Chapter Text
-Jason-
Even before I was electrocuted, the day had gone to shit.
I awoke in the back of a school bus, not aware where on earth I was, holding hands with a girl I didn’t know. Not saying that was the shitty part. She was cute– wait no, not cute. Beautiful. Nevertheless, I couldn’t figure out who she was or what I was doing here. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, hoping that would somehow get my brain working.
A few handful of kids had been sprawled out across the seats in front of me, listening to music via their iPods, talking, or sleeping. One had even snuck a few hits of their vape. They all seemed to be around my age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was terrifying.
How did I not know my own age?
The bus continued groaning and rumbling along a bumpy road. Out the windows, a barren terracotta landscape blending by a sickening blue sky. I may have no idea who I was or what was going on, but I was pretty sure I didn’t live in the desert. I tried to think back…the only thing I could remember…
I came up blank.
The girl beside me squeezed my hand. “Jason, you okay?”
She wore faded cargo pants, a shirt with an orange cartoon cat on it, dirty hiking boots, and a prussian-blue fleece snowboarding jacket that almost swallowed her whole. Her deep brown hair was cut to her neck, choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. Her face was barren of makeup, probably trying not to draw attention to herself. Unfortunately that didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Breathtaking even. I couldn’t stop looking into her kaleidoscope eyes as they changed. Brown, blue, green and brown again.
I dropped her hand quickly as if it had zapped me. “Um, I don’t—”
From the front, a deep voice shouted over the teenage gossip, "All right, cupcakes, listen up!”
I sat straighter now, able to find the source of the voice. The guy was most definitely a coach. His baseball cap was pulled so low that you could barely make out his beady eyes. What you could make out of his face was covered with a wispy goatee and a sour expression. I partly couldn’t blame him. I’d spoil like sour milk if I had to deal with hormonal teens all day. His buff arms (which were definitely too big for his body) and puffed out chest pressed against an almost neon orange polo. His black gym shorts swallowed his knees, his Nikes were spotless. A whistle hung from around his neck, a megaphone clipped to his belt. I might’ve found him intimidating if he hadn’t been five foot nothing. When he stood in the aisle, a student called out, almost breaking character with laughter, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!”
“I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. “Little shits,” he muttered under his breath. Then his eyes fixed on mine, his scowl deepening.
A jolt went down to the small of my back. I was positive that he knew I didn’t belong here. I was going to be called out, interrogated about what I was doing on the bus—and I wouldn’t have the slightest clue what to say.
Instead the Coach moved his line of sight and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner,” he scanned the bus, “your assigned partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes so much as think of going batshit on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus. The hard way.”
He grabbed a baseball bat and curled his fingers around it, swinging it as if to make a homerun.
I turned to the girl. “Is he allowed to talk to us that way?”
She shrugged. “Always does. This is the Wilderness School. ‘Where kids are the animals.’”
Her eyes gleamed like it was a joke they’d shared a hundred times.
“This has got to be some kind of cruel joke,” I placed my head in my hands. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
A boy in front of us turned and gave a sore laugh. “Yeah, right, Jase. We’ve all been framed!” He threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t run away six times. Piper didn’t steal a BMW.”
The girl—Piper turned beat red. “I didn’t steal that car! You know that Leo!”
“Oh, right, I forgot. What was your story, Pipes? You ‘talked’ the dealer into lending it to you?” He rolled his eyes and turned to me like, Can you believe her?
Leo looked like a Latino Santa’s elf gone rouge. He had curly black hair, pointy ears, a cheerful round face, and a devious smile that immediately alerted me to not leave this kid alone around matches or sharp objects. Scars and thick hair lined his arms countering the babyish look of his face. His long, crooked fingers refused to stop moving—bouncing between drumming on the seat, sweeping his overgrown curls behind his ears and messing with the buttons and sleeves of army fatigue jacket, wrapped way too tightly around his waist. Either the kid's natural state was acting like a crack addict or he was hopped up on enough sugar and caffeine to overheat a Nuclear Reactor Facility.
“Anyways,” Leo drawled, “hope you held on to your worksheet, ‘cause I used mine for spit wads days ago. What are you looking at me like that for? Someone draw on my face again? I swear to God—”
“I have no clue who you are” I stared blankly.
Leo’s grin widened into that of a crocodile’s. “Oh c’mon I'm a lot more lax than usual. It’s not like I’m your best friend’s evil twin, come for vengeance."
“Valdez!” Coach Hedge yelled from the front. “Is there a problem?”
Leo winked at me and Piper. “Watch this.” He whispered. His head turned towards the front, a feigned innocent voice following. “Sorry, Coach! I was having trouble hearing you. Can you use the megaphone? Please.”
Hedge grunted but I could tell he was more than thrilled to have an excuse. He unclipped the megaphone and started to go back over instructions, this time his voice coming out like static. The others lost it. He tried again, the megaphone blared in a feminine instructional voice: “The cow says moo!”
The others howled, Hedge slammed down his megaphone. “Valdez!”
Piper covered her mouth in an attempt to restrain her snort. “My god, Leo. How did you manage that?”
Leo slipped a tiny Philips head screwdriver from his sleeve, batting his lashes. “I’m a very special boy.”
“Well, we know that.”
“Guys, seriously.” I was almost begging. “What am I doing here? Where are we going?”
Piper knit her brows. “Jason, you’re not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be! I have no idea—”
“Good one, Jase.” Leo said. “Hate to break it to you, but this isn’t enough to get back at me for that shaving cream on the Jell-O thing.”
I stared at him blankly.
“Leo, I think he’s being serious.” Piper tried to take my hand again, but I recoiled from the touch.
“I’m sorry,” I started. “I don’t—I can’t—”
“That’s it!” Coach Hedge yelled from the front. “The back row has just volunteered to clean up after lunch!”
The rest of the kids cheered.
“There’s a shocker,” Leo muttered. But Piper kept her eyes on me, like she couldn’t decide whether to be hurt or worried or both.
“Did you hit your head or something? You really don’t know who we are?” I shrugged helplessly.
“It’s worse than that. I don’t know who I am.”
ϟ ⚡︎ ϟ
The bus left us in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that’s what it was: the National Museum of Nowhere. A cold wind blew across the desert. I hadn’t paid any attention to what I was wearing, but it wasn’t nearly warm enough: jeans and sneakers, a wrinkled purple T-shirt, and a thin black windbreaker.
“So, crash course for the amnesiac,” Leo said, throwing his arm over my shoulders. He spoke in a mock helpful tone which immediately alerted me that this was most definitely not going to be helpful. “We go to the ‘Wilderness School’”—Leo made air quotes. “Which means we’re ‘bad kids’, delinquents, if you will. Your family, or the court, or whoever was done putting up with you and shipped you off to this lovely—uh, ‘boarding school’—in Armpit, Nevada, where we learn valuable nature skills, such as running a thousand miles in two hundred degree heat with Hedge on your back. And for fun we go on ‘educational’ field trips with Coach Hedge, who if it weren’t illegal, would’ve strangled us all a hundred times over. Is it coming back to you, yet?”
“Not even close.” I darted my gaze back and forth between the other kids: twenty some guys, half that many girls. And yet not a single one of them looked like a hardened criminal. What the hell could have any of them done to get sentenced to a school for juvenile delinquents? What did I do to belong here with them?
Leo sighed, rubbing his temples. “You’re really committing to this, huh? Okay, so the three of us happened to start together this semester. We’re like the best of buds. Naturally I’m our leader, so you do everything I say. Give me your dessert do my chores and—”
“Leo!” Piper snapped.
“Fine. Ignore that last part. But we are friends. Well, Piper’s a little more than your friend, if you catch my drift, the two—”
“Leo, I swear to god, just stop it!” Piper’s sentence was punctuated by a punch to Leo’s side. Her face had gone red again. I could feel the heat rising in my own face. You would think a guy would remember if he was going out with a girl like Piper
“He’s got amnesia or something. We’ve got to tell someone.”
Leo scoffed. “Who, Coach Hedge? He’d try to fix Jason by whacking him upside the head.”
The coach was at the front of the group, barking orders and blowing his whistle to keep the kids in line; but every so often he’d glance back at me and scowl.
“Leo, he needs help,” Piper insisted. “He’s got a concussion or—”
“Yo, Piper.” One of the other guys dropped back to join them as the group was heading into the museum. The new guy wedged himself between myself and Piper and knocked Leo down. “Don’t talk to these assholes. You’re my partner, remember?”
The new guy had dark hair cut Superman style, a deep tan, and teeth so white they should’ve come with a warning label: do not stare directly at teeth. permanent blindness may occur. He wore a Dallas Cowboys jersey, Western jeans and boots, and he smiled like he was God’s gift to juvenile delinquent girls everywhere. I immediately wanted to send him into the canyon.
“Don’t touch me.” Piper rubbed her arms. “I didn’t ask to be your partner, Dylan”
“Ah, c’mon. That’s no way to be acting. After all, this is your lucky day. The chicks kill to do my work.” Dylan hooked his arm through her and dragged her through the museum entrance. Piper turned around and shot one last look, 911.
I offered a hand to Leo and helped him to his feet.
He brushed himself off. “I hate that guy.” He offered his arm, as if we should follow Piper and Dylan, skipping inside. He brushed his hand through his hair and batted his lashes. “I’m Dylan. I’m the best, I want to date myself, but I haven’t figured out how. You and me should hook up instead! Aren’t you the luckiest girl in the world?”
“Leo, you’re weird.”
He shrugged, a grin spreading from cheek to cheek. “Although, if you don’t remember me…I don’t have to come up with any new material. Come on.”
If this kid was my best friend, my life must be pretty messed up; but I continued on and followed Leo into the museum.
ϟ ⚡︎ ϟ
We walked through the building, stopping every now and then for Hedge to lecture us with his megaphone, which only ended with making his voice come out an unbearable pitch, or blaring comments like “The pig says oink.”
Leo kept pulling out and messing with nuts, bolts and pipe cleaners from his army jacket, weaving them together, like he had to keep his hands busy or he was going to set the place ablaze.
I was way too distracted to pay attention to the exhibits, although I knew they were about the Grand Canyon and the Hualapai tribe, which owned the museum.
Some girls kept glancing at Piper and Dylan, barely containing their snickers. I figured they were the “popular clique”. They wore matching low rise jeans and pink tops, all tied together with enough makeup for a Halloween party.
“Hey, Piper,” A girl with crimped hair crossed her arms. “Doesn’t your tribe own this place? Will we get in free if you do a rain dance?”
The rest of her ‘goons’ giggled. Even Dylan suppressed a smile. Piper’s snowboarding jacket hid her hands, but I didn’t need to see them to know she was digging her nails into her palms.
“My dad’s Cherokee, Idiot,” she said. “Not Hualapai. ’Course, you’d need a few brain cells to know the difference, Isabel.”
Isabel widened her eyes in mock surprise, so that she looked like an owl with a makeup addiction. “Oh, sorry! Was your mom in this tribe? Oh, that’s right. Your moms a deadbeat.”
Piper charged her, but before a fight could start, Coach Hedge barked, “Enough back there! Set a good example or I'll break out my baseball bat!”
The group shuffled on to the next exhibit, but the girls kept calling out little comments to Piper. “Good to be back on the rez?” one asked in a sweet voice.
“Dad’s probably too drunk to work, and mom’s probably a whore,” another said with fake sympathy. “That’s why she turned klepto.”
Piper ignored them, but I was more than ready to beat them to a pulp. I might not remember Piper, or even who I was, but I definitely knew that I hated racists.
Leo caught his arm. “Be cool. Piper likes to fight her own battles. Besides, if those girls found out the truth about her dad, they’d be all bowing down to her and screaming, ‘We’re not worthy!’”
“Why? What about her dad?”
He laughed in disbelief. “You’re not kidding? You really don’t remember that your girlfriend’s dad—”
“Look, I wish I did, but I don’t even remember her, much less her dad.”
Leo whistled. “Whatever. We have to talk when we get back to the dorm.”
We reached the far end of the exhibit hall, where some big glass doors led out to a terrace. “All right, cupcakes,” Coach Hedge announced. “You are about to see the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you featherweights should be safe out there. If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork and right now I don’t have the patience or the care.”
The coach opened the doors, and we all stepped outside. The Grand Canyon spread before them, live and in person. Extending over the edge was a horseshoe-shaped walkway made of glass, so you could see right down to the bottom.
“Man,” Leo said. “That’s wicked.”
No doubt about it. Despite the amnesia and the feeling that I didn’t belong here, it was hard not to be impressed.
The canyon was bigger and wider than satellites could do justice. We were so high up that birds flew below us. Banks of angry storm clouds had positioned themselves above head, while we’d been inside, casting a dark and wide shadow across the rigged cliffs. As far as I could make out, red and gray ravines like a blood crazed god had taken a knife to it.
A piercing pain stabbed behind my eyes. Crazed gods…Where had I come up with that idea? I was sure I had gotten close to something important—something that I needed to know. This came along with a sense of paranoia. I was in danger.
“You all right?” Leo asked. “You’re not going to throw up over the side, are you? ’Cause I told Pipes that I should’ve brought my camera. ”
I grabbed onto the railing, my fingers becoming whiter than the work sheet. I was shaking and sweaty and could barely stand on my feet. It had nothing to do with heights. I felt almost…calmer up here. I blinked rapidly and the pain subsided.
“I’m fine,” I managed. “Just a headache.”
Thunder roared overhead. A cold and fast wind almost sent me sideways.
“There’s no way that this is safe.” Leo squinted at the clouds. “Storm’s right over us, but it’s clear all the way around. Weird, huh?”
One look at the sky told me that he was right. A dark band of fog and clouds had parked itself over the skywalk, but everywhere else within at least a hundred miles was clear. I had a bad feeling about this.
“All right, cupcakes!” Coach Hedge boomed. He frowned at the storm like it bothered him as well. “We’re going to have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!”
The storm roared once more, and my head began to hurt again. A reflex triggered in me, I reached into my jeans pocket and brought out a coin—a circle of gold the size of a half-dollar, but thicker and more uneven. Stamped on one side was a picture of a battle-ax. On the other was some old guy’s face wreathed in laurels. The inscription said something like ‘Ivlivs’. How could I possibly know what the coin said?
“Dang, is that gold?” Leo asked. “Man you’ve been holding out on me! To think I’ve been sneaking us snacks from the Cafeteria.”
I shoved the coin back into my pocket. I don’t know why I had it, but I couldn’t deny the feeling that I was going to need it soon.
“It’s nothing. Just a coin.”
Leo shrugged. Maybe his mind had to keep moving as much as his hands. “Come on,” he said. “Dare you to spit over the edge.”
ϟ ⚡︎ ϟ
We didn’t even try to halfass the worksheet. For one thing, I was too distracted by the storm and my own mixed-up feelings. For another thing, I didn’t have any clue how to “name three sedimentary strata you observe” or “describe two examples of erosion.”
Leo wasn’t much help either. He was too busy building a helicopter out of pipe cleaners.
“Hey, Jase. Check it out.” He launched the copter. I figured it would plummet, but the pipe-cleaner blades actually managed to spin. The little copter made it halfway across the canyon before it lost momentum and spiraled into the dark void of rock.
“How’d you manage that?”
Leo simply shrugged, like it was nothing new. “Would've been ten times cooler if I had some rubber bands.” He almost sounded disappointed.
“Seriously, are you sure we’re friends?”
“Last I checked.”
“Okay…What was the first day we met? What did we talk about? How’d we run into each other?”
“It was…” Leo frowned. “Dude, you can’t just throw questions at me. I’ve got a horrific memory. I’m ADHD. You can’t just expect me to remember how we bounded over using the same brand of number two pencils.”
“I don’t remember you at all. I don’t remember anyone here. What if—”
“You’re right and everyone else is wrong?” Leo asked. His grin cracked. “You think you just appeared here this morning, and we’ve all got fake memories of you?”
A little voice in my head told me, That’s exactly what was going on.
It was crazy. Everybody here remembered me, acted like a normal part of their class—except for myself and Coach Hedge.
“Take the worksheet.” I handed Leo the paper. “I’ll be right back.”
“Oh c’mon, don’t make me do all of the work again—
Ignoring Leo’s protest, I was already making my way across the skywalk. The school had the place to itself. It could be that it was too early in the day for tourists, or maybe the weird weather had creeped them out. The other students had spread out in pairs across the skywalk. Most were joking around or talking. Some were pretending to shove their partners off the bridge. About fifty some feet away. Piper was actively trying to complete her worksheet, but stupid Dylan was hitting on her, putting his hands on her shoulders and giving her smirks. She kept shoving him off. Finally she met my eyes and gave me a look like, If you don’t murder him I will.
I motioned at her to hang on. I finally made it to Coach Hedge, who was leaning against his bat, his brows knitted as he studied the storm clouds. Before I could clear my throat the coach started to speak.
“Did you do this?”
I took a step back, pausing. “Do what?” He couldn’t seriously be implying that I had crafted this thunderstorm.
Hedge glared at me, his beady eyes glinting with frustration under his cap. “Don’t play games with me, kid. I’m smarter than that. What are you doing here, and what gives you the right to mess up my job?”
“You mean…you don’t know me?” I took another step forward cautiously. “I’m not one of your students?”
He snorted. “Never seen you before today.”
I could’ve cried I was so relieved. That meant I wasn’t going insane. I really was in the wrong place. I cleared my throat. “Look, uh, sir. I don’t know how I got here. I just got here. All I know is that I’m not supposed to be here.”
“No shit.” Hedge’s gruff voice dropped to a murmur, like he was sharing a secret. “You’re skilled with the Mist, kid, if you can make all these people think they know you: must’ve been doing this for a while. But I’ve been doing this longer, you’re not going to fool me. I’ve had monster on my scent for days. An infiltrator was inevitable, but you don’t smell like a monster. You reek of half-blood. So I’ll ask again—who are you and where’d you come from?”
Nothing of what he said registered in my head, but it was probably best to answer as honestly as I could. “I have no idea who I am. I have none of my memories, and you’re the only one who doesn’t seem to know me. You’ve got to help me.”
He studied my face as if he was trying to read my thoughts.
“Great,” Hedge muttered. “You’re being truthful.”
“Why wouldn’t I?! And what was all the talk about monsters and half-bloods? Are those codewords or something?”
Hedge narrowed his eyes. Part of me wondered if the guy was just nuts. But the other part knew better.
“Look, kid,” Hedge said, “I don’t know who you are. I just know what you are, and it means trouble. Now I’ve got to protect three of you rather than two. You’re the special package, aren’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
Hedge looked at the storm. The clouds were getting thicker and darker, hovering right over the skywalk.
“This morning,” Hedge said, “I got a message from camp. They said an extraction team is on the way. They’re coming to pick up a special package, but they refused to give me details. So, I thought, Fine. The two I’m watching are pretty powerful, older than most. I know that we’re being stalked. I can smell a monster in the group. I figure that’s why the camp is suddenly frantic to pick them up. Suddenly you pop up out of nowhere. So, I’m assuming you’re the special package”
The pain behind my eyes worsened tenfold. Half-bloods? Camp? Monsters? What was this guy on? His words gave me a shooting pain throughout my entire brain. An attempt for my mind to access information that had gone missing.
I stumbled over my shoes, Coach Hedge managed to catch me. For a guy his height he had hands like steel.
“Oh, give me a break. You claim you got no memories? Fine. I’ll just have to add you to the roster of kids I’m babysitting. Until the team gets here, then we’ll let the director decide what to do with you.
“What director?” I asked. “What camp?”
“Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing happens before—”
Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with a frantic vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.
“I had to say something,” Hedge grumbled. He bellowed into his megaphone: “Everyone inside! The duck says quack! Off the skywalk!”
“I thought you said this thing was stable!”
“Under normal circumstances,” Hedge agreed, “which these aren’t. Come on!