Disclaimer: as I am not Rick Riordan, except for the original characters and plot (which belong to my co-author TheRenewedEve and I) all the PJO stuffs like CHB belong to him, not us. Also, this is my first go at fanfiction writing, so please comment/review kindly! Anyways, on with the story!
P. S. Just to be clear, Jesse is a girl (my mum thought Jesse was a boy.)
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Jesse's P.O.V.

By the third date, we had to run away. And I don't mean eloping - we weren't even the ones dating, that was our parents. But lately, things had been getting bad for Penn and I, so we did -well, I was going to say the most logical thing, but that's bull. No, we did the most instinctive thing--we went on the run. Let me explain.

  My adoptive dad and Penn's mom (both were single parents) had just started dating about a month ago. Since Penn and I were fifteen, after all, whenever they went on a date, they just left us at my dad's house instead of hiring a babysitter (teensitter, whatever). This time, their third date, they decided that Penn and I should have a sleepover so we could "bond".

  Don't get me wrong, I liked Penn. The only problem was, Penn was kind of shy, almost like she was afraid to make friends. To be fair, I was probably a little intimidating to her; I'm one of those loud, sassy people, kind of outspoken (but usually right, wink wink), so I guess I shouldn't judge over character traits.

  Now we were sitting in the living room, using our overnight bags as bean bags, with my pet ferret, Fredric, for company, and trying to "bond". Key word: trying. Penn was still insisting on being shy. To try and loosen her up a bit, I made up a game where we had to ask a question about the other person, and they had to answer truthfully. Like, truth or date without the dare. So, a little boring, but you have to work on people to get them to open up. We had already asked all the normal stuff, like have you had your first kiss (no for us both) and all that nonsense, so the questions were getting a bit more serious.

  Oops. Speaking of questions, I think she was trying to ask me something right now.

  "What?" I asked. "Sorry, I spaced for a moment."

  "I was asking what your dad does for a living. I'm sure my mom told me, but I space sometimes, too," she said, smiling shyly at the last part.
I smiled back at her. "My dad's a neurosurgeon. He mostly works at St John's, but sometimes he flies out to Mayo Clinic to help for a week or so," I answered, adding, "That's probably how our parents met, isn't your mum a nurse?"

  "Yeah, a pediatric nurse, now it's your turn," she answered abruptly. Hmm, willing to ask but not to answer, I noted. Oh well, I'll find out whatever it is eventually, I thought.

  Now, what to ask her? I wasn't very good at this serious stuff, so I better think about it good.

  I sized her up with my eyes; she was fidgety, but that could've just been nerves, pretty easy going, might even be the kind to party if she wasn't so anxious.

  She nervously tapped her fingers as she watched me watching her. A little too late, I realized I was kind of staring her down and I mumbled an apology as I continued to think.

  Judging from her outfit of sweats and a long-sleeve tee, letting her shoulder-length reddish-blonde hair flow free, she wasn't super into fashion. Well, I wasn't either, I was wearing leggings and leg warmers and a hoodie, using a navy bandanna as a headband on my long dark brown hair. (Don't judge our outfits too harshly; it gets cold up in New Hampshire in autumn.) Around my neck was an inch-long bronze-ish key on a chain of the same metal. It was the only jewelry I ever wore, and I wore it only because my dad said it was important. Go figure why, but I trusted him so I wore it. I fingered it as I once again got lost in thought.

  "Earth to Jesse," Penn said, stretching out the "e" sound at the end of my name.

  "Sorry, Penelope," I said back, stretching out the "e" sound in her name, to see if I can annoy some attitude out of her. Penn hates her full name, and that's why she goes by Penn. "I dunno why I keep spacing, I just feel a bit edgy, like something's not quite right."

  "It's Penn, don't use my full name; you know it drives me mad," she said, mildly annoyed, as she pointed to Fredric's cage, where he was pacing up and down, looking agitated. "Well, your ferret seems to have the same feeling."

  Penn was starting to look uneasy too, when we heard a loud crash come from outside, and then a weird smell, like grass burning.

  "Penn, come with me to the study," I instructed, now feeling worried. Chill out, I scolded myself, just follow your instincts. "I'm going to get a knife or something; I don't feel safe."

  I jumped up, dragging her with me to my dad's study, just down the hall.
"Why his study?" She asked when we got there.

  I headed over to a three-foot-long cabinet without answering, unchaining my necklace from my neck and using the key to unlock the cabinet. Inside lay a hatchet, which I silently pulled out and handed to Penn. Funny, the hatchet was the same bronze-ish metal as my necklace.

  She gaped at me, obviously looking for an explanation.

  "My dad spends more time in his study than anywhere else in the house. He told me if I ever felt unsafe, like I was truly in danger, to unlock that cabinet and that what was inside would help me. I think he has a key to it, too, but his is normal metal," I said, frowning as I inspected my key.

  "So why'd you hand the hatchet to me?" She grumbled as we headed back towards the door, maneuvering around an armchair and my dad's humongous free-standing desk.

  "Because this skinny arse isn't going to save itself," I joked. "Really though, you're stronger than me and more likely to win if we had to get in a fight."

  She opened her mouth, probably to protest, but just then, we heard the sound of glass shattering, and it came from right behind us.

  Uh oh, I thought, the study has a window.

  We both whipped around, and Penn let out a shriek.

  Standing amdist the broken glass of the study's decimated window was the ugliest creature I'd ever seen, glowering and hissing at us. It looked like a winged, two-legged dragon with a rooster head attached to it. It was roughly the size of a German shepard, and puffs of smoke were coming out of its mouth.

  For some reason, it made me think of Greek mythology. I tried desperately to remember the creatures from our Greek mythology unit that we were going through in school. A name suddenly came to mind: cockatrice. Fire-breathing, and something about its eyes...

  "Don't look it in the eye!" I screamed, just as the cockatrice turned its evil golden eyes on Penn, who was a standing and staring, the hatchet hanging forgotten in her limp right hand. I lunged at her, knocking her into the desk that stood between us and the monster. She hit her head, but it seemed to snap her out of her reverie.

  Speaking of pain, my hand suddenly hurt. Looking down, I see that my hand now had a jagged, bleeding gash across it, and my key necklace was strangely bent, with blood, my blood, smeared on it. I was suddenly angry and twisted the key even farther, which shouldn't have been possible.

  As soon as my key was bent exactly 90 degrees, it transformed into a dagger, made of the same metal as my necklace.  The chain had competely disappeared.

  From the time I had screamed my warning to Penn to my necklace turning into a dagger, maybe ten seconds had passed. That was ten seconds to the monster's advantage, and it had scurried up to the table so that it was only five feet away, with only the paper and book-ridden desk between us. It kept cocking its head around, trying to catch our eyes, so that it could win the fight easily, I guess.

  Penn came to her senses before I did, realizing that the smoke coming from the beast's mouth meant fire, and fire meant pain. She lobbed the hatchet over the desk at it, a lousy throw, but still on mark enough to give it a good slice on the leg.

  The cockatrice hissed in pain and blew fire, and the papers and books on my dad's desk went up in flame. He (I had now decided it was a dude cockatrice) ran around the desk at us, and we ran the other way, starting a very scary game of tag.

  Luckily, with the gash in its leg, he couldn't run very fast. He could still blow fire though, and it was starting to get very hazy and smoky in the study.

  Making a second complete lap around the large desk, Penn finally stopped to grab her hatchet from the ground where it had fallen, and let cockatrice get the closer before throwing the hatchet again.

  This time, her aim was much better, and the hatchet went straight through his other, non-injured leg. Realizing my opportunity, I ran around the desk, adrenaline helping me go faster, and stabbed the cockatrice through its scaly back, where I imagined its heart would be.

  It gave off one more pitiful burst of flame, then exploded into icky yellow dust. The dust floated around in the smoky air, and I saw that my dad's desk had gone up completely in flames, and that the fire had spread to the armchair. The flames were starting to lick the bookshelf, which lined the entire wall to the right of us. When that went up, we were dead.

  It was getting insufferably hot in the study, so Penn and I grabbed our respective weapons and ran down the hall to the living room, where we could still feel the heat of the fire.

Penn walked up to me, tried to hand me the hatchet, but I shook my head.
"You've definitely earned it, fighting the thing. It's yours."

I stared at the dagger in my hand, which was strangley free of monster blood. Instead, it just had lots of yellow dust, stuck to some of my blood. Impulsively, I lightly gripped the blade with one hand, and the hilt with the other. I gave it a twist, going counter clockwise of how it had twisted the first time, and the blade morphed back into a key on a chain, innocent as can be, except for the fact that it was covered in my blood.