Hayden's shirt got glued to his body with sweat. He wasn't forced to engage himself in the life threatening process, but his irritating inner voice kicked him to the curb that he ended up having a Induced Hypnosis Session, popularly known as IHS at the D.R.E.A.M with the demon.

Orion's shrill voice flooded his ears, "Where are you now?" His tone was stark autocratic just like his father's during a hypnosis session.

Hayden risked his sanity to have an IHS for the sake of his father. Daniel Clark, presently a suspect for Mark Ashworth's murder was temporarily captivated by the FBI . If there weren't any proper evidence, he would be convicted and thrown behind the bars for an eternity.

Though a part of Hayden loathed his father to hell, there was this instinctual bonding and a pricking conscience that apprehended him of the injustice faced by Daniel.

Even if Daniel was vile enough to dig someone's grave, Hayden was sure he wouldn't be the one to get arrested after dirtying his hands. He was too rich and powerful to come up with a perfect blunder.

It took a day of booze on vodka for Hayden to arrive at this truth, and another day of booze to decide whether he must help Daniel or not. The solution to his current black outs and the evidence for Luciana's case would be the same. When the hangover let him off the hook he found himself at the D.R.E.A.M's headquarters at Manhattan.

Daniel and Orion were veterans to perform a IHS. To help the former, the latter was the only hope. Orion did the session with no diabolical intentions as Clark knew too much of his secrets. Presenting Clark before the jury would be equivalent to walking Orion's secrets over the arena.

Hayden reminded Orion of his daughter. He wasn't a good father to her. He never fitted in her little girl's picture of a family. He had too much at hand. Her death was probably his punishment for being a wack job throughout his life. He felt silly to give up following the Hamilton girl so that Daniel and Hayden didn't share the same unfortunate fate.

Hayden shivered on the recliner. Gradually he exhilarated from the initial panic of moving into a hypnotic state and started listening to Orion, "It looks like..like a party" he gave his first response after closing his eyes.

"In the Hamilton Mansion..." he continued taking short breaths in between.

Orion's eyebrow twitched,"In the mansion? Are you sure?"

Never had an occasion been celebrated at the mansion due to Amelia's condition. Even when all Hamiltons were alive, they were too scared to have an outsider in a place where she dwelled. She could burst anytime like the Etna.

"It was the mansion.." Hayden took a gasp, "The first time when I and Lena met the Hamiltons.."

"Lena?"

"Selena" Hayden made a long pause.

Orion sensed the diversion of his thoughts."Get back. We are not leaving the party"

"Barbara..she's standing before us.. She's so scary with kohl in her eyes.." Hayden's chest rose and fell erratically.

"No. You are not frightened by her." Orion's interesting part came up, "You are strong enough to stand up against her. Now... Listen to her... What did she say?" Nothing seemed to be so pleasant to him than playing inside people's heads.

Hayden gave a self satisfied grin, "She's said ..said not to use the second floor of the west wing" his mind synchronised to Orion's plot.

"Did you perhaps go?"

Hayden nodded, "Yes. The Hamiltons were a boring set. So we made things interesting. Lena went first. I followed her. We heard sobs."

"Walk close to the sobs." Orion checked his vitals while commanding his trance. After ensuring stability he sat beside Hayden.

Hayden's lips parted, "A girl..locked up in a pitch dark room.. Lena picked the lock."

"Whom did you see?"

"Amelia.. She was.. beautiful.. Said she was crazy.. that she might even kill us.." Hayden smiled like a maniac, "But we liked her the most"

"Ugh..This is getting boring" Orion yawned, "Go forward two years" he snapped his fingers.

There was rapid pupil movement in Hayden's eyes. Orion injected an IV in his arm to take him to the next phase of IHS. The movement of his eyeballs pacified and slowly came to a rest.

"How is the whether now?" Orion started with very basic stuff for the next phase.

"Biting cold. I'm surrounded by snow. The place is new. I haven't been here." Hayden felt vulnerable in the IHS and reacted hysterically for the simplest of things.

"Don't panic. You'll be fine. Look around and tell whether you can find someone." The words to be uttered with diligence came out vaguely from Orion's mouth. He wanted to light his cigarette but held his urge as it would trigger Hayden's senses. Spoiling the session would have its impact on his reputation.

Hayden's replies weren't as quick as Orion wanted them to be. It took fifteen minutes for him to respond, "Amelia.. What happened.. Why are you covered in..in blood?" A streak of tear made it's way from the edge of his eyes.

Orion desired to wake him and know Amelia's reply which would be against the basic laws of hypnosis. In the hour of desperation, Hayden quenched his curiosity by coming up with Amy's reply. "Hayden.. I made a mistake.. I trusted Lucy.. I killed my brother." Hayden's voice trembled like a tree caught in a cyclone.

"What the hell did my daughter do?" Orion banged the headrest. The grey in his lens was submerged by the fiery red around it.

Hayden wasn't unnerved, instead he resounded hostility, "Luciana. She was the beginning of everything. She made a Marijuana addict out of Amelia by making her believe it was a toffee."

"Why my girl should do such?"

"Her mother died. He father abandoned her. Her aunt was poor. But Amelia had everything that she didn't have. She sucked off Amelia like a leach."

A typical father would've killed him in his place for recklessly accusing his daughter. Orion being a psychiatrist did nothing but listen to him till the end.

"We were quite close to call each other for help. I was so happy she called me. Not her family, but me. I took her away from the eyes of the Hamiltons, making everyone think she was dead."

Orion cracked open the deepest secret that no one had ever heard from Hayden's mouth. He was intrigued to dig deeper, "Where did you hide her?"

"London. Four years. She forgot everything from her past and started liking me. My love wouldn't have been one sided if the ship hadn't wrecked." Hayden licked his lips, "Daniel somehow came to know I was hiding Amelia and rang up to Louis Hamilton. The Hamiltons and Lena took the Poseidon to take Amelia back with them. They were glad for her being alive. They didn't hate her after all. We could only come back for the funeral."

"After the funeral, did you let her go? Just like that?" Orion had an eye on his vitals while touching the sensitive subject.

"I should've been crazy if I had done so. After coming back, she blamed herself for leaving, blamed me for taking her away and my father for...well for everything. In the effect of post traumatic stress, she lost memories of our four years, dissociated herself and friend zoned me." Hayden's blood pressure shot up abnormally.

Orion calmly diverted him, taking him to the next stage, "It is a fine evening. You are informed of Luciana's death. Now you are at Luciana's apartment. Tell me what did you see?"

Hayden remained silent for awhile. Time ticked away relentlessly. A statue would've shown better movement but he didn't. Orion thought of averting him before his senses worked.

"A corridor. It's so long. It's carpeted, wall smells of new wallpaper."

"Bang on" Orion appreciated, "Let's make the passage short . Now you are before her door. Open it. What do you see inside?" He bit the corner of his lip, anticipating.

Hayden took a gasp, "Luciana..she's being strangled..her neck..it's being chocked..someone save her" he caught his neck and kicked his legs in the air. The hairs on his arms stood erect at ninety degree and his entire body had a violent tremor like a twelve Richter scale earthquake.

"Hayden relax. Relax. It's just a hallucination!" Orion screamed but Hayden's cognition was long lost.

By chocking himself, his face turned a pale shade of blue, "I can't breathe. It's getting dark. Help.. Help.." he kept kicking his legs in the air rapidly.

Orion arrested his arm to give a shot for calming him. Before he could insert the needle, Hayden's muscles loosened. His pulse rate climbed down.

"This shouldn't be happening. Hayden, wake up!" Orion thrashed at his body. The arm that was chocking Hayden's neck fell limp to his side. He didn't respond. Orion lurched over his stool and fell with a thud on the tiled floor.

He made a blunder that he had never done in a lifetime. There was a first time for everything, so did he have a first time to feel fear. The feeling dissolved into his blood, petrifying his body.

A director of the D.R.E.A.M came for aid, "Doctor, has something gone wrong?"

His eyes were nailed to Hayden's limp form, "Aaron, call for a mayday. I think we lost him"

_________________________

"I didn't kill him. I didn't kill him. I'm not a murderer. I did not kill him" Amy kept chanting those words like a mantra to the empty air. The dream phantom seemed to be so surreal. Her protective shield of ignorance was broken by the hard truth.

In her perspective the world was divided into two parts: Amy and the torturers of Amy. Leo washed her over with the unbearable truth. The wall dividing her from the vile nature of her alters crumbled little by little. She was no different from her alters. They were so reckless, because she too was reckless. They were fragments of her mind and all the time she was being scared of her own self. Leo actually helped her to work out this truth by herself. He taught her to embrace her past and face the future by learning from it.

"Alas! Something penetrated inside the thick skulled head of yours!" Leo as usual had his trademark grin of a jester plastered to his face.

Amelia gazed at him in the small slit between the strands of hair that was stuck over her face from crying. "I never thought, that you, you were holding this painful memory. How can you smile with all these menacing caricatures in your head?"

Leo slipped his hands in his coat pockets, "Menacing caricatures? What the heck does that mean? Woman, you have a intricate vocabulary!" he frowned artificially shaking his head sideways.

"Pfft..and your vocabulary is the lamest of the lame" Amelia forgot that she was broken down to tears before Leo distracted her, "Nightmares. How did you not screw up with these nightmares in your head?"

"It wasn't too bad" Leo shrugged, "Life can be a tragedy when seen in close-up, but it becomes a comedy in long shot"

"Mmm..Not bad. Did you actually come up with such a killer line?" Amy wondered looking up at him with immense awe.

"Yeah of course! What doubt do you have in that?" he squealed, "But Charlie Chaplin came up with that before me" Leo scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

Amy pointed a accusing finger at him, "Bummer. I'm gonna sue you for plagiarism. You take after my brother, Micheal Jackson and now Charlie Chaplin?"

"No law can sue an alter clunk head. Besides I wasn't plagiarizing. It is called as inspiration ta-king" he stressed the last two syllables. "And now I'm gonna take inspiration from Charlie."

"Oh really?" It took a minute for Leo's message to sink in. Her smile froze and reduced to a scowl, "Say what I'm thinking is not true" she demanded closing the distance between them admonishingly. Her eyelids fluttered trying to conceal the distress shown by her face.

"Its not true. Because I'll be always inside you." Leo sealed his mouth with his palm, "Why am I sounding like a patient in deathbed?"

A blinding glow of light flashed behind Leo in the empty space. The light engulfed both of them, swallowing Leo, leaving behind Amy to gain consciousness.

She woke up on the carpeted floor where she collapsed. Her body felt relaxed, not tired as always she woke up after a alter switch. But the predictability in her situation was that, she was oblivious towards anything that happened after she collapsed. Except she remembered the memory from her past. She stretched her limbs and walked to the kitchen to fetch water as her throat was unusually parched.

The house was silent as a grave. Silence has a synonym called impossible if you have Jake around. Amelia suddenly knew what was wrong.

"Jake" she called out in a consternated tone. Her voice echoed back to her but there was no sign of Jake. Amy ran back to the hallway. She couldn't swallow the water that was in her mouth.

Jake is in trouble. I'll be responsible if something happens to him. I'll never forgive myself.

The shattered pieces of glass in the living room were cleaned from the carpet and everything were in their place. She stumbled across the sofa to the bed room.

Amy smelled danger as soon as she stepped inside the crooked room occupied by a large bed in the middle. She clenched her fist and gathered guts to make a quick scan around the area. To her immediate right Issac was playing in his cradle and squeaked with excitement on seeing her. Amy carried him from the cradle and glanced the walls.

She spat the remaining water in her mouth on reading the message scribbled on the beige colored wall in a undecipherable black and green graffiti paint. Under strain, she made out the words.

I have taken my love

Find him within 3 days. He's all yours

Or else...

-Hate

Barbara

And it was Jake's birthday in three days...

_________________________

AN: I'm sorry about Hayden. Don't be let down.. (ouch..spoiler alert) sorry I can't say anymore

And please don't feel dejected about Leo leaving. He has just become one with Amelia, and I'm damn sure he doesn't want his readers to be sad because of him😉 He would definitely like to see the contagious smile on your faces while reading this phase☺

Excited about how Amy's gonna find Jake and save him from the clutches of Barbara?

Thank you everyone for having the priceless value of patience to read my irregularly updated chapters to the last. Hope I could update sooner but the perquisite can be enjoyed only if I struggle hard to graduate from high school. So please try to put up with me till I end the story in a few more chapters.

Thank you for reading.

Hit the star button if you like this chapter ;-)

Happy reading :-)