A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

 

“I have no idea. I had my suspicions—have had them all these years.” His hand touches my jaw, fingers stopping at my lips. “I’ve gone over this a thousand times in my mind. The pieces don’t fit together. They never did. Nothing about four years ago makes sense, and this new turn of events is even more crazymaking.”

 

There’s that word. Crazy.

 

Except Drew’s not calling me crazy.

 

“What do we do?”

 

“We? We do nothing. I have to get my team to figure this mess out, all while protecting you.”

 

“From John, Stellan and Blaine.”

 

“And your father and mother. And the press.”

 

“Daddy and Mom? Why? Oh......”

 

The full implication of his words hits me, hard. I get it. They’ll think I did this to myself.

 

They’ll think I’m that unhinged.

 

“I can’t go back to the Island. I can’t.”

 

“That won’t happen.”

 

“But—”

 

“Do you trust me?”

 

“I—”

 

The room closes in on me.

 

His face hardens. Drew’s eyes narrow. In the dark room, he looks menacing.

 

“Four years ago, I couldn’t stop it.”

 

“You wouldn’t—”

 

“Couldn’t. Could not. I could not stop it, Lindsay.”

 

“But I saw the tapes—”

 

“You saw what they wanted you to see!” he whisper-shouts. “Just like they want your parents and the media to think you sabotaged your own car and set yourself up for that threatening text, damn it!”

 

I stop breathing.

 

The world stops turning.

 

Everything just...pauses.

 

And all that exists is Drew.

 

“Oh, my God.” My stomach flips, a full three hundred and sixty degree spin. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I can’t say anything else. Can’t think anything else. My mind races over and over, my mouth saying it in a chant.

 

If what Drew is saying is true, then I have spent four years living an even bigger lie than I ever imagined.

 

“You mean you—I d-d-don’t understand.” My words come out halting, like I stutter. “What do you mean you couldn’t stop them from raping me? From doing that to me.”

 

He grabs my arms, hard, so hard I want to yell at him to stop. The pain is the only thing holding me in place, though.

 

“I couldn’t stop them. What you don’t see in that video is the gun one of them is holding to my head. And the gun that the third is holding to yours. Both are off camera.”

 

I go numb.

 

And yet, even then, I wince. Because how could he just watch me being violated like that and not try to stop it all?

 

“There’s more.”

 

Of course there is.

 

“Blood tests later showed some kind of drug in me.”

 

“Drug?” I gasp. “Like the roofies they slipped in my drink?”

 

“No,” he says slowly, transfixed on a spot behind my shoulder. “Something different.”

 

“Different?”

 

“An immobilizer. Meant to keep me awake but unable to move.”

 

“What? I don’t understand.” But his words slowly make a horrific kind of sense. “They paralyzed you?”

 

“Something like that.” His face closes off. I can tell there’s more to this, but frankly, what he’s told me is already too much to handle.

 

“Drew, this is all crazy!” I say, a sick form of laughter bubbling up from my gut. “You expect me to believe that?”

 

“You expect me to believe you didn’t tamper with your own brakes even though your fingerprints are all over the hoses?”

 

We stare at each other.

 

A standoff.

 

All I can do is blink, my head a roaring freight train.

 

“You—you didn’t just sit there and watch it—a-a-a-and let it happen?”

 

“I can’t believe you thought that. I can’t fucking believe that you would think that I would ever, EVER let someone do that to you! Defile and debase you in front of my own fucking eyes while I couldn’t—”

 

“WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO THINK?” I roar.

 

“They said they would blow your head off if I moved. Not that I could move if I wanted to,” he huffs. “I didn’t care if they killed me, Lindsay. I’ve spent years wondering if I’d have been better off if they had.”

 

“Me, too. I wish they had killed me.”

 

“Don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that!” he says savagely, shaking me slightly.

 

“Why now?” I whimper. “Why are you telling me this now?”

 

“Because they’re doing it again. This time, you’re the target again. And I don’t know why. Just like last time, I don’t know why.” His eyes are brooding and intense. “But unlike four years ago, this time I have tools. Weapons. Skills. And a network of people who have been carefully cultivated to make sure that what happened before never, ever happens again.”

 

“You didn’t just let them.” I can’t stop saying it.

 

“No, I didn’t.”

 

I close my eyes.

 

“They got away with it.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“They’ll get away with it again.”