The Daughter of Chaos (A PJO FF)

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My eyes immediately flew open and I sat up. 'What was that?' I thought.

I listened to see if I would hear it again. After a few minutes, I sighed with relief and laid back down. I figured it was just the heater creaking or my sister sneaking downstairs. I might've even just heard things. There wasn't actually anything at my window.

But then I heard it again. Tap, tap, tap.

I became legitimately terrified. Had a monster somehow gotten through the barrier I had put around the house? Of course, it didn't occur to me that monsters don't usually politely knock before entering a home and eating some demigods.

I pushed off my covers and quietly took out the two daggers I kept under my bed for emergencies. Slowly, I crept over to the window, where I had heard the tapping. I waited next to it, my back to the wall

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I heard the sound again. This time, it sounded more urgent. TAP, TAP, TAP.

In one swift move, I opened the window and stuck one of my daggers through the screen at the dark figure in front of me. I expected it to fight back, but it didn't. Instead it said in a familiar voice, "Jeez, on edge much?"

I immediately recognized who it was and took my dagger back, thankful it hadn't pierced any skin. "Liz?"

"Hello to you too Azi." Liz easily popped the screen out of it's frame and climbed into the room.

I shook my head. "What are you doing here? I thought you were at Camp Jupiter!"

Liz dusted herself off. "I was, but evangeline called me and told me you were in trouble."

"What? I'm not in trouble. I'm just visiting my family, which we'll probably wake them up by talking this loud." I lowered my voice.

Liz nodded. "We should leave as soon as we can anyways. Come on." She bent down to fit through the window again. 

"Wait!" I stopped her, incredibly confused. "Why are we leaving? Who said I was in trouble? Why are you here? HOW are you here? What-

"Azi, chill." Liz put her hands on my shoulders. "Evangeline was assigned to go to certain coordinates with 2 other demigods because there was dark magic emitting from it. She looked up the coordinates and called me, predicting that I'd want to be here to save you."

I blinked. Did they want me to go on a quest with them? "You want me to come with you to the coordinates? I-I can't. Not that I don't love putting my and my friend's lives in danger, but I'm kind of in the middle of a vacation. You could've just gotten another demigod from camp. Plenty of them stayed for the holidays and are more useful than me anyways."

Liz shook her head. "No, we didn't come here for you to help on the quest. Evangeline already picked her second demigod to accompany her. Her and Jaleigh and outside of the house, patrolling the perimeter."

"Patrolling the perimeter?" I was more confused than words could explain. Why were my friends here, and who was Jaleigh? I decided I was dreaming. "I-I have to be dreaming... why are you here again?"

Liz lightly flicked my forehead. "Are you even listening?" She sighed. "You are SO oblivious some times, I swear... your house is the coordinates Aziza. The dark magic is coming from your house."

"What? That can't be possible." Okay, I was DEFINETLY dreaming now. Dark magic from my house? There wasn't anything 'dark' about my house at all. The walls weren't even painted a dark color.

Liz took out something that looked like a camoflauged phone from the back pocket of her jeans. She opened it like a flip phone and it started beeping rapidly. She moved around the room, the thing still beeping. "This, my friend, is a dark energy tracker, or a DET. we used it to get here. It beeps more when it's around dark energy or bad places." The device continued to beep as Liz came back to me.

"So what? It's just a little dark energy," I said, not knowing the first thing about dark magic.

Liz shook her head. "A little doesn't make it any better. Monsters are a big source of dark energy. If the DET is beeping so much, it means there's a monster on its way. It could be here any second."

I swallowed hard. "And it's because of me," I realized.

Liz nodded. "We have to get you out of here."

I sighed. That was the opposite of what i'd wanted Liz to say. I looked back at her bed, wishing I had just fallen asleep and not heard Liz's call. I wanted to just curl up in my blanket with my pillow and dream about happy things. 

But I knew what had to happen. If I stayed at my house, I'd be putting my dad and Syd in danger. That was the last thing I wanted.

With a lot of hesitance, I got dressed and left a note on the kitchen counter for my family explaining where I had gone and one under my father's covers with the real story. No matter how much danger they were in, I couldn't let Syd learn the truth about me. Not yet.

Finally I came back up to my room, a backpack on my shoulders. Liz was waiting for me. "You ready?" She asked.

I nodded reluctantly.

Liz gave me a reassuring smile and climbed out of the window onto the roof, holding out a hand for me to take.

I walked over to the window. With one last look at the safe climate of my room, I dipped out of the window and into the real world.