Page 70 of The Wild Zone

He enunciated each word slowly and clearly, making me realize I was in dangerous territory. A bit too late, I remembered that Silas was the only adult I’d told about going into the Zone.

“Uh…I didn’t say he went in,” I amended. “Nobody said that.”

Very smooth.

“What I meant,” I continued, “was that maybe something from the Wild Zone grabbed him. That night we broke curfew, we saw the border of the Zone, with those blue glass eyes hanging in the trees….”

It was hard to concentrate while looking at Argus’s own expanse of blue eyes, but I forged ahead. “Grant was curious about it and…I don’t know. Maybe he went back? Got too close? Where did you find Silas’s panpipes?”

Argus frowned. “Just outside the boundary. But I’m curious how you even know about that area?”

I waved vaguely toward the cabins. “Campers are talking.” (That much was true.) “So now I’m wondering, is it possible something from the Wild Zone abducted them both? What kind of creature might do something like that?”

I waited for him to answer, my heart jackhammering in my chest. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pajama bottoms. Finally, I might get some useful information.

“No idea,” Argus said.

My shoulders slumped. My heartbeat slowed to sloth mode. “You mean you’re the head of security, but you don’t know what’s in the Wild Zone?”

Argus narrowed his eyes. The one on his chin looked especially torqued-off.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just…I miss Grant. And now Silas. We have to find them!”

Argus heaved a sigh. “Look, the Wild Zone is off-limits even to me. Chiron is the only one who ever goes in, and that’s just a few times a century, max.”

My mouth dropped open. “A few times…a century?”

Argus smirked. “I know. He doesn’t look a day over forty, right? My point is, I don’t know why Chiron demarcated the Wild Zone, or what’s inside. I do know that in the hundreds of years I’ve been here, nothing has ever come out of there to attack anyone. Whatever lives in the Wild Zone stays in the Wild Zone.”

“I thought that was Las Vegas.”

Argus rubbed some of the bloodshot eyes on his arms. “Katie…I have a lot to do this morning.”

“But if Chiron knows the Wild Zone, then he’ll have the answers!”

“If,” Argus stressed, “the disappearances have anything to do with the Wild Zone at all. Either way, I’m under strict orders not to disturb Chiron or Mr. D while they’re on Mount Olympus…unless I have solid proof of a doomsday-level emergency.”

He hesitated, maybe curious to see if I would divulge more information.

We were at an impasse. I could only convince him the Wild Zone was involved if I admitted we’d gone in there, and if I did that, he’d be obliged to punish the Ares cabin at the very least, making my life here a living Tartarus, or he’d kick out all the newbies, which meant I wouldn’t be able to help Grant, or Silas, or my family.

“Listen,” I said, trying to keep calm, “two people have gone missing in less than a week. That seems like an emergency the size of the Titanic!” I paused. “Before it hit the iceberg and broke into little pieces.” I waved a dismissive hand. “Actually, I want to change my metaphor. This emergency is the size of the iceberg the Titanic hit!”

Argus shook his head. “So far, we have no concrete evidence that Silas and Grant were actually taken.” I opened my mouth to argue further, but he pressed on. “Satyrs and demigods go missing from time to time. They also die from time to time. That’s part of being mortal.” He held up his palm. “No offense.”

“Uh, yes offense!” I scowled at him. “How can you be so casual about someone’s life?”

Argus stared across the morning mist on the strawberry fields. If he’d been a painting, his title would’ve been One-Hundred-Eyed Giant Regrets His Life Choices.

“It’s not that I don’t care,” he said. “Please understand, there is a lot happening in the world right now. The Titans are stirring. Monsters we haven’t seen in millennia are rising from Tartarus. Chiron and Mr. D have been recalled to Olympus to explain why so many of our campers have defected to Kronos’s rebellion. The gods are on edge. There’s talk of civil war. And meanwhile…I’m just trying to hold this place together as best I can.”

He showed me his hands, as if to emphasize that they weren’t nearly big enough for the task. “If I put the camp on red alert every time someone went missing in the woods, this whole place would tear itself apart from stress and paranoia. Besides”—he sighed again—“when you’ve been around for thousands of years and watched every mortal you know and care about perish, you learn to accept the inevitable. Even two deaths in a week, while tragic—”

“But maybe they’re not dead!” I pressed, refusing to believe the worst…at least not yet. “I get what you’re saying, Argus, but if they’re alive and incapacitated, they deserve our help. Maybe whatever took them is storing food for the winter. What about that feather? The blue-and-orange one the satyr found? That’s got to be a clue….”

Argus scowled. “So you saw that, too? It might not be related, Katie. Could belong to a large harpy, or even a pegasus.”

“A pegasus with bright blue-and-orange feathers?” I scoffed. “Is it half parrot?”