CHAPTER 159: THE UNOFFICIAL COUNCIL OF WAR

Ren’s words hung in the space between them. ’I need your help.’

Kofi stood on the sidewalk, the world tilting. A few minutes ago, his biggest problem was the unspoken awkwardness with Nina. Now, it was a gangster with a gambling debt.

Nina recovered first. Her shock hardened into sharp, analytical focus. She stepped forward, her arms crossed, and looked Ren up and down.

"Okay, biker boy. You don’t get to just drop a bomb like that and walk away. We need details. All of them."

Ren looked at her, his expression a flat, unreadable mask. "I have given you the necessary information. A man named Silas is coming to town next week. He is a threat to Yuna. My direct approach to the problem is not advisable."

"Not good enough." Nina’s voice was firm. "What does he look like? When exactly is he arriving? What does ’settle the account’ mean? We are not going into this blind."

’She’s right,’ Kofi thought. ’This is a real threat. We can’t just guess.’ He felt a cold knot of dread in his stomach, but also a strange, focused calm. This was a problem to be solved. A complicated, dangerous problem.

Ren was quiet for a long moment, assessing them. He seemed to come to a decision.

"Silas is not a street thug. He is in his forties, always well-dressed. He runs several businesses, most of them legitimate fronts. He will likely arrive on Thursday. ’Settling the account’ means he intends to take something of value from Yuna’s father. Since her father has nothing left of monetary value, Silas will likely target Yuna herself."

The ugly implication was no longer unspoken. It was a cold, hard fact.

"This is not a high school problem," Ren stated, his gaze fixed on Kofi. "This is a criminal matter. The police are not an option. Her father’s involvement complicates things. My involvement complicates things further. Your methods, however illogical, are the only variable he will not anticipate."

"Okay," Kofi said, his mind already working. "This isn’t something we can decide out here." He looked at Nina. "We need to call a meeting. The whole group."

Nina nodded, her expression grim. "My house. One hour."

She turned and walked away without another word, pulling out her phone, her fingers already flying across the screen as she summoned their troops.

Ren gave Kofi a single, sharp nod. "I have done my part. The rest is up to you."

He swung his leg over his motorcycle, started the engine with a deafening roar, and disappeared down the street, leaving Kofi alone with the weight of this new, terrifying reality.

---

An hour later, they were all gathered in Nina’s living room. It was the same room where they had planned their revolution against Jessica, but the mood was completely different. The excited, rebellious energy was gone, replaced by a tense, somber silence.

Jake sat on the edge of the couch, his laptop open but untouched, his face pale. Ruby was next to him, her hands clenched in her lap. Thea was in a large armchair in the corner, a small, still figure who seemed to be absorbing the tension in the room.

Kofi and Nina stood in the middle of the room, laying out the situation in stark, simple terms.

"...and so this guy, Silas, is coming on Thursday," Nina concluded, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. "He’s a legitimate gangster, and he thinks he can just show up and... take Yuna."

"This is insane," Jake said, his voice a shaky whisper. "We’re just kids. We make a magazine. What are we supposed to do against a gangster?"

"We’re not going to fight him," Kofi said, his voice calm and steady, a counterpoint to Jake’s rising panic. "Not physically. That’s Ren’s department, and we need to make sure it never gets to that point. We’re going to do what we do best. We’re going to outsmart him."

Ruby finally spoke, her quiet voice cutting through the fear. "What does a man like that want? Power? Money? Fear? If we can understand his motivation, we can find a weakness."

"He’s a predator," Nina said, stopping her pacing. "Predators look for easy targets. They look for prey that is isolated, weak, and alone. Right now, that’s Yuna."

A new, dangerous idea began to form in her eyes. "So we change that. We make her the opposite of an easy target. We make her the most visible, most protected, most annoyingly public person in the entire school. We surround her with so many people, so much light, that a creature of the shadows like him won’t be able to get anywhere near her."

Thea looked up from her corner, a single, quiet observation on her lips. "He’s a gambler. Ren said her father had a gambling debt."

Everyone turned to look at her.

"People who are gamblers," she continued, her voice gaining a quiet confidence, "they think in terms of risk and reward. They don’t take unnecessary risks if the reward isn’t high enough, or if the chances of getting caught are too great."

Her insight was a key, unlocking the core of Nina’s strategy.

"She’s right," Kofi said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "We don’t have to beat him. We just have to make taking Yuna too risky. We have to raise the stakes so high that he has no choice but to fold."

The fear in the room began to recede, replaced by the familiar, focused energy of a plan coming together. Nina walked over to a large, white erase board that she had, for some reason, permanently installed in her living room. She uncapped a black marker.

"Okay, team," she said, her voice full of a renewed, fierce command. "Here’s what we’re going to do."

She drew a large, protective circle in the center of the board. Inside it, she wrote a single name: Yuna.

"This is our mission," she said, tapping the circle with her marker. "To build a fortress of normalcy around her. A fortress so boring, so public, and so full of annoying teenagers that a self-respecting gangster wouldn’t be caught dead in it."

She wrote a title at the top of the board, her letters sharp and clear.

’Operation: Shield.’

The war had a new name. And they had a new, far more dangerous enemy.

---

The whiteboard became their battlefield map. Nina stood before it, marker in hand, her energy filling the room and pushing back the fear.

"Okay, Phase One: Intelligence." She pointed the marker at Jake. "You’re on Silas. I want everything you can find. Public records, business licenses, social media, news articles. I want to know what he eats for breakfast. Predators have patterns. We need to find his."

Jake nodded, his fingers already flying across his laptop keyboard. The fear on his face was replaced by a look of intense, nerdy focus. "On it, Commander. I’ll conduct a full digital reconnaissance."

"Good." Nina drew a line from Jake’s name to a new box labeled ’Intel’. "Ruby."

Ruby looked up, her expression serious and attentive.

"You’re our moral compass and our social strategist. Silas thinks Yuna is alone. We need to prove him wrong. I want you to start a quiet, subtle campaign. Talk to your friends, the smart, kind ones. Talk about Yuna. Not about the danger she’s in. Talk about her art. Talk about her intelligence. We need to start building a social network around her, even if she doesn’t know it’s happening."

’This makes sense,’ Ruby thought. ’We’re building a shield of perception. If everyone sees her as part of a community, it makes her a harder target.’

"I can do that," she said, her voice quiet but firm.

Nina drew another line. "Kofi, Thea."

Kofi met her gaze. He knew what was coming.

"You two are the creative core. But your mission is the most important one. We need a reason to put Yuna in the center of a large, public event on Thursday. A reason that makes sense. A reason that she will, however reluctantly, agree to."

Kofi looked at Thea. Her quiet insight about gamblers had been the key. Now, they needed another one.

"The magazine," Kofi said, the idea clicking into place. "The next issue. We’re working on the theme ’Heroes and Monsters’. We could host a launch event. A special showcase. We could ask Yuna to be a guest artist."

"Perfect," Nina said, writing ’Launch Event’ on the board and circling it three times. "It’s academic. It’s public. And it gives her a legitimate reason to be in a crowded, well-lit space for a specific period of time. It’s a fortress of art."

The plan was audacious. It was complicated. And it all hinged on one, massive, unpredictable variable.

"It’s a good plan," Kofi said. "But it’s not going to work unless she agrees to it. And she’s not going to agree to it."

The room went quiet. They all knew he was right. Yuna was a fortress of her own, one they had no idea how to breach.

"She doesn’t want our help," Ruby said softly. "She wants to be left alone."

"Being left alone is what’s going to get her hurt," Nina countered, her voice sharp. "We don’t have time for her pride. Someone has to make her see reason."

All eyes in the room turned to Kofi.

He let out a long, slow sigh. ’Of course. It has to be me.’ He was the one who had stumbled into her orbit, the one who had fought for her, the one she seemed to despise the most.

"I’ll talk to her," he said, the words feeling heavy in his mouth.

"Good," Nina said, her expression softening a little. "Just... be careful. Don’t try to be a hero. Just be honest."

He just nodded.

The strategy session was over. They had a plan. A risky, complicated, and deeply weird plan, but a plan nonetheless. They were going to fight a gangster with a poetry reading. It was the most illogical, and therefore the most perfect, strategy they could have possibly devised.

The meeting broke up, each member leaving with a clear set of objectives. Jake and Ruby left together, already in a low, intense discussion about the best way to data-mine public records. Nina stayed behind to help Kofi clean up, her presence a quiet, reassuring support.

Thea had been silent for the last part of the meeting, her focus entirely on her sketchbook. As Kofi walked her home, she was still quiet, her mind clearly somewhere else.

They walked in a comfortable silence for a few blocks.

"You know," she said, her voice a quiet, thoughtful murmur, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk ahead. "When I was drawing the birds for the magazine... I had to learn about them. I had to learn how they build their nests."

Kofi just listened, knowing that she was circling a point.

"Some birds, they build their nests out in the open, on high branches," she continued. "They make them strong, so they can withstand the wind and the rain. But other birds... the smaller, smarter ones... they build their nests in the middle of thorny bushes. They don’t build a fortress. They just build their home in a place that is too difficult, too painful, for predators to get to."

She looked up at him, her gaze clear and direct.

"You don’t need to build a fortress for her," she said. "You just need to be the thorny bush."

He just looked at her, at his strange, wise, and wonderful sister. He had been thinking about fortresses and shields and battle plans. She was thinking about nests.

"Yeah," he said, a small, grateful smile on his face. "Yeah, I think you’re right."

He knew now what he had to do. He was not going to try to be a hero. He was not going to try to build a fortress.

He was just going to be a complication. A painful, annoying, and deeply loyal complication that Silas would not be prepared for. He was going to be the thorn in his side.