A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1) Read online

  “What the hell have I gotten into?”

  Chapter 8

  I creep my way back to my bedroom and stare at the ceiling fan, resting on the bed, trying to get the confetti that flies through my mind at the speed of light to slow down.

  I thought coming home would give me freedom. Closure. A fresh start. I thought I knew most of the answers about the incident four years ago, and could move forward with a new future that might always carry the scars of the past, but that would still be okay.

  But no.

  The press thinks I was drunk and high and asked for...for that? Asked to be tied up and gang-raped by three fraternity brothers, old friends of Drew’s who I had—until that moment—trusted with my life?

  Instead, they stole my virginity.

  My innocence.

  My sense of trust.

  Worst of all, my first love stole my soul from me.

  And now he’s...defending me?

  Nothing makes sense. Everything is upside down. When I went through my debriefing on the island, Stacia told me I could call their therapeutic hotline any time I needed support. I know that’s a trick, though. If I make that call, Daddy’ll put me back there in a hot minute.

  I have no one to talk to. No one to turn to. My group of friends—Mandy, Jenna and Tara—were my besties. The four of us went everywhere, from the day we entered the pre-school we all went to, all the way through prep school. That night, four years ago, we’d all been home from college and partying like high school.

  Did I drink? Sure. A few. Drew brought them to me.

  Did I do drugs? No. Never.

  Was I drunk? I didn’t think so. I’ve run through the night a thousand times in my mind, and I remember three drinks over the course of three hours. Stacia tells me the mind reinvents whatever it needs to change to fit a person’s inner desires. We want to believe that bad things can’t happen to us, so we reshape memories sometimes.

  She never outright said that’s what I did. And I know I didn’t.

  I’ve always thought that last drink must have been drugged. Spiked. Because after I finished it, the room turned to blurred cotton. Drew’s face had just disappeared, like layer after layer of lace had been overlayed until he just wasn’t there any more.

  Until he stopped existing.

  Until he turned into nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Something way too close to tears tickles the edges of my eyes.

  I start humming a Katy Perry song. One saving grace on the island: I was allowed to listen to almost any music I wanted. Songs about rape and abuse were carefully selected out of my playlist. Otherwise, I had free reign. The humming cuts through the blizzard in my mind.

  The sound of my own voice in my throat feels like a weapon. It’s mine. Mine and only mine.

  In the distance, a lawnmower starts. One of the cleaning people turns on a vacuum. And as I fade off to sleep, unable to fight my absolute, bone-weary exhaustion, I let the song die in my throat, my final conscious thought one, single word:

  Drew.

  Grey. Every part of the world has turned a pale, dirty grey that makes me shrink back in terror. It’s cold and still, the chill seeping into each inch of my skin. My bones feel like icicles. I look down. I’m wearing a thin, cotton dress that goes to my ankles, my wrists, and that is three sizes too big.

  The cotton is grey, a scratchy, stiff fabric that fills me with an uncontrollable impulse to tear it off. I would rather be naked in public than wear this garment one more second.

  A large shadow covers my head, then passes. How can there be a shadow when the whole world is grey? I look up to follow the movement of whatever created the dark splotch and see it’s a vulture. His eyes meet mine and the moon shines so bright, so suddenly, like a spotlight shoved two inches from my face, blinding me.

  Then blackness. I close my eyes, disoriented and terrified. The grey turns into a fine mist that smells like rotten eggs, and as I reach up to push the hair away from my face I can’t. My wrists are bound behind me.

  I open my mouth to scream.

  I can’t.

  My mouth is filled with my grey dress. I am naked, the whole dress being crammed down my gagging throat by the feathered wing of the vulture. It’s eyes are filled with a murderous glee, as if it is human and intelligent, as if it savors what comes next.

  My breasts tingle with the cold fear of being defiled by unseen fingers, my core spasming with horror as I’m invaded, over and over, penetrated and helpless, the pain too much, too much, until I can’t take it but the scrabbling creatures in my brain won’t stop moving, can’t escape, can’t flee, and I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—

  I wake up covered in sweat, my hands above my head, sitting up, my fingernails clawing my throat. The harsh rasp of my breath feels like I’m drowning, unable to get enough air, my lungs filled with the abuse in my dream, a kind of liquid poured into me that I can never expel.

  Coughing, I feel the moan rise up from my core, as if it needs to speak, as if I can find it a voice.

  This is one of the dreams that has plagued me for four years.

  I thought coming home would make it stop.

  A light turns on in the hallway. I grab my pillow and cover my face, crawling under the covers and resting on my side, away from the door. Eyes wide, heart twitching like I’m being defibrillated, I force myself to breathe evenly. Fighting instinct, I make it happen.

  I have no choice.

  I’ve had no choices for four years.

  Someone is on the other side of my door. Shadows along the small crack at the base of the threshold tell me I’m right. The door creaks softly, like someone is pressing their hands against it. Are they shoving their ear up to the wood to listen for me?

  I have to give them nothing.

  Did I scream? Cry out? Gasp so loudly they heard me? I can control my behaviors when I am conscious, but the subconscious and the unconscious...ah, they are finicky mistresses. So hard to control.

  Three faces flash before my open eyes, memories frozen in time. John, Stellan and Blaine.

  Funny how they look just like the vulture in my dream.

  Those eyes.

  The person on the other side of my door knocks softly. Tentative, they’re exploring whether I’m awake or not. I hold my breath.

  Go away, I think. Just go away.

  To my surprise, they do. The shadows and the shuffling in the hallway tell me so.

  I spend the next three hours until dawn staring at my ceiling fan, willing it to move.

  I do not close my eyes.

  Chapter 9

  Home.

  I’m home. I can smell it. At some point, I must have dozed off, because I wake up with drool in the corner of my mouth and that hazy feeling you get when you’re not quite sure whether you’re asleep or awake.

  That scent? It’s the smell of carbs.

  Carbs and cinnamon. My two favorite food groups.

  Something in the room is ringing. The sound is electronic, and it takes me a while to recall the sound.

  It’s a mobile phone.

  I sit up and search the room, my eyes running across the surface of my dresser, nightstands, desk, and coming up empty.

  Then I realize it has a hollow sound.

  Three, four, five times it rings, and as I stand and search, I finally discover it in the left, top drawer of my desk.

  I open the drawer. It is empty other than the phone, which is brand new.

  I haven’t had my own phone in four years.

  A stripe glows at the bottom of the screen. I tap it, then remember. You swipe it. I do, and a man’s voice speaks from the phone.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.” It’s Daddy.

  “Hi. What’s this phone?”

  “Yours. You need one. That’s how the world works, sweetie. Your generation has smartphones to keep you on track. I have Anya.”

  His attempt at casual humor makes me smile. I laugh because it’s expected of me, but a part of my chuckl
e is genuine. Something in my belly relaxes. A layer of tension releases.

  “One day Anya is going to retire and you won’t know what to do with yourself, Daddy. You’ll just pause in place, like a robot without its energy source, and freeze.”

  “She has to wait until after my two terms as President before she can retire.”

  I laugh again.

  “It’s in her contract,” he adds. This is an old joke. Anya’s younger than Daddy and is about as likely to retire as Daddy is to give up on politics. Both will never happen. This is safe territory for conversation.

  “Are you home?” I ask, making polite conversation. I already know the answer.

  “Back in Washington.” If I had a dollar for every time he said that, I’d have...well, enough to buy a nice computer.

  Or, as I cradle it in my hand, a very nice smartphone.

  “Lindsay, today is your day to decompress. Catch up on life. Learn how to use your smartphone, go to the spa, find your old friends...” The last little bit dies on his tongue. I know why, because I overheard what he and Drew said last night. But he doesn’t know I know, so I listen to his changing voice as he tries to cover for his own inner turmoil.

  At least, that’s what I want to think. Because if my own father isn’t experiencing any kind of doubt or concern on the inside right now, on my first full day since coming home for the first time in four years since the attack on me, then I need to re-evaluate everything I know about love.

  “I’ll be fine.” I pretend to yawn. “I plan to spend the day going on a nice run, seeing Mom, organizing my room, and getting ready for whatever comes next.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Daddy loves plans. He worships his to-do lists. He hates winging it. Of course, when you have Anya organizing your every move, and you’re a two-term United States Senator, you can think your success comes from being overly scripted.

  But that’s not important. What is important is this: I think he’s no longer worried. The more I deflect and make him think I’m fine, the sooner he’ll give me more freedom.

  And I need all the freedom I can get, because after a few days, it will be time to enact my plan.

  Daddy doesn’t know I have plans, too.

  Plans that have nothing to do with him.

  “It is a plan, Daddy,” I say, smiling while I talk. I learned that on the Internet, in some article I read. You sound happy if you smile while you talk. Confidence radiates out from the tone that comes with a smile. I hope it works.

  A sudden flash of memory, like a picture in my mind, makes me gasp. The vulture. The vulture, shoving the grey dress down my throat. Tiny beads of sweat break out on my chest and I feel my breath quickening.

  No. Not now.

  “Lindsay? Are you all right?” he asks. “Your voice sounds strange, suddenly.”

  “Just stretching,” I huff, trying to tell the flopping twelve pound bass that is burrowing in under my collar bone to stop moving. “Getting ready to run. Gotta go. Love you.”

  “Love you—”

  I push end call and slowly slide to the floor, the warm carpet against my back more soothing than any meditation chant. One skill they taught me at the island: how to brace myself during a panic attack.

  Maybe I did learn more than deceit during my four years there. Huh. Who knew?

  My phone rings again. It’s set to that old fashioned ring tone, like the kind in those 1970s movies Mom makes me watch sometimes, with the rotary phones. I need to change that to something more hip, but right now I have double vision and it feels like my scalp is on fire. First things first.

  Stop the panic attack.

  then

  Change the ring tone.

  “Yes?” I muster as much strength as I can for the call, because chances are good it’s my father again.

  “Honey, I almost forgot,” he says, as if we hadn’t hung up at all. “We need to have a meeting tomorrow morning. You and I. Breakfast, at nine am, in my office.”

  “In Washington?” I choke out.

  He laughs. “Good lord, no. I’ll be home late tonight. You know I hate to spend any more time here in D.C. than I have to.”

  Click.

  The room spins, and not because I’m actually dizzy. Meeting. Breakfast. Tomorrow at 9am. I stand and search the desk for a piece of paper to write that on, then stop. I stare at the phone in my hand.

  I have so much to relearn, I think, as I open the Calendar app and teach myself how to enter the appointment in the app.

  I’m also very, very aware that while this is my phone, it’s not my private phone. Everything I say, everything I do, every tap and swipe is being monitored by someone. Maybe Daddy. Perhaps Drew. More likely, it’s someone I’ve never met, who is being paid to make sure I stay within the lines Daddy wants to keep me in.

  And that’s life, right? As long as I paint within the lines I’ll earn my gold star. Four years ago, someone dragged my bloody body across those lines and made a big, huge mess on the canvas called life. None of that was my fault, but I’ve been held responsible for it for four years.

  I’m still being held accountable for it.

  But that’s all about to change.

  Chapter 10

  One of the best tips I picked up on the island is this morning drink called Bulletproof Coffee. You mix hot coffee, unsalted butter, and this weird brain-building oil and drink it on an empty stomach. The island staff claimed it helped to boost endorphins and elevate neurotransmitters and a whole bunch of biochemical neurochemistry blah blah blah that never made sense to me, but I did know one thing:

  I felt great on the mornings when I drank it after waking up, and then went for a run.

  Connie, the woman who runs the kitchen, is new to me. She’s short and plump, with greying, chin-length hair, and she wears square, fashionable glasses with red frames. Her apron is red and has nothing on it. Not a single stain. I only know who she is because as I walk into the kitchen, she looks up and walks toward me like a drill sergeant who finds an errant recruit wandering around an Army base.

  “Connie,” she says, shaking my hand like it’s an old-fashioned water pump. “So nice to meet you, Lindsay.”

  “Thanks. You too.” I don’t ask what happened to Michelle, the former kitchen manager. I’m sure my mother fired her. Household staff rotate through the compound like balls on a roulette wheel.

  “What can I get you?” she asks.

  “I can get my own, thanks. I just need a blender.” I smile, trying to put her at ease. She’s tense and aware, but not in an anxious way. She’s like a general.

  “No need. It’s my job to get to know your tastes, Lindsay. I can make your life seamless if you let me.”

  The bark of laughter that comes out of me can’t be contained. If only it were so easy.

  She reddens. “I meant in terms of your diet.”

  “Right.”

  Connie clearly isn’t the type to give lots of warm fuzzies, and yet some emotion is there. Nothing negative. I think she’s the type who likes to be in control of her space. I met a lot of staff members like this at the island. Figuring out where their boundaries were became an art. As I stand here and try to figure out the fragile social space between me, my own home, and this new woman in charge of food in my home, I realize how sick and tired I am of reading other people to make sure I fit within whatever box they think I should be in.

  And yet, I don’t have a choice.

  Daddy could send me back to the island in a heartbeat.

  And I have way too much work to do here.

  “So,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “I drink this stuff called bulletproof coffee for breakfast.”

  Her face lights up. I mean, I know that’s an expression people use all the time, but in this case, it literally lights up. Her blue eyes become bluer. Her cheeks fill in with a lovely shade of pink. Her entire demeanor warms.

  “Finally! Someone in this household who is edgy! Your father just wants fresh fruit and waffles ev
ery morning, and I think your mother subsists on black coffee, one apple, and air.”

  Our eyes meet.

  Friend.

  I think I have a friend.

  Connie turns away and rummages in an upper cabinet, pulling out whole bean coffee and a small, amber jar. “I have coconut oil, and I know I have grass-fed unsalted butter in the refrigerator. Will that do until I can order some of the special oil you need to replace the coconut?”

  I’m floored.

  I must look shocked, because she laughs. “My son is really into paleo eating, and exposed me to this crazy coffee about a year ago.” When she smiles, she looks so much younger. Maybe she’s just one of those people who has a cold demeanor and then, when you scratch the surface, turns out to be super nice.

  Maybe.

  For the next five minutes, she does all the steps I’m used to doing on the island, and suddenly, we’re both sitting at the kitchen island, sucking down our respective coffees.

  “Mmmm,” I say, admiring the taste. “What’s that sweetness?”

  “It’s just vanilla bean. Ground. No sugar.” She adds the sugar part defensively. I know why. My mom would ream her out if she added carbs to coffee.

  I drink the rest down swiftly, then smile. “Thanks.”

  An awkward silence appears suddenly, like an unwanted house guest. Her eyes turn down and fill with a troubled look.

  Ah. She knows. I’m sure everyone on staff knows about my past. Of course they do. How could they not? I know the video made the media rounds four years ago. You can still find it, here and there, on YouTube and other video sites. Daddy has an entire social media reputation management company on the job twenty-four/seven, scouring the Internet and filing removal demand notices whenever it appears, but it’s like trying to throw starfish back into the ocean.

  The task is insurmountable.

  “That was good. I appreciate it, Connie.” I put my empty mug in the sink and turn around, adjusting my arm band that holds my tiny mp3 player. My earbuds hang around my neck like a tie, and I’m already dressed for my run. The rush of coffee starts to hit me and I’m antsy. Time to run out all this overwhelming confusion.