"Why do you think William's disappearance had anything to do with you?" My therapist/psychologist/snooper asked.

I cleared my throat and wanted to trap the answer in my throat. "I saw him that night."

An intrigued expression crossed Jamie's usually strict and unreadable demeanor. "What did you see, exactly?"

"He was walking with that guy," I found myself saying, "the guy who was found dead recently. With the big...big arms and even bigger tattoos."

"Ah, yes, I saw it on the news. Not so much of a tragedy until they discovered it linked to Will," Jamie said.

I bit the inside of my cheek. "Yeah, that guy. I never understood why Will would hang out with a guy like him. But I was drunk out of my mind since we were celebrating the new year. Why didn't I go after him?"

Jamie didn't respond.

I continued after studying his facial expression, "then, he kind of disappeared when someone barged into me, and they were both close to the Ferris wheel at that time. Then the fireworks started, and-and-"

"And the sound of the fireworks overthrew the gunshots that killed the man your brother walked with," he finished for me.

"Out of sight," I confirmed with a nod.

"Did you inform the police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't think it's reliable information," I said weakly, looking down at my palms. Jamie shifted for the third time in his chair and said, "you know that any information can help the police, right? I won't force you to say anything, but I truly think it can add on to the investigation, Sarah."

"I think Will saw me," I suddenly blurted out, probably to change the subject.

"When?"

"Just before disappearing behind the big wheel. He has those blue, piercing eyes, and I could recognize them in any crowd. I think he turned around to...look at me. Like he knew I was there."

I nearly jumped when the door opened behind me, and the receptionist peeked in. "Your next patient is waiting, sir."

"Thanks, Cheryl," Jamie nodded at her over my shoulder, and the receptionist left, leaving the door ajar.

Jamie looked at me deeply, clicking his pen and setting it on the table. "We should meet again, Sarah."

"Yeah," I looked away. "We should."

* * *

After the screaming fest that morning with the phone call from the police, my small family sat in the waiting room in the police station.

Mom was fidgeting with her faded ugly orange dress that she went to bed in. Dad's red eyes never lost its vibrancy, and he sat rigidly on the leather chair, staring consciously at the magazines on the glass table. I, however, was staring at the symbols of the clock behind dad. Its thin arm was ticking slowing pass the numbers. I willed it to move, the posture of my family manipulating my mind into thinking I was in some repetitive lapse.

It could've been five minutes of five hours before an officer came into the room, giving us a wan smile and directing us to his office.

Four chairs were opposing his desk, so we filled up three. It was a gray, dull office, with a bunch of useless ornaments on his desk. I eyed the framed picture of his family, an image of a freckle-faced young girl with her hands wrapped around her father, the officer. What appeared to be her mother was smiling tightly beside them, looking like she didn't want to be there.

I peeled my eyes off his property and read his name tag.

"Good morning, my name is Officer Hawkins, but please call me Craig. We have called you earlier with not so good news, unfortunately," he said, his black eyes scanning our expressions. He wore a very accurate look on his face, complimenting his dark eyes. He was very young, maybe somewhere in his mid-twenties.

"Please, just get to the point," mom said forcefully, not trying to hide her impatience. Craig nodded quickly.

"Right, right. Well, you have requested to hear the message recorded on Will's phone. It took a lot of hacking and passwords to find. It's very... peculiar. We are hoping that you might be able to decipher something from the message, knowing his particular likes and moods as a family."

"He left the voice message?" dad's voice imploded.

Officer Hawkins nodded. He opened and unlocked a drawer and retrieved a plastic bag with an iPhone trapped inside.

We watched as Craig fit his hands into a pair of dark gloves. He unzipped the bag and took out William's phone, placing the plastic over his desk towards us and balancing the black phone on top.

"Listen to this," he said, tapping on the screen.

Mom, Dad and I leaned towards the phone to see, almost falling off our chairs. The screen was absurdly dark, but there was nothing to see as it was a voice message. Craig increased the volume just before Will's recognizable voice met out ears.

"I know what this means," he said so quietly that we almost missed it. My heart skipped a beat at the pain in his gentle voice.

"I, uh... yeah. Blood. It-it's everywhere," he stuttered, as usual, and I could see my mom clutch her chest dramatically. Will continued slowly, "according to what I know, the most time I have left is one hour max. Fifty minutes if I manage to move, but all this snow is already starting to kind of cave around my legs, so I'm kind of relying on that one hour." William stops talking for a minute. No one stops to look at each other.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck? All this fucking snow and fucking bullets and fucking fireworks."

I sit back abruptly. Will's mood changed before we could decide how to feel. The swearing puzzled me even more - Will rarely ever cussed, and he was swearing as if it were his first language.

We heard him laugh loudly, making me jump.

"Ha. Ha! N-Now I have fifty-five minutes left. Maybe if I keep talking, we can get this over with, and fast." Willaim went quiet again for another two minutes. Mom started crying.

"So damn cold. So cold. So cold. So cold. So cold."

He repeated the line another hundred times or so. His deep voice had reduced to raspy breaths.

"You want to know who shot me? Shit, I don't know! Eric just, like, died in front of me, you know," his voice broke. My heart shattered into a million pieces.

"I was like, eat shit and die. The fucker shot me. Right in the shoulder, and I'm trying hard super right now not to die. I'm l-lying here like a cooked salmon or something, waiting for the shark to find me."

The officer grabbed the phone and sped it up. "This is four minutes later," he whispered solemnly.

"Uh... yeah," we could barely hear him. The snow seemed to roar around him, and his voice was shaking. "I don't know if it's the cold or the blood loss. I think I'm just gonna... I'll just go."

The message ended with a click.

We stared at nothing in silence. A million thoughts run through my head. This guy wasn't William. He sounded nothing like the calm, collected, ethical brother I had.

Dad was the first one to speak. "How did you find his phone without finding his body?" His voice was ice.

Craig leaped to the answer, "the crime scene was decorated for us to find. The murderer knew what he was doing. William's phone was placed neatly on the snow, right beside Eric's phone, the shot man who was with Will during the crime scene. We found another recorded message of Eric's voice while he slowly died from the same bullet wound."

I couldn't speak. It was too confusing.

"You...he...what? The murderer put both phones of the victims beside each other with the same type of message? Is this some sick joke?" Dad spat, threading his hands through his dark hair. I was aware of mom nearly hyperventilating beside him, but no one moved to comfort her.

"Our theory," Craig began, "is that the killer planned this out perfectly. First, he or she came out from behind William and Eric. I called the shooter a 'he' for explanation purposes. He then shot Eric and William where he was sure they would die but not immediately; the shoulder. In their weakened state, the killer moved each body separately and threatened them both to record voice messages of what was going on without giving away the murderer. The murderer wants us to know that he's there, psychotically playing with us.

"With the heavy snow conditions, the bullet wound and the cold began to affect them. Eric died while recording the voice message. When he was done, the murderer dragged him out into the open where we could find him, careful to not leave evidence. William was, by chance, mistaken to be dead and dragged out beside Eric. The phones were placed in the middle of their corpses." Craig looked serious. "But William's dead body is missing from where it should be."

Mom halted mid-cry and clung onto his desk, grabbing the collar of Officer Hawkins's shirt. "Is my son alive?"

Craig didn't pull away. Instead, he faced my mother's blazing eyes and said, "if William truly had a gunshot wound in his shoulder, I am afraid to say that the odds are slim to none."

Mom released Craig and sat on the chair. Her eyes went dead. Dad stood up and attacked the officer with more questions, his voice beginning to drown in my ears, and I couldn't tell if he was crying or not. Mom was beyond the stage of speaking. I didn't know what to feel - hopeful, that my brother somehow turned into an immortal and survived, or live facing the truth?

But I knew one thing for sure; that was not the William I knew in that voice message.

* * *

We didn't get to keep his phone.

We weren't allowed to have a piece of him that was ours because the police needed it for further investigation. The case hadn't closed yet. They wouldn't rest until they found Will, dead or alive. Most likely dead.

Dad drank more. Mom cried more. The doctor said mom was in a terrible state for the baby and that even through the grief and stress she had to try and take care of herself. Mom didn't seem to care that much anymore.

My phone was exploding with texts from people I never spoke. News somehow got around that Will was dead, and they all sent texts to try and make me feel better. I didn't open more than two, ignoring even Julia's sympathy and Mark's stupid jokes that usually worked in cheering me up.

We got neighbors knocking on our door, sending pastries and gifts and their condolences. Everyone loved William, but no one understood what it was like.

Dad and mom argued over the funeral countless times, arguing as they always did. Dad wanted to have one, wanting to accept the fact that his son was dead and get it over with. Mom refused to believe that, adamant on the fact that Will was going to walk through our doorstep sooner or later.

Everyone cried when they mentioned William's name. My grandma, the neighbors, and the girls at my school that were lovelorn over him. Julia and Mark came by, blubbering when they saw the state of my parents, but I told them to go away.

Loneliness truly is a cold friend.