House of Forbiddens [COMPLETE NOVEL]

3: We Set Off the Fire Alarm... Twice

Audrey

As soon as I entered the house, the smell of baking cookies and the warmth of the hearth enveloped me. Scratch that. Those cookies definitely weren't baking, they were burning.

Kaden rushed to the kitchen to rescue the cookies, just as the fire alarm began screaming, leaving Christine and I in the living room.

"Well, welcome home," I shouted over the fire alarm, giving her a smile.

"What was that portal thing?" She asked as the noise stopped, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Kaden can make any door a door home. Right now, it wasn't that hard, just Galveston to Houston. But much farther... I've seen her pass out before, so she tries to only use it in emergencies." I explained, trying to avoid mentioning her heritage.

"Getting home from girl scout camp counts as an emergency?"

I shrugged. "We were getting you home, weren't we?"

Kaden came back into the living room. "Those boys cannot cook to save their lives," she shook her head, "Come on, Christine. Let's introduce you to everyone."

It wasn't long until we had assembled the crew around the pool table in Kaden's attic.

Notice how I said pool table, well because that's about all that's left. We have a thirty-two-year-old warped pool table, three usable pool balls (ignore the blood from major games of bloody knuckles), several shattered remains of pool balls (again a product of bloody knuckles), two usable baskets for the pool table (The others had all become target practice to the archers of my house), and the broken splintered remains of what had once been billiards (they hadn't survived the sword fight that Ian and Jack decided to have when we left them home alone) oh, and we had one perfect, pristine, unused block of chalk (at one point we had more, but then I had a gymnast stay for a few months).

"Take a seat, Christine," Mr. Kaden's-Dad said. "I'm sure you have tons of questions. Allow me to explain.

"Kaden says that you're already knowledgeable about your mythology." She nodded. "Well, then you must also know that these gods are real, and sometimes they have children. Demigods. There are plenty of camps and safe places for these children all throughout western civilization. However, some of these gods aren't supposed to have children, and their kids are banished from these other places. That's where we come in," he gestured to all of us, sitting around the table, who had been summoned by texts, "We offer a safe house for the forbidden children."

"Everyone around this table are the ones that can't go anywhere else, so they live here. We offer sanctuary to other people, but only temporarily, so long as they can go somewhere else, and they have to take an oath of silence about this place."

She seemed a little overwhelmed from all of this information, and I put a hand on her shoulder.

Kaden exhaled and smiled as she began, "I'm Kaden, daughter of Hestia. This is Audrey, daughter of Artemis, and Jack, son of Apollo. He doesn't necessarily have to be here, but he is, anyway. Then there's Ian, son of Persephone, and Riley, son of Minerva."As she said their names each person turned to smile and nod in my direction. It was a strange group to say to say the least.

With his words, a indigo light flooded the room, and the others in the room were all looking at something above her head. Hesitantly looking up, with astonishment Christine saw that there was a ghostly crescent moon on its side suspended over her head.

"What is that?" she asked softly.

"It means that you're a daughter of one of the gods. Actually, probably Selene, so Titan." One of the boys- who had been introduced as Riley earlier- said.