off before I try killing my chances with that woman."
"See ya online," Murder said, grabbing his phone to disconnect the call.
If Riley talked to Dread and Ice, then that was the entire crew. The "gamer girls," even if they weren't all girls. So far as Murder cared, they were playing for the same team, and he was fine with wearing pink. As an extra added bonus, it would piss off KoG even more - because in their circles, the girls were mean as fuck. It was the "kings" who were the pussies.
Chapter 11
Jason knew he'd just sent Ruin on a wild goose chase, but it served two purposes. First, it gave them a little more experience in getting around the web. Second, he knew that they were invested in this, so they wouldn't give up until they had everything. Each member of that hacktivist group had their own reason to be obsessed with this case, but in the end, it would only help get what he needed.
After talking to Riley, he didn't hear from that crew for the rest of the day. On Monday, Bradley flew out to the prison in Texas to sit down with the only person arrested for assaulting and raping Dez who hadn't yet died. Bradley emailed Jason a collection of notes, but it only meant more work for him to track down all the leads.
The interesting thing was that the asshole was sure he'd been targeted. He swore someone had convinced the other convicts in his unit to take him out, so Bradley was sticking around for one more day. He wanted to talk to the guy who'd attacked their person of interest. Most likely, it wouldn't go anywhere, though.
Then there was that one odd little detail. The man called Black Snake had only been in the warehouse with Dez for the first three days. Had he been arrested elsewhere? Maybe the group had turned on him or kicked him out? There was no way to know, so Jason went through Dez's story one more time. When he still had nothing, he told Bradley to ask the guy in prison, because it certainly wouldn't hurt.
But by Tuesday, Jason was ready to pull his hair out. He still had nothing. An overload of data sat on the desk before him, and he couldn't remember if he'd showered in the last day, but it didn't matter. Something here had to hold the answer! He was just about to pull on his headphones and listen to it all again when Rhaven stepped into the room.
"Cyn?" she asked, wringing her hands together.
"What happened?" he snapped.
She shook her head. "Nothing. I mean, nothing different. But I talked to Psyc last night, and this morning, I spoke with Dez. She's got the KoG forums up, and Psyc said he's doing a whole lot of nothing since his competition's all been drafted into helping. Dez and I thought that maybe he could go through the forums and see if there's anything in there. She said you had to approve it."
"No," he huffed. Then he waved Rhaven down. "Sorry. I just hate that these assholes are coming after you and I can't stop them."
"It's both the best and worst part of the internet," Rhaven reminded him, stepping a little further into the room. "People like me can be free, because we can't be traced. It lets us live a life where we aren't worthless. Doesn't matter if that's because they're trans, they're being bullied, or anything else. Just remind yourself of that when you want to take that away, because our anonymity isn't always a bad thing."
He set the headphones back down and turned away from his computer to face her. "Tell Psyc that server doesn't exist, he's never seen the forums, and then give him full access, ok? I'll need some way for him to tag posts I need to look at. No, have Dez check them. It's her project, after all. If she gets anything, tell her Ruin's available."
Rhaven grabbed his shoulders. "Cyn, it's ok. These guys aren't winning. Deviant's making it clear that we won't tolerate them."
Her use of "we" made him smile. "Decided this is where you belong, huh?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, and I never thanked you for helping with my name."
"That was all Bradley," he reminded her. "I wish I could take credit for it, but I didn't even think of it. He did, and he made it clear this would help keep you safe. The judge