Chapter 2

It had been four hours since I was taken from that blood-soaked dorm room.

In those four hours, I’d had my blood drawn, been fingerprinted, and was grilled relentlessly over every single detail. My sanity was teetering on the edge of a complete breakdown.

Smack!

A thick stack of photographs was slammed hard onto the metal table.

Detective Briggs propped his weight on both hands against the table. He leaned in close, his glare bearing down on me with suffocating pressure.

"We looked into your relationship with the deceased, Chloe," Briggs said, his words rapid and laced with absolute certainty.

"The findings were… quite interesting."

"Everyone at St. Judy University knows that Sloane, Lexi, and Blair were a tight little clique."

"And you were their primary target. Their prey."

I shrank back slightly, my eyes instinctively darting away from the gory crime scene photos scattered across the table.

"We just... didn't really click."

"Didn't click?"

Briggs let out a cold laugh, pulling a written statement from a folder.

"The girl in the dorm next door testified that she frequently heard Sloane screaming at you in the middle of the night."

"They wouldn't let you touch certain things in the room."

"Someone even saw Lexi pinning you down in a chair, forcing some unknown pills down your throat."

"You're going to sit there and tell me that wasn't abuse?"

At the mention of those pills, acid bubbled up in my stomach again.

It was true. They always did that.

Sloane would always look down at me with this condescending, almost fanatical look in her eyes, muttering things that made zero sense.

Lexi and Blair were her willing accomplices.

They micromanaged my every move, forcing me to swallow those pills that left me dizzy and disoriented.

"You hated them, didn't you?"

Briggs's voice dropped to a low, venomous hiss.

"All that long-term suppression, all that humiliation—it finally reached a boiling point last night."

"You just couldn't take it anymore."

"While they were asleep, you grabbed a sharp weapon—maybe garden shears, maybe a specialized hook—and you brutally butchered them."

"To cover your tracks, you deliberately staged the scene to look like an animal attack, and spun this absurd lie."

"I didn't!"

I snapped my head up, meeting his sharp gaze.

"Detective, don't you have any common sense?"

"There were three of them!"

"Three healthy, grown women!"

"I barely weigh ninety pounds! How on earth could I instantly overpower all three of them and rip their throats open?!"

I gasped for air, pushing back even harder.

"Besides, if I did it, where is the murder weapon?"

"Why didn't a single drop of blood splatter on me?"

"You searched the entire room! Did you find a single piece of evidence proving I murdered them?"

Briggs fell silent for a beat. A flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes.

I knew I’d hit a nerve.

The police hadn't found a murder weapon, nor had they found a single trace of the victims' DNA on my body.

"That's why I told you—it was that beast!"

I thumped my fist against the table, desperate to make him believe me.

"It was all over the news! That escaped predator, the Beast!"

"It must have climbed in from outside."

"It's got unnatural strength. Only an animal could leave awful lacerations like that!"

"The windows were bolted shut from the inside," Briggs reminded me coldly.

"Maybe it knocked the latch shut when it left!"

"Maybe it was some kind of freak accident!"

"I don't know!"

I clawed at my hair in sheer frustration.

"All I know is that after four in the morning, I was out cold. Dead to the world."

"If I was the killer, how could I just peacefully sleep through the night next to three slaughtered bodies?"

"That’s the part I find most unbelievable, Chloe."

Briggs sank slowly back into his chair, steepling his fingers.

"How could any normal human being sleep through the night, completely oblivious, while her roommates were being viciously butchered and bleeding out all over the floor?"

"Because I took the pills they forced down my throat!"

I basically screamed it at him.

A dead silence fell over the interrogation room.

Briggs stared at me for a long time. So long, I thought he was trying to burn a hole through my skull.

"Fine."

Briggs stood up abruptly, walked over to the heavy metal door, and pulled it open.

"Since you insist you were sound asleep. Since you insist this 'beast' is the killer."

"Then let's run a little test."

"What kind of test?" I stared at him, my guard instantly up.

"A polygraph."

Briggs glanced back over his shoulder, a cold, cruel smirk curling the corner of his mouth.

"If you're truly as innocent as you claim, the machine will prove it."

"But if you're lying, Chloe, I will personally lock you away in a maximum-security prison."