“No,” said a new voice.
Maya turned to see Sarah Kim, a quiet junior she barely knew.
“This is Derrick’s fault. It’s always been Derrick’s fault.” Sarah sat down at their table uninvited. “I’ve been watching this war from the sidelines, and I can’t stay quiet anymore. Derrick and his friends cornered my friend Jasmine last month. Made her cry, made her skip school for a week. I should have done something then.”
“Why didn’t you?” Emma asked, not accusingly, but genuinely curious.
“Same reason everyone else doesn’t. Fear.” Sarah’s voice grew stronger. “But watching you all fight back, watching Ben stand up to those football players… I realized I’m more afraid of staying quiet than I am of fighting.”
Maya felt a spark of hope. “How many others feel like you do?”
“More than you think. A lot more.”
That afternoon, Derrick gathered his remaining forces in the parking lot. Word had reached him about Sarah Kim’s defection, and he was furious.
“They’re recruiting faster than we can shut them down,” he told his assembled group. “Time for a new strategy.”
“What kind of strategy?” asked Connor.
Derrick’s smile was cold and calculating. “The kind that sends Maya Johnson to the hospital.”
Meanwhile, at the maintenance shed, Maya’s group had swelled to over thirty students. The bathroom victory had emboldened others to join, but Maya could see the fear in their eyes. They wanted to fight, but they weren’t prepared for what Derrick might do next.
“We need to be smarter,” Maya told them. “No more small skirmishes. If we’re going to do this, we do it big.”
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.
Maya looked around at the faces staring back at her. Some eager, some terrified, all trusting her to lead them safely through this war.
“Tomorrow morning, Derrick’s going to try something big. I can feel it. So we’ll be ready for him.” Maya’s voice carried the weight of command. “All of us. Together. In the main hallway where everyone can see.”
“You want us to fight in front of the whole school?” Ben’s replacement, a sophomore named Alex, looked pale.
“I want us to win in front of the whole school,” Maya corrected. “I want every student, every teacher, every administrator to see that Derrick Mitchell doesn’t run Westfield High anymore.”
Jake stepped forward. “What if they bring weapons?”
Maya’s expression darkened. “Then we better make sure we’re ready for anything.”
As the meeting broke up, Maya felt the familiar weight of responsibility pressing down on her. Tomorrow would either end Derrick’s reign of terror or destroy everything she’d built. Either way, there would be no going back.
Later that night, Derrick made a phone call that would change everything.
“Dad, I need to ask you a favor. It’s about that Johnson girl and her gang. Things have gotten complicated.”
The war was about to become something much bigger than a school fight. And Maya had no idea what was coming.
Thursday morning arrived like a storm front. Maya reached school early, positioning herself and her core group in the main hallway before most students arrived. They’d agreed on a simple plan: stay together, don’t start anything, but be ready for everything. By first period, the tension was electric. Students moved through the hallways in clusters, choosing sides with their feet. Maya’s group had grown overnight to nearly forty students, while Derrick’s alliance had recruited graduates and older kids who had no business being on campus.
At 9:30 AM, during the passing period between first and second classes, everything exploded at once. It started when Derrick’s football recruits cornered three freshmen who’d been sitting with Maya’s group at lunch. What should have been another isolated attack became the spark that lit the fuse.
“Get off them!” Sarah Kim screamed from across the hallway.
Suddenly, everyone was moving. Maya’s people rushed to help the freshmen, while Derrick’s allies moved to intercept them. Within seconds, the main hallway erupted into complete chaos. Bodies slammed into lockers, textbooks flew through the air, and the sound of fighting echoed off the walls. Students who weren’t involved pressed themselves against classroom doors, some screaming, others pulling out phones to record.
Maya found herself fighting two seniors at once, using the confined space of the hallway to her advantage. She kicked one into the trophy case, sending glass exploding across the floor, then spun to catch the second with an elbow to the jaw. Across the hall, Jake was grappling with Tyler, while Emma and the three other girls had Brittany pinned against the wall. The cheerleader was scratching and biting like a wild animal, screaming obscenities that would have gotten her expelled if anyone in authority actually cared.
“This is insane!” Ben shouted over the noise as he ducked a thrown textbook.
More students poured out of classrooms, some to join the fight, others just to watch. The riot was spreading beyond the original combatants as onlookers got pulled into the violence.
Derrick appeared through the crowd, his face twisted with rage. “Maya! This ends now!”
But before he could reach her, a fire alarm began blaring. Someone had pulled it during the chaos, and now sprinklers were activating throughout the building. Water rained down on the fighting students, making the floors slippery and dangerous. Several people went down hard on the wet tile, but the fighting continued.
“Everyone stop!” A teacher’s voice cut through the noise, but nobody was listening anymore.
Maya slipped on the wet floor and went down, immediately rolling to avoid a kick from one of Derrick’s recruits. She swept his legs and sent him crashing into a group of lockers.
The riot had taken on a life of its own. Students who’d never been involved in the original conflict were throwing punches, settling old scores, or just getting caught up in the violence. The careful battle lines Maya and Derrick had drawn had dissolved into pure chaos.
Through the sprinkler rain and the screaming, Maya caught sight of Principal Anderson standing at the far end of the hallway with a phone pressed to his ear. His face was pale as he spoke rapidly to whoever was on the other end. “We need immediate assistance,” she heard him say. “Multiple fights, property damage, complete loss of control.”
Maya realized this was exactly what Derrick’s father had been waiting for: an excuse to bring in outside force to crush her movement permanently. A window shattered as someone was thrown against it. Glass joined the water on the floor, making footing even more treacherous. Several students were bleeding now, though whether from punches or cuts from the debris, Maya couldn’t tell…
