A/N: Okay, so this chapter is rather long. I woke up this morning feeling completely inspired! Thank you all so much for your patience! I am back on track and ready to finish this puppy! Also, it should be noted that what is italicized is all a dream sequence. Hope you enjoy!

"Aunt Tara? Aunt Tara, are you in here? Lacey and Jo wanted to know if you can make us some sandwiches." Danny went skipping through the house, searching for his aunt, but she was no where to be found.

"Aunt Tara? Where are you-" In an instant, someone grabbed him from behind, cupping his mouth with their hand. Danny tried to kick and scream, but the unidentified intruder would not allow him the freedom.

"Calm down, calm down son, it's me!" Danny's father let him go.

"Dad, you scared me!" Danny announced his relief. "I thought you were away for business. What are you doing here?" He turned to hug his father, but Vikram pushed him away.

"You, son." Vikram's face was dripping with heavy bulbs of sweat as he paced the room nervously. "You can't be here!" He yelled.

"Where is Aunt Tara?" Danny looked fearfully into his father's piercing brown eyes. Just then, he heard a faint cry coming from the living room.

"Help! Somebody help!"

"Aunt Tara!" Danny shrieked, he started to run to his aunt's rescue, but was pushed down by his own father.

"Shut up bitch, or I'll shoot you now!" Vikram yelled from the hall where he was standing beside his terrified young eleven year old son.

"Dad." Danny started to break down into tears. "What's going on?"

Vikram started pacing the room once more, this time he was mumbling to himself. "This was supposed to be a clean get away! I'm out of town, there's a burglary, some things are stolen, Tara gets killed in the process! But you just had to come and-" Vikram realized that his whispers had grown louder, loud enough for his son to hear. "Danny," Vikram kneeled down so that he was at eye level with his son. "Shh, shh, Danny." Vikram spoke softly but firmly. "Son," he put his arm around Danny to comfort him. "I want you to kill her."

A bolt of terror swept across Danny's face as he began to cry inconsolably. "You want me to kill Aunt Tara? But why dad? I don't understand. Why?"

"Would you lower your voice!" Vikram shouted, looking around, to make sure that Lacey and Jo did not come inside. He threw his hand across Danny's mouth. "Your aunt Tara, knows things. Things that can destroy our family!"

Danny remained silent, but the tears were still gutting from eyes like a flood. Vikram continued. "If you don't kill her," he spoke these next words slowly and hesitantly, "then I'm going to have to kill you, both of you!"

Vikram put his hand back up to his son's mouth before he could even think to scream. "And I don't want to kill you son, because I love you! And I love your mother, and this family. So please son. Please, if you love me at all, and I doubt that you do now, but if you ever loved me. Then don't make me do this."

Danny found no comfort in what his father was saying. He began dry heaving. He was feeling feeling nauseous, and scared, broken and confused all at once. His whole body had gone numb, and it felt as if his soul had just left him. This was not his life. This was not his father, proposing to him such an extraordinary, ghastly request.

"Dad," Danny said with a nervous gulp, "I do love you." He searched his father's face for approval.

Vikram almost got choked up at his son's words. He was not expecting such immediate compliance. But being the solemn man that he was, he vowed not show his son how much his words meant to him. Instead, he handed his boy a red jump rope which was lying near by and whispered sternly, "Do it quickly."

Danny's hands were shaking as he accepted the daunting task. He walked slowly, fearfully approaching his aunt Tara whose arms and legs were tied to a chair in the living room. Jump rope in hand, Danny stood before her, trying to prepare himself mentally, for what he was going to do.

"Danny," Tara began to speak breathlessly, "your father is monster and he does not love you!" Vikram was not there to witness this exchange, he was guarding the door in case Lacey or Jo decided to pop in from where they were playing outside. The coast was still clear.

"Danny, please!" Tara's eyes grew large has he continued to draw near her. "Please, he doesn't love you! He has another fam-"

Danny quickly wrapped the red jump rope around her neck before she could say anything more. He watched as her face turned a red, then nearly purple and then slowly return to its paled, original color.

Danny was expecting tears to swell in his eyes again. He was expecting to feel guilty and ashamed, even mortified. But none of those emotions seemed to be present. Only a voidness which could never again be filled, an emptiness that would remain in his heart forever. For his father, though he loved him dearly, his father was a relentless animal that would go great lengths just to protect a family secret. His father though, wasn't the monster. He was. Danny clinched onto the jump rope with all of his might.

He untied his aunt's arms and feet from the chair and allowed her lifeless body to drop to the floor. Danny just stared for a moment. Not really looking at her, not actually capturing the gruesome site, no, he just stared blankly ahead, barely aware that he was gazing in her direction.

…

Danny awoke from his dream feeling dazed and startled. It had been almost a month since he had left Greengrove and was checked into a mental institution. The place had really been getting to him. Danny remembered what his friend Marcus had said to him at their first group session together. "If you're not already distressed," he could hear Marcus say, "this place will make you crazy."

Danny had found truth in that statement. Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, he could barely recognize own face. His skin was pallid, and he had bags beneath his eyes, His glossy black locks of hair, which were once signature to his appearance, now lay sloppy and limp on his shoulders.

Danny was put on medication to ease his levels of aggression after he had become violent with one of the nurses on two separate occasions. He just could not bear the mental imprisonment, if he was not insane before he checked into this place he was certainly starting to question his sanity now. Danny had just woken up from a long nap he had taken to allow the side effects to wear off from his medication. He was surprised to hear a knock on the door when he returned to his room.

"Desai, you have visitation for one hour," the nurse said before swinging the door fully open to reveal Danny's one visitor.

"Jo?" He scratched his eyes in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"Danny you look terrible." Jo rushed over to where Danny was lying in his bed.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically, "you don't look too hot yourself," he joked.

"Still the same old Danny," Jo smiled.

"Glad you think so," he looked away as if he were ashamed to be speaking to her. Then suddenly, something occurred to him. Danny's eyes lit up. "Lacey! Is Lacey with you?" He searched his friend's face with hopeful enthusiasm.

Jo looked back at him empathetically. "Danny, Lacey still doesn't know that you're here."

"I need to see her Jo," Danny said in utter desperation.

"Yeah I'm sure she misses you, but Danny-" Jo paused, feeling only mildly guilty about what she would say next. "I think Lacey is talking to somebody."

"What do you mean "talking" to someone? Do you mean like another guy?" Danny squinted his eyes at her.

"Yeah there is a guy- Justin." Jo directed her gaze to her feet, fearful of how Danny might respond.

"No, Lacey wouldn't do that, she wouldn't cheat on me" he responded, able to maintain his cool.

"Danny, I'm telling you, I see those two together everywhere, all the time. Maybe you should just tell her you're here-"

"SHE WOULD NOT DO THAT TO ME!" Danny rose to his feet and stood square in Jo's face wearing an expression that was so threateningly aggressive that it could have killed. "Why did you come here?" He asked, speaking a bit more calmly than before.

"You're right," I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Jo reasoned "But maybe you should tell her where you are Danny, or at least call her. She thinks you don't care about her anymore."

Danny let out a sigh, "This is all so messed up!" He stood up and clenched his fists. "Have they found out who killed Archie yet? My mom stopped visiting. Shocker there." He said condescendingly.

"Oh right, that's why I came. The evidence is inconclusive at this point. They don't have anything to charge you with." Jo put on the biggest smile. "Danny this might mean you can come home!"

Jo noticed that Danny's enthusiasm did not match hers. He stared solemnly with no expression. "I can't come home...ever."

"Don't be ridiculous Danny you-"

"I can't come home Jo!" He rose his voice at her yet again, but this time he did not back down. "I killed someone Jo, killed," he emphasized. "I took an actual human being's life and I ended it with little to no remorse at all. I killed someone!" He said now speaking in a tone that was eerily calm. "And I could have done it again." Danny dropped his head to the floor.

"Danny, we all know that you did not kill Archie! You being here is just ridiculous! Even my dad says that the evidence they have on you is weak."

"So there's more?" Danny's eyes grew large when he asked the question but he still would not look at her.

"More what?" Jo asked.

"Evidence. Is there more evidence?"

"Uh," Jo sighed, rather hesitant to deliver the news to him, "they found a flask with your saliva at the scene of the crime."

"A flask?"

"Yes, Danny, the one you had at the homecoming dance."

Danny was speechless. He stared numbly up at the white walls which enslaved him, for what he perceived was going to be an eternity.

"It only proves that you were at Archie's party, it doesn't prove that you killed him. But while we're on the subject of that Danny, it would have been quite helpful if you would have told us that you went to that party."

Danny did not respond to her accusation. Instead he chanted a number to himself, softly at first.

"315. 315. 315."

Jo could not make out what he was trying to say but she was getting more than annoyed with him in that moment. "Seriously Danny, I want to help you, but I'm going to need you to be completely honest."

"315,"." Danny's chants grew louder. "315!" He was now chanting aggressively, blatantly disregarding everything Jo had been saying.

"Danny, seriously! You think this is a game? Okay, you can try to avoid this all you want, but Lacey is not going to wait-"

"Lacey!" Danny's eyes widened as if he had seen a ghost. "315!" He roared, knocking his untouched meal from the table next to his bed, onto the floor. "315!" Danny ran to the door, but it was locked. He started banging on the door anyway, yelling "I know where I know you from! I know where I know you from! 315!

Jo was frightened and confused by his sudden outbreak. "Danny!" She yelled, but it was no use. A group of nurses barged in and detained Danny.

One of the nurses rushed Jo out of the room while another pulled out a shot to sedate Danny.

"Are you hurt?" The nurse asked Jo, then she proceeded to check for any bruises.

"I'm fine," Jo was still in shock. "Danny would never hurt me."

"Ma'am, we're going to have ask you to leave."

"What's wrong with him?" She asked genuinely concerned.

"Ma'am, please. We can schedule another day for visitation when the patient is in a calmer state."

"The patient, has a name, and it's Danny! And he didn't come here all deluded and abrasive! What's wrong with him!" Jo demanded answers.

"The patient has been diagnosed with-"

"Don't tell me he's a sociopath, that isn't true! I have known Danny all my life!" Jo spoke defensively.

"Not a sociopath. But he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and PTSD."

"Post traumatic stress? From what?"

"Psychiatrists and analysts have not been able to uncover the exact source that caused the Post Traumatic Stress, and that is greatly because the patient has been struggling with repressed memory and memory decay. We know it has to do with something that happened to him five years ago but I can't go into many details, doctor-patient confidentiality."

Jo signed her signature on the sign out sheet as requested. She left the institution with the unsettling feeling that Danny needed to be in there.

…

"I um, I know I may be the last person on earth that you would want to see right now. Especially after I ratted you out to Cole about the whole poisoning thing." She looked down at her shoes nervously. "But well, I take that you can't exactly see me anyway." Lacey tried to remain calm and collected as she stared at the grave which was read "In loving memory of Archie Yates (1997-2014)."

"You know I'm not a crier." Lacey said so weakly, she was barely able to get the words out of her mouth and was at this point, unable to suppress the tears that were streaming down the sides of her face. "I didn't even cry at Regina's funeral. I held it in." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "I tried to be strong, but you told me! Remember what you told me? You said that I didn't have to be strong. That it was okay to cry, that everything was going to be okay and we would get through this!"

Lacey kneeled down to be closer to the grave, still sobbing uncontrollably.

"You said that we would get through this Arch. Help me get through this!" Lacey felt foolish for yelling at a tombstone. She looked up to the sky as if she were searching for some sort of divine answer to solve all of her problems. In that time, Lacey reminisced about her past and her relationship with Archie from the time they met until around the time that he died.

"Gosh, you were such a jerk sometimes!" She focused her attention back at his grave site. "But then you were really sweet and caring. I know you were just as broken as I am. Archie, I need you." Lacey found herself hugging the grave. "I need you to come back, to me! Yell at me, tell me how stupid I am for choosing the 'Socio!'" Lacey took this time to remember Danny and how much she loved him even still. "Arch, he left me...again, and I'm sure you would get pleasure in knowing this but now I'm all alone. I have no one! Not you, not Regina, and not Danny."

Lacey curled up into a ball and covered her face as she broke down into another spell of weeping and sobbing. She did not notice that someone had approached her until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Lacey?" The person kneeled down beside her. "Lacey, come here," he embraced her with his strong, comforting arms. "It's okay, I've got you." Justin held onto her tight. He did not let her go until she was ready.

After several moments spent sitting there in pure silence, Lacey finally spoke up. "Justin, will you take me to Arizona? I need to see Danny."