House of Forbiddens [COMPLETE NOVEL]

27: The People Who Smile the Brightest Are the Ones You Never Want to See Mad

Kaden

Sitting in the van I closed my eyes and tried to prep myself for what was going to happen next.

"Are you planning on using it?" Riley's whispered.

"I don't think I'm going to have much of a choice in the matter." I replied, and he nodded.

"Just try not to go insane." He told me and I looked at him, doing what I was likely going to do there may not be another option.

"I will do what it takes to keep yall safe, and if that means losing my sanity I'll take it." I told him and he stared at me amazed.

"Thanks Kaden."

Annabeth pulled us into the park and I could feel the tension in the van growing. I looked at Audrey and Christine who both had their heads down trying to comprehend what one of them was about to do.

As we entered the park we were instantly submerged in total chaos swords as friends tried killing each other and enemies partnering up. But as I looked around I noticed that something, families were not fighting. There was no child of Athena fighting another child of Athena, there were no kids of Vulcan trying to destroy another child of Vulcan. That's where the chaos stopped that where it couldn't penetrate.

We more or less fought our way through the crowds until we made it to the actual field.

"YOU." A voice penetrated through everything indicating us. People stopped fighting (many finding seats as if to watch). "All of you deserve to die." He announced to the crowds around us. Looking around I saw kids that I had helped, kids who had lived at my house watching me with wide eyes. Others with rage in their eyes. And still others with nothing but fear. This was the boy that had condemned one of my brother's to death, this was the child that set people against each other, this was Octavian. I met Octavian's eyes rage filling me, I gave him a quick start. He panicked as I gave him painful memories.

He recovered quickly though and pulled a little blue glowing ball out of his bag throwing it at me.

Instantly my vision changed, and it took me a moment to regain my bearings. I was in a forest and it was pouring down rain, only I wasn't really there, it was as if I was a ghost or this was a dream. I looked around trying to identify where I was, when an eight-year-old boy came stumbling onto the scene. Suddenly I knew where I was, I looked around for the cabin that my dad and I had stayed in the night we found Ian, alone in the woods, suffering from hypothermia, running from parents who thought that he was hallucinating. The cabin was empty. Boy stumbled to the empty cabin and clasped onto the porch, several minutes later he stopped breathing. Ian.

I had to force myself to breath reminding myself that this wasn't what had happened, we had been there he had been ok. Moon and stars I had just saved him from death.

The scene changed and this time I did everything to keep from throwing up as I realized what was about to happen. I threw up anyway. Two Roman soldiers, commanded by Octavian, threw a shirtless, bleeding, not breathing ten-year-old boy onto the side of the road, leaving as quickly as they had come. And this time, just like the last my dad and I weren't there. Riley.

Again I reminded myself this isn't what happened, Riley was in college right now, and doing amazing. He had regained a lot of the moment lost from the wiping and my dad had custody of him. He was not dead.

By the time the scene changed again I already knew what it was going to be, two kids stumbling through the park near my house blood dripping from wounds on their back, but finding no rest, the boy stumbled, falling to the ground the girl crying next to him. Audrey and Jack.

The final scene was extremely recent, a girl was on a sunfish with another mariner, when the storm hit. Neither girl was strong enough to control the boat in the storm resulting in a capsize. Neither girl resurfaced, only the giant face of Scylla. Christine.

For the second time today I woke up groggy.

"Kaden, Kaden please please wake up." A voice begged as I woke up. My eyes opened to find Christine, and Riley watching over me as Audrey, Jack and Ian fought to keep us alive. Octavian had mentioned something about time travel, was what I had done possibly a version of that, seeing something that hadn't happened in my timeline, but in another. The idea made my mind spin, and I resolved to ask Riley after this was all over.

"I'm glad you are all alive." I told my family as I stood up, and they all gave me an odd look. Octavian's eyes widened as I stood up. And I got angry. This pathetic little piece of dirt tries to hurt me by killing my family.

Rage built up inside me as I began walking towards him. Flames began sparking where in the places that my feet had been, for each one a broken family. I glanced at him and all of this followers, each looking at me horror. Memories began to rise, scaring them, terrifying them, causing them to fall to the ground crying. Then suddenly they were not my memories. I didn't have enough to hold a crowd like this. They were my mom's and the sorrow of the goddess of family watching her immortal on was strong.

I watched painful memory after painful memory, and one by one Octavian's army began to fall.

Audrey

Sense I've lived at the house many demigods have gone through taking refuge from anywhere between a few minutes to several weeks. There was one girl particular that I could think of in this situation, her name was Emma and she had once said 'the people who smile the brightest are the ones you never want to see mad'. That couldn't have been truer from what I watched sweet Kaden mow down a battlefield worth of enemies by glaring at them.

After she had woken from whatever coma Octavian had put her in, she decided that she had enough of these idiots. Now I have never seen Kaden truly mad, I've seen her get irritated, but never mad. Ian, Riley and her dad where the only ones that had seen her mad before this. I can tell you now it was terrifying. As she walked fire lit up in her footsteps leaving a destroyed hearth in each step. The closer to the army she got, they started falling to the ground in tears, many screaking something along the lines of make it stop. This went on for almost ten minutes turning even Octavian's best warriors into sobbing heaps. But surprisingly there were tears on her own face as well.

"What is she doing?" Jack asked next to me.

"I have no idea." I replied.

When she finally dropped to her knees, sobbing, no strength to continue. And in the crowded baseball stadium the only sound was that of tears.

By: Marie Fay