A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

“It was the blood. Where all the blood was. Your face was covered in blood and, um, you know...but your lower half was worse. And your shoulder was dislocated and—”

 

“Okay. Okay.” I think I’m about to throw up. I guess my feelings aren’t so distant, after all. “I understand.”

 

“I’ll stop,” she says in a rush of words. “I’ll stop and I’m sorry, but you asked and there’s so much to tell and no one lets us talk about this. No one.” Her eyes dart to catch mine. For a split second, I swear she looks excited. That can’t be right.

 

Must be nerves.

 

“Us?”

 

“I mean...me. I said us because—” An expression of distaste covers her face. “Because I don’t know. I’m still used to us being us. Not me only being me.”

 

“Because Mandy, Jenna and Tara did something.”

 

“Oh, yeah. Did they ever.” For the first time since we started talking, Jane struggles to make eye contact with me.

 

“What did they do?”

 

“You really don’t know?” She’s shocked. Genuinely shocked, her mouth in a little O of reaction, her wide eyes so innocent and filled with a sense of outrage on my behalf. “How isolated have they kept you?”

 

“Very.” The part of me that is ten feet in the air, watching this scene unfold, moves about five feet closer. I can tell I can trust Jane. She’s not playing me. I’m not some specimen for her to watch and control.

 

“You mean, you know nothing? I thought you said you knew about what Mandy, Jenna and Tara did.”

 

“I woke up in a mental institution four years ago, Jane, and haven’t had any contact with the outside world that hasn’t been carefully monitored since. Yesterday was the first time I’ve had any freedom.” I roll my eyes. “If you can call it that.”

 

I’m not telling her the whole truth. I know more than I let on. But why should I show all my cards when I don’t know if she has any tucked away somewhere?

 

I can’t trust anyone.

 

But God, I really want to.

 

“No one explained...showed you the video...told you about the press coverage?” Based on her reaction, I can tell she thinks I’m lying.

 

She’s right, but there’s no way I’m admitting that.

 

“No. I do know Daddy won his re-election, though.”

 

Her face twists into a snarl of rage I didn’t know Jane could manage. “What the f—” My phone rings, halting her words.

 

I look at the screen and swipe.

 

It’s Stacia.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 17

 

 

 

 

 

I stare dumbly at the screen. My stomach throbs, like there’s a pulse in there.

 

“You answering it?”

 

“No.” I turn the phone over and pretend my past isn’t chasing me.

 

“It’s not your father, is it?”

 

I look Jane square in the eye. “It’s my primary therapist. My manhandler. My babysitter from the Island.”

 

“The Island?” Her eyes are neutral, gathering information, curious.

 

“The mental institution Daddy’s been hiding me in all these years.”

 

“So it’s true,” she gasps. “I knew you were in there for two years, but when they told me to stop writing you letters, when they said you didn’t want to be friends any more, I...”

 

I pinch the bridge of my nose and look down at the shiny table top. The rest of my latte’s gone cold. “They said that?”

 

“Yeah. I figured they were lying, but I also didn’t know. Maybe you hated me like I imagine you hate Mandy, Jenna and Tara. I wasn’t part of that, though.”

 

This is so confusing.

 

“What did the girls actually say? What do you mean? I don’t know anything about this part. I know they did something. That’s all I know.”

 

“They lied to the press. Lied to everyone. They said you got drunk and high and invited the four guys in the video to, um...to have sex with you. At the same time.”

 

And now I’m twenty-thousand feet above this conversation, untethered in space, gasping for air.

 

“Mandy, Jenna and Tara all said that?”

 

“At different times, yes. About two days after it hit the news. You were all over the place, Lindsay. Major network news, cable news, the BBC, you name it. Online, too. None of the major news outlets showed the video. That appeared on tiny little websites slowly, like someone was trickling it out to each website one at a time. I know your mom and dad hired a company to get the copies taken down, but it was on enough sites that...”

 

“I know. I’ve seen it.” But I never realized my own best friends were the ones who started the rumors.

 

Her head jerks up from her cup of coffee. “You have?”

 

“I found ways to access the Internet without being monitored.”

 

Her eyebrow quirks up and she leans in. “Sounds like you outsmarted a lot of people.”

 

“I have some new skills,” is all I can say. “So my best friends conducted a smear campaign on me.” A wall of grief hits me.