Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Heroes

Chapter One-Cupcakes?

Alex was having a terrible day even before she almost died, twice.

For starters, she woke up on a bus full of loud kids who looked a year or two older than her having no memory other than her name Achlys and the sense that she preferred Alex. They were maybe around fifteen or sixteen? She felt a wave of panic when she realized she didn't even know her age.

Looking out the window next to her she saw desert terrain go by. Alex may not remember anything but she had a feeling that she didn't belong in the desert. She had a feeling that a desert was the last place she should be, her instincts telling her the woods was her domain.

"Jason, you okay?" Alex heard a voice ask from the seat across from her own.

She saw two kids in the seat, one was a blond with short hair cut in a military fashion. He was wearing a purple t-shirt with a thin black windbreaker over it along with simple jeans and sneakers on his lower half.

The girl was striking despite her attempt to hide it. She wore a pair of faded jeans with hiking boots and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her hair was cut unevenly and choppy like she had done it herself and her eyes, where to begin. It was like her eyes couldn't decide what color to be, shifting colors in every different angle the light hit them. They'd go from green to brown to blue and back again. It was mesmerizing.

"Um, I don't—" the boy, Jason started before getting interrupted by a voice in the front.

"All right, cupcakes, listen up!" A short angry man yelled from upfront.

If Alex had to guess what the guy was in charge of she'd say he was a coach. He had a baseball cap pulled tightly over the top of his head, just high enough so you could see his angry, beady eyes. He had a small thin goatee on the chin of his sour face like he had eaten the wrong thing and the taste never left his mouth. He was wearing an orange polo shirt that hung loosely over his waist where his nylon sweat pants started which went straight down to his spotlessly white Nike running shoes. The sight would've been intimidating if he wasn't five foot making most of the kids on the bus taller than him.

"Stand up Coach Hedge!" A kid yelled from farther up when the coach stood up in the aisle.

"I heard that!" Coach Hedge yelled as his eyes quickly scanned the bus for the person who yelled it before they landed on Jason causing his scowl to deepen and then on Alex making the impossible possible as his face looked even angrier.

Alex was sure that the coach knew she didn't belong on the bus and that he would surely call her out, but he simply 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."

With his speech out of the way he picked up his baseball bat and made a motion as if he was hitting a homer.

"Can he talk to us that way?" Alex asked without thinking.

The girl next to Jason shrugged "Always does. This is the Wilderness School. 'Where kids are the animals.'"

Alex had a feeling she didn't know much about people, but the way the girl said it was like it was a joke they had all shared before.

This is some kind of mistake," Jason said. "I'm not supposed to be here."

"Yeah me neither," Alex spoke up as she looked at Jason who appeared to be in a similar situation as her.

This got the boy in the seat in front of Jason and the girl to speak up as he laughed. "Yeah, right, Jason. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW. And Alex here wasn't found in the woods."