A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(39)

My skin feels an electrical charge that shouldn’t be in this warm, humid room. I close my eyes and lick the blood off my lip.

Drew. He’s right outside. I can feel him.

“Is that what you really think?” Daddy asks. I can tell he expects me to obey him. To say no. To lie.

“Yes.”

His eyelids close and he inhales slowly, holding the breath for four beats, then letting it out.

“Why didn’t anyone ever ask me to tell my story?” I ask before he can say anything.

“Because you were ruined before you ever got the chance.”

Ruined.

Daddy might as well have slapped me. That word hurts more than Mom’s blow.

“This isn’t about truth,” he says, his hoarse voice sending a creepy vibe up my back. “This is about a long, arduous marathon to the White House. Your truth is important to you, of course. It’s why we left you on the Island for so long, because you needed to sort everything out and come back whole. Strong. Ready.”

Bullshit.

I don’t say it, but Daddy looks at me as if I did.

“I am a person,” I say, the words slow in forming, like taffy stretched so far it becomes a thread. “I am here. I have been here all along. I’m not a case, or a scandal, or a folder or a strategy you have to contain or mitigate or—”

“I know that.” His voice is like a breath that, blown too hard, breaks the thread in half, unmooring the tethered line.

“Then act like it.” There is no conviction in my words. As I sit in silence, my nose fills. My hand reaches up to trace the thin scratch from Mom’s slap. I’ve said all I can.

There is no more to say.

If they do not hear me now, I can’t change that. I can change me, but I can’t change them. The clichéd platitude that Stacia used to stuff down our throats in group therapy turns out to be useful. Helpful.

Painfully true.

“Lindsay.”

I close my eyes and pretend he’s not there. Surprisingly, this is not an effective strategy.

“Lindsay.” His voice is firm. I open my eyes. Daddy has bent down at my eye level and his face is inches from mine. He reaches out and touches my chin with his hand, eventually cupping my jaw into his palm.

“We researched everything. Everything. When you’re the head of a major senate committee, you have access to the finest investigators in the world.”

He knows. He knows about Drew being there. Then why did he hire Drew to shadow me?

“We know the names of the men who did those barbaric—well, who did that to you. We know your friends turned on you and lied. We know you didn’t ask for it.” He looks up, over my shoulder, as if he’s worried someone will hear him.

So much truth. So, so much truth.

I sag with relief against the wall. “Then why were those people in the meeting saying all that?”

“Because I can’t find a viable strategy to go public with the truth and clear your name.”

“What?”

“I can’t find a way to make the truth more believable than the lies.”

“What?” My throat feels like it’s been painted with broken glass.

“We kept you hidden away for your own good. Trust me,” he says, eyebrows turned down, eyes deeply troubled. “That first year you were in so much pain, just healing from the physical trauma of what those animals did to you. Year Two was a combination of helping your mind to recover from the psychological pain of it all. By Year Three we realized there was no turning back—in the public’s mind you were nothing more than a slut who got what she was begging for.”

I now know I’m my mother’s daughter.

Because suddenly I slap him. My own father.

Hard.

So, so hard.

The lift of my arm, the curve of my elbow, and the fine scrape of my palm against Daddy’s perfectly-shaven cheek is poetry. I feel like a principal in a ballet company, the cool smoothness of the center of my palm tickled by friction as my bones align to deliver the hit. And it’s a hit. Make no mistake about it.

I just struck a United States Senator across the face.

The future President of the United States.

Not only is he not expecting it, he’s clearly horrified by my blow. Within seconds my arms are pinned behind my back, yanked with force and a familiar joint-popping feeling that takes me back four years ago.

And it’s Drew, this time, who is delivering the restraint.

“Gentian,” Drew barks into his mouth piece as I writhe in his grip, trying to get out of this room, wanting to run and run and run, now thinking the Island was a form of paradise and I was too stupid to realize it. He’s calling for Silas, who appears in seconds, eyes cold and at the ready to do whatever Drew orders.

“Let go of me,” I argue, my efforts pointless. His grip is steel. I feel the harsh pain of my skin tearing, a rug burn quickly forming, as I try to pry my wrists out from his hands.

“No.”

Daddy makes it clear to Drew he should let me go. Obeying, but reluctant, Drew drops my arms.

“I deserved that,” Daddy says.

“Yes, you did,” I grunt, the sound low and mean. “You called me a slut for being the victim of a gang rape.”

Because Drew is right behind me, his body inches from mine, I feel the shockwave of pure rage that ignites him.