Rylee's head was pounding—the kind of real, visceral throbbing that radiated throughout her entire body and made everything around her feel inexplicably tight. The kind of pounding that made every thought leave her head. The kind of pounding that surely had to mean something was wrong.

Slowly, with every bit of carefulness she could muster, Rylee peeled her eyes open, squinting against the watery light that sifted through the windows. She was sitting on a school bus, the kids in the seats around her occupying their time in whatever ways they could.

In an effort to gain her bearings, she gazed out the window to her left only to see indistinct desert rolling by. Some deep, instinctual part of her said she didn't live in the desert, but when she tried to remember where she did live, the pain behind her eyes became bloodcurdling.

Along with the fresh wave of pain came panic—she couldn't remember where she lived. That was definitely something that people were supposed to remember. They were also supposed to remember their age, the date, their last names...none of which Rylee seemed able to pull from her head. Her breath growing ragged, she scanned the bus for someone who might know something, her eyes catching on the boy next to her—messy brown curls, brown eyes, a wiry frame that made her think of an imp. His long, nimble-looking fingers, shades darker than Rylee's own, were fiddling with the rings that littered her right hand, gaze fixed firmly to their intricately carved patterns.

Startled, she swiftly pulled her hand away from him and pushed herself closer to the window. Rylee may not have been able to remember much (or anything, really), but she knew that she didn't know this boy.

At her sudden movement, the boy turned, a sweet, mischievous smile overcoming his face. "You okay, 'Lee?" He asked.

Rylee narrowed her eyes in suspicion, trying not to let his use of the nickname throw her off. "Who are you? Where are we?"

The boy looked at her, bemused. He opened his mouth as though he was going to reply, but another voice cut across his own, "All right cupcakes, listen up!"

The man fit the typical gym teacher stereotype so well that, had her head not been pounding the way that it was, she would've laughed. His shoes (Nike's, of course) matched his spotless white running pants, contrasting sharply with his neon orange polo. A matching white ball cap was pulled low over his forehead, and he scowled at everyone on the bus as though they had each personally wronged him. A megaphone was strapped to his belt, and he had a baseball bat leaning against the seat next to him. Despite the fact that he couldn't have been taller than five feet, Rylee did not wish to be on his bad side.

Apparently, the rest of the kids on the bus didn't share this sentiment, as one called out, "Stand up, Coach Hedge!" and the rest cackled.

"I heard that!" The coach scanned the bus for the offender, but his gaze snagged on Rylee.

Despite herself, Rylee felt a pang of relief shoot through her. This man didn't know who she was, which meant that she wasn't going crazy, that she really wasn't supposed to be here. While this was a relief to know, it also meant that she was in a world of trouble. The coach would call the cops, and she would be taken into custody and questioned and she wouldn't have anything to say but I'm sorry officers, but I have no idea why I was sitting on a random school bus in the middle of the desert. The throbbing in her head quickened its pace.

Instead of any of that, however, the coach simply scanned on. Rylee released a heavy breath.

It still took a moment for Coach Hedge to clear his throat. "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious cupcakes cause any trouble on this trip, I'll send you back to campus the hard way." He picked up his baseball bat and swung wildly, miraculously managing to avoid hitting any students.

Rylee turned back to the boy next to her, eyes wide, "What kind of detention center is this place?" She may not have had any memories, but she was pretty sure teachers weren't supposed to talk to students that way.

The boy gave her another one of those impish smiles (he must have had to practice to get so good at those). It was almost enough to distract her from the panic still rushing through her system. "I ask myself that question every day."

Before she could try to continue the conversation—perhaps ask who he was and where they were going (again)—he spun around in his seat and butted into the conversation going on behind them. "Yeah, right, Jason. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW."

The girl sitting behind them blushed. "I didn't steal that car, Leo!" She cried indignantly. A foreign feeling in Rylee's chest compelled her to believe it.

Piper—the apparent car thief—had just about the prettiest face that Rylee had ever seen (not that she remembered seeing many pretty faces. Still, the point stood). Her deep brown eyes were flecked with other colors so when the light caught them, they lit up. She was wearing a snowboarding jacket and baggy jeans, so Rylee couldn't exactly make out her figure. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, parts of it braided sporadically. It all added up to say that she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but even so, she was seriously beautiful.

Leo laughed. "Yeah, right, Piper. What was your story? You 'talked' the dealer into lending it to you?" He turned to the boy sitting next to Piper (Jason, he'd called him. Pressure built up between Rylee's eyes) and shot him a conspiratorial look.

Rylee turned to look at the boy herself, and the pain behind her eyes exploded.

She was leaning against a wall draped in velvet, stare pointed critically at the boy across from her, "And why exactly do you think this plan will work?"

A soft smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, accentuating the scar that sat on his top lip, "It's your plan. Didn't you always say that your plans never fail?"

She glared at him with tired eyes, "That was before, Jason. When I was arrogant and stupid."

She blinked, trying to clear her vision from...whatever that was. The pain made the air smell like smoke, and as she was finally able to really take the boy in...

Rylee just managed to choke down her bile. The boy in front of her—close-cropped blond hair, striking blue eyes, a pale pink scar marring his upper lip—she didn't know how but she knew this boy. And judging from the way he was staring back at her, confusion clouding his eyes, he felt the same way.

"Jason..." She whispered, voice hiccuping as Leo slung an arm over her shoulders. Rylee was so caught up in trying to find out what the hell was going on, she didn't even think to push him away.

"Anyway," the boy chirped, "I hope one of you has your worksheet, 'cause I used mine for spit wads days ago." He squinted at Jason. "Why are you looking at me like that? Did somebody draw on my face again, 'cause I swear—"

"I don't know you," Jason stated, plain and simple.

"Yeah," Rylee parroted, a little quieter, but still there. "I don't know either of you."

Leo, to his credit, barely missed a beat. His smile collapsed and rebuilt itself so fast that you wouldn't have noticed it if you weren't looking directly at him. "Sure. I'm not your best friend, I'm his evil clone."

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

The boy winked at Rylee (she didn't know how to respond to this. This boy was more than a little weird) before turning to the coach. "Sorry, Coach! Couldn't hear you back here over all the noise! Could ya' use your megaphone please?"

Coach Hedge looked far too happy to be yelling through a megaphone at a bus full of teenagers. He unclipped it from his belt with a flourish and began to give instructions—but his voice came out all dark and garbled. The bus erupted in laughter, and Rylee was left confused as to how Leo accomplished this. The coach tried again, but the megaphone simply blared "the cow says moo!"

The coach, apparently not happy with all the device's cool new features, slammed the amplifier down, "Valdez!"

Piper stifled a laugh, "My god Leo, how'd you do that?"

Leo slipped a tiny Phillips-head screwdriver out of his sleeve, twirling it nimbly around in his fingers. "I'm a special boy."

"That...certainly explains some things." The sarcasm in Rylee's voice didn't portray her curiosity. Leo had been able to do that to the coach's megaphone with only a screwdriver? Not only was this boy weird, he had to have been some kind of genius.

"Guys, seriously," Jason pleaded, reminding Rylee of the much more urgent fact that she had no memories. "What am I—"

"—we—" it seemed an important distinction.

"—what are we doing here? Where are we going?"

"Are you guys joking?" Piper actually looked concerned, which was far more than could be said for Leo, whose hand was currently playing with the tips of Rylee's hair absently, completely unfazed by their distress.

"I think we're on the same boat..." Rylee trailed as she caught Jason's eyes. There was something so familiar about that steady gaze, comforting, almost. "And I've got no idea—"

Next to her, Leo laughed, "Of course they're joking," he said. "Jason just wants to get me back for the shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, and he bribed Rylee into helping him."

Piper shook her head, reaching out toward Jason, "No, I think they're serious..." She tried to take his hand, but Jason pulled away.

"I'm sorry. I don't—I can't—"

"That's it!" The coach suddenly shouted. "The back two rows have just volunteered to clean up after lunch!"

The rest of the bus cheered.

"Well there's a shocker," Leo whispered to Rylee, rolling his eyes. She leaned away from him imperceptibly.

"Did you hit your head or something? You really don't know who we are?" Piper sounded worried, but she looked hurt, like Jason not wanting to hold her hand was some sort of big offense.

The boy just stared like he was unsure whether or not he was supposed to apologize.

Swallowing back the pain in her head and the panic in her gut, Rylee spoke for the both of them, "I think it's worse than that. We don't know who we are..."

The rest of the bus ride was unusually quiet. Leo and Piper seemed to be stewing in the new information, while Rylee wallowed in her confusion, sneaking glances back at Jason periodically. He was always looking back. She kept trying to think of things—likes, dislikes, any sort of memory like when she'd first looked at him, but everything was garbled and painful. It was like her brain had been turned into Swiss cheese. Rylee really wanted to punch something.

Finally, the bus came to its destination and they all piled off. Rylee took a moment to take in the building before them. It was a bright red stucco complex, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Why were they taking a field trip to the middle of nowhere?

The weather wasn't what one would expect from the desert, a cold wind washing over them in waves. Despite this, Rylee felt pleasantly warm, soaking in the sun. It made no sense, it wasn't as though she was wearing anything warm—high-waisted jeans, a faded purple t-shirt, cropped crookedly, like she'd done it herself, and strappy sandals. There was a small backpack slung across her shoulders, but as she was supposedly a student, this didn't seem too odd.

"So, crash course for the amnesiacs," Leo had seemingly solidified his conclusion that Jason and Rylee were simply playing a joke on him. He stood close to Rylee, and she was half sure he was the reason she wasn't shivering like the rest of their classmates. The boy was warm. "We go to the 'Wilderness School'—" he made air quotes with his fingers "—Which means we're 'bad kids'. Your family, or the court, or whoever, decided you were too much trouble, so they shipped you off to this lovely prison—sorry, 'boarding school'—in Armpit, Nevada where we learn valuable nature skills, like running ten miles a day through the cacti or weaving daisies into hats. And for special treats, we go on 'educational' field trips with Coach Hedge, who likes to keep order with a baseball bat. Is it all coming back to you now?"

"No," Jason said.

"Absolutely nothing," Rylee smiled guiltily at the boy. Standing next to him like this, she could see that she was a few inches taller.

Leo rolled his eyes, "You're really gonna play this out, huh? Okay, fine—the four of us started here together this semester. We're totally tight. You guys do everything I say, and you give me all your desserts—"

"Leo!" Piper reprimanded.

"Fine, ignore that last part—but we are friends. Well, 'Lee's totally in love with me, and you two—" he gestured between Jason and Piper with a raised brow, "are a little more than friends. These past few weeks—"

"Leo, stop it!" Jason went red, and Piper refused to meet his eye. Rylee was more baffled than anything. She took a step away from Leo, toward Jason.

"They've got amnesia or something," Piper continued eventually, her gaze fixed firmly on Leo. "We've got to tell someone."

Leo scoffed. "Who, Coach Hedge? He'd tried to fix them by knocking them upside the head."

The coach was at the front of the group, still shouting orders, sans megaphone. Every so often he'd look back at the four of them and scowl. Rylee was becoming more and more concerned with the fact that he seemed to be the only one who realized she and Jason weren't supposed to be there.

"Leo, they need help," Piper was beginning to sound desperate. "They've got concussions, or—"

"Yo, Piper." One of the other guys dropped back to join them as the rest of their class flooded into the building. He wedged himself between Jason and Piper, making Rylee stumble into Leo, who ultimately lost his balance and fell over. "You don't have to talk to these bottom feeders. You're my partner, remember?"

This boy had dark hair, a deep tan, and teeth so white Rylee didn't think it was safe to look at them for too long. He wore what anyone would expect a teenage boy to wear, although she wasn't too concerned with what he was wearing. Looking at him, an internal alarm bell rang in her—something screaming danger! She was beginning to believe what Leo had said about this being a school for delinquents.

"Go away, Dylan," Piper was apparently no happier with his presence than Rylee was. "I didn't ask to be your partner."

"C'mon, that's no way to be! This is your lucky day." He linked arms with an unwilling Piper and dragged her inside after his assumedly equally douchey friends.

Leo got up and brushed himself off. "I hate that guy." He offered his arm to Rylee like they should go skipping inside together. She stared at him for a long moment, lips pursed and the pain in her head returning with a vengeance. Eventually, he lowered his arm, face flushing with embarrassment. It almost made her feel bad.

He recovered rather quickly though, pitching his voice down an octave. "I'm Dylan, I'm so cool, I want to date myself, but I can't figure out how. You wanna date me instead? You're so lucky!"

"Leo," Jason said, sounding thoroughly bemused, "you're weird."

"You tell me that a lot," Leo grinned, unfazed. "But if you can't remember anything, that means I can reuse all my old jokes."

He continued his way into the building, leaving Jason and Rylee no choice but to follow dutifully behind. As they caught up with the rest of the class, it became quickly obvious that the building was a museum, and that it bordered the Grand Canyon, which explained why it was in the middle of nowhere. They stopped periodically in front of exhibits for Coach Hedge to lecture them, either in a dark, garbled voice or with comments that one might applaud a toddler for.

Overall, Rylee was more focused on Leo. He kept pulling scraps out of his jacket pockets, forming them into a blob that would apparently have a purpose once finished. Well, that and the fact that she supposedly knew everyone here. She kept looking at the kids around her, wracking her brain for a name, but she kept coming up with nothing. The more she tried, the more her head throbbed, and the more frustrated she became.

She couldn't really focus on anything beyond that until Leo reached across her to swiftly grab Jason's arm.

"Be cool," Leo said, which confused Rylee greatly until she saw the way Jason was clenching his jaw. He always did that when he was angry. How she knew this, she wasn't sure. "Piper doesn't like us fighting her battles. Besides, if those guys found out the truth about her dad, they'd be bowing down, screaming 'we're not worthy!'"

Rylee tilted her head in question, "What about her dad?"

"You're kidding, right? You really don't remember that your best friend's dad—"

"Look, I wish I did, but I don't remember her, much less her dad."

Leo gave a low whistle, looking back and forth between the two amnesiacs. "Ooh-kay. We seriously have to talk when we get back to the dorms."

Finally, they reached the end of the museum, where a set of large transparent doors led out onto a terrace.

"All right, Cupcakes," Coach Hedge announced. "You're about to see the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you feather-weights should be safe out there. I just ask that you avoid pushing each other over the edge, as this would cause me extra paperwork."

The coach opened the doors, allowing the class to spill out onto the glass.

Rylee may not have known anything, but she knew that she'd never been to the Grand Canyon before. There was no way she'd be able to forget something that beautiful. The glass, horseshoe-shaped skywalk allowed her to see the river snaking onward some five hundred feet below, a simple blue line in the distance. She couldn't see the other edge of the canyon, just red and gray ravines as far as the eye could see.

"Dude," Leo breathed. "That's...wow."

Rylee nodded her agreement. On instinct, like she was used to looking for his opinion on things, she turned to Jason. He was shaking and pale, clutching at the railing like he was sharing in her piercing headache. She put a hand on his shoulder, trying not to scare him, and he seemed to relax a fraction.

"You all right?" Leo asked. "You're not gonna throw up over the side, are you? 'Cause I don't have my camera, and that's something I'd really have to commemorate."

"Leo!" Rylee shot him a reprimanding look. He held up his hands in mock surrender. Jason blinked like he was coming out of a daze and slowly released his grip on the railing.

"I'm fine," he said. "'T's just a headache."

Thunder rumbled in direct response. A gust of wind blew so hard that Rylee was forced to clutch hard at Jason's shoulder so as not to topple over the ledge.

"This can't be safe," Leo's neck was craned back so he could gaze straight up. "Storm's right over us, but it's clear all the way around. Weird, huh?"

Above them, a circle of dark clouds had settled itself directly above the skywalk. The sky in every direction was perfectly clear, sunlight filtering down and lighting up the landscape. Rylee thought that this was more than just weird. A heavy feeling of dread began to settle in her stomach.

"All right, Cupcakes!" Coach Hedge's voice was still garbled by his megaphone, but it seemed he was bothered by the storm enough not to care. "We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!"

The storm rumbled its response, and Rylee's headache spiked in tandem. She began to spin one of the rings on her right hand nervously, leaning into Jason in a way that relaxed them both. It might have sounded crazy, but they were the two things—Jason and the rings—that gave her any sort of comfort. Despite how weird that sounded in her head, she was glad for the comfort.

"Dang, is that gold?" Leo asked.

Glancing distractedly down at her rings, Rylee opened her mouth to tell him they probably weren't real gold, but he hadn't been talking to her. Jason was holding an abnormally large coin, something that seemed awfully familiar, staring at it as though it held the key to bringing back all of his memories.

When he realized that Leo and Rylee were both staring at him, he tucked the coin back in his pocket posessively. "It's nothing. Just a coin."

Rylee narrowed her eyes. There was something he wasn't saying. Leo, however, didn't seem to pick up on this. He turned away, looking back over the railing, "Come on, I dare you to spit over the edge."

If Jason and Rylee were simply crazy, and they really did go to the Wilderness School, they would not be getting a very good grade on this worksheet. Rylee was too busy trying to salvage what little she could put together from vague impressions and the weird memory-vision-thing she'd had back on the bus. For some reason, she kept coming back to Jason's coin. There had been an image stamped onto the side, regal and proud—her head throbbed just thinking about it. She figured Jason was busy doing much the same.

Leo, on the other hand, wasn't too much help either; he was too busy fiddling with his blob creation, just as he had been inside, though now she could tell it was supposed to be some sort of pipe cleaner helicopter.

"Check it out." He launched the copter over the ledge. Rylee figured something was going to happen, as she didn't think Leo would just throw something he'd worked so hard on into the canyon, but she was still surprised when the pipe cleaner blades actually spun. The copter flew out until it lost momentum about halfway across the canyon and plummeted silently toward the river below.

"How'd you do that?" Rylee asked. Like she'd said—genius.

Leo shrugged like it was no big deal. "It would've been cooler if I had rubber bands."

"Seriously," Jason's voice raised an octave with panic, "are we friends?"

"Last I checked."

"Are you sure? What was the first day we met? What did we talk about?" Jason interrogated.

"It was..." Leo frowned. "I don't know, man. I'm ADHD, you can't expect me to remember details.

Rylee narrowed her eyes. "But we don't remember you at all. Neither of us remembers anyone. What if—"

"You're right and everyone else is wrong? You think you two just appeared here today and we've all got fake memories of you? Really?"

She knew how crazy it sounded, but that's exactly what she thought. It didn't seem possible, there was no plausible way that it was true, no one had even acknowledged that they were out of place—except Coach Hedge.

"Take the worksheet." Rylee shoved the paper at Leo and grabbed Jason by the wrist. "We'll be right back."

Before Leo could ask where they were going, she began marching them toward the Coach. As they headed across the skywalk—which was deserted except for the Wilderness School kids—Jason seemed to catch onto her train of thought. They passed Piper, who was actually trying to do her work, but her creepy partner Dylan kept putting his hand on her shoulder and whispering things in her ear. She kept pushing him away, and when she caught sight of Rylee and Jason, she sent them a look, like throttle this guy for me.

Rylee was tempted, but she had bigger priorities. She could always come back to Dylan later.

They stopped before the coach, who was using his baseball bat as an armrest. He was studying the storm clouds with a disturbing sort of concentration.

"Did you do this?" He asked.

"Do what?" Rylee tilted her head. It sounded like the coach was accusing them of causing the storm.

He glared at them, beady eyes glinting under the brim of his cap. "Don't play games with me blondie. What are you two doing here, and why are you messing up my job?"

"You mean...you don't know us," Jason said. "We're not your students?"

Hedge snorted. "Never seen you before in my life."

Rylee wanted to be relieved, but she honestly doubted Hedge's sanity more than her own.

Jason didn't seem bogged down by such concerns. "Look, sir. The both of us just woke up on the school bus. We have no idea who we are—all we know is that we're not supposed to be here."

"Got that right," Hedge dropped to a whisper, like their potential insanity needed to be kept a secret. "You kids've got a powerful way with the mist if you can make all these people think they know you, but you can't fool me. I've been smelling monster for days now. I knew there was an infiltrator, but neither of you smell like a monster. You smell like half-bloods. So—who are you, where'd you come from?"

"Oh, so you are crazy," Rylee remarked.

Jason elbowed her lightly, turning to the coach with an apologetic expression. "We don't know who we are. We haven't got any memories. You have to help us."

Hedge stared at him intensely for a moment, then let out an explosive sigh. "Great, you're being truthful."

"Of course I am!" Jason exclaimed.

"And what was all that about monsters and half-bloods?" Rylee asked. "Are those code words or something?"

Hedge narrowed his eyes. Logically, Rylee knew he was full of shit, but something in her gut was telling her the opposite. She simply hoped this gut instinct was separate from the one she'd been overcome with after seeing the storm.

"Look, kids," Hedge said, "I don't know who you are. I just know what you are, and it means trouble. Now I've gotta protect four of you rather than two."

"What are you talking about?"

He looked back up at the storm. The clouds were getting thicker, darker, slowly choking their way down toward the skywalk.

"This morning," Hedge confided, "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 wouldn't give me details. I thought fine, the two I'm watching are pretty powerful, older than most. I've been smelling monster in the group, so I figure that's why they're so urgent to come and get 'em. But now you two pop up out of nowhere. So, are you the special package?"

Once again, Rylee's head pulsed. Half-bloods. Camp. Monsters. For some reason, all of that nonsense struck a chord. She felt as though she was coming close to something, her hand grazing a huge piece of the puzzle, but she couldn't quite close the distance.

Jason (once again) seemed much the same. He stumbled, forcing Coach Hedge to catch him. "Woah, there, cupcake. You say you two got no memories, huh? That's fine; I'll just have to watch you, too, until the extraction team gets here. We'll let the director figure it all out."

"What director?" Rylee demanded, suddenly very fed up with the coach's vague answers. "What camp?"

"Just sit tight. Reinforcements'll be here soon. Hopefully, nothing happens before—"

Lightning ate the rest of his words. The wind picked up with a vengeance. Worksheets flew into the canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing for the rails.

"I had to say something." Hedge grumbled. He picked up the megaphone. "Okay, everyone inside! The cow says moo! Off the skywalk!"

"I thought you said this thing was safe!" Rylee shrieked over the wind.

"Under normal circumstances," Hedge agreed. "Which these aren't. C'mon!"

【speak!! 】
ta-da! chapter one!
the last like half of this was written in a burst of inspiration over an hour and a half. my brain just suddenly went bzzzz and became productive. it's not proofread or anything (speaking of which, if anyone wants to beta read for this, i'd literally love you forever) but i wanted to at least give y'all something to read that wasn't a shitty summary.
rylee's such a mood. just wakes up w/ no memory and and is pissed at everything. the way she thinks about leo initially is so funny to me, cause she's so suspicious until he does one thing to impress her and then she just claims him as her own. there's a lot of foreshadowing in here which is what's so fun about rewriting this again—i actually know where i'm going with everything so i can hint at shit.
i <3 y'all for reading! especially those who aren't a silent reader!
if you're like i used to be (still am, lets be completely honest. social anxiety's a bitch) and never knew what to say, i'll give you a little something for a prompt...

【question of the chapter (qotc)!! 】
what's you're first impression of rylee? what kind of person do you think she is?