Like you were never gone

Chapter 12

Once he was free, Samar called Ben from Rohan's phone.

"Ben, it's me."

"Samar? What where are you? We've been trying to track you. You won't believe-"

"Yes I know. Now listen to me carefully, I need your help." Samar cut off Ben's rambling.

"I need you to trace the last call made from this phone." He omitted out the part where a live bomb was injected into him and was still ticking.

"Hold on a second. Priya and Chirag are with me. They're tracing the location." Samar was glad to know that at least he had befriended some good people he could count on.

In the two minutes that took the young agents to track the number, Samar got out of room he was being held into and found the stairs that took him to the roof of the building. He could see half the city from there.

"Are you still there?" Ben's voice echoed through the receiver.

"Yes. Tell me what you got." Samar spoke with a sense of urgency.

"It's in the city. What is going on?" Ben asked.

"Am I close? Can you track my location?" Samar ignored his question and asked again.

"We can, but you tell me what's going on first!" Ben insisted.

"Rohan. He's working with Victor as you know, and they've just killed his head of security. Rohan just told me that Meera is still alive and I spoke to her over the phone. Whichever location it is showing you now, she's there. I have to get to her Ben." Samar relayed as quickly as possible.

"Okay- okay. We're tracking both the numbers now. You're a mile apart." He could hear chirag speaking on the other side now.

"Which direction? Lead me to the signal."

"Um northeast."

Chirag kept on giving instructions over the phone to Samar. It was already getting dark, the weather report had suggested it could rain tonight. Samar was running through the streets like a madman. Crossing the bridges, toppling over the street side vendors. He almost got run over by a truck in a alley as he was blindly taking turns. He had lost precious time, it had been more than 16 hours since he was abducted.

"Okay now turn left, it's the second building to your left." Came Chirag's last instruction.

"Okay." Samar threw away the phone without a thought.

To his left, was an old tattered building, a ghost of an old clinic. He entered from the front cautiously. Four old men were sitting in the dim evening light playing cards at the reception. They didn't look like they had any arms, Samar looked at them with questioning eyes. One of them pointed his thumb towards the back of the building. Samar noded at him and walked further inside. He was careful to not make any noise.

As he walked through the clinic, he heard someone clocking a gun behind a glass door. Samar turned around abruptly to have a good look at the person and accidentally knocked over some equipment, sending them clattering to the ground. He quickly ducked under the table, grimacing at his mistake. Hearing the sound, an armed man emerged from the other side of the door. In a quick move, Samar slid his leg in the way making the goon fall face first. He twisted the gun out of the guys hands and used it to render him unconscious. The room had a second door at the bck. While Samar was decapacitating the first guy, another one came through that door. Samar took the same gun and fired two shots at him.

As the guy was falling he pushed the door open and Samar heard a muffled cry. He looked behind the guy, and there she was. Wearing the same red tank top from the photos that were found, her face tear stricken and a duct tape on her mouth. Samar just got a glance of Meera before the doors automatically closed.

Samar ran towards the doors, with his gun trained ahead of him. He pushed the doors, and looked around for any more guards. Once he was satisfied there weren't any, he ran forward and knelt in front of the chair, Meera was tied to.

"Meera, you're going to be okay."

He quickly scanned her for any injuries. She was crying obviously, but there weren't any visible injuries to her face or body. He was about to remove the tape from her mouth when a sharp pain surged through his brain. Making him convulse and fall on the ground, dropping his gun in the process. Samar was moaning in pain when Victor walked into the room and kicked the gun away from him.

"I've activated the charge in your head. You have maybe, five minutes left." He finished it with a kick to Samar's side.

Victor continued to kick and punch Samar as he lay there. Meera did not understand what was going on, but she hated to see Samar in pain. She fought against her restraints to free herself.

"Didn't I tell you she'll scream your name?"

Sams questioned Samar has he went ahead and ripped the duct tape off of Meera's mouth. Samar watched wide-eyed as he thought Victor would take advantage of the situation and hurt Meera. But he came back and continued where he had left off. There was a cacophony of sounds with his grunts as Sams kept beating and trashing him around, the sounds of glass breaking, metal clanging, all accompanied by Meera's cries as she begged Sams to leave Samar alone. Victor had taken Samar almost towards the backdoor that lead to the next steet. It had already started raining and the patter could be heard from behind him.

"And I told you I'd kill you in front of her?" He continued his earlier monologue, "Now I'm going to kill her in front of you."