ILARIAS DEAD BESTFRIEND WAS STARING AT HER ,SCREAMING AT HER TO HELP HER, no - she couldn't be. She was dead and Ilaria was losing her mind, so it seems.

Ilaria blinked back tears, ducked her head, swallowed down the acid burning her throat "it's not real" she whispered to herself and when she looked up again, her friend was gone.

She had set up their favorite movie, got together their favorite snacks-she'd just listened to the voice note Kenna had sent her telling her she'd be running late...the night her mother came home sobbing. The night she found out her bestfriend had been murdered. Strangled to death, found just near the frozen River.

It was snowing then and it was Ilaria's favorite time of year, months later she would begin associating snow with the worst day of her life.

Ilaria shivered, everytime it began snowing again she'd start seeing things. Her friends abandoned her, her mother looked at her as though she was a broken glass, taped together and any wind strong enough could shatter her all over again. Ilaria could not stand it because the thing about broken people is that they are not fragile.

The people at school call her crazy, apparently PTSD and a small town don't go all that well.

Schools closed, Ilaria should be happy - she doesn't have to deal with those God awful people and she could avoid her mother but she cannot avoid herself.

And there's no one in the world she wanted to avoid more than herself.

The brunette girl stands up on her way to pour herself more hot Cocoa, the bags under her eyes and the slight shake in her hands - are evidence of her time not sleeping and meals being skipped.

Not on purpose, she'd been pouring over the case of this killer for 8 months. It consumed her and sometimes she forgot that as a human being she required sleep, she required food - to survive but she died that night along with Kenna, nothing seemed so vital anymore.

She knew the basics, knew the little things but she couldn't, for the life of her understand why Kenna and that must be why she's so off track. Too consumed with herself, with her own life - to know that there's a serial killer on his way to take another girl's life as she sits in her home, with her Cocoa and her book. Blissfully unaware.

It wouldn't remain that way for long.

Later that day, Ilarias brother came barging in. She raised her brows at the urgency in his steps.

His face was pale and his eyes were far away, he never even greeted Ilaria as he came in. She closed her book and looked up at her brother who was shaking the snow out of his hair.

"is everything alright?" she asked wearily, her gut was telling her that nothing was alright but that's what it's been telling her for the past 8 months anyway.

"you haven't seen the news?" Tates eyes widen and his whole face crumples with the realization that he has to deliver the bad news, he had been hoping she saw for herself.

Ilarias body went cold and somehow she knew, in the back of her mind she already knew but she had to hear it out loud, for herself "no, what happened?"

Tate moved to sit down and close his eyes, bracing himself no doubt "they found another girl" he said.

Ilaria felt like 100 knives were being pierced through her skin. Tears began spilling down her cheeks "I couldn't figure it out fast enough, I knew he'd be coming back for another -"

Her breath caught in her throat, she felt as though her soul wasn't in her body. As though she was watching herself lose all control of the air pushing through her lungs.

She heaved, the tears still spilling down her cheeks.

" I couldn't save her" she sobbed "I was supposed to save her, I was supposed to make this right."

Tates face softened and he was there- hugging his sister in a instant, smoothing her hair.

"you couldn't have done anything, you're a 17 year old girl. You are not a detective, it's not your job to find this bastard." he told her firmly. Ilaria didn't respond, he wouldn't understand. Nobody would.

So she sat there in her brothers arms and waited for her lungs to open up again, for her tears to dry. Although, in that moment she felt like she could cry and cry and cry until she was drowning in her own tears. Until eventually she would start crying blood instead and she would start tasting metal instead of salt.

But that never happened and her tears had stopped eventually.

Ilaria knew then, that she had to try harder. That no matter what it took she would find him and when she did she would kill him.