Page 83 of The Wild Zone

She spread her hands. “Look, I don’t know if this thing in the woods is really…” She grimaced, as if she couldn’t make herself say the word. “I don’t know if it’s what I fear it is. I don’t see how it could be, for—for a number of reasons. But whatever it is, if it’s abducting people, we have to find it and kill it.”

She said this in the same casual tone I might’ve used to say We have to finish our diorama for science class.

“Are you sure you’re not the one we have to worry about power-bombing woodland critters?” I asked.

Harper raised his hand, now ungloved. “Can I just question the glaringly obvious? Why are there dangerous monsters in the Wild Zone to begin with? We keep asking that, but I haven’t heard a good answer yet. How did they even get through the camp’s borders?”

Benny stacked the last of the clean plates. “Some mythical creatures can be allowed in. Like the harpies.” His brow furrowed. “But you’ve got a point. Whatever this thing is that took Grant and Silas, the counselors and security team clearly can’t handle it. They don’t even seem to know about it.”

“But Chiron did,” I said.

“Okay,” Benny said. “Let’s assume Chiron allowed a hugely dangerous, people-eating monster inside the camp’s boundaries and then confined it to the Wild Zone. Why? Just so he could bring it shiny cursed magic items from time to time?”

The rest of us fell silent.

I shook my head. “The only way we’re getting those answers is by going back into the Wild Zone. We can’t wait any longer. We have to find Silas and Grant.”

“If they’re still alive,” Zuri muttered. “Which I doubt.”

I spun to face her.

I don’t know why I felt so angry. Maybe it was the residual influence of the ring, or the stress of holding my own awful secrets. But it irritated me that she was being so elusive about what she knew. I didn’t like the way she’d left Harper and me in the infirmary, or the way she kept disappearing to do her own thing, whatever her “own thing” was.

“Hey, ‘healer,’ ” I snarled, “didn’t you take an oath to do no harm? Because that’s the most hurtful garbage I’ve heard come out of your mouth.”

Zuri looked like I’d slapped her, but her expression quickly hardened. “The Hippocratic oath only applies to doctors, which, as you have seen, I’m not. And would you rather I lie to you, like you’ve been doing to us?”

I recoiled. “Lying to you? About what?”

“Why are we just now getting all this information?” Zuri asked. “You told Clarisse about the ring before you told us!”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, so it’s not about lying. You’re just upset because I’m not giving you minute-by-minute updates.”

Benny stepped in. “Katie, if we’re going to be risking our lives here, it’s kind of important we trust one another. You could have mentioned the ring last night, when I asked if anyone had any other secrets. Or today at breakfast. Or when you saw me at the camp store.”

“Or when you saw me in the infirmary,” Zuri said. She clapped her hands to punctuate her words. “You. Had. Chances.”

I didn’t like the sound of my own laugh. It sounded…cruel. “I’m sorry, weren’t you a little busy trying to kill Harper in the infirmary?”

Zuri’s mouth dropped open. Then she lunged at me. I raised my fists for some Ares vs. Apollo action. Benny and Harper pulled us apart.

“How dare you, Katie!” Zuri’s eyes glistened with tears. “You know how bad I felt about that! I was distracted. Being in the infirmary makes me think of someone…important. Someone I care about.”

“And you know how much I care about Silas and Grant!” I shot back. “But your response is”—I raised my voice an octave and assumed my most sassy expression—“They’re probably dead. Oh well!”

Zuri growled. Her skin began to glow.

“O-kay!” Harper laughed a little too hard. “Katie, that was an excellent impression of Zuri. And Zuri, that was an excellent impression of the sun. But maybe we should all calm down.”

His words settled over me like a warm quilt. In spite of myself, my muscles began to relax.

Zuri and I still stood our ground, glaring at each other, but her glow faded. I wasn’t sure if Harper was charmspeaking us, or if this was something else, but my anger started to ebb, backwashing into other emotions—shame, guilt.

What in Tartarus was wrong with me?

“Aaand let’s take a step back now,” Harper said, doing his best to keep his tone light. When Zuri didn’t move, he gently put his hands on my shoulders and steered me away from her.

“Why are you making me step back?” I grumbled.