Silent.

Dante struggled to keep his composure as Will sequenced the events of last night. Mavis gnawed at the dead skin falling from her fingertips. Kim and Henry fidgeted in their seats. Roxy held a straight face on as her lieutenant, Will, stole several glances at her after key events have been stated.

Luca, however, was not allowed in the room for these meetings, but little did they know that she watched through the peephole in Will's room. She sat quietly and listened to the story, not making a single noise to gain attention.

Roxy was the first to speak when Will concluded his speech. "We have no way of saving her, your video holds no evidence of the attacker's face. How do you think we'll be able to do anything when we have no lead?"

Will avoided Roxy's eyes. He had no answer, no lead, nothing that would help his case at all. He looked at Kim, his brown eyes sparkling. "Do you think you can somehow clear the image?"

Kim hesitated to answer, twirling her hair around her fingers. "I can't promise anything."

Dante rested his elbows on his knees, "I agree with Roxy, I just don't think that we'll be able to do anything with no lead. I know that-"

"You guys can't just give up." Will interrupted, slightly raising his voice. "I'd expect this from Roxy, but not you. We need to at least try to do something instead of waiting around."

Roxy ran a hand through her red locks. "What do you think we should do then?"

She looked at Mavis and Henry, the only two who haven't spoken yet. Both shifted uncomfortably in their seats, not wanting the attention from Roxy's icy glare. The last thing they want is to suffer Roxy's wrath when she's angry.

Henry was the first to speak, "I agree with Roxy and Roid."

Dante growled at his nickname, 'Roid' being short for 'Steroid'. "That's not my name, and you know it."

Henry flashed a grin at Dante. "One of the major side effects of over excessive steroid intake is mood swings. I could go on. Let's see... there's erectile dysfunction, maybe that's why you don't have a girlfriend."

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

Henry ignored him. "There's baldness too. You're already halfway there, baldie!" The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement, a large smile tugging at his lips. He started counting side effects off his fingers. "Severe acne, infertility, breast development, shrunken testic-"

"This isn't helping our case!" Roxy shouted over Henry. "You guys shut up!"

They both shrunk under Roxy's gaze, pouting to be told what to do by a girl. Dante grumbled about how Henry started it. Henry muttered something about how he is always treated poorly because he's apparently the minority of the group. Dante overheard him and pointed at his own ebony colored arms.

Roxy rested her hands on her hips. "We can try to clear the image, but this doesn't mean that this solves anything. We would still need a name and address. Even if we have all of these things, we still won't know if this guy is the right guy. I'd rather not waste my hope on a pipe dream."

Will gazed at his leader. "But you're saying that we might have a chance at winning this one?"

Roxy hesitated but decided to enlighten him and sighed. "Yes."

Will smiled triumphantly at Kim, his cue for her to start getting to work. She sighed and stood up. Stumbling over her own feet, she lumbered over to her workstation in the corner of the living room: three giant monitors, cords tangled everywhere, a giant multicolored keyboard spread across the desk.

K

im sat down on her giant swivel chair and booted her monitors up. She nervously chewed on the dead skin peeling from her fingers as the computer flashed into life. Will leaned on the desk, making her feel uneasy while he watched her work.

She knew she would regret asking, but she did anyway and braced herself for the worst. "What if this doesn't work?"

Will narrowed his eyes at her, making her shrink down in her seat. "Have a little faith," was all he said. Will bit his tongue from saying anything else, he knew that Kim wasn't exactly one for confrontation.

Kim downloaded the image from Will's phone and enlarged it to make the face more visible. But the more she zoomed in, the more pixelated the photo would get. The most she could make out was that the man had brown hair and was roughly six feet tall. I'm

Roxy stood beside her, glaring at the screen. "This doesn't help, there are so many people who are tall with brown hair."

Will crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his feet. "Is this the best image you could get? There's no other way to make it less... grainy?" He wanted to use another word, but he knew he was asking a lot out of Kim already. He didn't want to make her any more uncomfortable than she already is.

"The more I zoom in, the grainier the picture gets. I don't have magical powers. I could try to draw in the missing features on his face, but I'm not an artist." She knew that Luca was the artist in the group, but she wasn't exactly in the group. Roxy never let her participate in any of the missions, and would probably murder her sister if she tried to help in any way possible.

However, she was desperate.

"But..." She continued, "we all know someone who is..." Kim felt Roxy's eyes narrow into slits down at her, the fire from her ice blue irises burning lasers at the back of her head.

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"I just think-"

"No."

"It would be a huge-"

"No."

Kim stood up, almost facing directly at her leader to meet her gaze. She was nowhere near as tall as Roxy –who stood a head above Kim– she had to crane her neck upwards to meet her eyes. Roxy held a death glare, one that would normally make Kim shrink back into a small corner. But, Kim always felt that it was important for Luca to feel included with the rest of the group.

"It's okay," a soft voice said behind them. Roxy and Kim turned their heads to find Luca advancing towards them. Her hair was tied in a loose braid, and a splash of olive colored paint smeared across her cheek. "Let me help."

"No," Roxy said defiantly.

"Just let her do it."

Roxy forgot her lieutenant, Will, had been standing there the whole time. She whirled around to face him, his brown eyes turning black from annoyance. He ran a hand through his short hair and sighed. "What harm co–"

William was interrupted by the front door kicked open, knocking into the wall supporting the frame. Kim shrieked from the sheer force of the hit, making the door seem silent. Roxy seemed unphased, not at all startled by the door or the scream. Luca looked back in horror at Dante, who stood motionless outside, carrying a small backpack covered in dried mud.

"I found this in the woods," Dante breathlessly explained. Sweat trickled down his forehead like he just came back from an intense workout. Like one of the drills that Roxy made the team endure during training.

Henry sauntered in from the hallway, dragging his feet. His hair was tousled in the back, his red eyes were supported by visible bags. "It's rude to make so much noise when someone is taking a nap," he yawned dramatically. "Proper etiquette should be taught to you animals. What are you? Gorillas?"

"Says the guy who ate soup with his hands because he didn't want to wait ten seconds for a spoon." Dante retorted, shutting the door behind him and sitting on the couch.

"What is that?" Will asked, changing the subject, directing the question at the drawstring backpack that Dante had been clutching in his arms. Everybody, including Luca, took a seat around Dante, waiting for him to answer.

Dante let the backpack fall onto his lap, and began to rummage through it. He pulled out: a coffee thermos, a pack of gum, an old cell phone, a wallet, a lighter, a thick stack of paperwork, and a pack of cigarettes; and set it on the table.

"I found this when I went exploring the woods. I knew there should've been some clues that could help; even if it was a fingernail, there had to be something."

Dante glared at Henry for interrupting his story when he muttered something about starring on Blue's Clues.

"I found this about a mile away. I know it's a long shot, but I think this might be of some use to our case."

Will reached out and grabbed the wallet. At first look, it was a standard black wallet. But, as Will examined it, he began to notice the minor quirks that carried meaning from it. There was a small chain that dangled from the top corner, a zipper enclosing the information inside, and a crest with a large K surrounded by the words 'Ad libertatem per universitatem' imprinted on the side.

Will ran his fingers along the crest. That was until Roxy snatched it from his hands to read it for herself. "Ad libertatem per universatem," she whispered to herself before translating. "To liberty through university."

As Roxy perused through the wallet, Kim reached for the old cell phone for examination. It was an old model, one they definitely don't make in factories anymore. It was ice cold and had finger smudges that smeared across the screen. "It's dead," Kim muttered to herself before taking it to her workstation to find a suitable charger.

"Does this look like the girl from yesterday?" Roxy asked, directing the question at Will, holding up a state ID in the air for the group to see. "Her name is Esmeralda Jayne Cantor."

Will's eyes widened in recognition.

There was a picture of a girl with wavy locks of chestnut hair that flowed past her shoulders. Dull gray eyes were sunken inside large black circles, framed by large bushy eyebrows.

"That's her," Will whispered, once again replaying the events of last night that haunted him in his sleep. "I remember her. She was so... helpless." For an instant, Will noticed Roxy's eyes flash something dark. But it left as soon as it came, like lightning.

"Lucky for us, this makes our investigation easier. Now that we have a name, we can find out things like where she lives, what she does for work, basically her entire life." Roxy stated matter-of-factly as if she were reading words from a book.

Kim snatched the card from Roxy, much to her dismay, and immediately started scanning her name through her monitors. Her fingers glided across the keyboard like she was playing the piano and the computer was her instrument. Will tried his best to follow what she was doing, but she was too fast for him to comprehend. Dozens of images popped up in various places on her screen, all featuring the chestnut-haired girl that he saw last night.

天使