"Yes," he countered, "you can. I know it sucks. I also know you can remember. I don't fucking care if you get it right. Ages, Dez. Teens? Twenties? Thirties? Older? White, Black, Hispanic, or something else? Look at the fucking details that have been haunting your mind, because that's where the answer is."
So she began talking, and he recorded it all, terrified that he'd miss one of the words that fell out almost on top of the next. The descriptions weren't in order, but Dez called each man by the animal he'd been assigned. She described the Star Wars shirt, the hole in another guy's shoe, and the wedding ring on another hand. Piece by piece, fighting through the trauma in her mind, she dredged it all up and spat it out. When it got too hard, Crysis tried to get closer, but she described it all. Every person, every interaction, and all the fear she'd felt being chained and helpless.
Somewhere in the middle, the tears began to flow, but he didn't try to stop her. She had this. It hurt, but she was pushing through it, and he respected her for it. Her timeline jumped around as the memories resurfaced, but that didn't matter. He could sort this out later. It was all there, and she spoke as if she was purging it from her soul.
Then, "And on the last day, Wolf came back and said it was done. He said it was Falcon's turn." She stopped, her body twitching like she'd been slapped. "He said he'd spike the drink. Mine? Did they know back then what they were going to do to me? Is that why they let me live?"
"No," Jason promised. "He probably spiked your drink because he'd done it before, right after they assaulted you. He knew it..." He stopped. "Shit. He knew it worked. They had other targets."
"Did they die?" Dez asked.
"I don't know," Jason told her. "But I intend to find out."
"Snake never came back," she said. "He was only there the first few days. As soon as they cut me, he vanished, and that pissed them off, but Wolf said he'd handled his..." She stopped, glancing back to the building behind her. "Shit."
"What?" Jason asked.
"Handled his assignment. Wolf came back and said it was done. Whale and Tiger weren't there at the end. The whole time I was chained up and being tortured, they were doing the same thing to other girls, weren't they? They'd picked a few of us and they were making sure that none of us were a problem. But why? What did it matter to them?"
"Where was the warehouse?" Jason asked, trying to keep her on track so her panic couldn't take over. "Specifically?"
"It's in the police report," she told him. "Jason, why did Soul Reaper give the cops the screen shots?"
"Criminals like trophies," he explained. "Proof of what they've done and the effect it has. Your life was virtual, and so was the outpouring."
"But why give it to the cops?" she insisted. "I thought he was my savior!"
"Because they also like to be seen as heroes," Jason admitted. "They insert themselves into the investigation. They bask in the attention of being the only one who seems to know what's going on. Dez, they tracked a burner phone. The same one that left the very detailed message of what would be done to you. The message was on a guest account, so listed as anonymous, and then it was left there, on, so it could be tracked."
"He set his friends up?" she asked.
"That's one way to get rid of them," Jason agreed. "Or he wanted to make sure you lived. He wanted to watch you suffer. Who would do that? Who would hate you that much?"
"I don't know," she breathed. "I was just a high school kid."
"You were just nothing!" he insisted. "You were a rising star. Who did you make mad? Even the slightest bit?"
She shook her head. "The companies I contracted for loved me. I mean, it was a little weird because I was a kid, but I helped them restructure so things flowed better and the communities felt more involved. It's the same principles I brought to Deviant."
"Fire anyone?" he asked.
She shrugged. "A few, but not directly. I mean, I recommended that they be replaced, and sometimes the company fired them instead of transferring, but that was their call, not mine directly."
"Then it had to be the blog," he decided. "We know Arturo is