Page 66 of The Wild Zone

“Because we went there first,” Grant said. “We were on our way to Camp Half-Blood, and Silas caught the scent of another demigod—you. That led us to your house, and…well, when we saw what happened there, we followed the golem’s footsteps. We figured you’d run from it, and—”

“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “What do you mean ‘what happened there’?”

Grant’s face blanched. “I, uh…We assumed you knew….”

I stared at the muddy footprints of the golem. For the first time, I realized that the creature had approached me from the direction of my house.

“Mom,” I croaked. “Liv.”

I thought my body was fresh out of fear and adrenaline, but it found more. I raced down the sidewalk as fast as my battered muscles would let me.

“Wait!” called Silas, and he and Grant ran after me.

Wordlessly, breathlessly, I followed the wet clay footprints all the way to my front door…which was open.

The footprints continued inside.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no!”

I dashed into the main hallway, skidding on clay residue spattered across the tiles.

“Mom!” I shouted. “Olivia!”

The Hall of Glory had been trashed. Broken plaques and shattered photo frames lay strewn across the floor. I threw open the door to my sister’s room, praying she’d leap up from her bed and slam it in my face as usual.

Olivia wasn’t there. All her bedding was on the floor, and two hand-shaped impressions ran down the center of her mattress, as if she’d been dragged off it against her will.

My heart pounding, I checked Mom’s room next. The mirror over her dressing table was smashed in the center, like someone’s head had been rammed against it.

“MOM!” I shrieked. “OLIVIA!”

Back in the hallway, I ran into Grant.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “We already looked. There’s no one—”

“DON’T!” I yelled at him. “Just STOP following me!”

I pushed past him and the satyr.

I checked the living room, the office, the dining room, and the kitchen. More chaos and broken furniture, more streaks of mud across the floor, but no Mom or Liv. Again I shouldered my way past Silas and Grant, who stood awkwardly in the hall, looking embarrassed, as if they’d crashed the funeral of someone they hadn’t known.

That idea made me even angrier.

I charged into our backyard. The garage door was open, but the car was still there. No sign of my family. Except…

More muddy footprints—two sets—leading across the back patio and into the grass. I followed the gloopy gray patches to the middle of the yard, where they simply stopped. It was as if the ground had opened and swallowed two golems, along with my mother and sister.

No. Not as if. Some demigod instinct told me that was exactly what had happened.

I screamed and clawed at the earth.

My breathing came hard. My eyes filled with tears. I ran my hands over the grass like I could find my family that way. As I did so, my fingers brushed paper. A rolled-up scroll popped out of the weeds.

For a moment, I thought it might be an ad circular, or one of those misdelivered newspapers we sometimes found on the front porch. But what was it doing back here?

Also, it was too small for a newspaper. It looked like thick expensive parchment, with a weird sigil stamped on the outside:

With trembling fingers, I pulled off the twine ribbon and unfurled the scroll.