Page 12 of The Wild Zone

“Not really.”

“Where was it?”

I rubbed my face. “Uh…around G20?” Seeing their mystified looks, I added, “On my mental grid.”

That didn’t seem to lessen their confusion.

“Could you find the area again?” Zuri pressed.

“Yeah, but…” I stopped myself. This wasn’t the time for me to complain about a few near-death experiences. I felt the others staring at me, trying to decide what kind of person I was to have left an injured friend in the Wild Zone. “You’re right. I should go back.”

I didn’t say we. It didn’t feel like there was a we.

Harper studied me with those unnerving blue eyes. Then he glanced at the eastern horizon, where the sky was just turning from black to charcoal gray. “So we barely made it out of the Wild Zone alive. It’s almost dawn. And you’re suggesting we go back in to find Grant.”

I squirmed. “I didn’t say you had to—”

“All in favor?” Harper asked, raising his hand.

I felt a brief flood of gratitude, but I never got to find out how Zuri and Benny would have voted. Our team-building session was cut short by three squawking human-chicken creatures that fluttered down from the sky and landed in a circle around us.

They were the most hideous things I’d seen all night, and that was saying a lot. Each had a woman’s face, but with a beak for a nose and feathers for eyebrows. Their wings were tipped with human hands. Their three-toed feet looked big enough to snatch and carry off a small horse. And the smell…oof. I nearly passed out from the reek of ammonia.

“Look here!” screeched one of them. “Naughty, very naughty!”

I hefted my dagger, but then decided against using it.

My first panicked thought had been of that shrieking thing in the trees above Grant and me, but we weren’t in the Wild Zone anymore. These creatures gave off a very different vibe. They sounded gloating, not angry. Also, they weren’t fast enough to dart from tree to tree. They moved like tarred-and-feathered helium balloons.

I knew what they were, even if I hadn’t met them yet. Harpies. The camp’s security personnel—who we’d been warned might eat us if they caught us violating curfew.

“Rule-breakers!” the second one shrieked with delight. “Should harpies peck?”

“Peckish!” said the third, with a dangerous gleam in her eye. “Harpies feel peckish!”

All three cackled, licking their chicken lips.

Great. I’d made it safely back to camp, only to become bird food.

3

We Have Dinner with Wormzilla

I never realized there were so many ways to beg for your life.

First, I tried an aw, shucks routine on the harpies, complete with disarming grin. “Come on, it’s our first day! Can’t you let it slide just this once?”

Then Harper went for a happy, healthy harpy angle. “Seriously, you deserve better than four dirty, scrawny kids.” He pointed to the forest. “Why not go for a protein-rich drakon? I think I heard one back there in the woods!”

He poured on the charmspeak so much my mouth watered for a drakon burger, but the harpies did not look impressed.

Next was Benny’s we are family attempt: “Camp Half-Blood needs all of us! You’re part of Camp Half-Blood, too, right?”

Zuri opted for an aggressive flap around and find out strategy. Her skin took on that golden Apollo glow like she was about to go nuclear. “Or are you just a bunch of oversize birds? Because I hate birds.”

The harpies looked at one another. Then they burst out laughing.

“She hates birds!” The first harpy chortled.