When You Can't Stop Your Family From Loving You

The Beginning

I was a normal girl, well sort of normal I always knew I was different in some way but I never knew my life was this weird. Hi my name is Alexis Cecelia Jones but I go by my last two initials, CJ. I lived in Oregon. I was raised by my two older brothers after our mom died in battle. My brothers never liked me because they knew there was something off about me. The oldest brother was 19 when mom died the second oldest was 17 and I was 8. My oldest brother was named James and the other Ethan. Once I was 10 James moved to Arizona and Ethan was left with me. Ethan had a part time job at a restaurant while I was at school. He wasn't the best care taker but he wasn't too bad. But after a while Ethan got fired and money started to run low I had saved up about 100 dollars in chore money for the past few years and something in the back of my mind told me I would have to go somewhere else or I may not have a place to live. So I took my money and packed a bag. Ethan was working that weekend so I had time to go. I left him a note saying I had left and why but I didn't say where I was going because I didn't know. All I knew was I'd be quite far from home.

I left the house and started walking I took a bus to Springfield from Portland. Then I walked about 12 miles then my feet started to hurt from my torn up sneakers. I stopped at a gas station for snacks, a drink, and a bathroom break. I paid for my things and started back on my journey. I walked to Bend where I got a bus to Burns where I got on another bus to Lakeview then I walked for a while to the border of California.

I made a few more stops while on my way to a city called Fresno. I made it there and looked for a bridge I didn't know why I was looking for a bridge but I was looking for a highway bridge. By the noise of racing motors I could tell that I was close to a highway I just hoped it was the right one. Sure enough I saw a bridge over the hills on the highway and near the bridge were two young kids probably 13 or 14. But the thing was...they were armed. The older looking one who was a boy had a spear and the younger-ish looking girl had a golden sword. Somewhere in my mind I knew that's where I was supposed to go. I walked up to the kids hoping they wouldn't slice me. "E-excuse me?" I said nervously. The boy and the girl turned toward me. "Um hi I'm not very sure but do you know of like a-a camp?" I said kind of confused from where I got the word 'camp'. The boy turned to the girl and said in a fairly low voice "Do you think she..." He trailed off before he finished. The girl looked at him and nodded then said "most likely." I looked at them confused at what they meant but went along with it. The boy was pretty tall about 5'8 maybe? He had dark brown hair and broad type shoulders. The girl was kind of close to my height and I'm 4'9 and 10 while she was probably 5'0 and 13. She was very pretty her hair was long dark and straight. Her eyes were very bright green and her smile was so beautiful. The girl pulled the boy aside and they whispered for a few seconds before turning back to me. "Hi I'm Amber." Said the girl as she stuck out her hand for me to shake it. "I'm Alexis but most call me CJ." I said and shook her hand."I'm Kevin." Said the boy and he held out his hand. I shook it and they told me to follow them to the camp through a tunnel they were guarding by the bridge.

We got through the tunnel and I saw so many things at a time. We were on an over look to the camp as far as I could tell. I saw a river around the whole camp and small bridges over the river. Inside the barrier of the river there was a bunch of buildings in neat rows that I couldn't understand what was what. There were two larger buildings closer to where I was, one with a bunch of tables and a bunch of couches . The other large building had walls so I couldn't see inside. We walked over the bridges and toward the large building with walls. I was nervous but thrilled at the same time. We walked inside and there was a long table with chairs all around it and two chairs at the end. There were two dog statues, at least I think they were statues. There was a girl that looked about 17-18 sitting in one of the chairs."Hello my name is Reyna I am head praetor of this camp." The girl in the chair said."this is CJ." Amber told her. "Does she know?" Reyna asked Amber."We don't think so."Amber replied after pointing to Kevin and herself. "I see." Reyna said and turned to me."alright CJ this is camp Jupiter a camp for roman demigods." She said calmly. Now, I knew what a demigod was but I didn't know they were real. I had heard of all the famous Greek myths and all about the Greek gods but this girl, this stranger was here telling me that all these legends all these myths weren't really myths? I didn't know what was happening but I knew it was weird and hard for me to process. Reyna asked me about my family and I told her about me not knowing who my dad was while she nodded as if that's what she suspected. I told her about what happened with my mom and how I was mostly raised by my older brothers. I told her about my journey here and how I ran from home."ok so what I'm getting from is that your father is unknown your mom died in battle your brothers raised you till you were 10 which is your age now and you ran away from home because your brother was out of work. Correct?" Reyna said after I finished telling her about my life. "Correct." I replied. "Also, I was wondering why I'm here or what I'm supposed to do here." Then a new voice spoke up. "That, you may have to figure out your self." I turned to face a blond kid with a small scar on his top lip. "This is CJ." Reyna told the blond guy. "CJ this is Jason my co praetor." She looked kinda happy to see him she had a small sparkle in her eye. Jason must've realized I was kinda staring at his little scar because he said " I tried to eat a stapler when I was two." Then he seemed kind of embarrassed. Then Kevin chimed in and said "Why don't we show CJ around camp?" "Amber nodded and Reyna said " that's a great idea." Amber put an arm around my shoulders and lead me out "Lets show you the fighting arena first, that's my favorite place in camp."