"Val!" Sally evoked softly after they broke off the hug, admiring their facial features in platonic manner. "I trust you!" As her hands were on the maid's shoulders, locking up her hazel green orbs.

The housekeeper couldn't help but smile warmly, broadly as it lit her face up, glowing as the hanging in the nocturnal sky moon dropped its moonlight below, partly illuminating the both young women's complexions and hairs.

"But...Sally...due to the fact we have a common enemy, that doesn't mean-" Valerie was cut off by the oracle as she gestured with a hand as the older lady sighed dramatically.

"Val...Father McKenzie is our enemy. Even the Howards. I trust you as an ally because I strongly believe we will crush him and the prison gates will be his new home one day."

"If you say so," Valerie paused as she cleared her throat, in the interim pursing her rosy-coloured, natural lips. "we will do it!" Venomous smirks shone on their faces.

All of a sudden police sirens jingled exasperating in their ears as they placed palms behind their ears, mildly bowing their heads. Unless the police car parked before them as it was a couple of inches away from the both ladies, red and blue glowing as thry illuminated and highlighted their figures as two police officers got out from the car, aiming to them.

"Ladies, you are under arrest for attacking and menacing a priest." The first cop commenced as the other one sped up to Valerie and Sally, their iron handcuffs clicking in the background.

"Sir, you have no clue how dangerous is this man and how many lives he has affected negatively." Sally began explaining as their wrists were being cuffed by the authorities as they didn't seem in playful mood at all, besides the oracle's words were like a whisper in the desert- enveloped in an oblivious shadow.

"That's absolutely nonsence, Miss!" The both cops were guiding the both women to the police car as they refrained to struggle and wriggle as their wrists were already handcuffed, unable to escape their claws. One of the cops who was in his late thirties with dark skin color retorted as he spat on the asphalt, seconds before entering in the car.

"Even if you think Father McKenzie is a good, pious man of the cloth, therefore if you visit Boston and read the newspaper articles...you will be..." Valerie opted to defend her ally in return as the both ladies attacked though the failure and the disbelief which the authorities' conscience vomited.  

"Keep your mouth shut, ladies! Chin up! You will be released after 24 hours of the arrest." The other policeman who was in the beginning of his 30s with fair skin color, tall and muscular body structure, amber brown eyes, short dirty blond hair reassured them as he opened the passenger's door as Valerie was seating on the backseat whilst Sally seated next to her ally. 

"That's impossible! I have a ten-year-old daughter and father in a reserved hotel room. They will sickly worry over my absence." The almost middle aged single mother went in further but laconic details though the police officers totally ignored her jeremiad. 

"Please, release her because of her family, sir!" Sally tried to protest in defending the Russian-American though the authorities got in the car and fell on deaf ears as the both women's voices sounded like whispers of ghosts.

The fact that Salem's authorities were much different compared to the Boston ones was nauseating Valerie and Sally, because little did they know how revered and loved is the priest in his birth city, without having any idea to regard him with aversion and disgust. 

The difference between the Bostonians and native Salems was obviously whopping. The Bostonians knew the hypocritical, lunatic and barbaric priest for years and regarding him as nothing but a liar, hypocrite, fraud, manipulator and tormentor, besides he harvested tremendous notoriety and perceived as a danger. Whilst in Salem, the things were much different, besides contrasting the other small city located in Massachusetts. In his birth city, the people loved him and venerated him, besides he didn't harvest ill-fame. He was like a hybrid or being with two faces- hated in Boston and worshiped in Salem.

Valerie knew right away how fishily and afflictingly worried will be her father Maksim and her sole daughter Shona, and they rather will begin to enquire her about the night before when she vanished and didn't return back at home until the next day. 

***

The evening hours were passing slowly especially for the single father and his grandchild. The hours seemed like days even weeks, months, years and centuries. The time, itself, gave the impression of being an eternal universe. With no timeline. No pauses. No rewinding. No Skipping. Once the seconds proceed, there was no way to go back in the past even with a single second.

It has been a few hours since Valerie left the hotel and hasn't returned even for a single second. 

Shona was already asleep, wrapped up warmly to tranquil the turmoil that has dwelled in her fatigued mind behind her mother's disappearance tonight.

The insomnia racked Maksim as he kept awake himself, scarcely blinking his light coloured eyes as he was sitting on the chair on the balcony, already lit up a cigarette, holding it between his two fingers, reclined on the chair as if he was on vacation. His eyes were darted down as the scenery was astounding though there was no track of his daughter, who's presupposed to roam the Salem's streets or somewhere nigh the hotel. 

He took a puff of his cigarette as dim emitted his nostrils and mouth, diffusing in the thin air. The midnight hour dawned. 

There was something dubious behind Valerie's disappearance. With each passing hour, his concern drastically escalated, starting to wonder if something has horrid happened to the young mother. His mind was flooded with prejudical, stomach-churning thoughts if she was actually beaten, raped, kidnapped or even murdered whether in less sore or the most brutal way, plauged every cell of his. If she wasn't even a little girl with no supervision, he was still concerned for her and his questions weren't answered to the end. Their answers would be evident sooner or later. Whenever Valerie emerges. 

"I hope she returns either sooner or later. I hope she's alright!" Maksim thought to himself, opting to soothe himself though the upheaval was gnawing him. 

***

The both women were dressed up in mere, howsoever, ratty prisoner's uniforms, hugging their well-built bodies, contrasting each other in distinct manner. They wore orange with white strips slack gowns with round neckline, revealing partly their palish, creamy collarbones and necks. Ruffled short sleeves, revealing their biceps and forearms as the gown dropped down to their ankles. Their feet were shoed in inmate, white, down-at-heel slippers, protecting their small feet from the cold climate and the glacial flooring inside the prison. 

After arriving in the police's station, they were being inquired about the attempted assault over Father McKenzie though they won't be sued at all. They were lucky to get away with being sued for a petty hooliganism and threating the juvenile priest. Further, a couple of mugshoots were took of the maid and the oracle though they will lay behind the jail bars for less than 24 hours. Only one day. Even less than a day. 

Valerie and Sally shared a cell together as they were prisoners and inhabited sufficiently spacious, nonetheless, grotty furnished with two tattered beds on the both sides of the chamber, besides nightstands encircled the other side of the beds which were stained. The white pillows weren't in good order at all. They were blemished in yellow and light brown permanent stains of former inmates, who used to occupy this place. There were a couple of marks on the dull, greyish walls. The dim light illuminated each cell as there was an immense, exceedingly responsible and diligent security, supervising the prisoners, without leaving them under no inspection. A single sink was in the middle of the cell with a half scrapped mirror with wooden frame above the sink. The wee fence window dispersed moonlight, bathing it with a tad light. 

What Valerie was doing right now was actually reclining her back on the grayish, mild lukewarm wall as she was sitting in the middle of her bed, staring blankly at Sally who laid on her bed as her hazel eyes were fixed on the ceiling, frowns crawled on their fresh, youthful faces, airbrushing them in grotesque, somber tint. 

What the both aspiring, persistent women craved for to go back in their homes or where's actually their families located. The oblivious, afflicting pain of not seeing their children was downheartening them as Valerie realized how bedeviling were Maksim and Shona's lacking. 

***

After the conflict with Valerie and Sally, Alexander couldn't really put a finger on how they emerged from somewhere and assaulted him like predators. As he fled from the area where he was lastly trapped, he wasn't sprinting anymore as soon as he heard nearby the police car's glowing, vociferous sirens, encircling the neighbourhood, reassuring the man of the cloth.

He dusted off in swift, considerable motion his neat, formal suit he has almost never worn in his life since he joined the church. Father McKenzie has worn it only once. It was all saved. All spick and span. No stains, adorning the preserved costume. It seemed like a new, unworn though it has been already worn by the man of the clergy. 

Afterwards he carried on with his journey up to his house where he was born and being raised as a child and adolescent. During the wander, he lifted his hand up to his face as his fingertips brushed lightly the spots of Valerie and Sally's violent slaps which hit across his face. Every time he tipped his bruised complexion, contacting his skin with his own, the iginiting pain didn't flee in a matter of seconds. It abided for minutes...perhaps hours. 

Minutes later, he found a three story mansion with an expansive yard with plenty of chromatic flowerbeds, garden gnomes, orchard pear trees, goth, painted in onyx iron fence, protecting the property's territory. 

His azure eyes were glued to his house as he couldn't suppress the nostalgia that slugged him since he fled at age 18. Alexander perfectly remembered every petty detail behind his huge mansion. Like a solved puzzled. He removed his hand from his cheek, exhaling sharply in the arching silent neighbourhood as it didn't have bunch of houses with exception his, two neighbours the next door. He was vigorously looking forward for the family dinner that awaited him within a couple of minutes. 

***

"Timothy, have you considered-" The former nun was about to keep on with her sentence as the couple were seating on the kitchen table in the late night hours, having a tea party by themselves as they were equiped with sheer, ordinary mugs of hot, boiled, mouth-watering herbal tea. 

All of a sudden, the phone rang on the counter top, interrupting their conversation as Timothy's hands were tipping the table's sky blue tartan cover.

"Oh!" The both partners cried all at once as they gasped amused, arching an eyebrow as Jude gestured with a palm to hold on for a second. "Just hold on for a second, sweetie! I will take care of this business." In the meantime, she got from the kitchen table, casting a tempting glimse on Timothy through her smug, cattish smirk, formed on her plump, naturally rosy-coloured lips.

"You aren't always obligated to do this, darling." He willed to go answer the phone but Jude went first instead. He wasn't lucky this time at all. Meanwhile, he winked at her gamely as his grin saturated his concern.

"It's alright everything, Tim! I got everything under my control." She cautioned him in stubborn manner as she gripped the earpiece, keeping it behind her ear as Timothy couldn't take his eyes off her, admiring each facial feature of hers as her grace was predominating her over the mild wrinkles which inked on her face, the slight dark circles, under her ravishing hazel orbs. The invisible slight weight she gained after her both pregnancies, affecting her magnificent body figure. "Hello?" She echoed through the handset, lowering her head a bit, pushing her scalp backward.

"Hello, Judy! I need your urgent counsil, please." Valerie's father, Maksim exclaimed hastily.

"Oh, Maksim! What's wrong there?" She questioned, sensing something leery, wiping his the back of her hand her creased temple. "Aren't you supposed to sleep right now?" The former nun wondered, inhaling unnervingly as Timothy didn't drift his chocolate irises off her as he grapped by the mug's handle, sipping his herbal, searing tea, melting the dryness in his throat. 

"Not exactly since my daughter has disappeared." 

"What's pressumed to mean all this? She isn't a little girl to be that concerned. Spit it out."

"She told me she will hike around the hotel and Salem, in fact, for clean, fresh air." The older man paused as he cleared his throat in dramatic manner. 

"Val disappeared? It's up to her what she wants." The blonde stated firmly, anxiously. 

"Isn't it up to her if somebody has kidnapped her, raped her even murdered her?" The Russian himself lost his temper as he couldn't handle the sickening heartache that he felt when the chances of seeing his daughter very soon subjugated the deficit. 

"I am sorry to hear that, however," Jude flipped her golden hair strand back with a palm. She diminished, subdued her voice undertone. "I can assure ya she will be back sooner or later. You should have still hope. She isn't an adolescent. She's a young woman. I don't want to repeat myself."

She expected a response in return, nonetheless, instead, Maksim put the phone down on Jude as he was fed up of being told and persuaded over his daughter's disappearance. Consequently, Jude put the phone down, reclining on her spine on the counter plot, wiping her forehead, sighing disappointed.

"He doesn't want even to hear me!" Jude declared defeated, clapping her hands, casting a peep at the kitchen's tile flooring. 

"Oh! He's probably stubborn and beyond desperate when we are talking about Val." He said in velvety voice, getting from the dinner table as he left his mug on the table, walking up to Jude, factly, to comfort her, incapable to shift his gaze away from her.

"He's! I gave him a piece of advice and he returned it with rage." The blonde evoked frustrated, sighing dryly.

"Everything will be okay! I doubt Valerie would be murdered or viciously violated." Meanwhile, the former priest clasped his arms around Jude's upper back as she threw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him in a firm, warm embrace as their ribs were pressed together, absorbing warmness and love as Timothy's chin rested on her shoulder, whilst her face was buried in the crook of his pale, creamy neck. 

"I somewhat doubt it, howsoever, if she's," Jude was cut off in the middle of her sentence as Timothy comforted her yet, rubbing her back with his mammoth, stronger hand.

"It's alright, sweetheart! Do not lose faith in her survival. She's a strong woman." Jude couldn't understand Timothy's optimism which brightly contrasted her pragmatism. 

"She's a strong woman, regardless everything else."

"Exactly!" Subsequently they broke off the hug as they withdraw their faces, taking their time to admire one another's enchanting facial features as Timothy offered a loving, upbeat smile, curled up in the corner of his lips as Jude couldn't help but smile as he removed his hands from her upper back, thereafter moving them up to her face, cupping her cheeks. "I want to see you happy with an enthralling smile. Not a miserable with a grotesque frown, embodying your upsetness, rare bird." He whispered as the whisper came as a tremble from his lips. 

To be continued...