Chapter 12 I Run with Pointy Objects #3
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.
“Congrats,” I said with the weakest, wobbliest smile ever.
He sat beside me and held out the bowl. “Consolation bite?”
“I don’t deserve it,” I said. But I took the spoon from him anyway.
“You look like you had a rough time out there,” he said. Then he dropped his voice. “Searching for Grant?”
I swallowed a mouthful of vanilla ice cream, wincing from the pain in my throat. “That was the plan. Didn’t work out too well.”
Benny gestured at my head. “You got a little something…”
I felt around in my hair and pulled out a crushed pine cone.
For a brief second, I considered telling Benny about the hooded man with the chain, but that felt like a lot to unload on someone else.
Plus, once I pulled that thread, everything else would unravel.
I’d have to explain who I thought the man was, what he’d said, and why he might not have been real.
I’d have to describe my visions. Then I’d have to explain why Benny shouldn’t be scared of me even though I could snap him in half like a pencil.
Instead, I just said, “Yep.”
Because Benny was Benny, he didn’t pry. He simply sat with me and stared at the ground while I poached another spoonful of his ice cream.
“You shouldn’t be going in there by yourself,” he said.
“I wasn’t by myself,” I protested weakly. “The whole camp was in the woods.”
Benny raised an eyebrow. “You know what I mean. We were supposed to make a plan together. Tonight at KP. Let us help you.”
I sighed. “I was just trying to do the right thing. I know you understand that.”
He looked me over, noting the state of my clothes and the cuts on my arms. I wondered if bruises were starting to appear on my throat. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a yellow cellophane-wrapped square. “This might help.”
Benny set the square on the bench beside me and took back his ice cream.
“Cellophane isn’t environmentally friendly,” I chided him as I fussed with the wrapper.
“It’s rice paper,” he said.
“Oh. Cool.” Inside the paper was a rectangular chunk of…something. I would’ve guessed a miniature brownie, but the color was too orange. I popped the entire thing in my mouth and chewed. Then I stopped.
I didn’t know how Benny had done it, but the orange square tasted like my mom’s spaghetti and meatballs.
My eyes teared up. I let the taste fill my mouth.
I didn’t want to swallow and lose the flavor—my connection with Mom.
Then I noticed something else strange. When my mouth watered and made me swallow, my throat didn’t hurt.
I looked at my arms. The cuts were fading.
I actually laughed in amazement, and that didn’t hurt my stomach!
“Feeling better?” Benny asked with a smile.
“What is this?”
“It’s called ambrosia,” he said. “Food of the gods. In small amounts, it can heal demigods of almost anything. The Stolls gave me some after I failed the, uh, backflip-off-the-roof test.”
“Ouch. But how did you get this flavor?”
“You like it? I’m pretty sure it’s the best flan de coco I’ve ever had!”
I cocked my head. “That’s a funny way to say spaghetti.”
Benny mirrored my expression. “Spaghetti? No, it’s flan de coco with caramel sauce.” He closed his eyes dreamily. “And just a hint of cafecito aftertaste.”
“Hey, geniuses!” Travis called to us. “Ambrosia tastes like whatever your favorite food is!”
Several Hermes campers laughed. Benny and I stared at each other. Then we cracked up too.
The gods knew I didn’t have much to laugh about. I’d failed to find Grant. I was an embarrassment to my cabin and probably the laughingstock of the whole camp. I’d barely survived an encounter with a judgmental, chain-wielding apparition. On top of all that, I still had KP duty to look forward to.
Nevertheless, the ambrosia square seemed to make me feel better on the inside as well as the outside.
I recalled something the hooded man had said: None of this is random, girl. You were chosen to be here.
Maybe it wasn’t random that I’d met Benny and Harper and Zuri either. Maybe we were chosen to be together. In which case, Benny had a point. I needed to let them help me.
“You’re right!” I hammered a fist against my leg.
Benny frowned. “About the cafecito aftertaste?”
“No, we’re demigods!” I said. “It’s time I start acting like one. You guys are my team.” I drummed my fingers on my knee. “Now we just need a good team name.”
Benny regarded me with the spoon hanging out of his mouth. “Uh-oh.”
“That’s right,” I said, getting to my feet as inspiration seized me. “The Wild Omada is on the case!”