I'm really annoyed with the Seven of the Prophecy. The only one I can stand is Leo. Percy's getting too arrogant for my tastes and the rest are meh. So, in this story, the plotline's going to be a little different to adapt with the new characters. Reyna is one of them. Leo is another. And Piper will play a major role. That's all I'm going to say.

Even before Reyna got attacked by evil espresso drinks, she was having a terrible day.

It all started when she woke up on the backseat of school bus sitting next to a girl she didn't know. That wasn't the terrible part. The girl seemed nice and was chatting with a boy in the seat in front of them. The problem was that she had no idea what she was doing there.

Reyna sat up and blinked her sleepiness away, trying to think. She looked around and focused her gaze.

It took a while for her vision to clear up, which immediately sent alarm bells ringing in her mind. There was something about the thought of being slow to react that made Reyna cringe. When it did, she noticed that there were a few dozen teens sprawled in the seats in front of her, listening to their iPods, talking or sleeping. They looked about her age...wait a minute, what was her age? That was scary. She didn't even know her age.

The bus was on a bumpy path, seeing as Reyna kept on bouncing up and down in her seat. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Reyna didn't think she lived in a desert. She tried to think back to the last thing she remembered.

The girl next to her turned and smiled. "You okay, Reyna?"

She was wearing worn out clothes – faded blue jeans, dirty hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her hair was cut unevenly and her face was devoid of makeup, although she was really pretty. Her eyes were like a kaleidoscope, changing color every few seconds.

Reyna analyzed her, trying to determine if she was a threat. She suddenly frowned. Why did she have to examine the girl? It wasn't as if she was an enemy…right? A voice at the back of her mind murmured, Better safe than sorry.

"Um, yeah, I am," Reyna lied. Unfortunately, lying wasn't very easy when you had amnesia. "Where am I?"

The guy in front of her turned around and was about to say something when in the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, "All right, cupcakes, listen up!"

The man had a wispy goatee and a permanent frown on his face. He was buff and was wearing a bright orange polo shirt. His workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A megaphone was strapped to his belt and the man's hand itched towards it, like he wanted to use it. He looked intimidating – or at least, he would've if he was more than 5 feet tall.

When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, "Stand up, Coach Hedge!"

"I heard that!" The coach scanned the bus for the culprit. His eyes zoned in on Reyna and he scowled.

A jolt went down Reyna's spine. She was sure the coach knew she didn't belong there. He was going to call Reyna out, demand to know what she was doing on the bus—and Reyna wouldn't have a clue what to say. Reyna really hated this situation. She was at a complete disadvantage.

Well, hurry up and find an advantage, Reyna thought to herself.

Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes cause any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way."

He picked up a baseball bat and made like he was hitting a homer.

Reyna frowned. Where was she? Military school, maybe. She looked at the girl next to her. "Can he talk to us that way?"

She shrugged. "Always does. This is the Wilderness School. 'Where kids are the animals.'"

She said it like it was a joke they'd shared before.

Okay, so apparently she was at some sort of military school. And the girl was her friend…or at least, that's what the girl thought.

"So, um, what were we talking about?" Reyna asked.

The boy in front of her turned and said, "Piper and I were talking about how you agreed to be my girlfriend who does all of my chores and –"

"Leo!" Piper scolded. She turned to Reyna and said gave her look that said, It's Leo. What can we do?

Leo had curly black hair, pointy ears, a cheerful face, and a mischievous look in his eyes that told Reyna to be pretty careful when he was around dangerous objects. He looked like a rogue Latino Santa's elf.

His fingers refused to stop moving. It was like he was either really hyper or really needed to avoid the sugar and caffeine for a while. He kept on fiddling with the buttons of his army fatigue jacket.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Leo asked. "What, did someone draw on my face again?"

Reyna tried to clear her face of all emotion. "No. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"Oh, about how we met," she responded. "How did we meet?" She regretted sounding so sharp and strange. She was supposed to be blending into her surroundings so she could assess the situation but she wasn't doing a very good job. Luckily, Leo didn't seem to notice.

Leo opened his mouth then paused. He frowned and shrugged. "I'm ADHD, you can't expect me to remember this stuff. Ask Piper."

Reyna looked to Piper but she just frowned and said, "I'm ADHD, too. I don't remember either. But I could've sworn…" She shook her head.

"Do you have your worksheet?" Leo asked. "I used mine for spit wad days ago."

"Valdez!" Coach Hedge yelled from the front. "Problem back there?"

Leo winked at Reyna. "Watch this." He turned towards the coach. "Sorry, Coach. I was having trouble hearing you. Could you use your megaphone, please?"

Coach Hedge's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas. He grabbed his megaphone from his belt and continued giving directions but his voice sounded like Darth Vader's. The kids cracked up. The coach paused and tried again, but the megaphone blared "The cow says moo!" instead.

The kids howled and the coach slammed down the megaphone. "Valdez!"

Piper stifled a laugh. "Oh god, Leo. How did you do that?"

Leo slipped a tiny Phillips head screwdriver from his sleeve. "I'm a special boy and I just happened to forget to take my special medicine today."

Reyna frowned. The joke was funny and all but she had bigger problems – like finding out who she was. Apparently, Leo and Piper knew her but she didn't know them. Was it possible that she had amnesia? But she couldn't ignore the fact that Coach Hedge seemed to know she didn't belong. Maybe she was right and everyone else was wrong. The idea sounded ridiculous but the possibility was prominent in Reyna's mind.

She was tempted to come clean with Leo and Piper about her memory loss. But there was something about them that made her hesitate. She felt as if she shouldn't be near them. She decided to try and figure out more information before acting on it.

The bus dropped them off at a big red stucco complex in the middle of nowhere. A cold wind blew across the desert and Reyna shivered. The purple t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers weren't nearly enough to keep her from being chilly.

Leo made a face when he saw the museum. "Oh, yay, a day of looking at boring exhibits." He looked at Piper. "Think you can "talk" Coach Hedge into letting us skip this trip?"

Piper scowled. "Oh, shut up Leo."

Reyna frowned and looked between the two friends. "What are you two talking about?" She mentally slapped herself. Judging from the stares the two teens were giving her, she was supposed to know this.

"Remember?" Leo said. "Piper stole a BMW."

"I did not steal it!" Piper protested.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You "talked" the dealer into giving it to you. Honestly, Piper. We're all delinquents here. You stole a BMW and I ran away six times and our families, or, in my case, the court decided that we were two much trouble and shipped us off here. Old news. We should just deal with it."

"Rey," Piper said, ignoring Leo. "You okay? You seem a little shaky."

"Yeah," Reyna replied. "I'm just a little tired."

Leo pulled out a bunch of bolts and pipe cleaners from his jacket pocket and started fiddling with them. The kid couldn't stay still, could he?

"Yo, Pipes!" One of the other guys hung back to join them as the group was heading into the museum. He shoved Leo and put an arm around Piper, not seeming to notice how she had immediately stiffened. "You're my partner. Don't hang around these losers."

Piper glared at him but he either was extremely ignorant or just didn't care. "Go away, Dylan. I didn't ask to work with you."

"Chill out, Pipes," Dylan said, flashing her a smile so white it could've blinded them. "Today's your lucky day. You get to be my partner." He shot Leo and Reyna a disgusted look and steered Piper away.

Leo, while grumbling, got up and brushed himself off. "I hate that kid. Acts like he's god's gifts to delinquent women everywhere." He mimicked Dylan in high pitched voice. "I'm Dylan. I'm so awesome and hot! Oh my god, who is that gorgeous guy in the water?" Leo pretended to reach out, as if touching water. "Oh no! He disappeared!"

Reyna gave him an incredulous look to which Leo just grinned at. "I forgot, you don't have a sense of humor."

She frowned but Leo smiled. "Come on, let's go."

Reyna followed him into the museum, all the while thinking about how strange her life was.

They walked through the building, stopping here and there for Coach Hedge to lecture them with his megaphone, which alternately made him sound like a Sith Lord or blared out random comments like "The pig says oink."

Reyna was too distracted trying to figure out what was happening to pay much attention to the exhibits, but they were about the Grand Canyon and the Hualapai tribe, which owned the museum.

There were some girls that kept looking over at Piper and Dylan and snickering. She figured these girls were the popular clique.

They wore matching jeans and pink tops and enough makeup to make someone sick.

One of them said, "Hey, Piper, does your tribe run this place? Do you get in free if you do a rain dance?"

The other girls laughed. Even Piper's so-called partner Dylan suppressed a smile.

Piper's snowboarding jacket sleeves hid her hands, but Reyna had the feeling she was clenching her fists.

"My dad's Cherokee," 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. You never knew your mom."

Before Piper had a chance to charge her, Reyna spoke up. "Stop bothering Piper."

Isabel turned to look at Reyna. She flipped her hair and smirked. "Oh look, it's Reyna. Trying to play hero?"

Reyna shot her a piercing glare. "If you had half the manners as the amount of makeup on your face, maybe you wouldn't come off as a shallow wannabe."

Isabel screeched, "Shut up!"

"No," Reyna said simply. She glared at the clique until they were forced to look away. She didn't remember much about herself, but she knew that one thing she didn't like was chaos, which surely would've erupted if she had allowed Piper to attack Isabel.

The group continued shuffling along through the exhibits.

"Why'd you do that?" Piper demanded.

Reyna raised an eyebrow. "Because you were about to charge her and get into trouble."

"You know I don't like it when you interfere." Piper marched back to Dylan, not sparing Reyna a second glance.

Leo said, "You shouldn't have done that. Besides, if they knew who Piper's dad was, they would be kissing her feet, shouting, "We are not worthy!"

"Why?" Reyna asked before she could stop herself.

Leo stared at her in disbelief. "Are you joking or something? Cuz if you are, don't make a joke ever again."

They 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're about to see the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. Oh yeah, don't push each other off the edge because I have way too much work to waste my time filling out paperwork."

The coach opened the doors, and they 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 through it.

"Man," Leo said. "That's sick."

Reyna had to agree. Despite her amnesia and her feeling that she didn't belong there, she couldn't help but be impressed.

The canyon was way bigger and wider than it appeared. There were a few birds circling below their feet. Five hundred feet down, a calm river wound along the canyon floor. There were red and gray ravines everywhere, like a crazy god gotten jealous and decided to destroy everything.

Reyna suddenly got a piercing ache behind his eyes. A crazy god ... Where had she come up with that idea?

She felt like she was on the edge of something important – something she should know about. It was really frustrating.

"You all right?" Leo asked. "You're not going to throw up, are you?"

Reyna grabbed the railing. She was shivering and sweating uncontrollably. She blinked and the pain behind her eyes subsided. She let out a sigh.

"I'm fine," she managed. "Just a little pain."

Thunder rumbled overhead. A cold wind almost knocked her sideways.

"Oh shoot, there's a storm." Leo squinted at the clouds. "This can't be safe. But look, it seems like the storm's right over us but it's clear all around."

Reyna looked up and saw that Leo was right. A dark circle of clouds had parked itself over the skywalk, but the rest of the sky in every direction was perfectly clear. She had a bad feeling about that.

"All right, cupcakes!" Coach Hedge yelled. He frowned at the storm like it bothered him too. "We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!"

The storm thundered menacingly and Reyna's head started to ache again.

The storm rumbled, and Reyna's head began to hurt again. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a Swiss army knife. Not knowing why she had pulled it out, she put it back into her pocket.

Reyna took the worksheet from Leo and looked at it for a moment before crumpling it up and putting it into her pocket. She had no time to "identify three types of sediment." She had to figure out how to solve her problem.

Leo was no help. He was too busy building a helicopter out of pipe cleaners.

"Check it out." He launched the copter. Reyna assumed it would plummet, but the pipe cleaner blades actually spun. The little copter made it halfway across the canyon before it lost momentum and spiraled into the void.

"How'd you do that?" Reyna asked, her mind momentarily distracted from her problem.

Leo shrugged. "Would've been cooler if I had some rubber bands."

Reyna glanced over at Leo, trying to figure out what to do. He genuinely seemed to believe that she belonged here. Everyone did. Everyone except Coach Hedge…

"I'll be back in a minute," she said suddenly.

Before Leo could protest, Reyna headed across the skywalk.

The skywalk was pretty empty. Maybe the strange weather had scared the tourists off. The Wilderness School kids had spread out in pairs across the skywalk. Most seemed to have lost interest in their worksheet, expect Piper. She was consistently being hit on by Dylan, but she kept on pushing him away. Unfortunately for her, he didn't seem to get the hint.

Reyna shrugged. She would help her out later. She walked up to Coach Hedge, who was leaning on his baseball bat, studying the storm clouds.

"Did you do this?" the coach asked her, not looking away from the sky.

Reyna frowned. "Do what? Make the thunderstorm?"

Coach Hedge glared at her, his beady little eyes glimmering under the brim of his cap.

"Don't play games with me, girl. What are you doing here and why are you screwing up my job?"

"Wait," Reyna said. "You don't know me?"

Hedge snorted. "Never seen you before today."

Reyna was extremely relieved. So maybe she wasn't insane after all. Maybe she was right. But that wouldn't explain why everyone else seemed to think she belonged here. "Sir, I don't know how I got here. I lost my memory and have no idea who I am. All I know is that I'm not supposed to be here."

"Got that right," Hedge muttered. His voice dropped to a whisper, like he was sharing a secret. "You got a powerful way with the Mist, girl, if you got everyone to think that they know you. I've been smelling monster for days now but you don't smell like a monster. You smell like a half-blood. So, who are you and where did you come from?"

Reyna frowned, not understanding what the coach was saying. "I don't have any memories. I don't know anything except my name. Can you help me?"

Coach Hedge scanned her face as if he was trying to read Reyna's thoughts. "Oh great, you're not lying."

"Obviously not," Reyna insisted.

"Look, girl," Hedge said. "I don't know who you are. I just know what you are, and it means trouble. You're just extra work."

"What are you talking about?"

Hedge looked at the storm. The clouds were getting thicker and darker, hovering right over the skywalk.

"I'm watching two half-bloods," Hedge explained. "I have been for a while. But now the camp's been talking about an extraction team coming to pick up a special package that's supposed to arrive. I had no idea what they were talking about till you showed up. So, are you the special package or what?"

Reyna had a feeling she was supposed to know what he was talking about. There was a piercing pain behind her eyes and it kept on getting worse and worse.

She stumbled, and Coach Hedge caught her. "Whoa, there, cupcake. You say you got no memories, huh? Fine. I'll just have to watch you, too, until the team gets here. We'll let the director figure things out."

"What are you talking about?" Reyna asked, trying to steady herself. Her mind worked rapidly, trying to figure everything out.

"Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing happens before—"

Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with a vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.

"Jinxed it," Hedge muttered. "Great. Well, looks like we better face the stalker."

"I thought you said this was stable!" Reyna shouted over the wind. The skywalk was trembling dangerously.

"It would be," Hedge said. "Under normal circumstances. Unfortunately for us, normal is the opposite of what's going on here. Let's go!"