I spot Jinx and Sunday, both involved in different arguments. I decide to start with Sunday. If I’m right about Jinx, then he’s causing this and I think it’ll be easier to tackle him with Sunday as backup. I push my way through the crowd again and stand between Sunday and the guy he’s fighting with. Sunday glares at me.
“What do you want?” he demands.
“Sunday, listen to me,” I say. “Look around you. You know this isn’t normal, right?”
He glances around and looks back at me with a shrug.
“This dick started mouthing at me. I don’t care what everyone else is doing,” he says.
“No, you don’t get it. This isn’t you. Or any of them. War is here. This is his influence. You have to fight the anger,” I say.
He blinks a couple of times and looks around. The guy he was fighting with has already moved on.
“You’re right,” he says. “How do we stop it?”
By getting the whole team in a room together so War can’t affect anyone else, I think to myself.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But for now, we’re all meeting in Nexus’s classroom. We need to get Jinx.”
Sunday spins away from me and advances on Jinx. I feel bad that Sunday got there ahead of me. This could get really ugly. I push my way toward them, but within seconds Sunday has gotten through to Jinx.
“Come on,” he says, beckoning to me.
I follow a couple steps behind them thinking about what just happened. Jinx was too easy to talk down. He slipped up by not resisting Sunday more. He’s shown me for sure he’s War; he was always in control of himself, he was just acting the part of an angry student.
We reach Nexus’s classroom and go inside. Aziza and Mel look up as we enter.
“I’m going to go find Rye and Ya-Ya,” I say.
“No need to find me, I’m here,” Ya-Ya says, coming in behind me. “What the hell just happened? I feel like I’ve been in a trance or something. I sort of came back to myself and I was fighting with some girl I’ve never met. At the same time, she snapped out of it too and neither of us know why we were fighting.”
“It’s War. He’s here,” Mel says.
“So why did it stop?” Ya-Ya asks.
“He must have left the building,” Mel says.
Or because he got pulled in here and he’s holding back his powers now so we don’t figure out that he’s one of us.
“He must have,” I say.
Rye comes in with a cut on his forehead.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
“Yeah. Some fucker caught me before I realized what was happening. I take it that was War’s idea of fun,” he says.
“Seems that way,” Jinx says. “But admit it. You all kind of enjoyed it.”
I can’t help but think of myself punching Felicity even without War’s influence, and I have to admit it felt kind of good.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I say.
“Shouldn’t we go and try to help everyone sort out the mess out there?” Mel says.
“Yeah. We should be here in case War comes back,” Ya-Ya adds.
I look to Rye for help. He knows War is one of us. He has to come up with a reason for us bailing, but he looks as lost for words as I feel.
“No, Sailor’s right,” Aziza says. “War isn’t interested in a bunch of high school students. He came here looking for us. Everyone will be safer with us gone.”
I give her a grateful look. She came up with a logical explanation for leaving that no one can argue with. As much as I feel like I should have a few members of the team stay behind and help out, I know I can’t. I’ve been wrong about the Horseman’s identity before, and while I’d bet my last dollar it’s Jinx, if I’m wrong, I could be condemning everyone to more chaos by inadvertently leaving War behind here.
***
We manage to sneak out of the school easily enough. All the teachers are more than busy trying to help injured students and figure out what the hell happened. We leave the school grounds and head for the cabin. When we get there, I tell Rye I need to talk to him alone, which gets a round of kissing noises from the team. I ignore them and go through to the kitchen with Rye.
“He’s getting stronger,” I say. “I just about bought Jinx’s story of the chaos at the council meeting, but this was on another level. War is here, Rye, and he’s been biding his time, but it’s been three days since we found the spear and my instincts are telling me War will make a play for me tonight.”
Rye nods his head, a serious expression on his face.
“I think you’re right. This is definitely escalating. Maybe it’s taken War some time to wear down whoever he took over.”
“You mean you get it now? You believe Nexus that it’s a member of the team and that they’re not betraying us?”
He shrugs. “I guess I don’t have much choice but to believe her, do I?” he says.
I shake my head.
“Right. Call your dad and get his permission to stay here tonight. Tell him whatever you have to tell him to get him to agree to it. I am not letting you out of my sight tonight.”
I nod, grateful that he’s taking this seriously. I think for a moment and then I call my dad, telling him we have a group project that we forgot about that’s due tomorrow. He gives me a lecture about being more responsible with my homework, but he can hardly say no to me wanting to complete it now, so he rather reluctantly agrees that I can spend the night at the cabin. I thank him, end the call, and go through to the games room and nod to Rye, letting him know it’s done. Rye stands up and everyone turns
