I stood frozen in place as the elevator doors closed. I heard a foreign sound escape my chest as the first bullet slammed into Sameen. It was a wail; I sounded like a dying animal. I ran up to elevator door and held on to it. Sameen had finally kissed me. Now, she was dying. Of course Sameen had to be the martyr. She was completely reckless and selfish. She'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than allow someone else to die. Maybe it was all her years of training as a physician. Or maybe she cared more than she let on.
As the elevator rose, I stared at the fading image of Sameen, through the meshed doors, until arms pulled me away from the door. Our team was barely a team. John was crumpled on the floor. Finch just stared at me with his sad-puppy ears. And Lionel, of all people, was holding me upright. I slammed my closed fists against Lionel's chest until I collapsed from exhaustion. I was half-aware of being carried out of the building. Above me the ceiling lights flickered. How could this happen? It should have been me in that basement, not Sameen. I shut my eyes and drifted into more pleasant memories of Sameen.
The first time Sameen and I met was at a hotel. In my hunt to find out more about the machine, I pretended to be Veronica Sinclair, a CIA analyst who had worked with Sameen's deceased partner, Cole.
That day, I opened the hotel room door and struggled to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. The photo in Sameen's file did not prepare me for the raw beauty which poured out of her. Sameen stood at five foot, six inches, black boots giving her an additional four inches. Her black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail which made her facial features appear sharp and angry. Her mouth was in a constant pout and a permanent scowl was cemented on her face. I was giddy with excitement at the prospect of chatting with this woman. And if it was necessary, I'd enjoy torturing her as well.
Within minutes of our meeting, I tased Sameen and bound her to a chair. To be honest, I'd bound women to chairs before, but never to torture them. After she finally came to, I made a show of plugging in the iron. Then, I perched myself on a chair's backrest and waited for the iron to heat.
"Did you really think the source of the numbers was Guantanamo? Some sad taxi driver rotting away in a cage somewhere? You should know torture almost never produces good information? Well, almost never." I said to Sameen.
Sameen just glared at me, allowing me to rant. I actually liked that in a woman. Silence. I licked my finger and tested the iron's base. I placed it on the floor and unzipped Sameen's jacket. All she did was scowl at me.
"You are going to tell me the name of Akino's contact." I said, holding the iron to her face. I had no intentions of destroying such a beauty, but the threat of destruction could make even the toughest person more compliant.
"One of the things they left out in my file is I enjoy this sort of thing," Sameen said, pulling her head back, away from the iron. There was that scowl again.
"I am so glad you said that," I said, smiling. "I do too."
Suddenly, my phone alarmed. I snatched it off a nearby table and looked at the display. It showed Wilson's men arriving at the hotel, forcing me to end my conversation with Sameen.
"We'll do this again, soon," I said, grabbing up my belongings like I was preparing to flee a one night stand's apartment. I left Sameen bound to the chair and squeezed into the adjacent room. I would have untied her, but a woman like Sameen could definitely hold her own.
I woke up in Harold's lair. I looked around as if I hadn't been here before. Harold hovered over me and stared at me, concern marring his face. He held out a bottle of water which I just let dangle in the air. I refused to drink or eat. Not until I knew what happened to Sameen.
"How are you feeling Ms. Groves?" Harold asked. "I sedated you. You slept for over ten hours."
"How do you think Harold am feeling Harold?" I asked, pouring enough venom into my words. What a stupid question for a genius to ask.
"I am sorry, Ms. Groves," He said. "But we don't know what happened."
"Do you think she could still be alive?"
"I really don't know."
"Harold, do you think she knows?" I began, refusing to use past tense. Do you think she knows that I love her? I wanted to yell the words aloud. Instead, I felt hot tears running down my cheek.
"She knows," Harold said.
Bear came over and curled up at my feet. He whined as if someone had told him that Sameen was shot. I ran my hands along his back and scratched behind his ear.
"I miss her too," I said.
We were into our second month of searching for Sameen. We looked everywhere. John and I even acquired a great lead while we were in some hick town named Maple. The source told us that a woman with dark hair was being held in a facility. In retrospect, it wasn't a lot to go on, but we held on to that little clue like a dog with a hambone in its mouth. John and I rushed in to save the woman, hoping that she was Sameen.
All we encountered was a woman, a victim of Samaritan's experiments, with a chip implanted into her head. The similarities between the woman and Sameen ended with their hair color. We looked around. We questioned the woman. She was useless.
There were no signs of Sameen.
"I am sorry, Root." John said, staring at me.
I walked off without saying a word. I didn't even reply to Harold as he echoed John's sentiment in my earpiece. I left the warehouse and stood in the open air. I stared at my surroundings and said a silent prayer, to God or to the machine, for Sameen's safe return.
Later that day, the machine sent me a message. She ordered me to stop looking for Sameen. I begged her to tell me if Sameen was alive or dead and all I got was silence. After a long pause, the machine repeated her order. "Stop… looking." This was the first time I'd felt hatred toward the machine and even thought of her as nothing more than a machine. She couldn't possibly understand how I felt? What I needed was some words of comfort or a hint about what happened.