“What do you mean?”
“You showed them you can fight. Now you have to show them you won’t stop fighting.” Marcus squeezed her hand. “But you can’t do it alone. Find others who’ve been hurt by this boy. Build something bigger than just you.”
Meanwhile, across the school district, Derrick sat in the nurse’s office with an ice pack pressed to his jaw. His father, Robert Mitchell, stood beside him like a guard dog, cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Yes, I understand the girl has been suspended,” Robert was saying. “But five days isn’t enough. My son could have been seriously injured… What do you mean there’s video? Derrick was the victim here.”
Derrick watched his father work, making calls to school board members, threatening legal action, leveraging years of political connections. Within an hour, the official video had been scrubbed from the school’s servers, replaced with edited footage that made Maya look like an unprovoked attacker.
“Don’t worry, son,” Robert said after hanging up. “This will all blow over. And that girl will think twice before messing with a Mitchell again.”
But Derrick wasn’t thinking about Maya’s punishment. He was thinking about the moment her fist connected with his jaw. The way she’d moved like she knew exactly what she was doing. None of his friends had ever fought back before. None of them had ever knocked him unconscious.
Two days into Maya’s suspension, Jake Santos was eating lunch alone in the library when he saw something that made his stomach drop. Derrick and his crew were surrounding a freshman girl by the water fountain, close enough that Jake could hear every word.
“Come on, Amy, don’t be shy,” Derrick was saying, his jaw still slightly swollen. “I just wanna talk.”
“I need to get to class,” the girl whispered.
“Class can wait. We’re having a conversation here.” Derrick moved closer, backing her against the wall. “You know what happened to the last girl who was rude to me? She got suspended. Might even get expelled.”
Jake had seen this exact scene play out dozens of times over the past two years. Different victims, same predator. But something about watching it happen again—so soon after Maya’s suspension—made him feel sick.
“Please, I just want to go to class.”
“See, that’s not how this works,” Derrick said. “You show me some respect, maybe smile a little, and then we can talk about letting you go.”
Jake stood up without thinking. “Hey!”
Derrick turned, annoyed at the interruption. “What do you want, Taco Boy?”
“Leave her alone.”
Derrick laughed. “Or what? You gonna call your girlfriend Maya? Wait, she’s suspended for being a violent thug.”
Jake’s hands were shaking, but he didn’t back down. “Just leave her alone.”
“You know what? You’re right.” Derrick stepped away from the freshman. “Amy can go. But you and I need to have a conversation.”
The freshman girl fled without looking back. Derrick’s friends moved to surround Jake, who suddenly realized he’d made a terrible mistake.
“You think because Maya sucker-punched me, that makes you tough too?” Derrick grabbed Jake by the shirt and slammed him against the lockers. “Let me explain something to you. That girl got lucky. It won’t happen again.”
Jake tried to pull away, but Derrick’s grip tightened.
“And if I hear about you running your mouth to anyone about what just happened, you’re gonna wish you’d stayed in whatever border town you crawled out of.”
That afternoon, Jake walked home with a split lip and a black eye, Derrick’s threats echoing in his head. But he also walked home with something else: a phone number he’d copied from the substitute teacher’s desk.
Maya answered on the second ring.
“Maya, this is Jake Santos. We don’t really know each other, but we need to talk.”
“What happened to your voice? You sound like you’ve been crying.”
Jake touched his swollen lip. “Derrick happened. Look, I know you’re suspended, but when you get back, we need to meet. There are others. Kids who’ve been dealing with Derrick and his friends for years.”
“How many others?”
Jake thought about all the students he’d seen cornered in hallways, humiliated in bathrooms, threatened into silence. “More than you think. And after what you did to him, after seeing someone finally fight back…” Jake’s voice grew stronger. “People are ready to listen.”
Maya was quiet for a long moment, remembering her father’s words about building something bigger. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Behind the gym. First day you’re back. We’ll figure out what comes next.”
After hanging up, Jake stared at his reflection in his bedroom mirror. For the first time in two years, he didn’t look away from the bruises. Instead, he started making a list of names. Every kid he’d seen Derrick’s group target, every student who’d been too scared to speak up. The war was about to get bigger.
Maya’s first day back at Westfield felt like walking into enemy territory. Students stared as she passed, some with admiration, others with fear. Word had spread about her suspension, but so had whispers about Derrick’s continued behavior while she was gone.
Behind the gym, Jake Santos waited with three other students Maya didn’t recognize. His split lip had healed, but the black eye was still fading to yellow around the edges.
“You came,” Jake said, relief evident in his voice.
“You said there were others.” Maya looked at the small group. “This them?”
A thin girl with short brown hair stepped forward. “I’m Emma Rodriguez. Derrick and his friends cornered me in the bathroom last month. Called me names. Threatened to flush my head in the toilet if I told anyone.”
“Marcus Washington,” said a tall black sophomore. “They’ve been taking my lunch money since freshman year. Yesterday they shoved me into the trophy case and told everyone I was trying to steal something.”
The third student, a pale boy with thick glasses, barely whispered his introduction. “Ben Chen. They make me do their homework.”
Maya felt her father’s words echoing in her mind. Build something bigger than just you.
“How many others?” she asked.
Jake pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I’ve been making a list. Kids who’ve been targeted. Kids who’ve been threatened. Kids who just keep their heads down because they’re scared.” He handed her the paper. “There are at least twenty names here, and that’s just the ones I know about.”
Maya unfolded the list and scanned the names. Some she recognized from classes; others were complete strangers. “They can’t suspend all of us.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Jake said. “But we need a plan. We can’t just start throwing punches randomly.”
Emma spoke up, her voice stronger now. “What if we don’t throw the first punch? What if we just don’t run away anymore?”
“What do you mean?” Ben asked.
“I mean when they corner you, you stand your ground. When they try to intimidate you, you don’t back down. When they put their hands on you…” Emma looked at Maya. “You defend yourself.”
Maya nodded slowly. “My dad taught me some things. Basic self-defense. I could show you.”
“You’d do that?” Marcus asked.
“Derrick’s not going to stop. The school’s not going to help us. So we help ourselves.” Maya folded the list and put it in her pocket. “But everyone needs to understand: once we start this, there’s no going back. They’re going to come at us harder.”
“They’re already coming at us,” Jake said. “At least this way we hit back.”
Maya looked at each of them in turn. “Okay. We meet here every day after school. I’ll teach you what I know. But remember, we’re not starting fights. We’re finishing them.”
Over the next three days, their group grew. Word spread quietly through the school’s underground network of victims and outcasts. Students who’d been suffering in silence began to find their way to the meetings behind the gym. Maya taught them basic blocks, how to break free from grabs, where to hit to cause maximum damage. She showed Emma how to use her speed to stay out of reach. She taught Marcus how to use his height advantage. She helped Ben overcome his fear of physical contact.
“The most important thing,” Maya told them on Thursday, “is to not fight fair. They don’t fight fair, so neither do we. You go for eyes, throat, knees—whatever it takes to get away safe.”..
