Rye spots me and waves me over with a grin.
“I was starting to think Nexus had kidnapped you.” He laughs.
“She tried, but I fought her for the pizza,” I joke.
“Seriously, what took you so long?” he asks.
“She was making the spear smaller with an enchantment so I can carry it easier. It took me a while to get the hang of making it grow again,” I say.
The lie comes easily, and I tell myself it’s okay because it’s for his own good. It doesn’t make me feel any better, but at least when it all comes out, which it’s sure to at some point, I can say I lied because we weren’t alone and I didn’t want to say too much.
“Want to play doubles, Sailor? Me and you versus Rye and Sunday,” Aziza says when Ya-Ya announces she’s bored of pool and she’s going to paint her nails.
“I’m just going to sit and eat this, and then it’s game on.” I grin.
I take a seat in the corner of the room where I can see everyone and look around. Ya-Ya is swearing at her pot of nail polish. I tense up for a moment, but then I see she’s smudged a nail slightly and her cursing makes more sense. Mel and Jinx are bickering about the game they’re playing, and I turn my attention to them. It doesn’t stay there long when Sunday shouts, “Bring it on.” I turn my head in that direction and see him going for Rye with a pool cue.
I start to get up when I see he’s laughing and so is Rye. Rye picks up a pool cue of his own and they proceed to sword fight with the cues with Aziza looking on shaking her head.
The whole team is acting weird and it’s not helping me one bit. I keep watching them, waiting for Mel and Jinx’s bickering to take a dark turn, or for Sunday and Rye to turn their fight serious, but it doesn’t happen and I realize something. No member of the team is really acting weird with each other. This is how they always are together. Loud. Bickering amongst themselves. It’s me who is acting weird. I’m letting paranoia take over my senses.
I’ve had the weapon for less than an hour. It took a few days for Pestilence’s plague to start to spread. Maybe it will be the same with War’s influence. Until something bigger than this happens, I need to just act normal and not give him any chance of noticing anything out of the ordinary
I finish the last bite of my pizza and go back over to the pool table.
“Let’s do this,” I say to Aziza.
“Are you two ready?” she says to Rye and Sunday, who are still fighting with their pool cues.
“Once I win this we will be.” Rye grins.
She laughs. “Oh any excuse.” She turns to me. “They’re afraid of getting beat at pool by two girls.”
I nod my agreement.
“They’re only putting off the inevitable though.” I laugh.
Rye and Sunday exchange glances and drop their pool cues to their sides.
“Oh it’s so on.” Sunday grins.
He sets the game up and nods to us.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I step up to break and get one of the balls in on my first try. I miss on my next shot, and Rye steps up to take his shot. We play for a while, and eventually, Aziza and I win the game.
“Best of three,” Rye announces.
We keep playing. Jinx and Mel have finished their game and have wandered over to watch us.
“You know, it feels kind of wrong playing pool and having fun when we know War is loose,” Mel says.
“He can wait one night before we kick his ass,” Aziza says.
“You make it sound like it’s going to be easy,” Sunday says with a frown.
“It will be. We have super Sails.” Aziza laughs. “And the way she’s kicking ass here tells me War will be no match for her.”
“On what planet is she kicking ass here?” Rye asks as he shoots in the eight ball with ease, winning the game.
“You’ll see on the decider,” Aziza says.
“Seriously though,” Sunday says as he sets the next game up, “if you thought Pestilence was hard to take down, you haven’t seen a thing yet. War is stronger, faster, and more clever than Pestilence could ever hope to be.”
“You sound like you’re the president of his fan club.” Jinx laughs.
Sunday frowns and shakes his head.
“I just think it’s important that we don’t get too cocky. We have to be sensible about this and go into battle with a plan, that’s all.”
“And we will,” Ya-Ya says. Her nails are finally finished and she wandered over to join us around the pool table. “Once we actually figure out who the hell he is.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Mel says.
“If he has an effect on everyone around him like Pestilence did, then he’ll be revealing himself to us.”
“Enough,” Rye says. “Tonight is a celebration of getting the weapon. We’ll talk strategy tomorrow after school.”
“I still can’t believe we have to go to damn school around this thing,” Jinx moans.
“For once, we agree on something,” Aziza says.
I feel a tingling in my chest as I lean down to take my shot. We are losing badly and I really need to make this shot count, but the tingling is turning to burning. I straighten back up and rub my hand across my tattoo where the burning is coming from.
“Are you alright?” Rye asks with concern.
“She’s fine.” Sunday laughs. “She just doesn’t want to admit defeat.”
I can feel beads of sweat starting to form on my body even though I’m suddenly icy cold except for the hot patch around my tattoo. My body begins to shake and I see the team exchanging worried glances.
“Shit, Sailor, what’s wrong?” Sunday shouts.
I open my mouth to tell him I don’t know, but I can’t speak. My vision blurs and I see something: a
