Daisy's POV
"The body of Lewis Seaver was found in the remains of the Santa Maria church fire in Miami," I informed Coulson.
"The fire was this guy, too," he replied.
"Three of the others died of unnatural causes in the last six weeks. This guy is definitely targeting Tahiti patients," I said.
"Is there still a chance?" he asked.
"Two of them are alive. We need to find out which one is the killer. Do you remember anything, any clues?" I prompted Coulson.
He began to shake worse as he went back into his memory.
"It wants me to know! I need to know! I need to know! I need to know!" He suddenly started shouting. "I need to know! No! No! I need to know! I need to know!"
"Get him the hell out of there!" Mack shouted.
"Shut it down! Shut it down!" I ordered Simmons.
"I need to know!" Coulson cried out.
"Sedate him. I'm calling May!" I instructed as I took out my phone.
"Daisy? We have a Ward situation that's about to get really bad for all of us," May said.
"Coulson went into the memory machine," I told her.
"What?!? And you let him?" She exclaimed.
"It wasn't my call," I said.
"Lock him up and keep him under observation until I get back," she advised.
I hung up the phone and went back to Coulson, who was straining against Mack's restraining hands.
"I need to know. I need to know!" He was crying out.
"What did you do to him?" Mack asked the room.
"Just hold him down!" Jemma demanded as she moved in to give Coulson a shot but he was able to break his restraint and push her away.
"Coulson!" I shouted, noticing as everyone turned to me as I held up my gun. "Don't make me use this!"
Mack moved out of the way and Coulson was able to see me pointing my gun at him, and he calmed down and looked at the others as they all panted with exertion and fright.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I spoke to May. She wants us to lock you up until she gets back," I told him.
"I think that's a good idea," he nodded.
*****
"His name was Sebastian Derik. He was an assassin from the dark side of Shield. How many others did you say are still alive?" Coulson asked as we descended the stairs to the containment area we had been keeping Ward.
"Just one, Hank Thompson. He only lives a few hours away from here so I'll send some agents to protect him," I replied. I set down my tablet on the stand next to the chair and punched buttons on it.
"That won't be necessary," said Coulson.
I looked back at him and he shoved me hard into the holding cell. I quickly got up and tried to throw myself out of the room but I was held back by the laser grid that held Ward in place.
"Coulson – I shouted.
"Sorry. I need to take care of him personally," Coulson said.
"Coulson, what are you doing –" I cried out but the rest of my words were cut off when he turned off the speaker for the cell then walked up the stairs. I huffed as I crossed my arms and began pacing.
*****
3rd Person POV
"Has anyone seen Skye?" Jemma asked as she walked into the room where Mack and Fitz were hanging out.
Mack shook his head as Simmons spotted Daisy waving her arms frantically on the monitor.
"Oh, no!" She gasped. Fitz paused the game and looked over at her. "Guys, quick."
They both got up off the couch.
Daisy turned and saw Simmons rushing over to her and tried talking to her but the speaker was still off. Simmons dropped the shield.
"...been? It's about time!" Daisy was saying.
"Coulson did this to you?" Mack asked.
"You think?" Daisy replied sarcastically.
"Is he going after the killer?" Inquired Jemma.
"Not the killer," Daisy answers before hurrying off.
*****
Daisy's POV
"What the hell is Tahiti?" Mack demanded to know as he drove down the road at high speed.
"Uh, Tahiti was designed to revive a fallen Avenger. That's how it got started," I told her as my thoughts instantly went towards the way too attractive for their own good group of superheroes.
"Uh, Captain America, Iron Man – those Avengers?" Mack asked.
"Those are the ones," I confirmed.
"How the hell could Coulson forget that? What, does he have alien blood, too?" I shot him a look but said nothing. I did not like his tone of voice. And after what he had just said I had no intention of letting him find out that I had been injected with the same stuff, or that my DNA was already different from normal humans apparently..."Man, can you imagine that – Shield being run by a man that's part alien?" He added. My frown deepened.
"Yeah, imagine that," I said, glaring out the window. We suddenly stopped the car as we saw the guy we were on our way to see; Thompson, standing in the middle of the street flagging us down, with his wife and son on the side of the road.
"Call the police. There's two guys trying to kill each other. They're out at my place, Thompson welding. It's right down the road," he called out to us.
"All right, stay here. We'll handle this," Mack reassured him before driving off again.
*****
"Let him go, Coulson!" Mack ordered once we had arrived to spot Coulson with Derik in a headlock.
"It's okay! I'm okay now!" He called out, not noticing me sneaking up behind them, my gun drawn.
"That's what you said before you threw me in a cell!" I told him.
"Fair enough, but I'm not trying to kill him! I'm trying to save him," he said.
It appeared to be true, there was enough slack in the rope for Derik to have his hand on it pulling it away from his neck.
"I'm giving you to the count of three, and my gun's real," Mack warned.
"It's here, Daisy. Everything we've been looking for," Coulson said.
"One!" Mack shouted.
"He's not kidding! Let him go!" I exclaimed, not wanting to have to watch Mack shoot Coulson.
"Open your eyes, Derik," Coulson instructed the man in front of him.
"Two!" Mack declared.
"It's just below the surface, like you said. All you have to do is look," Coulson cried out.
"Three!"
I sighed in relief as Coulson let go of the rope and Derik opened his eyes. His breathing was ragged from holding off Coulson but it calmed as he looked down. With a look of awe Derik sunk to his knees in wonder.
"You can put the guns away. He won't hurt anyone now," Coulson commented.
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"He found what he's been looking for...what we've all been looking for," he replied cryptically. I walked to the railing and joined them looking down, my mouth opening with shock. "The final piece."
"I don't believe it," I whispered.
"It's not so much a map as a blueprint. It's a city," Coulson said.
*****
"Sebastian Derik has been turned over to the authorities. He had sins to atone for long before Tahiti ever happened. But...at least he found his peace," Coulson told May and I in his office later. I did my best to keep my mouth shut about how he had even gotten into the Tahiti project in the first place if he had been a known criminal.
"And you?" May asked.
He hit a button on his tablet moving the monitor up showing a big blank wall.
"The compulsion 's gone," he told us.
May sighed as she looked from the blank wall back to Coulson.
"How can you be sure?" She said.
"I can feel it. Whatever's in our blood it was driving us to go to that city, like homing pigeons. Only we couldn't figure out what home was, so it was just driving us mad. Once I had all the pieces...now we just need to figure out why this alien was so hell bent on getting there," he added.
I looked over at May.
"Any news on Ward?"
"We'll find him. In the meantime..." Coulson hit another button on his tablet and brought up the feed from the vault. It's newest resident, Bakshi glared up at the camera then turned his back on it.
"We'll take advantage of his gift, Mr. Bakshi."Coulson grabbed a phone and handed it to me. "Here's his cellphone. See what you can find inside," he instructed. I took the phone and looked down at it then back up to Coulson. "All right, let's get this over with," he said, referring to the fact that we would finally need to fill in all the other agents on what had been going on.
*****
"To answer the question on everyone's mind, no I'm not crazy. I know in the past few months I may have seemed like I was leading you on some fool's errand. Chasing after strange carvings and artifacts. At times, I questioned it myself...wondering if I was chasing windmills, trying to solve some unsolvable puzzle. But the pieces are coming together. The puzzle's taking shape. The bad news, HYDRA's trying to solve the same puzzle, and they have more resources. The good news, we now have a piece they don't have," Coulson informed everyone. He hit a button on a tablet brining up a holographic 3d model of the train building. "Everything we've been doing, it all...leads here." He turned the image onto its side and it now looks like the layout of a city, which everyone stared at it with awe. "Our job, find it before anyone else."
*****
"All right, Mr. Bakshi, I hope you weren't into selfies or this could be embarrassing for both of us," I said to myself as I picked up his phone.
I connected the cellphone to my laptop and went about unlocking it. While I was doing this the phone buzzed with a call. The ID said "Unknown Number". I looked at it a moment contemplating what to do before deciding to answer it.
"Hail HYDRA!" I said into the phone.
"Hey, Daisy," I heard Ward's voice saying.
I stood quickly from the desk and looked around, even though logically I knew he was nowhere near me.
"Where are you?" I demanded to know.
"Just wanted to make sure you got my present," he replied. "I promised him a face to face with Coulson. Probably not exactly what he had in mind. I'll be sending a few other gifts your way now and then," he added.
"Like a cat bringing in dead birds? No thanks!" I hissed at him.
"Just trying to be helpful," he said. "Oh, met the new recruits. I don't think they need to hang around much longer."
"Is that a threat? " I asked.
"Just a suggestion. Coulson could do better. Then again...I am hard to replace," Ward bragged.
"How about you tell me where you are and we can talk about it?" I suggested.
"I have to go now, Daisy. I have a few personal matters to attend to. But I'll be seeing you soon. I promise."