Rogue Demigods Book 1: Daughter of the Earth

Joshua King: 'How I became a murderer' and other fun stories

Show-and-tell for twelve-year-olds. That's all it was. Except it was more interesting. Especially Silvia's turn. And I was reluctant to tell everyone what I'd been hiding for so long. Anyway, here's what happened.

"Josh, how about we go first?" Tréa asked.

"Sure," I said. "The day you disappeared?"

She nodded.

"All right. Well first of all, Tréa and I were already smart. I was five and in third grade, she was three and in first. We were practically best friends, always talking and having fun together. And then one day, when we were playing hide-and-seek, she disappeared."

"I was hiding from Josh. I was sure he'd never find me, and I was right. Too right. Something else found me instead, something much, much worse. It was a Gegeene, or Earthborn. Big, ugly, three-armed clay man, in other words. I was terrified. I screamed as loud as I could, hoping someone would hear me. And someone did, but it wasn't at all who I expected. Just as the Gegeene was about to charge me, a boy fell out of the sky, right in front of me. He looked about six, maybe seven. He had black hair, and he was wearing a blue shirt, with black jeans. The back of his shirt said Jupiter.

"He told the monster to leave me alone or he'd kill him, but the thing just laughed. And then he unsheathed a sword made of gold, raised it, and let out a battle cry. Lightning came, hit his sword, and bounced off at the monster. It disintegrated immediately. Then the boy turned around,looked down at me and said, 'Hey there. What's your name? I'm Chris.'

"I introduced myself as Tréa. I knew I wasn't supposed to say my name to strangers, but he'd just saved my life. He helped me up, and told me that Greek and Roman gods were real, and that I was a demigod and so was he. Then he grabbed me, and the wind lifted us up. He said that he was taking me somewhere where we could be safe.

"I trained and trained for so long, waiting for when I could actually be of some use. I finally got to go on a quest. Chris came too. Much later we went back to our house, but... It was gone. There was a different house there, with different people. I never saw Josh again until yesterday."

"Oh... Oh, no. Oh gods of Olympus, no," I said, burying my face in my hands for a count of three. "After you left, Dad freaked out. He started drinking and doing drugs. Mom - well, our step-mom - was the only one who could calm him down. But then our house... It burnt down. Mom... She- She didn't make it.

"Dad blamed me, saying I was evil and cursed and I had killed you and Mom. He was almost always drunk now, and he started beating me and threatening me and making me do and redo and re-redo all the work he could think of and blaming me for all the things that went wrong and yelling at me that he'd never even wanted a boy and- He tried to kill me, Tréa. Multiple times."

I had forgotten that Tréa and I were not the only ones there until Silvia let out a small gasp.

"You mean... All that time... And you never even told us?"

I nodded, feeling horrible.

"You said he tried to kill you," Tréa said, changing the subject. "What stopped him?"

I smiled slightly. "Owls. Hundreds of them. First he tried to run me over with his car. A huge wall of them blocked him. Then he tried to push me out of a window. Gigantic sheet of owls under me. You should've seen the look on his face."

"That's... That's a very... A very rare ability," said Tréa, her voice shaking slightly, and to my surprise she looked a little green, but it didn't seem to be because of the 'my-dad-tried-to-kill-me' part. "Um... This sounds kinda stupid but you said the house burnt down, right?"

I nodded.

"Well... Did you manage to get anything out?"

I smirked at her, knowing exactly what she meant. "Only one thing."

I tossed her a small grey book with an owl carved into the front. She grinned, then looked horrified.

"You didn't read it, did you?"

"Maybe..."

"Liar!"

"Hey!" I said, laughing. "I never said that I did! I said maybe!"

Alex coughed.

"I haven't had my turn yet!" He complained in his typical polite, selfless, non-five-year-old way.

"Fine, Alexander, has anything ever happened to you that could suggest that you are a powerful demigod?" Trea said icily.

"Um..."

"I didn't think so. How about you, Kristoffer?"

"Once, in grade 3, I broke a computer," he suggested. "The teacher, who was the worst teacher ever, by the way, gave me detention until it was fixed. She didn't expect me to fix it, at least, but that night I went to her house, looked at the lock, made a key, entered, deactivated the alarm, found the computer, fixed it, and left a note saying, 'Love, Kristoffer'. She never did come back to the school. Probably too scared."

"You... Did all that... In third grade?!" Tréa said incredulously.

He nodded.

"That is really, really impressive."

"All right, what about you, Nhalia?"

"Amy and I were together when this happened. Five years old each. Basically, we were having a 'playdate' and we got attacked by some... Things. Chicken ladies. Whatever."

"Harpies?"

"Whatever."

"Oh, I remember that!" Amy exclaimed.

"Yeah," said Nhalia. "The Celestial Bronze butter knife. Cupcakes. We're so normal."

"Actually-" my sister began, but she was interrupted by Eva, who muttered, "That was sarcasm, Tréa."

"Oh," Tréa muttered.

"Nhalia was trying to convince me that cupcakes will someday rule the world-"

"They will," Nhalia said, her face deathly serious.

"And these harpy things burst in. We freaked and started throwing knives and stuff and finally I got this glowing bronze knife and missed a couple of times, but eventually I managed to hit one. Then Nhalia picked it up and got the rest."

"Wow," said Tréa, impressed. "You, Silvia?"

Silvia looked horrified. "I- I'd rather not do this," she said.

"You, well this sounds kind of mean, I guess, but, well... You have to," Tréa muttered.

Silvia took a shaky breath. "All right, I- I understand. Well, here- Here goes. When- When I was three years old, I lived in a forest. I had no idea what my mo- What Gaea was really like. I didn't that she was evil. I knew who she was, though. Gaea, the earth goddess - or Titan, or immortal, or whatever - and my mother. I accepted it, because I- I thought she was nice.

"I thought everyone was a demigod, and I knew the old stories, the myths, whatever, were true. But I also thought the gods were evil. As I learned last night, they sometimes are."

I waited for her to get struck by lightning or turned into a small, fuzzy creature, but nothing happened.

"Well, eventually, someone took a walk in the forest where I lived. I wish, every single day, that it had never happened. But... Well, he adopted me, and... Gaea didn't want that. She... She made me do it. She forced me. She tricked me. I didn't realize... I didn't realize I would be killing them- I mean, him. Not them."

She cried and we comforted her and finally, she told us about these two dreams she had, involving the gods and Gaea. I got the feeling she was leaving a few things out, but I didn't say anything, mainly because she was crying so much. And also partly because I was wondering, If she killed her father like that, how long will it be before she turns on us?