A/N: Please read the author's note at the end, after you read this chapter. It clears things up.
Nobody's Safe
A Percy Jackson and the Olympians Story
Chapter 2
Written by: SlntLullaby
Anyone could be the killer. You have to learn to trust no one but yourself.
The word was spread the next day about Vanessa being dead in the pool. The camp officials called it an accident. They had said that she was walking on the wet, slippery, concrete floor, and just slipped and hit her head. By accident, of course. The camp officials refused to keep their mind open to other options. Options such as... murder, perhaps? But everyone at camp knew that Vanessa Haggerty was dead. A certain group of people in particular were sitting by the strawberry fields in a circle, discussing it. That group of people included Charles Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, Bianca di Angelo, Nico di Angelo, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Thalia Grace, Connor Stoll, Travis Stoll, Katie Gardner, Grover Underwood, Annabeth Chase, and Percy Jackson. Juniper couldn't be there, because she had said she needed to "hang out with the other tree nymphs today." Oh, and two new additions to the group were there. Destiny Hawkins, a Demeter camper and Olivia Haggerty, an Aphrodite camper, and Vanessa's sister. Destiny had long brown hair, and blue eyes. Olivia had blonde hair, with brown tips that was below her shoulders and blue-green eyes.
"I just don't understand!" Olivia said, starting to sob. Silena wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.
"I know you don't Liv. None of us do. But we're going to get to the bottom of this, okay?" Silena said soothingly. Olivia started to speak, but sobs overwhelmed her, so she just cried into Silena's shoulder. Annabeth stood up and started pacing.
"Alright. We're going to figure this out. First, Vanessa would never walk on the concrete next to the pool. She always walked on the mats because she was afraid to fall in-" Annabeth started, but then Rachel cut her off.
"Well, she could've walked on the concrete this time, I mean, you don't always walk on the mats, so maybe she didn't," Rachel said, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows.
"Vanessa wouldn't walk on the concrete, Rachel," Annabeth said, venom in her voice. She knew that Rachel wasn't just talking about Vanessa. Rachel was just deliberately fighting with her. Just because Rachel liked Percy, and she knew it would piss Annabeth off if she dated Percy.
"Well maybe she did this time Annabeth. You need to keep the options open. Maybe you're wrong." Rachel shot at her. Annabeth's nose flared up, and her eyes got cold. Don't ever tell Annabeth she's wrong. Ever. Annabeth turned to Rachel and glared at her.
"Alright, I'm not going to fight with you Rachel. Because I'm mature unlike some people," Annabeth said through gritted teeth. Rachel rolled her eyes while others laughed at the two. "Now, Vanessa wouldn't walk on the concrete-" Annabeth started and then pointed over to Rachel, who had opened her mouth to say something. "Shut up Rachel! Anyway, she didn't walk on the concrete, so she had to have died some other way. Maybe she was doing the back stroke, and she hit her head on the pool?" Percy, who had been looking down, looked up to speak.
"That's really highly unlikely. I mean, yeah, you could hit your head if you're not paying attention, but it wouldn't be that hard of a hit. Maybe a bump or something. And... I doubt it would be suicide because, one, why would Vanessa do that? And two, it's unlikely you'd hit your head and drown. Plus, it's hard to hit your head that hard on purpose. The only two things that could've happened, really, is either, she fell in and hit her head, or someone came and smacked her head on the side of the pool," Percy said, swallowing hard at the last part.
"You mean, someone might've... murdered her?" Katie asked, her voice small.
"Exactly that," Percy said. The others widened their eyes and whispered amongst themselves.
"Who would want to kill Vanessa?" Grover asked.
"She didn't really have any rivals. If she did, I didn't know about them. Plus, why would a fellow camper kill her?" Olivia piped up.
"What if it was a monster or something?" Connor voiced.
"But monsters can't get in. We've got Thalia's tree," Travis said. Then, Annabeth, who had sat down, looked around, and asked a dreaded question.
"...What if it was one of us?" Everyone glanced at one another.
"Why would one of us kill her though? None of us hated her, none of us had a grudge against her, and none of us would murder anyone," Bianca told them.
"Well, maybe we don't know that. Maybe... we don't really know one another as well as we thought," Annabeth shot back. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. After all, Annabeth was called Wise Girl for a reason.
"Okay, this is kind of freaking me out. And also, I've got another point to make," Destiny said suddenly. They all turned to her.
"What is it Destiny?" Beckendorf asked.
"If this was a murder, then what if the murderer strikes again? They could kill anyone. They could kill one of us!" Destiny whimpered out. Rachel rolled her eyes. She still didn't think this was a murder. Nico, who had been looking down the whole time, looked up darkly, only slivers of his eyes visible behind his mess of black hair, and spoke monotonously.
"Well then, nobody's safe."
Yeah, I know, this was suckish. Very suckish. This is kind of just a filler, so you could see what happened the next day and all. But I wanted to update, and clear up confusion on the last chapter and this one. Alright.
1. I know, there's not a pool at Camp Half-Blood, but I needed a pool for that scene, so I kind of just made a pool there.
2. I really didn't mean to make Vanessa a Mary Sue. I didn't think she sounded like one, so I'm sorry if she sounded like one to you. She was just supposed to be an Aphrodite camper, and they're beautiful. And she was supposed to be a sweet girl. Not to say she didn't have faults, she did, but I just didn't write about them. Plus, I didn't mean to make it like, 'Oh, Vanessa wouldn't be the first to die because she's perfect and amazing!' I meant it like, there's so many other people at the camp that you would expect to be murdered rather than Vanessa, especially for it being the first murder.
3. Don't say you don't like Destiny or Olivia. Just don't. I usually don't make new characters, because I usually don't like them, but they fit into the story, so I did. They aren't just there because they're like, my friends or something. They're not. I just needed those characters there.
4. This doesn't happen like, before or after a particular book. So, none of these characters or dead or anything. Also, they're all around the same age. Nico isn't 12 or whatever. He's around their age. They're all around 15 or 16. Disregard the prophecy and all. And Thalia isn't with the hunters, and yes, obviously she came back to life and is alive. Bianca is not with the hunters either, and she too, obviously didn't die. And I'm not putting Luke in here, because I think that's a bit much, even if this isn't before or after any particular book.
So, hope that cleared things up. If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in your review or PM me about them. Now go review! Please and thank you (: