Author's Note: I'd like to apologize for the previous chapter how blandly boring and ordinary was, nevertheless from now on the story is commencing to arouse interest, in my humble opinion or at least I guess. I hope you like and enjoy! :))

--- *** ---

The ambitious Monsignor was pacing checking the lethally hushed silence corridors of the old, dilapidating mental hospital. Suddenly, ruckus, emanating as a despairing bewail from the former Nazi war criminal's laboratory tingled into his ears like the vexing sound of slowly and steadily scraping nails downward the wood.

His pale-pinkish, soft as-satin lips crinkled in a pensive, bashful purse. The bewailed croak sounded familiar to him. It was his rare bird.

Abundance of questions whirled and twirled in his vortex of thoughts. Little did he know why Arthur Arden had malicious intentions of agonizing the once holy nun. What he fathomed so far was that Dr. Arden and Jude were foes, antagonizing one another, in fact, Jude has always found the doctor of science bone-chillingly fishy. He didn't need to knock on the doctor of science's office door.

His masculine, light footsteps whistled, solely clicking the cemented flooring in the abysmal hall until his mammoth, veiny hand managed to lower to the door handle, turning it in subtle silence, without attracting further attention.

The notoriously creaky door hushed the creaking sound, tingling his ears by setting a foot in his co-worker's austere, unwelcoming office by shutting the door, while his cherub, baby pinkish lips popped up suddenly. His coffee-brown embers with the most vibrant coffee pigment have already lost their glossiness. They were rather blanched with the most contagious, palish coffee brown, leaning to cedar brown.

"Dr. Arden!" When his chocolate brown orbs managed to scan the former Nazi war criminal's office, consequently his lips curled in a croak, addressing formally. He ambled up to the laboratory's den by earning promptly ternary pairs of inquisitive eyes.

Two piercing, bone-chilly glares, darted at the British compatriot, who had interfered in the middle of the daredevil game in which Arthur Arden and Mary Eunice were playing and composing the real concept of torture.

The sole pair of eyes that noticed him, whilst laying and managing a series of squirms, encumbering with pain and pressure due to the excessive protests vibrantly contrasted the other twains of fierce embers, igniting the most caustic flame, incinerating its coals. All Timothy could read from a distance in the corner of his chocolate brown ember was the myriad of mortification and shivers, blanching her feeble face and mottling her honey-brown irises.

What surprised the former devotional holy woman was the suddenness of muffling her whimpers as soon as she wasn't alone with her maulers. Her pale, dry lips flattened its plumpish surface in a hushing purse, swigging a lump in the back of her throat in the struggle.

In the meanwhile, the ambitious Monsignor clutched in a balled fist the rosary beads, wrapped around his pristinely clumsy, strong fingers. He didn't have time to lose and his remaining time to save his rare bird was elapsing slowly but surely.

"Sister Mary Eunice! What are you up to now?" The gravely posed question of Timothy flinched the possessed by the devil young woman, fidgeting her fingers, whereas the senior doctor cleared gruffly his throat with ease.

"M-Monsignor? It's impossible yar presence to be so real." Fortunately, it was solely distinctive the murmur, floating from the former religious nun's roseate, cherub-cracked lips of the dryly cold common climate in the madhouse.

The heartbeats, throbbing vehemently in her chest break abruptly even when armoring the haphazard intentions of her flimsy heart frailly to spring up.

"This patient has been so disobedient and that's what she brought to herself. The big trouble."

The juvenile-possessed sister of the church's retaliation tingled trouble into Timothy's ears, whose dark, thick eyebrow raised an arch. Disbelief contoured gingerly his charming facial features at his newly chosen right hand's utterance.

He might team with Sister Mary Eunice, who's even yet possessed and capable of anything to exterminate with ease due to the supernatural power she possessed, nevertheless, the scene was so far sinister to witness the attempted experiment on one of the wretched souls' current metaphoric refuge. Where she could find her death within a few minutes or a few hours after the dreadful experiments.

Even as an administrator of a notorious mental institution for the criminally insane, the British compatriot was even responsible for the patients who disappeared or were inhumanely murdered even tortured. His one-of-a-kind rara avis wasn't exceptional either. He could lose drastically his trust in her and note wee, vague inkle of her insanity eating her sanity by transforming quickly from the woman of the cloth.

She ran a facility with an iron fist and rose to the highest tiers of the facility's staff, plummeting down to a patient, deemed as nobody than a madwoman, but he wouldn't forgive himself if he lost her. Her life's price was far from meager. It would be worth millions of prayers for her soul and the damned wasted potential to aid her to heal.

"If she's strapped on this bed, there should be a reason. You can't just strap her without any sincere real and enjoy torturing her for another imminent experiment." The softness of his lilt, amalgamating with strictness caution rose the bile up in the juvenile woman of the cloth and doctor's throats.

"Monsignor, I doubt you've some kind of business to interfere there and prying which is readily mine!"

The former war criminal's rejoinder stung the austere, unwelcoming glare of the head priest of Briarcliff, fixing them on the much older man.

"Especially when it comes up to the experiments on these patients and I can admit your former right hand is absolutely one of the worst, noisiest patients I've ever strapped on a bed. Sister Mary Eunice can tell you what exactly happened and why she's brought with herself the whole mess."

"I entered her cell to pleasure her while she was asleep until she woke up a few minutes later by asking me what I was doing, therefore spitting on my face and cussing at me like a sailor! That's intolerable behavior from a patient!"

Silence arched between the horde of adults, whilst the holy man's hands lowered to his charcoal black trousers', putting them in its pockets in disquietude.

In the interval, chubby, crystal twin tears trickled downward the senior blonde's cheeks, opting to muffle and mute her snivels, staining with sticky moistness her feeble parchment complexion.

The hushing silence escalated to Jude's sunk heart and the wonderment in Dr. Arden and Mary Eunice's enquiring, sly glares, trying to formulate scenarios of the impending words, lingering on Monsignor's tongue tip.

What the former devotional member of the clergy prayed for was to be back in her ward for an extra good night's sleep and for her love interest somehow to confront her tormenters.

"So Monsignor, what's your word on her behavior?" The hoarseness in Mary Eunice's lisp stung his ears, honing sharp words, marching from the beginning of his berry-coloured tongue.

Whereas it was the judgmental moment, weighing on its scales the senior blonde's foe opinion and the man of the cloth's opinion. Sluggishly gulping the lump in her drying throat, Judy blinked her partly opened eyelids as her plumpish lips popped up.

"I think she deserves a lesson to be taught for such unacceptable behavior and treatment towards a nun who tries to take care of her."

"No!" The firmness of his refutation in his attempt to stop in a halt the former Nazi war criminal and his assistant startled them as soon as they faced his darker side within seconds after usually witnessing his soft innocent side that veiled him as a casted celestial light, in fact, he's a priest. "There's nothing you can do about preventing her behavior and then trying to punish her with torture!"

"E-Excuse me, Monsignor?" A wicked giggle clicked the roof of the juvenile sister of the church's mouth, rolling her brassy tinged gemstones, muffling its richness in her wicked giggle, while Dr. Arden's rejoinder was engulfing Timothy's nonchalance that softened his facial features as a stray puppy. "What are you doing?"

"Dr. Arden, you don't realize how many patients disappear daily or even die in oblivion not only because of natural causes or any illnesses and then who knows where they're located. Whether in the morgue or somewhere in the woods with your experiments by mutilating them to look like freaks!"

"I think you're prone to believe in a madwoman, who is nothing more than an old whore and a murderer! Who are you prone more to believe, Monsignor?" Even the bizarreness in the possessed woman of the cloth's demeanor was the core of Timothy's doubts, articulated in his intuition and observation in the past days.

Even when he could behold the genuine dark side of Mary Eunice just a couple of weeks after Jed's exorcism and his unpredictable death due to a heart attack.

What it urged him was to hire another doctor and Father Malachi by the following day and attempt to banish the vile essence out of the young blonde's frail skeleton.

The brilliance in her insight, readily reading every surrounding's mind was an inevitable trap for Timothy, instantly acknowledging and opting to belittle him with whom he teamed in the past weeks, judging Jude's grim past with her discreet, somber secrets. "Huh? I'm afraid you still like this slutty murderer and something is awaiting you if you dare to bring her position back to her."

"No matter what she used to be in the past, I'm not judgmental and I'm not the one who judges her. It's only God that judges her and is prone to give second chances to the sinners that repent!"

Meanwhile, he approached with a strut up to the patient bed, his pristine fingers clumsily working on the straps, consequently unstrapping them from her neck down to her ankles.

"And you don't have the right to torture even take her life. It's going to be not only your responsibility but also mine. You don't realize every patient's life is valuable." At the moment, the despaired inmate sat on the edge of the patient bed, cupping her face shamefacedly, trying to conceal the tears, veiling her tear-stained, pallid complexion.

His strong, muscly arm curled around her mid-back, guiding her to flee the laboratory in a jiffy and their impending destination was his office, to console her, despite the security guards that worked night shifts and being incessantly in charge of guarding the abysmal, bleak hallways of the old asylum.

The sluggish gait of the inmate, guided by her former boss scarcely echoed a click against the cemented flooring as they were on their way to flee.

"Monsignor, you're only a priest, and we are the ones who have a business with this patient, whose name I don't want even to mentio-" All of a sudden, without turning his back, the British aristocrat cut her off curtly.

"So as the other patients should be under your care, but Jude is in right hands!" Seconds before walking away from the former Nazi war criminal's austere office, Timothy's caution resuscitated adrenaline and fury, pumping in Arthur and Mary Eunice's veins, overflowing lava beneath their epidermis.

Meantime, the Monsignor and Jude fled Dr. Arden's office, pacing sluggishly in the hallway as the younger man conformed his rare bird's locomotion, patience eased him and calmness and disquietude textured his still young-looking, palish profile.

Tears and snots baptized the older woman's palms with a clammy layer of snots and moistness, ducking her head abashedly whilst her muffle relinquished the snivel, tearing off the lethal silence in the middle of the night.

"Everything is okay, Jude! Everything will be fine."

--- *** ---

Within a couple of minutes, Timothy and Jude entered the dim light office of the head priest of the mental institution. Alabaster, tiny snowflakes, massing in a beehive whistled outside, blanketing generously with a snowy blanket everything.

Even when the ambitious Monsignor earned a handful of security guards' inquisitive glances, they questioned how the British aristocrat was capable of guiding an inmate who was already out of her cell and lodged in his office until whenever he decided. In fact, everything that motioned or was behind the dull, lifeless walls of the madhouse was his ultimate responsibility.

In the interim, he guided her to the compact bed that was amidst the fewest furniture, adorning the en-suite bedroom, linking his office. Her rear perched on the edge of the bed until she uncupped her face in a jiff, ruddily-rimmed embers eyed him glassily, jadedly. Glint a stray spark of gratitude and speechlessness, far from believing once she put herself in the patients' shoes after being stripped of her clerical possessions and title and losing significantly the love of her life's trust.

"What's all this for?" Bewilderment boiled in the pit of her stomach, whereas Timothy laid her down to kip, wrapping the duvet circa her weightless figure, shielding it from the common chilly climate. What she expected was to be retrieved back in her cell instead of being sheltered in her former boss's office, especially the en-suite bedroom.

"Shu, shu, shu, Jude! Do not pressure yourself!" He hadn't any malicious intentions at all. As a director of the asylum, he's also responsible for his old friend's condition in general along with the other lunatics and staff members. An optimistically benevolent smile indicated across his baby pinkish lips, consoling his rara avis with a tight, kindhearted hug, cradling her head in his toned, alabaster elbows. "It's not your fault at all."

"Not only she tried to rape me, furthermore, teamed with Dr. Arden to torture and mutilate me and finally dumped me in the forest like some other disappeared patients!"

At the thought of committing homicide towards the nymphomaniac inmate, Shelley was swamped with nausea and ineligible compunctions his stomach, blush flushing his neck.

Though he couldn't directly tell right away Judy he was the one, who suffocated her with his chaplet and recited a final prayer when Shelley was hospitalized and before finding her dead on its hospital bed.

At that moment, his utter attention was shifted to the Bostonian and his main goal was to console her as much as possible by drifting off asleep peacefully without thinking twice agonizing herself with the events that took place a couple of minutes ago.

"She's incredibly sadistic, and she's possessed." Despite the insanity that consumed her, in his humble opinion, he couldn't agree more there. The truth was the former promiscuous jazz nightclub singer wasn't the only one who acknowledged the possession of her ex-protégé.

"You're absolutely right she's possessed and I must bash the demon with the help of another doctor and Father Malachi on the next morning, despite," Stutter limped on his throat, heavy sigh flushing his chest after releasing her from the embrace as one of his colossal, veiny hands' amusingly warm fingers traced her well-carved profile, daubing with the tad of his thumb the stream of tears. "Despite I'm afraid you should be kept for a bit longer here until you are fully cured!"

His heart ached that the love of his life was involved in deeds which he could hardly believe at first until her foes blinded him to bones and Timothy had delayed her release.

Due to his lack of trust in her lately and doubting her morality, he ceases to picture what her freedom would bear a semblance of and what she's capable of once she joins the general population.

In the meantime, she was far from restless by flopping on the other side, scarcely facing her ex-boss and the older lady was immensely exhausted to peel a single word anymore.

The sniffles subdued in the background, ceasing to tingle in the younger man's ears, which still comforting his rara avis.

Relief prickled his electrifying epidermis, whereas shivers danced in the former woman of the cloth's spine and bones, sedating them with the delicate touch of Timothy, grazing her cheek with a feather, delicate peck and cradling her jawline. It wasn't his first time touching different parts of a woman's body except for her hands.

"Sleep tight, Jude! You deserve rest!" A velvety whisper danced on his tongue, his fingers managing to play with her disheveled, silver-gilded stray tresses consolingly, lightly. Her eyes fluttered tightly shut, preventing the yellow-lamp bulb from scintillating her flimsy, ruddily-rimmed eyes any longer, chewing on her lower cracked lip with its dryness of her throat.

Although Timothy had nowhere to slumber tonight, he preferred to supervise her from time to time discreetly the middle-aged lady, acknowledging her condition and spending almost the entire night in catnaps on his office bureau, in case, if he falls asleep. 

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✞ Did your presumptions come true shortly after the answer of your question from the first chapter?  ✞

✞ Do you trust Timothy as Jude's savior after the ruckus we witnessed in Doctor Arden's laboratory? ✞

✞ Don't forget to leave a honest feedback with your initial impressions, if you have genuinely enjoyed and liked the chapter. :)) ✞