A/N: Okay, so, the unbelievable has happened.

I actually got a review!

Thank you to an anonymous Guest! I'm a little bit on the square of writer's block, and this story was something that I never thought I'd write. So thank you for the motivation! And thank you to Drewt12 for following!

A quick side-note on this chapter: this character is one of my OC's. Yes, an OC, I know. It's just that the problem of the story is that there are only five known children of Aphrodite, and I'd figure there's a lot more than that. Although, she was mentioned in Chapter 1 of this Fic.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own PJO and I never will.

3: Innocent

You were the complete opposite.

They just needed to realize the truth. That you were a girl who had lost too much and had too little.

Age was never a factor in this.

You thought Fiona treated you well. She was only a few years older, and always treated you as if you mattered. Not as if you were a little girl that didn't have her own opinions.

You didn't need to be protected.

You heard the meetings. (What to say? You were an excellent hider.) You knew that something was wrong and that nobody was telling you it.

Everyone would smile and act otherwise.

You knew better.

Lacy Slate was the only one to tell you otherwise.

"Trust me," she said. "You don't want to know."

You'd frown, believing that you could handle the truth.

But the innocent little-girl act wasn't an act. That was just what they interpreted it as.

You were merely a piece to them. You didn't matter much, at least, not during what was truly important. You were seven years old. How could you be compared to people like Piper McLean on the field?

You wanted a role to play in this. But they never let you have any.

Except for two people. Lacy, who had treated you as if you were an equal from the beginning, and Drew, whose bluntness held no bounds.

They never let anybody else know about what they were letting you do.

"It's known as Private Business, hon," Drew told you. "People don't have to know unless you tell them. If you don't know that, then you're pathetic in everything you try to get away with."

And that, you knew, was because you'd fail if you did otherwise.

Failing was dangerous.

You weren't looking for danger.

So you settled for smaller jobs on the field. Ones such as handling the wood for the fire, moderating supplies, and remodeling your Camp as your own base.

Your Cabin liked that one the most. On the contrary, you preferred the natural feeling of the supplies.

You didn't know how you made it through the war. Dozens didn't. Jamar didn't, ripped to shreds by monsters until he took his final breaths. Anya from Cabin 6 didn't; she was 'innocent', just like you were.

Except she was older.

You were four years younger.

The way you made it through was by fighting, killing. Watching the blood seep through from the fatal injuries, the cuts you made on the monsters that would merely send them back to Tartarus.

You were simply slowing them down.

But there truly was no other alternative.

Lacy and Piper made it through to tell the tales. Lacy abandoned things for you. Education, free-time, her own future, all for the sake of a seven year old that would never be the same again. All for a seven year old to be protected from the hellish world you lived in.

You wished that she wouldn't do that.

You weren't worth the trouble.

Whenever you passed a mirror, you'd look down onto the floor. You couldn't bear to see yourself.

As a killer.

As a piece.

As someone who was never truly innocent.

You are Annika Reale.