The music was loud. It was at that level of loudness where you can barely discern what the lyrics are, but you can feel the beat in your bones. It was jam packed with people: people who were sweaty, drunk, and different degrees of high. It was dark and certainly not small. It was awkwardly lit with random colored lighting here and there and some red illuminated lights by the bars. It had multiple floors, the first being the dance floor, the others being small distinctive balcony areas. It was a club, and Ward deeply hated clubs. He dreaded any time in which a mission involved being in or around a club. There were too many uncontrollable factors- too many intoxicated people who had no common sense to not get mixed up in what clearly looks to be trouble. Missions in clubs always seemed to end less than perfect one way or another and this one appeared to be no exception to Ward so far.

Ward scoured the club for his Rookie. They had lost Skye on comms about thirty minutes ago. She had gone in alone to see if she could meet the dealer of some supposed alien blood laced drugs that were killing people left and right. Coulson felt confident Skye could get the job done alone, so Ward and Fitz went as backup and tech support while everyone else stayed on the bus and helped from there. As Ward pushed past countless numbers of people he began to wonder if Coulson's judgment in letting Skye go in alone was right. He had started looking fifteen minutes ago, but has not yet found her. Worry was beginning to set in, as he wondered if the mission was completely blown and something had happened to Skye. However, Ward tried to push these thoughts out of his head and be realistic. Skye could have been bumped in the crowd and her earpiece lost and trampled by god knows how many people. Maybe there was just a loose wire and her mic portion was just defective. Maybe he just couldn't find Skye because this place was the hottest and most well-known club in Austin and on a Friday night it was filled to capacity with a huge number of people. Ward shuffled his way over to the bar and squeezed his way in between two girls sitting on barstools. He motioned to the bartender, and the bartender quickly came over eager to help his next costumer.

"Have you seen this girl?" Ward yells to the bartender showing him a picture of Skye on his phone.

"Dude do you think I remember every girl that comes up to my bar? They all look about the same to me anyways." He yells back.

Ward lets out a defeated breath and turns around and heads back into the crowd, but no before getting his butt squeezed by both girls he was next to at the bar. Yet another reason Ward hated clubs. Everyone was so outwardly touchy and he did not like that.

Ward checked his watch. Fifteen more minutes had gone past, and he still had no location on Skye. He decided to update Fitz and tell him to alert Coulson.

"Fitz?"

"Ward? Did you find her? Cause I don't see anything on the cameras. The lighting is so bad, every girl pretty much just looks the same."

"Negative. I have not found Skye yet. I want you to patch in Coulson and see what he wants to do with the mission. I am going to keep looking for her."

"Will do Ward."

With that there small communication ends and Ward continues to look. He tries two of the five balconies, but she isn't in either. He heads back into the mosh pit of crowd that is the center of the club, hoping to see her as he makes his way over to the other balconies. As Ward pushes his way through the slew of people, Coulson's voice comes over his earpiece.

"Agent Ward?"

"Yes sir?"

"Fitz says you have lost comms with Skye and cannot get a pin point on her location?"

"Yes that is correct sir. We are just about reaching an hour without any word from her. Do you want us to continue the mission or look for her instead?"

"Agent Ward you can go back to the van, give Skye another hour to complete the mission. Fitz says he is pretty sure she has not left the club yet so most likely her comm is just not working. If she doesn't come back to the van within the hour like she is supposed to you can call of the mission and we will go from there."

"Yes sir. I will head back to the van now."

Ward clicks he comm off and makes his way out of the club with an offsetting feeling in his stomach. Something just did not feel right about the situation.

He climbed back into the van with Fitz and monitored the cameras with an intense fixation.

The hour felt like one of the longest in his life. He hated the waiting, but he soon learned that he hated something even more:

The fact that Skye did not come back to the van.

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