Side by side || Emily Prentiss

19.

"We were not lucky, I was good. I know how to do my job and for the second time there is no one among you who has better skills than me in this case." - Daisy said, looking at her defiantly

"Don't talk about it anymore Johnson, it's out discussion."

Emily had used Daisy's last name; that was the sign to all the other profilers that for the umpteenth time, whatever the nature of their relationship was, it had tilted again and the two women were once again at open war with each other.

"I don't feel like begging you and convincing you. When you realize you have no better options you'll let me know."

"We actually can't send you in without having more information about the cult. We can't actually rule out the possibility that Cassidy's call for help was also wanted by Francis. We definitely need to investigate first." - JJ said, getting a knowing and grateful look from Emily

"Penelope, dig into every corner of the web, find me information about this man and this cult. Rossi, you are in charge of the negotiations. Luke and Tara, you try to gather information in the city, and you are under my surveillance." - said Emily turning lastly to Daisy

The young agent, however, was right, the team had been working for twenty-eight hours to find out more and to negotiate with Francis and all they had managed to discover was that man strongly believed that capitalism was the evil of the world and that he had created his own small community of illustrious minds, totally self-sufficient, to escape from that evil through the word of God and Christ .

All the negotiation techniques Rossi tried had failed because Francis was particularly determined to get an agent into his facility and every time he realized that Dave wouldn't send him one he would cut the profiler off, refusing to respond for hours.

By the twenty-ninth hour they had only spoken to Francis six times and were running out of resources. Emily was forced to give in and Daisy was sent inside the sect, microphoned, unanimously considered the most suitable among them to infiltrate.

"Welcome agent, what should I call you?" - the man told her, pointing a gun at her head, after quickly letting her in and closing the door behind them

"Daisy, Daisy Johnson and I would love if you would put it there." - said Daisy, pointing at the gun fold, without explicitly referring to the gun so as not to immediately alarm the others and Emily and to try to establish an initial relationship of trust with Francis: she had not communicated to the outside that they were armed inside.

"Why are you an infidel?" - said the man placing the gun in the holster on his waist and motioning for her to follow him inside the building

"We are all infidels here, Francis." - Daisy replied as the man led her into a kitchen and invited her to sit at the table

"You are very wrong, I cannot help but be faithful, as are many of the people who live here with me. How can you not believe the word of Christ?" - that sentence made Daisy understood that he was killing for suspected infidelity to his beliefs

"Let's talk about it, do you know the commandments?"

"You will have no other God before me." - the man began to recite, almost offended by the agent's insinuation

"This one often made me think. In my life I met different people, who came from the East, and said that basically it was the same. They believed in another God, different from yours, but they never hurt me." - said the young agent, keeping an eye on Francis' soldiers: three men pointing machine guns at her

There wasn't one positive aspect of the place that Daisy had been able to grasp: there were no clocks, so she would never know how long she was in there, there were heavily armed men threatening her safety and there was an intense stench of death in the air, which gave her a headache and nausea.