Page 56 of The Wild Zone

I shifted to a sitting position and winced. The knee to the gut had not been my imagination. The man’s finger marks still throbbed on my throat. The cut branch, the chain scars on the tree trunk and the ground…they were very real.

And yet…

I retrieved my dagger. No blood on the blade. No footprints in the mud except my own. The hooded man had left nothing of himself behind except damage. Was it possible I’d been fighting against myself?

And those visions the ring had shown me—violent, hate-filled visions…Was that who I really was? Was that what would happen if I didn’t hold back?

I might have stayed there all night, incapacitated by pain and shock, but the distant sound of a conch horn brought me back to my senses.

My eyes widened. “No.”

The footrace. Someone had won. Since I was here, I was pretty sure it wasn’t the Ares cabin.

“Shoot, shoot, shoot!” I scrambled to my feet and ran back toward camp. Thank goodness I still had the baton. Even if we couldn’t claim first place, maybe I could nab us second. And if the first team got disqualified for cheating or something…It was a slim hope, but better than none.

No monsters intercepted me as I crossed the Wild Zone. I wondered if they were lurking in the shadows, snickering as they let me run past, knowing that what awaited me back at camp was infinitely worse than being mauled to death.

I crossed the border of blue glass pendants in the trees. I took a second to orient myself and then wove through the underbrush, bursting onto the path just before the relay point.

Elam sat with his back against the yellow-ribboned tree, his head down in dejection.

“Hand!” I shouted, racing toward him with the baton. He looked over and scowled.

“It’s too late, Kim. We lost. Where were you?”

Instead of answering, I gripped the baton harder and kept running. There had to be a way to fix this. My muscles screamed in protest. My heart jackhammered in my chest, but I didn’t stop until I reached the dining pavilion. Then I realized just how badly I’d failed.

Everyone was already there, congratulating the relay winners—the Hermes cabin—and salivating over the massive ice cream sundaes they were serving themselves. Even Benny was spooning hot-fudge-covered vanilla into his mouth and laughing with his cabinmates.

“New York City, baby!” Travis crowed, and his buddies cheered.

“We have to visit the fountain in Rockefeller Center,” Connor said, grinning mischievously. “And steal the gold statue of Prometheus.”

“Dude, that statue weighs, like, eight tons,” Travis informed him. “And it’s not real gold.”

“Oh.” Connor chewed thoughtfully on a maraschino cherry. “Then we’ll take the coins in the fountain instead!”

“Yeah!!!” the Hermes crowd cheered again.

I turned away in disgust, almost colliding with Clarisse.

I expected another punch in the gut, but she just stared at me as if she couldn’t believe I had the gall to show my face.

“Well?” she snapped.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and shook my head. With all that fighting for my life, I hadn’t even had time to look for Grant.

Clarisse scowled. “Great. So we lost the race and have nothing to show for it?”

I couldn’t respond. I simply dropped down onto a bench.

Clarisse snorted and stormed off. “Worthless.”

My shoulders slumped. She was right. I hadn’t done anything to help anyone. And judging from Clarisse’s response, I doubted I was going to be allowed another chance to try any time soon.

Both my body and my heart ached.

Benny approached with his bowl of ice cream.