Tell Me You Love Me

Emily's First Monster(Onety-Threety-Nine)

Emily's POV

The first day of school is today. Usually, school's pretty great, but I wasn't super excited to go today. Something felt off. I was definitely feeling a little nervous. 

"Ow," I helped as Mom pulled my hair. 

"Sorry," she said. She was pulling my crazy curls into a mohauk of buns for the first day of school. I insisted that I could do it myself, but she insisted that she loved doing my hair and really wanted to put it up for my first day of eighth grade at the New Rome Middle School. 

"What're you wearing, lovely?" Mom asked once she was done with my hair. I had to admit that it looked a lot better than if I had done it myself. 

I pointed over at my closet where my outfit was. She hummed her approval. "Back in my day we had to wear dresses with the folded colors and buckle shoes if we could afford them," she said. 

"Mom, back in your day was about a million years ago."

"Only about a hundred," she argued with a laugh. "Your dad's making pancakes, so come down when you're ready."

I nodded as she left the room and got dressed. 

On my way out of my room, I grabbed my ring off the dresser and slipped it on my finger. It's this ring that my sword is hidden in. Uncle Leo made it for me with a touch of my mom's help with the Mist. 

I ran down the stairs and slid into my seat at the counter as Dad set a plate of pancakes in front of me. 

"Morning, lovely," he greeted with a kiss to the top of my head. "I've got to head out, Praetor Coda invited me to teach a seminar at Camp Jupiter this morning. Love you, have a great day!"

Mom chuckled as Dad hurried out the door. "You better get going now," she said as I rinsed my plate in the sink. "If you hurry, you can walk to school with the other kids."

I nodded and gave her a hug and grabbed my backpack. Riley and Rose were just walking by my house, so I jogged to catch up to them. They were both going into ninth grade. I saw the twins walking along behind us with the Grace girls. The Underwood triplets were running along ahead of us. 

School was pretty average. Nothing too interesting besides being the first day. Oh and my best friend Denali and I played a prank on Riley which was hilarious. 

It was after school that the craziness started. "We should sneak out of Camp," Denali suggested. 

"What? Are you crazy?" I hissed. 

Denali rolled her dark eyes. "Come oooooon Emily. Don't be a spoil sport. Haven't you ever snuck around San Francisco without your parents?"

I hesitated and Denali grabbed my hand and pulled me along to the maintenance tunnel. "I know a faun who'll help us sneak out," she said. 

I decided to just let her pull me along. Going by ourselves did sound like a lot of fun. I sent my mom a quick text on my IPhone to let her know that I was spending the afternoon at Denali's house and then we slipped out unnoticed.

Denali led me through town on foot to a strip mall near the entrance. I couldn't help but look over my shoulder every few seconds. I'd never been outside camp without my parents before and I didn't feel very safe. Monsters hadn't been inside the camps since the war, but outside of camp borders was fair game. 

"What if we get attacked by monsters?" I asked Denali. 

She scoffed. "We'll be fine. Hey look over there. See Mount Tam? That's where Atlas is trapped. I heard that Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase fought him when they were our age. If they can do it, why can't we?"

I looked where she was pointing and saw how the clouds seemed to congregate over the peak. I tried to imagine what it would be like, trapped under the sky forever. I mean, Atlas is Milo, Sammy, and Rosie's grandpa. Granted, he's also an evil Titan...

"They had already been fighting a lot more monsters then we have back then," I argued. 

It was true, I'd been training at Camp Half-Blood and Denali at Camp Jupiter. But we'd never actually been up against real monsters. I had a feeling that Denali would be more inconspicuous outside of camp because she's a legacy of Bellona. I wasn't so sure how safe I would be though, considering my parents are both from the Seven. 

After another hour of going from store to store, we decided to head home before my parents figured out that I wasn't where I said I was. 

It was on the way home that we ran into my first monster. 

I recognized it as a dracanae. She was a green snake lady with a net and a trident and she grinned at us in a chillingly sinister way, her forked tongue flickering over her sharp fanged teeth. 

Denali froze up beside me in terror and I could feel myself start to do the same. 

"What do we do?" Denali asked. The snake woman cackled and slithered toward us, brandishing her trident. 

I recalled dueling with Ariana back at camp. She had a much bigger trident than this monster. 

"We have to fight," I told Denali, squaring my shoulders and drawing my sword. "I'll distract her, you go around and try to get behind her."

"I don't have my sword!"

"Why not?"

Denali looked terrified. "I didn't think I would need it, I'm sorry."

I steeled myself and slid the sword across the ground to Denali who quickly picked it up. "What are you doing, you need your sword!"

I cracked my knuckles. "I don't need my sword to distract her, now go."

And with that, I transformed into a lioness and I snarled at her, saliva dripping from my fangs. 

She brandished the trident and a leaped at her, swinging my paws as I went. She was going to stab me so I transformed midair into an eagle and dodged out of the way. I didn't account for her net and I got tangled. I wasted no time in transforming into a little frog to hop out of the way. 

I then transformed into a great boa constrictor and slithered up her body and wrapped myself around her neck and started to squeeze. 

She made choking noises and dropped her trident to try and pull me away from her neck. Denali took this opportunity to use my sword and run her through from behind. 

I transformed back into myself as the dracanae dissolved into golden dust. 

"Ick," I said while brushing it off of my clothes. 

"That was impressive," Denali said with a grin, looking shaken but otherwise unharmed. 

"Let's just go home," I said. 

"Agreed."