Breakaway Lies (Off-Limit Plays #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

DON’T LOSE YOUR MIND

TARYN

Hemlock Beach College Campus, SC.

Ascream pierces the silence of the early morning.

The frat house was dead quiet after last night’s rager, and everyone must have been asleep.

Another scream, louder than the previous one, echoes in the unfamiliar bedroom and my fingers close around my own throat. The scream is coming from me.

Is this blood? There is blood everywhere. The bedsheets tangled around my legs are soaked, and these aren’t my clothes.

I feel down my body with my own hands as my eyes slam shut. I’m completely naked beneath the worn cotton of the oversized t-shirt I’m in and I’m sore in a few places but I don’t think I’m bleeding.

Memories of last night come rushing through the foggy grogginess of my mind, and I exhale, willing my pulse to slow down.

I came to the Gamma Delta Tau party with my best friend Jodie after acing the last exam of my final semester.

We wanted to let loose and celebrate our impending graduation, but we also had a plan.

This frat party would be the perfect place to find a hookup and take care of my last goal before we leave the campus that has been our home for four years.

I would find someone to hook up with so I could leave my virginity behind.

I remember talking to a cute guy. We had a drink. One drink only for liquid courage. I’m not a big drinker and I wanted to have enough to lose my inhibitions but not so much that I would lose my nerve.

The cute guy and I danced for a while, and then he invited me to his room.

The space between my legs is sore and uncomfortable, so I think we had sex. I can’t really remember much of it. It mustn’t have been very good, or I would remember it, right?

I was nervous, so I downed the drink I had been nursing for most of the night when he sat on the bed and patted the spot next to him on the mattress, inviting me to join him.

The sudden memory of his weight on me elicits a fresh wave of nausea, and I heave, covering my mouth with my hands.

My head is pounding as if I had indulged in way more than one single drink.

Think, Taryn, think.

We had sex and then we both passed out. Blackout drunk.

It was late by the time we came to his room, but he didn’t sound drunk either when he invited me upstairs.

I shift a little, trying to sit up, but a wave of nausea makes me give up. I have to do this slowly. Aside from this killer hangover, the cloying, tinny smell that permeates the room isn’t helping my situation.

But the real question is, can this be my blood? From losing my virginity? I force one of my eyes open and sit up on my knees, sinking into the memory foam of the mattress. There’s blood everywhere; these bedsheets are going to be ruined.

God, how embarrassing, is this from losing my virginity? How in the world am I going to face… what’s his name? Shit, I can’t even remember the name of the guy I slept with. I can’t even look at him, so I keep my eyes trained on the bloody sheets.

Why is my mind so foggy? I squeeze my eyes shut again, straining to remember the name of my hookup.

Was it Tom? No, that doesn’t sound right. But it started with a T. Tim, it was Tim.

What do I do? Do I wake him and apologize for ruining his sheets or just slip out before he wakes? A walk of shame right now sounds way less shameful than having an awkward conversation in a bloody bed.

There’s way too much blood, though. My nursing training kicks into gear despite how confused I feel. Not everyone bleeds their first time, and definitely not to this extent. Unless I got my period? Maybe that’s why I feel so nauseous?

I open my eyes again and look down at the soaked sheets. No, this is too much blood even for my heaviest period.

If this doesn’t come from me, it can only come from the other person in this bed.

“Tim?” I croak, my throat drier than a desert.

No response. Did I get his name wrong? No, it was definitely Tim.

Is he asleep or is he unconscious?

If it’s the latter, I need to help him.

I force my eyes open again, and another scream sounds in the room.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The blood is definitely coming from the man in bed with me.

Dark red, brownish stains are splattered all over the padded headboard of the bed and on the walls.

Tim is lying face down, his pillow covering his head. What the fuck happened?

Before I can think about it rationally, I lift the pillow.

I open my mouth and try to scream again, but this time no sound comes out as I struggle to keep breathing.

His head is missing. The pillow is soaked in dark, viscous blood, and Tim’s body ends with his neck.

My muscles move almost of their own accord, and it feels like an out-of-body experience.

I hug the bloody pillow to my chest, scooting away from Tim’s headless body and in doing so I kick something.

I lift the sheets before I can think about what could be under the bloody sheets, and this time my voice comes back in another scream.

It’s a head.

There’s a human head under the sheets by my feet. There’s so much blood that I can’t make out any features on it. Despite my pounding headache and the nausea, I can use enough logic to add up the severed head by my feet to the headless body by my side.

I gotta call 911. Get an ambulance and… no. Not an ambulance. There’s no need for any medical training to know that Tim is beyond help. I need to call the police.

A thought hits me with the violence of a freight train. Whoever did this to Tim could still be in the house.

Maybe Tim isn’t the only one who’s dead. I need to find my phone, and I need it now. I might be in danger if the killer is still in here.

I rush out of bed, but my legs don’t support me, and I go crashing down onto the wooden floor of Tim’s bedroom.

Something cold and sharp clatters by my side, and that’s when I see it.

I almost landed on a long, bloody blade.

My body pushed it a couple of feet away and I clambered on all fours to check it out.

It’s some kind of machete and there’s blood all over it.

I pick it up and immediately drop it as another wave of nausea hits me.

I dry heave at the thought that this must be what killed Tim.

If that’s the case though, maybe the killer isn’t still in the Gamma house slaying all its other occupants?

I press my closed fists against my temples to calm the pounding in my head. How could I possibly have slept through my hookup being murdered? I only had one drink; there’s no way that should have affected me that much, unless…

Unless someone put something in my drink. My eyes land on Tim’s headless form and for a second I glare at him. Did he roofie me?

That would explain the gaps in my memory, and it would also explain why I didn’t wake up when he was being murdered.

It doesn’t make sense though. Why roofie me if I had been flirting with him from the get go? My intentions were crystal clear, and I only really had maybe two sips of my drink downstairs, finishing the vodka cranberry in my solo cup only when we came upstairs.

I shudder at the thought that someone was here, watching us sleep, and then they killed him.

They could have killed me too. I’m lucky to be alive.

I need to find my phone and call the cops, and I need to get out of this bloody t-shirt and find my dress.

My phone is on the floor, next to the murder weapon, and as I crawl to it, I spot my dress on the other side of the bed by Tim’s side. He must have dropped it there when he undressed me last night.

As I key in 911, my fingers hesitate on the call button. Something doesn’t add up.

What is the knife doing by my side of the bed? Did the killer come around to my side of the bed to finish the job and then change their mind?

It doesn’t make sense unless Tim was the target and whoever murdered him had no beef with me.

I wish I could remember something, anything, from last night. Although, maybe on second thought, not remembering a gruesome murder is a blessing in disguise. If I had woken up and seen the killer, they wouldn’t have let a witness live. Right?

God, my head hurts too much to think straight.

I look around the room for anything that could help me make sense of this situation, and I come up empty.

The bedroom door is closed, and so is the full-length window; the long, thick blackout curtains are drawn closed except for a little sliver that lets a blade of early morning sun filter into the room.

It’s the only light in the room; just enough to see the massacre that occurred here last night.

While not remembering what happened is a small blessing, the residual effect of whatever was in my drink is making it hard to think.

A shudder works its way down my spine at the thought that the effects of the kinds of drugs used as roofies can be unpredictable.

Last year on campus there were a couple of incidents where strong sleeping pills were used as roofies.

Those kinds of drugs have been known to sometimes cause sleepwalking, and one of the victims woke up buck naked in the middle of the interstate.

When the police finally managed to rescue her, she had no recollection of how she got there.

In extreme cases, people under the influence of these drugs even committed crimes that they didn’t remember anything about when they woke up back in their old beds.

An intrusive thought stops me in my tracks as I lift the blood-soaked t-shirt up to my chest.

What if I did this?

I immediately shake my head, and this time the nausea has the best of me, and I retch on the hardwood floor of Tim’s bedroom. On the floor of the murder scene.

The disgusting, coppery taste of blood mixes with the bile coating my tongue as I wipe my mouth with my forearm. One look at it confirms that there’s blood on my arms as well as on my thighs.

It can’t be me. I’m not a violent person; I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I even catch and release the spiders that invade my small apartment on campus when the weather turns cold. I’m terrified of spiders, but I bought a spider catcher online so I don’t have to go too close.

The point is, I’m not capable of violence. I chose a profession that’s all about helping others. I would never kill someone in cold blood.

Or would I, under the influence of the right cocktail of drugs and alcohol?

I wish I could remember something, anything beyond Tim covering my body with his when his head was still where it belonged.

As the fog slowly begins to clear from my mind, I reevaluate my situation.

I’m covered in blood. It’s all over the t-shirt that I guess belonged to Tim, it’s all over my body and I touched the murder weapon.

I just puked on the floor too. My DNA is all over this place.

What if I call the police and they think I did this?

Panic rises from the pit of my stomach, and I do the only thing that makes sense right now. I text Jodie.