She huffed at that. "They caught five. They told me there were only five, so I thought that maybe I'd made up the names. See, at first, they were all there. No one talked to me until they were all together, and then Snake did the talking."
"Did you recognize his voice?" Jason asked. "High, low, smooth, rough, or anything about it?"
"Educated," she mumbled. "He sounded like cursing wasn't easy. Like he had to make himself. Kinda nasally voice, but nothing extreme. Just, you know, kinda like a normal geek, I guess? The kind of voice that goes with class, not sex appeal."
"Anyone else?"
"White Wolf." Dez turned to face Crysis, petting him with both hands now. "He was the guy with that business card." She licked her lips. "I dreamed about him, Jason. About that club. He put something in my drink, and I knew it as soon as I took a drink. I looked right at him, but I can't remember his face. I can barely remember all of that, and it's blurry, like the memory belongs to someone else. Took me a long time before that came back, too."
"Arturo Ganza," Jason said. "Tell me about him. How often was he there?"
She tried to pull her hands back, but Crysis followed, all but climbing into her lap. Something flickered across Dez's face. Appreciation? It wasn't a smile, and it certainly wasn't relief, but she liked that his dog wasn't going to leave her.
"He was there the first few days. I don't really know how many, because they all blurred together. I got beat a lot, and sometimes I passed out. So, maybe three days? Each day, they told me to leave games alone. Stop talking about them, playing them, blogging about them, and so on. None of them ever told me to stop hacking them, though."
He nodded, triple-checking his phone was getting all of this. Mostly because he really didn't want to ever ask her again. "They probably didn't realize you could, because they couldn't."
"Then they made Halo." She gestured to that tattoo on her body, indicating the scar it hid. "I guess the knife was easier - or box blade - but I'd never been hurt like that before. I couldn't see them, so I couldn't dodge. I screamed as loud as I could, but that only made them laugh."
"So they knew they were alone."
She nodded. "I was left bleeding that night. The next day, the real bickering started."
"About what?" Jason broke in. "What had them on edge?"
"Eagle was worried about jail." Her eyes were distant, locked on things that only she could see. "Wolf was pissed that he was a pussy. No, a fag. That's how it all started. Eagle had to prove he wasn't, and I was right there."
Jason snapped his fingers, pulling her away from that horror. "What were they pissed about, Dez? What had them on edge? Before they touched you, what was bothering them?"
"The blood," she breathed. "It had been trailing down my back and arm all night. I'd heard it hitting the concrete. Snake wasn't there, so Whale decided to cut my shirt off and make sure it wasn't still bleeding. Shark wanted to kill me and just be done with it, but Eagle said..." Her breath caught. "He said he wasn't a faggot. That was when they cut off my pants."
"I'm so sorry," he breathed. "Dez, how many were there that day? If Snake wasn't, how many were?"
"Six or seven." She swallowed. "When they lowered me down and took off the hood - so they could reach my mouth, you know - one of them walked away."
He sat up. "They took off the hood?"
"And held a knife to my throat!" she snapped.
"But you saw them," he pointed out. "We both know that you remember every single detail, and you saw them. Tell me, Dez. Not what they made you do. Focus on who was there. Who was watching. Who laughed and who looked away. What did the ones not touching you say?"
"Someone held me up," she admitted. "They traded out."
"The ones standing there," he insisted. "Start to your left. What did he look like? What were they wearing? How tall? Skin color? Scars, eye color, haircuts, t-shirt logos. Anything, Dez. What did these assholes look like?"
"They had on masks," she told him. "Rave masks. Like bandanas that pulled up over the bottom half of their face, or leather ones with studs. Each of them were different, but I couldn't identify them