Jamie listed one corner of his mouth in return. He hated dredging up what he went through, but at the same time, it was important that Roxanna knew she wasn't alone in this. "It sticks with you," he said, sighing. "And speaking from personal experience, it's likely to get worse before it gets better, like a fever spiking before it breaks."
"Well that's...perfect," she muttered. "But at least I don't feel weird for stashing chips in my closet anymore." She swallowed hard, needing to tell them what happened, but that impulse was warring with the desire to never think about it again.
"They grabbed me in an alley," she said at last. "God, start to finish, they were just...a low-budget gangster movie. And they weren't even totally awful at first, apart from being kidnapping mobsters. They fed me pretty well the first night, but as time went on, and Hermes didn't pay up...they started to get angrier. And I fought them to try and get free, and that's when they started to drug me." She fought down the impulse to roll up her sleeve, but only just. "And I'd pass out, sure, but I'd have nightmares, bad trips that bled over into the waking world. I used to dream that one or more of you were suddenly there, but then you'd melt, or explode, or go up in flames." She smiled bitterly. "Hooray for hallucinations."
"The big one, with the biggest gun-I made a crack about overcompensation once, and he hit me over the head with it." She touched the tender spot at the back of her skull. "The idiot in charge hit him even harder, but I knew I was on thin ice then. If you guys hadn't found me when you did, I'd probably be dead."