the Command Center. "Raina popped up on the security camera in the lobby of a cheap motel in Florida at about 0700 local time. She seems to have checked in and hasn't been seen coming through the lobby since. Satellite surveillance doesn't show anyone leaving out the back or side doors, so we're assuming she's still in there."
Skye paused and had to hold in a wry grin. May and Hunter were standing side by side in the Command Center with their arms crossed, like SHIELD agent bookends. They hadn't seemed to notice their identical postures.
A twinge of anxiety passed through her. She hoped Hunter's status as a SHIELD agent wouldn't be changing when they returned to base.
May's question brought her back to the business at hand. "Can we see the security camera footage?"
"Absolutely." Skye queued it up on her third monitor, and the footage popped up on the Command Center screen next to the live feed from the Cage. "So, here's the lobby - and that's her coming in."
They saw a figure, swathed almost head to toe in dark fabric, enter through the front door and approach the broad front desk.
"The woman in the head scarf and veil?" Hunter asked, perplexed.
"Yes," Skye affirmed. "For reasons that will become obvious in just a moment. See, she's checking in..."
They watched as Raina, with gloved hands, exchanged cash for a room key, then nodded to the hotel staff and walked over closer to the security camera. With her back to the desk, she briefly removed the veil from her face, glancing up at the camera through her lashes, before replacing the veil and disappearing down the hallway.
Skye heard a sharp intake of breath from Hunter as Raina's face was revealed. "Bloody hell," he murmured quietly. "Mack wasn't kidding."
May's eyes were a little wider than usual, but her expression was as unruffled as ever.
Skye pursed her lips in agreement. "She's definitely different from what she used to be." Skye shivered, and a faint, brief rattling sound accompanied the release of vibrations. Raina wasn't the only one.
"Do we know anything about her transformation?" May inquired, watching the footage shrewdly as it played over again. Her eyebrows were furrowed.
Skye shook her head. "Other than the obvious, no. And Fitz and Simmons wanted to make sure we knew that we could be walking into a situation that's more dangerous than we expect."
"Great," Hunter muttered under his breath, wincing apologetically when May shot him a disapproving glare. Clearly, he was trying to be on his best behavior. He nodded toward the screen, where the security footage was still playing on loop. "That whole removing-the-veil-and-glancing-up act certainly looks deliberate, doesn't it? As if she wants to be found."
May frowned. "It definitely looks that way."
"Maybe she's in trouble?" Skye theorized.
"Maybe she's signaling Hydra," Hunter countered grimly. "Surely we're not the only ones hacking closed-circuit security cameras looking for her."
May pressed her lips together solemnly. "All right," she summarized after a moment. "We'll need one agent inside and one outside, in case she tries to bolt. We'll both go in with ICERs hot, and I'll have the M&P as a backup in case a lethal option becomes necessary." Her eyes lingered meaningfully on Hunter for a moment, conveying clearly that Raina wasn't the only threat she was considering.
Hunter absorbed the implication dispassionately. "Are we going in with body cameras?" he asked lightly.
May nodded.
"Makes sense," Hunter said with a shrug. "Skye can quarterback everything that way." They could keep an eye on him that way, too.
"I'm going to want a camera up high," Skye added, pulling up the overhead image of the motel with a few keystrokes. "There's a tall building across the street with a good view of the back and side exits."
"Done," May said crisply. "One of us will need to be in the empty lot behind the building," she said, looking at Hunter. "The other will need a good story."
"I've got a good story," Hunter murmured, fumbling in his jacket pocket and pulling out a silver-colored wedding band.
Skye gasped quietly and bit her lip, trying to hide her reaction as her eyes flew empathetically to his. He keeps his wedding ring in his jacket pocket?
Hunter glanced up at her and brushed it off. "It comes in handy sometimes," he said offhandedly.
Skye heard the crunching of gravel underfoot as Hunter trod through the parking lot toward the motel.
"This place is a dive," he assessed, and Skye, viewing the façade through his camera, agreed.
"It's a strategic location," May's voice crackled through the comms. "Edge of town, deserted neighborhood, inexpensive." Her camera feed showed that she had almost finished descending the stairs in the adjacent building from placing the high camera. "Probably disreputable, so nobody's asking questions."
"Well, I'm gonna go ask questions," Hunter muttered.
"There are two floors, sixteen rooms in all," Skye informed him quietly. "We just need a room number and we can work from there."
"I'm in position across the street," May checked in.
"Guess that means I'm up." Hunter's camera began drawing closer to the front door of the dilapidated establishment. Skye was as always impressed with the camera's image resolution: she could clearly see the paint chipping off the motel's siding.
The door creaked as Hunter opened it, and his camera took a moment to adjust to the dim lighting inside. Skye glanced briefly at her other monitor, where Hunter was entering the frame on the live security camera feed.
Behind the front desk, a shortish, rotund man with a scruffy dark beard and heavy eyebrows was squinting at Hunter. The former merc crossed the small lobby with confident steps.
"Hello there, mate," he opened amiably, resting one hand on the countertop so that his ring was in full view. "Rick, is it? Look, my wife and I had a terrible argument, and she walked out on me, and I'm trying to find her so I can make it up to her. One of her friends called me this morning and said she had got a room here. She's about yea tall, gorgeous hazel eyes, very traditional - usually wears a headscarf and veil in public."
The man behind the counter eyed Hunter skeptically.
Hunter had a great fake self-deprecating laugh. "I know - odd couple, right?" He paused for a beat. "But I miss her like hell, and I really would love it if you could help me find her."
The man frowned sullenly, furrowing those heavy eyebrows. "I can't tell you anything. Confidentiality."
"I get it, I get it," Hunter replied mildly. "What if I were to offer to make it worth your while?" He flashed a couple of hundred-dollar bills. Where he'd gotten them, Skye had no idea.
Rick's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He eyed Hunter suspiciously, then reached out to take the money. "Room 105."
Hunter sounded genuinely pleased. "Thanks, mate."
"105 is the northwest corner of the ground floor, May," Skye hissed. "You should be able to cover the windows and the building's back door at the same time."
"Convenient," May said dryly, and Skye watched her move across the street and into a clump of bushes. Leaves obscured Skye's view. "I'm in position."
"A bit too convenient, if you ask me," Hunter murmured under his breath, making his way down the hall. Skye saw him pull out his ICER once he was out of eyeshot of the lobby.
The hallway was windowless, dimly lit, and deserted. Cautiously, Hunter approached the door marked 105.
"I'll try to smoke her out," he said quietly, and rapped gently on the door. "Housekeeping!" he called out, in a hideous imitation of a southern accent.
"Subtle," Skye muttered.
"She knows my voice," he whispered, as close to a whine as a whisper could be. "I had to do something different."
They all waited. There was no answer at the door.
"No movement outside," May reported.
"Nothing from overhead," confirmed Skye.
"I'm going in," Hunter informed them. Skye watched as he stashed his ICER, pulled out a couple of tools, and quietly jimmied the lock. The door just clicked open as he got the ICER back into his hands.
At first, Skye saw nothing but an empty room. Hunter pushed the door shut behind him and cleared the corners and the bathroom before manually tilting the camera down toward the floor.
Skye saw a ragged hole cut through the carpet, floor, and subfloor, extending down into darkness.
"I'd say she knew we were coming," Hunter observed ironically.
"May, there's a hole in the floor and an empty room," Skye reported.
"All the way to the sewer," Hunter clarified, pointing his gun and flashlight down the hole.
Skye immediately began pulling up the plan of the city's sewer system to find where that tunnel emptied out. She was too absorbed with that to watch as Hunter examined the rest of the room.
"Skye," she heard him say quietly.
Her gaze flicked over to his camera feed, and her breath caught.
"I'd say she knew we were coming," Hunter repeated.
Propped up on the bathroom counter was a folded piece of paper with a single word written in beautiful, curving penmanship on the front:
Skye