"See, this isn't so bad!" Danny's mother helped him get settled into his room at Sound Minds: Institution for the Mentally Unstable.

"Yeah," he replied sarcastically. "If these white walls could talk-"

"Well then you would really be crazy," Karen joked. Danny just glared at her, clearly unamused.

"Look at this way honey, you've got plenty of time to relax. I mean you don't have to worry about going to prison." She said optimistically.

"As if this isn't a prison for the mind," he said condescendingly.

"Well you get three phone calls a day, you could call Lacey. And you have visiting hours, maybe she could even come and see you."

"No mother, Lacey can't know that I'm here." He spoke firmly.

"Oh Danny, you didn't tell her? What about Jo? "Danny looked away guiltily. "You told Jo but you didn't tell Lacey? Danny she's your girlfriend. You can't keep this from her."

"I told her I was going away, that I would be back soon." He said the latter part under his breath.

"Soon?"

"Look, I didn't have a choice, Lacey would be crushed if she knew. She would try to-"

"What, she would try to understand? She would try to be patient, and support you through these tough times? Danny she can only understand if you tell her."

"I can't, mother I can't! It's not that simple."

"Okay, but if she were to find out?"

"She won't!" Danny replied defensively.

"Well what if you don't get out of here as soon as we hope? You can't keep lying to her. The distance is hard enough as it is, but to go without any contact at all? Indefinitely? Danny, you're only hurting her by being dishonest. And that's no way to start a relationship."

Danny sighed, lately his mother had been making a lot of sense, but he remembered why he was lying to Lacey in the first place. It was not because he did not think she could handle it, but because of what he had found in Connecticut. If Lacey started looking around for Danny's dad, if she knew he may still be alive, she would go diving into a pool filled with sharks. Danny did not want to put her life in jeopardy. He knew that although they had found his phone at the scene of the crime, they still did not have enough evidence to pin this on him, and if he wasn't going to be charged with this murder, then he would have to be released, or at least he would have that option. Danny hadn't planned on telling Jo, but her dad being, the Chief of Police, Jo overheard her parents talking about the possibility of a potential suspect of a murder being sent to a psychiatric hospital. Jo approached him about it, so confirmed it was him, but he swore her to secrecy.

"Mom?" Karen was preparing to leave when her son spoke up. "What was your relationship like with dad all those years when I was in juvie?"

Karen was caught off guard by her son's question. "It was a little tense, to be honest. He was uh, always out, somewhere. Business trips, meetings. A very busy man." She forced a smile.

"Did he ever do anything to make you question his character?" He asked meekly.

Karen quickly took offense. "You know how hard it was for me to lose your father!"

"I'm sorry mother I-"

"No!" Karen cut him off quickly. "Regardless of the things he did. Your father was a good man, and he loved you, he loved us both."

"I know, I know." Danny hugged his mother. He knew better than to ask, but wondered what she meant when she said 'regardless of the things he did.' Just then a nurse popped in, instructing Karen to say her final goodbyes.

When she was gone, Danny was left staring at himself through the blank white walls that entrapped him. He looked around in his room. It was small, and plain. One bed and one chair, there was not much to it. There wasn't even a window for him to look out of. In the small confines of his new dwelling place, Danny felt powerless, and defeated, like there was nothing he could do to help himself, and nothing he could do to be there for Lacey. Suddenly, Danny became angry. He threw his chair against the wall, and watched slam against the panels, unbroken. The realization of where he was along with the anxiety of knowing that his father may be alive and dangerous, his mother was alone, Lacey was alone and he was still being investigated for another murder. Danny momentarily stopped breathing, but he couldn't stop moving. He paced back and forth, and rubbed his clammy hands together. Suddenly the same nurse came back into his room.

"There's a group session about to start in the conference room. It's optional, but highly recommended."

The last thing Danny wanted to do was sit around listening to the clinically insane or depressed spew out their feelings, but he looked around at what felt to him like a prison cell, and decided anything would be less excruciating than this. So he opted to go to the group session.

There were other boys there that appeared to be Danny's age, some looked older, some younger. They were all gathered in a circle, waiting for the session to begin. Danny sat in the empty seat next to a little boy who could have been no more than ten years old. The boy had fair skin and big golden brown eyes. He wore a genuine smile, with a slight overbite, his doe eyes staring directly at Danny as he sat down. Danny felt strangely uncomfortable in the boy's presence.

"Um hi." Danny spoke first, the little boy didn't say anything. "What are you in here for?" He asked curiously.

The little boy smiled even harder than before, as if his reason for being institutionalized was a pleasant memory. "I was just playing Call of Duty" he shrugged. "And my mom told me I had to go to school." He wrinkled his face in thought. "I really didn't want to go to school that day, but i washed up, and got dressed anyway. Then I went down to the kitchen to eat breakfast - she made toast, and Cherrios! Anyway, found a knife on the counter, and I stabbed her with it thirteen times! The end," he enthused, overly proud of himself. Danny's eyes widened, he shrieked quietly. The boy on the right side of him laughed.

"That's Robbie, pathological liar and kleptomaniac." Robbie waved a picture of Danny, Lacey, and Jo in front of his face proudly. Danny had just had that picture in his pocket moments before.

"How did you?" He looked dumbfounded and puzzled.

"It's a gift." The boy smiled and handed Danny back his photo.

"I'm Marcus by the way," the relatively thin, black young man extended his hand. Danny returned a reciprocating gesture.

"Danny."

"So. Danny, what brings you here?"

"Ah yes, we can start by sharing," the leader of the group finally arrived and sat down. "Daniel Desai, is it?" He looked down at his clipboard.

"Uh, yes."

"Why don't you tell us where you're from. What brings you here?"

"Oh, I just heard how cool this place was, and I just wanted to check it out." Danny let out a quick laugh, but noticed that the other boys were not amused. He cleared his throat. "No, I, I uh, killed my aunt when I was eleven." Danny realized how deranged that made him sound, and wondered if he was the only person in the room that had killed someone. He paused before continuing. "I went to juvie for five years and when I came out, literally the day I came out, a girl was murdered, and of course I was the immediate suspect. Anyway as time went on, I was cleared for that, but the murder was never fully resolved. Then just recently, another guy got killed, and no shocker, I am a suspect again." He sighed. "If I'm found guilty, at least I can plea insanity." He chuckled in place of the of the pain he was feeling.

The moderator, along with some of the other patients looked at Danny empathetically.

"A sociopath. That's what they call me." He licked his lips then sat back in his seat. The others took turns sharing why they were there, and how they were doing better. When the session was over Marcus caught up with Danny.

"You're not a sociopath. And you didn't kill those people, did you?"

"What makes you think-"

"My mother was a sociopath," he said understandingly. "And she killed my father, and two little sisters." He looked down remorsefully. "And she tried to kill me. It was all during one of her episodes. Sometimes she showed extreme anger. She wasn't crazy all the time, but she was never warm, never caring or nurturing. I don't think she ever once told us she loved us. But she did cook, she cleaned, she spoiled us on our birthday's and Christmas, like any other mother. And everyone loved her, she was very charismatic. For years she seemed normal besides the detachment." He inhaled deeply. "Apparently she married my father for his money, he was a big shot attorney. So she bore his children, played the role of a mother and wife, then planned to make off with it all, the house, his legacy, everything. My father had a really large life insurance policy, she could have gotten a lot of money." He went off into his thoughts.

"How did you get away?"

"After she hung my dad in the coat closet, she started running water in the bathtub. I was seven, my sisters, they were twins, both three years old." He gulped. "She called us in one by one to bathe, and when she called my name, I just felt something peculiar. I ran into my sisters' room, but they weren't in there. So I ran to the the closet to hide and that's when I saw my dad hanging, lifeless. I took off running out of the house, never looking back." His voice grew softer, signaling the end of the story was near. "I wound up at a neighbor's house, and she called the police, and that was the end of that."

"Okay, so your mother had some...issues. That doesn't explain why you're here." Danny asserted.

"Anxiety, trauma, I've attempted suicide nine times."

"Oh wow." Danny was too stunned to say much more.

"Yeah," Marcus replied, "This place is great for people like me, people who really need help. But if you're not already distressed, it will make you insane."

Danny lamented on those words even as he returned to his empty, solemn room. He stared once again at the white walls that signified his emptiness his voidness, and his innocence.