Page 14 of The Wild Zone

Zuri scoffed. “They weren’t going to eat us. They’re glorified chickens.”

“Shh,” Benny warned. “Let’s keep moving. The faster we take out the garbage, the sooner we can get to sleep.”

That sounded really good, though I figured we would only get a few hours of shut-eye at best. That was assuming I could even fall asleep after what we’d been through.

Another one of my superpowers, along with mental-gridding, occasional bursts of strength, and my Charybdis smile, was being too hard on myself. I’d had a lot of practice.

I couldn’t believe I’d been at home just two days ago, griping about normal stuff like my Perfect Older Sister® and my mom’s way-too-high expectations for me. Now I’d lost my mom and Olivia. I’d fled my house. I’d been recruited into the world’s weirdest training camp, abandoned my only friend in the Wild Zone, and gotten assigned to kitchen patrol with three other kids I didn’t know and who didn’t seem to like me much.

Not that I could blame them.

I didn’t like myself very much at the moment either.

At least we found the garbage. It was hard to miss, since it smelled even worse than the harpies. Piled against the back steps of the pavilion was a mountain of burlap trash sacks overflowing with half-chewed corn cobs, gristly pieces of brisket, mushy potato salad, and—yep, the mangled remains of several chili cheese dogs, may they rest in peace.

“Ugh,” I said. “What kind of barbarians leave this much trash after dinner?”

“That would be us,” Benny said.

He hefted two sacks like they weighed no more than milk jugs. Zuri and I each took one of the others. I tried to hold mine at arm’s length, but that didn’t help with the smell.

Harper, meanwhile, hugged his burlap bag of juicy grossness like it was a dear friend.

I wrinkled my nose. “Aren’t you worried you’re going to smell?”

If anybody cared about image, I figured it would be a child of Aphrodite.

Harper shrugged. “I have a strong stomach. And I already smell pretty bad from that quickmud. Besides, being Aphrodite’s kid means people are attracted to me no matter what. I could be covered in boils and smell like old lunchmeat, and all the other kids would still find me charming.”

He said this not like he was bragging, but like he found it kind of tragic.

Benny cocked his head. “Even the people in your own cabin?”

Harper frowned. “Shoot. I didn’t think about that.” He lowered his nose toward the bag, took a tentative sniff, and made a horrible face. “Oh, gods.”

“Let’s just figure out where we’re supposed to dump these,” Zuri said. “Anyone see a holy circle?”

I scanned the dark field in front of us. Just past the broad, twisted trunk of an olive tree, I spotted a cylindrical brick structure like a well.

“What about that?” I asked.

Benny approached it, and the rest of us followed. It did indeed seem to be a large well, maybe twenty feet in diameter, covered with a wooden lid.

“Okay,” Benny said. “Not sure why this is a holy circle, though.”

Zuri tapped her knuckle on the wooden cover. Holes punctured its surface every few inches. “What about a circle with holes? A holey circle.”

“Ugh.” Harper grimaced. “The harpies got dad jokes.”

Benny set down his garbage bags and pried the cover off the well. He peered inside. I tensed, remembering Grant sticking his arm into that fissure in the woods.

Benny frowned. “Huh. Weird.”

That didn’t sound good.

I inched forward, face pressed into my sleeve to avoid smelling whatever was in the Pit. If it were really a garbage dump, I figured it would smell even worse than the sack I was holding.

I had some trauma around rotting food. One time, I’d left my backpack at school over winter break with a kimbap roll inside. Trust me when I say you don’t want to leave seaweed, rice, and crabmeat alone for three weeks.