Ragini rushed to the room and grabbed her cell phone. How could she even forget to switch it ON for one freaking day? Clicking her tongue she turned it ON and waited for the phone operating system to boot in weaving the free hand anxiously.

"Damn" she cursed when her phone ringed with the message tone. There were so many messages and from the single contact.

She was about to open the message but the phone got snatched from her hand and she tried to grab it back but failed. To increase her anxiety the phone was in her husband's hand.

"Sanskar...My phone" she whined. He crossed his arms and she watched the phone get cloaked behind his shoulder. Then only her eyes moved up to see his face which had an unpleasant expression.

"What do you know about Laksh?" he asked sternly. She for a split second was shocked but gathered herself soon before Sanskar could read more of her expressions.

"I..How will I know anything?" she looked at him with her shrunk eyes. "Don't you dare play this pretending game now" he warned her. "I am not okay" she closed her eyes annoyed.

"Then why did you ran inside the room like your life depended on it?" he raised one eye brow of his. "Just came to grab my phone. I..." she thought while she spoke. "I wanted to check on Swara if she is okay" she looked into his eyes this time making sure she was having the right emotion on her face.

"Of course" he handed her the phone and walked out of the room and Ragini's shoulder dropped in relaxation. She looked at the opened the message.

Most of the messages were asking her whereabouts as her cell phone is turned off or not reachable. One of the message caught her attention. When she opened it she found the word pen drive and started to read quickly in her mind. She moved her phone away from her face thought something then immediately deleted all the messages from Laksh. Because if Sanskar finds the emptied Inbox he will sure doubt it.

"You wanna come to Maheshwari Mansion?" Sanskar peeked inside the room making her jump a bit. "Um... I have to buy some stuff Swara told me to get. I will come there directly" she smiled weakly. Sanskar did not wanted to believe it by her nervousness but he had no other way. He walked from there and Ragini sat on her bed covering her face behind the palms taking deep breaths to calm herself.

***.***

As soon as Sanskar entered he was greeted by a weeping Annapurna who was not at all relaxing. "Sanskar" she covered him in her embrace.

Sure nobody can forget the humiliation by their own family. But at the same time no humiliation will look important than the family when they are in danger. At least for Sanskar who have always looked after the family which only blamed him for all the wrong reasons.

"Badi Maa... Relax" he patted her head looking down at her. He looked front and all his family members were still hesitant to talk to him or to acknowledge his presence. Some were guilty and some extremely proud.

He did not wanted anything in return. Not even a warm welcome after so many days. He was not feeling any better about being there because all the sour memories hit the walls of his heart and made it to shrink rapidly.

"Tell me everything" he demanded and Annapurna wiped her tears starting to explain.

***.***
Ragini's eyes shrank into slits as she looked afar in the hot sun. It was the time the sun will be overhead burning every inch of earth. She looked at her phone again dialed the number. Before she could hear the voice from the other side there was a screech of the vehicle halting behind her.

She jumped in her place startled and looked behind. Rolling her eyes she walked to the vehicle annoyed. She banged on the window of the car furious. The glass went down.

"Damn. Do you realize you almost gave me an heart attack?" she fumed and the person inside smirked at her. "I just did not intending on killing you this early" she rolled her eyes hearing the mocking tone of the person.

She walked on the other side and sat inside the vehicle. And the engine got ignited and the vehicle started to move.

***.***

"See Mr. Rudr. This is important. He is missing from a long time" Sanskar tried to convince the officer in front of him. "Like how many hours?" he looked around the house analyzing things lazily.

"He is missing from morning" Annapurna spoke up. "Just half day?" Rudr looked at them in disbelief. Annapurna nodded her head vigorously but Sanskar knew what was to come.

"It is not even 12 hours? How can you say someone has kidnapped him? Did you get any threat call now or before?" he looked at Annapurna. She weakly nodded her head.

"Constables" he called the police constables who were analyzing everything. He signed the inspector who was standing beside to stop noting thing down.

They all started to walk. "Wait" Sanskar insisted. "Why are you moving?" he asked confused. "That is because it is not some toddler missing. A fully grown man who is sane enough to take his own decision and as per the rules also we can declare a person missing only after 24 hours. And I am not ready to waste any valuable police hours before that" he clearly stated.

"I know all the rules Mr. ACP but I hope you don't want to risk a person's life over it" Sanskar crossed his arms blocking him. "Yeah for the same reason I asked have you received any threat from anyone yet? You said NO and that leaves us with only this option. We wait till 24 hours get over" he wore his sunglasses and walked out of the mansion leaving the family in despair.

Annapurna collapsed with tears streaming down her eyes. "Badi maa..." Sanskar held her and she hugged him crying more. "I will get him. Don't cry please" he requested and she looked up at him with gratitude. She caressed his cheek fondly.

"I am sorry for blaming you so many times Sanskar. I am really sorry" she nodded her head and bowed it down in shame. He smiled at her kindly and nodded his head.

"You consider it or not you are always my family and we don't give up on our family" he smiled with glittering eyes. He looked at his watch. Ragini should have been here by this time. But she wasn't. In this time of low spirits all he wanted was her beside him holding his hand and assuring him that everything will be okay and everything will return back to how it should be. But....

She wasn't around. His biggest strength was not with him. He felt utterly hopeless at the moment. He took a deep breath and walked out of the mansion signing his mother to look after Annapurna. Sujata complied.

She was still sad that her daughter was dead. She did not hated Sanskar. She possibly could not blame him for whatever happened. But he reminded her of her loss and that was painful.

***.***

The vehicle stopped in front of a huge house. The sun had reached a bit near to the horizon now so she was not finding it difficult to look at the board. A smirk appeared on her lips as she walked inside. She was going to shock the people inside for sure.

"What the..." Kavya looked at the door which opened by someone pushing it and the person who was walking in sure shocked her.

"Hell? Yeah. You bet you better reach hell because if I don't see my Devar in a minute time you are going to regret your life" Ragini crossed her arms.

Though her words made no sense to Kavya initially soon she knew she was in trouble and the name of the trouble was Ragini.

She gulped in scared. She did surely not expected her to be here at this very odd time.

Odd is the number which makes this perfect world interesting. Doesn't it?

But she soon relaxed when she someone else entering behind the unexpected intruder. Now the smirk appeared on her face. Ragini was confused and turned to look at the person and her heart jumped literally to her hand.

"Rajat..." she gasped shocked.

*****.****

I know this is short but I am gonna wind this up soon so bear with me till then.

"Man is the cancered tissue of Nature"

What do you think about it?

I love ranting. Haven't got lot of space to do it from so many days. So thought let me use this platform.

Do let me know your opinions.

Love

Sally 🤗