I shook my head in shock. I just couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make sense.
“One of the Ventus?” Visola cried out loudly, clearly unable to whisper.
“I don’t believe it!” Shasa muttered to herself.
“Are you certain?” Madzimoyo wanted clarification.
“Well, no,” Babajide replied honestly, “we aren’t certain on whose blood it is. The technicians think that there was a problem with the sample, but even though we don’t know its specific owner, we do know without a doubt that it belongs to one of the Ventus siblings. It’s definitely their DNA.”
My mind felt thick and heavy, and my head felt like it was going to drop backwards and smash into a thousand pieces on the floor. How could I have let them deceive me? And to think that I was about trust them! I felt so betrayed. So hurt. So angry.
“The mission is still going ahead as planned,” Babajide continued, “but you all must keep your guards up. One of them is an Inimicus spy.”
“Are you sure?” Madzimoyo repeated.
“Of course he is!” I roared at my brother, who batted my attack away with a simple blink.
Madzimoyo shook his head. “There must be a more logical explanation…”
“Like what?” Visola questioned, “You think someone planted the blood?”
“Perhaps…”
“But then that would mean…”
“There’s still a spy on Aqua Island,” Shasa resolved.
I groaned in frustration. “Why do you always want to see the best in people? All signs are pointing to the Ventus being villains, and you just can’t accept it!”
“Because they aren’t! I can just tell…”
“And how would you know? You’ve never been…”
I was going to finish by saying that she had never been off the island to meet other people, but I knew that she had. I shut my mouth and quietly sulked to myself.
“There are only three logical explanations,” Madzimoyo explained, “The first being that the Ventus are traitors after all, the second being that another person planted the blood, and the third being that Babajide is lying to us.”
Babajide’s fat eyes widened in horror. “Don’t accuse me!” He wailed. Visola shushed him, and after checking to make sure no one had somehow sneaked into the room undetected, she then rubbed his back reassuringly.
“I’m not accusing you,” Madzimoyo clarified, “I’m just stating the only alternatives we are left with.”
“And what about Diane?” Shasa queried.
“Who cares?” I added, but everyone ignored me.
“Either she’s dead, or she’s the spy.”
“But what are we going to do?” Visola moaned.
“There’s nothing we can do,” I told her, “We’re just going to have to carry out this mission as best as we can, while watching our backs. And each other’s.”
“You’re right,” Shasa agreed. A smile flickered across my face in pride. “Whatever is going to happen, will happen.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Visola confirmed the sense of dread squatting in my own stomach, “I feel like it’s all a trap.”
“It probably is,” Babajide agreed “but we’re just going to have to… deal with it. Sigwald was determined that the Ventus are the ones being targeted. It makes sense that someone would want to frame them, and get you to do their dirty work for them.”
We all looked at each other, secretly. We weren’t prepared to admit to Babajide what had actually happened between us all this morning. We had just said that we had been ‘demonstrating our powers’ to one another. Which technically wasn’t a lie.
“We just have to trust one another,” Shasa confirmed, “And do the best that we can.”
Visola and Madzimoyo agreed with her, and smiled optimistically. I feigned an alliance towards her idea, just to make her think that I was on her side.
But I wasn’t.
I was going to do things my way from now on. I was going to make sure that no one could hurt me, or my family. I was going to be the warrior that I knew I was.
I was going to find out which of the Ventus was the traitor, and then take them down.