Page 2 of The Wild Zone

My forehead and nose stung from skidding across the harsh fabric. I tasted the copper of blood on my tongue. Blinking back tears, I struggled to right myself while our captors laughed.

“Did you see how hard she fell?” asked a boy.

“Like Icarus in combat boots!” hooted another.

Embarrassment warmed my cheeks, my ears—pretty much every inch of my body.

“Maybe she wanted to knock herself out so she wouldn’t have to listen to your mindless jabbering,” a girl said over my shoulder.

The laughter stopped.

“What did you say?” The first boy’s voice took on a hard edge.

We’d been told that we weren’t allowed to speak. Another captive, a kid named Benny, had tried that earlier—reasoning with our captors: Why stand against us when we could all stand together?

He was then informed that his thoughts were like his farts—long-winded and terrible—and any further conversation would end in death by man-eating horse.

After that, the five of us captives stayed quiet. I didn’t even bother pointing out whose farts they actually were.

(Seriously. Avoid chili cheese dogs.)

The girl behind me—I was pretty sure her name was Zuri—didn’t sound intimidated. She just clicked her tongue. “See? You’re jabbering so much, you can’t even hear me.”

“You’d better watch yourself,” one of our female captors snarled.

Zuri scoffed. “Or what? I could burn a hole through this sad sack in five seconds flat.”

My embarrassment was fading, so why did my skin still feel warm? The back of my shoulders started to bake. I caught a whiff of smoke from my hair, like it had been under a blow-dryer too long.

I realized the heat was coming from Zuri.

“I’m only wearing these bonds as a courtesy,” she said. “If you can’t be courteous, we can end this charade right now.”

Great, I thought. She must be a child of Apollo. A potential human bonfire. Which meant I was in danger of being served extra crispy.

Nevertheless, my busted lip hurt from smiling. I liked Zuri’s attitude. I liked hearing our captors shuffle backward, even if their uneasiness only lasted a moment.

“Whatever,” said our female captor in a surly voice. “Just keep moving.”

And that was that.

The air turned chilly once more, and we continued our march through the dark woods. As I tramped along, Grant fell into step beside me.

“You good, KK?” he whispered. His gum squelched between his teeth.

He was another one of Ares’s kids, and his calming habit was chewing gum. I should’ve accepted the piece he’d offered to me earlier. Another thing I would’ve done differently.

“Yep,” I whispered back. “A little burlap exfoliation never hurt nobody.”

Grant snorted. “Just pay more attention when I give a heads-up.”

“BOO!” one of our captors yelled in my ear.

I stumbled into Grant, and we both smacked our foreheads against a low-hanging tree branch.

Our captors howled with delight.

“Heads-up,” Grant muttered with a groan.