|hedge is a furry??|
—The storm churned into a miniature hurricane. Funnel clouds snaked toward the skywalk like the tendrils of a monster jellyfish.
Kids screamed and ran for the building. The wind snatched away their notebooks, jackets, hats, and backpacks. Camilla skidded across the slick floor.
Leo lost his balance and almost toppled over the railing, but Piper grabbed his jacket and pulled him back.
"Thanks!" Leo yelled.
"Go, go, go!" said Coach Hedge.
Dylan was holding the doors open, herding the other kids inside. As soon as Leo was on the skywalk, Piper ditched them and ran to the doors, expecting Camilla and Leo to do the same.
To their credit, they tried— but they skidded on the glass like baby deer on ice.
When Camilla looked back up, Piper was holding the other door open along with Dylan. Her snowboarding jacket was flapping wildly, her dark hair all in her face. Camilla thought she must've been freezing, but she looked calm and confident— telling the others it would be okay, encouraging them to keep moving.
Camilla, Jason, Leo, and Coach Hedge ran toward them, but it was like running through quicksand. The wind seemed to fight them, pushing them back. Seriously, what the fuck was happening? Why couldn't she have one fucking field trip where nothing went wrong?
Dylan and Piper pushed one more kid inside, then lost their grip on the doors. They slammed shut, closing off the skywalk.
Piper tugged at the handles. Inside, the kids pounded on the glass, but the doors seemed to be stuck.
"Dylan, help!" Piper shouted.
Dylan just stood there with an idiotic grin, his Cowboys jersey rippling in the wind, like he was suddenly enjoying the storm. Cam wanted to punch his stupid smile.
"Sorry, Piper," he said. "I'm done helping."
He flicked his wrist, and Piper flew backward, slamming into the doors and sliding to the skywalk deck.
"Piper!" Jason tried to charge forward, but the wind was against them. Coach Hedge pushed them back.
"Coach," Jason said, "let me go!"
"Jason, Leo, Camilla, stay behind me," the coach ordered. "This is my fight. I should've known that was our monster."
"What?" Leo demanded. A rogue worksheet slapped him in the face, but he swatted it away. "What monster?"
The coach's cap blew off, and sticking up above his curly hair were two bumps— like the knots cartoon characters get when they're bonked on the head. Coach Hedge lifted his baseball bat— but it wasn't a regular bat anymore. Somehow it had changed into a crudely shaped tree-branch club, with twigs and leaves still attached.
"Okay, can someone tell me what the actual fuck is going on?" Camilla had to yell to make her voice reach the others over the wind noises.
"Language!" Coach warned.
"OH I'M SORRY COACH I BETTER DROP AND GIVE YOU TWENTY!—"
"Camilla, stop!" Jason put a hand to her shoulder. She may have had butterflies even though this was literally the worst moment for it.
Dylan gave them that psycho happy smile. "Oh, come on, Coach. Let the boy attack me! After all, you're getting too old for this. Isn't that why they retired you to this stupid school? I've been on your team the entire season, and you didn't even know. You're losing your nose, grandpa."
The coach made an angry sound like an animal bleating. "That's it, cupcake. You're going down."
"You think you can protect four half-bloods at once, old man?" Dylan laughed. "Good luck."
Dylan pointed at Leo and Camilla. Two funnel clouds materialized around them, It felt like being inside a washing machine— (Don't ask why Camilla knows what that's like). Before she knew what was going on, they flew off the skywalk like they had been tossed.
For some stupid reason, Camilla loved it. She loved the absolute nonsensical nature of the moment. Here they were at the fucking Grand Canyon— Dylan had magic for some reason and made them fly off the ramp???
For a wonderful moment, it felt like flying. Then they started to fall.
Leo was screaming the whole time. But for the first time in his life, Camilla felt... to say calm would be wrong.
Right.
That's all her brain thought.
Right. Right. Right.
Finally, something weird enough she could keep up with. A week in juvie was nothing compared to this.
Somehow she managed to merge into Leo's mini tornado so they were at least together. She slammed into the boy so hard they twisted in midair, and went sprawling sideways into the canyon wall. They skidded, clawing furiously for any handhold. Finally Leo grabbed a thin ledge about fifty feet below the skywalk, Camilla was barely holding onto him as gravity pulled her down.
A little crazed, she let out a half mad laugh.
Leo gaped at her like she had lost her mind. Maybe she had.
"Help!" Leo yelled up at Jason and Coach Hedge. "Rope, please? Bungee cord? Something?"
Since the whole thing was made of glass, they had a perfect view of what was going on the skywalk.
Coach Hedge tossed Jason his club. They were probably having a heart to heart or something equally stupid and not important at all, but Camilla couldn't hear them over the winds.
She tried to climb up, using Leo's body like the gym class rope that Coach Hedge always made them climb to the top. Of course, Leo protested every time Camilla tried to hoist herself up to a ledge.
He was just worried she might pull down his pants with how hard she was holding on. And no one wanted that to happen.
Camilla ignored his complaints and tried to reach for the ledge next to Leo.
"Don't touch my ass, Cam!"
"I'm not touching your ass!"
"You are!"
"I have no interest in your ass!"
"Yeah, sure, you want to hit this so bad!" Leo snorted.
"Keep living in delusion, Valdez, Piper's much hotter" Finally, Camilla, grabbed a hold of Leo's shoulder and reached for the ledge. It was very dangerous and something her dad would have a heart attack listening to. But her dad wasn't here. He was in jail. So Camilla hung next to Leo, trying not to plummet down into the Grand Canyon and meet her dead Grandpa.
Leo and Camilla watched Hedge leap over the railing. He sailed toward the canyon wall and hit hooves first. Wait what? Hooves??? Camilla almost had a coronary. The coach didn't have any feet. He had hooves—goat's hooves. Which meant those things on his head, Cam realized, weren't bumps. They were horns.
He bounded down the cliff with impossible agility, finding footholds no bigger than postage stamps, dodging whirlwinds that tried to attack him as he picked his way toward Camilla and Leo.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" Leo wailed.
"The Coach is a furry?" Camilla said.
The skywalk shuddered. Hairline fractures appeared in the glass. (Seven jumbo jets, was it?)
"I'm coming for youuu!" Coach bleated as he made his way toward them. Oh god, he really was a furry. And a committed one, at that.
From under the skywalk, Camilla watched as Dylan's body dissolved into smoke— Seriously, did Camilla accidentally take drugs that morning with her breakfast??
She couldn't see very clearly from how far away they were but Dylan's whole form was suddenly composed of swirling black vapor.
"I knew that guy was evil!" Leo shook his head.
Two more funnel clouds touched down on either side of Dylan and turned into ghostly young men with smoky wings.
"Fuck, we're going to die"
"Drop and give me twenty, Valdez!" Came Coach's voice.
"Coach, I love you but I don't think you want us to drop right now" Camilla glared.
"As soon as we get inside the museum, then" Coach decided.
Jason looked like he was going to do something incredibly stupid like charge at Dylan. But before he could, Dylan raised his hand, arcs of electricity running between his fingers, and blasted Jason in the chest.
BANG!
—Coach Hedge reached them and plucked them up like they weighed almost nothing.
Leo screamed, or maybe Camilla did.
Jason. He got hit by lightning. Jason. Oh shit.
And Camilla never even got to admit her feelings for him. Great. Her love life had always been fucked. The first guy she liked turned out to have only one eye, the first girl she liked turned into a vampire and had fire for hair (???). So yeah you could say weird things like tornado guys had been happening to Camilla long before she came to the Wilderness School. Then the first guy she kissed turned out to be a creep.
And now her crush was dead.
Great.
Coach draped them both over his shoulders like ragdolls and started the climb back up again. Seriously, what the fuck was going on?
The view climbing up, didn't get any better. Camilla was constantly feeling like her stomach was in her throat. It didn't help that all she could see was the five hundred feet drop and Coach's goat legs.
"ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT A FURRY?" She yelled.
"What the heck is a furry, kid?" Coach's shoulder wasn't a very comfortable ride up either, it constantly dug into Camilla's stomach and made her want to throw up. "I'm a satyr!"
Even before Coach was on solid glass, or as solid as it could be with cracks spreading, Camilla wiggled out of Coach's grip and flopped onto the floor painfully.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Piper desperately swinging the club to fend off the two extra storm spirits, but they were just toying with her. The club went right through their bodies like they weren't there and Dylan, a dark and winged tornado with eyes, loomed over Jason.
"What the heck? What the heck? What the heck—?" Leo kept mumbling, "What the fuck—"
"Stop," Jason croaked. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and Camilla wasn't sure who was more surprised: Jason himself, Camilla or the storm spirits.
"How are you alive?" Dylan's form flickered. "That was enough lightning to kill twenty men!"
"My turn," Jason said.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the gold coin. He flipped the coin in the air like he'd done it a thousand times. He caught it in his palm, and suddenly he was holding a sword—a wickedly sharp double-edged weapon. The whole thing was gold—hilt, handle, and blade.
Dylan snarled and backed up. He looked at his two comrades and yelled, "Well? Kill him!"
The other storm spirits didn't look happy with that order, but they flew at Jason, their fingers crackling with electricity.
Jason swung at the first spirit. His blade passed through it, and the creature's smoky form disintegrated. The second spirit let loose a bolt of lightning, but Jason's blade absorbed the charge. Jason stepped in—one quick thrust, and the second storm spirit dissolved into gold powder.
Camilla was just staring, not even trying to hide it anymore. Holy shit. Maybe she was straight? Fuck no.
Dylan wailed in outrage. He looked down as if expecting his comrades to re-form, but their gold dust remains dispersed in the wind. "Impossible! Who are you, half-blood?"
Piper was so stunned she dropped her club. "Jason, how... ?"
Coach dumped Leo like a sack of flour on the floor.
"Spirits, fear me!" Hedge bellowed, flexing his short arms. Then he looked around and realized there was only Dylan.
"Curse it, boy!" he snapped at Jason. "Didn't you leave some for me? I like a challenge!"
Leo got to his feet, breathing hard. He looked completely humiliated, his hands bleeding from clawing at the rocks. Camilla looked at her own, not even realizing the pain she was in. Her ribs also hurt from when she had slammed into Leo and into the rock wall. "Yo, Coach Supergoat, whatever you are—We just fell down the freaking Grand Canyon! Stop asking for challenges!"
Dylan hissed at them, "You have no idea how many enemies you've awakened, half-bloods. My mistress will destroy all demigods. This war you cannot win."
Above them, the storm exploded into a full-force gale. Cracks expanded in the skywalk. Sheets of rain poured down, Camilla was drenched in seconds.
A hole opened in the clouds—a swirling vortex of black and silver.
"The mistress calls me back!" Dylan shouted with glee. "And you, demigod, will come with me!"
He lunged at Jason, but Piper tackled the monster from behind. Even though he was made of smoke, Piper somehow managed to connect. Both of them went sprawling.
Camilla didn't waste time thinking. Somehow in all this chaos, was the first time she felt completely in control. Camilla, Leo, Jason and the Coach surged forward to help, but the spirit screamed with rage. He let loose a torrent that knocked them all backward. Jason and Coach Hedge landed on their butts. Jason's sword skidded across the glass. Camilla got a glass chunk to the face as she fell back, hearing her bones make sounds they really shouldn't. Leo hit the back of his head and curled on his side, dazed and groaning. Piper got the worst of it. She was thrown off Dylan's back and hit the railing, tumbling over the side until she was hanging by one hand over the abyss.
Jason started toward her, but Dylan screamed, "I'll settle for this one!"
He grabbed Camilla's arm and began to rise, towing her below him. She thrashed in Dylan's grip, suddenly very thankful that Piper had managed to sock him in the nose at least once. The storm spun faster, pulling them upward like a vacuum cleaner.
"FUCK!" She screamed as she tried to kick and wiggle out of the grip on her arm, but nothing seemed to be working.
"Help!" Piper yelled. "Somebody!"
Then she slipped, screaming as she fell.
"Jason, go!" Hedge yelled. "Save her!"
The coach launched himself at the spirit with some serious goat fu—lashing out with his hooves, knocking Camilla free from the spirit's grasp. She dropped safely to the floor, next to Leo but Dylan grappled the coach's arms instead. Hedge tried to head-butt him, then kicked him and called him a cupcake. They rose into the air, gaining speed.
Coach Hedge shouted down once more, "Save Piper! I got this!" Then the satyr and the storm spirit spiraled into the clouds and disappeared.
Save her? Camilla thought— She's gone!
But then she watched Jason run to the railing and vault over like a complete lunatic.
Leo and Cam holding onto the ledge: