The Only One

(Something of an AU) Taylor was born and raised at Camp Half-Blood. As a baby, she was abandoned there with nothing but a blanket and a note with her name on it (though her last name was left out). Now she is thirteen, with no clue who her parents are or even if they're still alive. When she finally does see her parents, she just might not like what she sees. More specifically, she might not like who her father is and what he's done. Inspired by and named after the Evanescence song of the same name. If you've read Whispers in the Dark, you'll know who Taylor's parents are :). But you don't have to read that before you read this! --Sparrowsong 16:42, January 8, 2010 (UTC)

TAYLOR'S POV
"Hey, freak, what are you doing?" Kristina sneered.

I sighed and glanced up, tucking a strand of my long black hair behind my ear.

"What do you want? Leave me alone, bitch."

Then I looked back down and resumed reading my book.

She just stared for a second, her eyes full of confusion. I got the feeling nobody had ever talked to her like that.

"What did you just call me?!" the quarter-blood granddaughter of Ares cried.

"A bitch," I repeated without looking up.

"Oh, you're gonna regret that," growled Kristina.

"You know what'll happen if you beat me up," I calmly said. "I'll squeal on you to Chiron, and you'll be suspended from camp. Just like all the other times you beat people up. I'm not scared of you, Kristina."

Kristina just stood there, fuming. I took the opportunity to run for my life, semi-literally.

I walked over and sat on the old, rusty swingset that I spent so much of my childhood on. Wondering who I was, where I came from, how I got here, who my parents were, why they didn't want me...I didn't even know my own last name. I knew what letter it started with, though. Taylor Rihanna G.

Brief history: I was left on Camp Half-Blood's doorstep as a baby, one of the main reasons everyone considered me a freak. I was wrapped in a blanket with a note attached, reading "This is my baby. Her name is Taylor Rihanna G****. Please take care of her." I still carried the note in my wallet, and of course I still had my baby blanket.

I sat down on the swing, took out the note, and started tracing it. I was fascinated by it, to say the least. That was my mother's handwriting. Absolutely the only thing I had of her.

Everyone at camp (including myself) was constantly trying to figure out my parentage. Since I was pretty (at least I considered myself pretty), they thought maybe I was an Aphrodite kid, but it didn't really fit. I didn't have the right personality, or the right hair, or the right eyes.

For the longest time, everybody was totally convinced I was a Hermes kid. That would make sense - I looked like them, and I acted like them (mostly). I was even a kleptomaniac, just like they all were. I had the feeling that they were secretly watching me, just waiting to see if I'd get claimed by Hermes.

As much as I'd like to believe I was a normal (or normal-ish) demigod, I was too much of a freak to be a Hermes kid. For starters, unlike most of the Hermes kids, I was very hot-headed and stubborn. I could also control thunder and lightning, not that I told anyone about it.

I first discovered those powers when I was about four or five years old and I turned the TV on without pressing any buttons or using a remote control. Then the next day, I was staring at a flower or something when it was suddenly struck by lightning and caught fire.

I thought they were cool, but something about it felt wrong to me. Like I shouldn't be doing that. So, it was my little secret, and I couldn't tell anyone or I'd get in trouble. I thought they'd take my powers away if they found out about them.

Then I heard Kristina coming, so I ran away again. I felt like a coward doing that, but it was better than Kristina beating the crap out of me. She'd done that before, and it wasn't fun.

"Hey, Taylor," Fern, one of my only friends, waved.

"Hi," I smiled at Grover and Juniper's daughter. She was a satyr-dryad hybrid, which was...uncommon, to say the least.

I'd heard that sometimes, a satyr could tell a half-blood's parentage from their scent. Why didn't I ask Fern about that?

She paused for a minute.

"Taylor, you don't smell like any half-blood I've ever smelled before. You must be a quarter-blood, because they're the only ones that are supposed to smell like that. That probably also makes you especially appealing to monsters, so be careful."

''Wow. Me, a quarter-blood? No way!'' I thought.

I didn't think I was that cool. There were only about twenty-three living quarter-bloods out there. I guess I made that twenty-four.

A quarter-blood was the child of two half-bloods. That was extremely rare; half-bloods generally did not live long enough to have a kid.

"Woah...th-thanks, Fern."

"No problem."

That night, I dreamed about a couple making out on a beach. It was dark, but I could see that the girl had dark hair and the guy was a blonde. I woke up when he started undoing her belt.

Ever since I could remember, I had that dream every night. I didn't really know who they were, but I had the eery feeling that I knew them. In particular, the dark-haired girl.

Who are they? I wondered. Who am I?