Summary: Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. (Shakespeare) Who wants to kill Newport's teen queen? OC.

Disclaimer: It's on my user page.

Warning: This is quite disturbing but don't worry it all ends 'well'. Depending on whose side you're on.

We've only got one chance to put this at an end
and cross the patron saint of switchblade fights
You said we're not celebrities, we spark and fade, they die by threes
I'll make you understand and you can trade me for an apparition

-My Chemical Romance; Our Lady Of Sorrows-

Helena twists her mouth into a painful wince, but she refuses to stop she has to keep going, curling her fists and bracing her stinging wounds against the rain she stalks forwards her destination clearly in mind. Newport will be too far away, she needs to hitch a lift.

Trying to straighten her clothes and smooth down her hair she sticks her thumb out into the rainy night and waits.

Marissa raises her champagne flute, it's contents are purely non-alcoholic this time and she cheers. "To Seth!"

Everyone in the Cohen living room also raises their glasses and cheer happily, Seth grins as Summer plants him with a loving kiss only for him to wince, he's still in pain from his earlier incident.

Summer looks wholly apologetic but at Seth's grins she relaxes then both tenderly and lovingly kisses the top of his curly black hair.

"What did the cops say? Any leads on the perp?" she asks

Seth scoffs "'perp''? 'any leads?', Summer, you really have to stop watching CSI so much" he teases

She rolls her eyes flippantly and fixes him with a serious star "Seth" she warns

He sighs "They've got nothing, nothing at all. They say it was an unmotivated attack, and whoever did it was probably drunk or something…I don't know and actually, I don't care. I just want to put it behind me"

Summer nods understandingly "Okay, I just wish we knew who did it"

That at least, Seth agrees with wholeheartedly.

When Karen manages to find a key to use on the basement she is almost excited, perhaps the basement will hold the answers to Helena's problems and she may find a way to help the young girl return to her former state.

She pushes the door open and thankfully it opens without any sound, holding her breath she takes a few steps forward into unknown darkness.

Her fingers find the cool plastic of a switch, she flicks it on and the room is flooded with dim light, Karen nervously climbs down the stairs her rubber shoes squeak like mice on the stone steps, her heart thuds rhythmically, slowly it's beat heightening.

She senses something untoward and feels sick

Then she sees them.

The hundreds of pictures, stuck up against the wall like posters, the same four faces over and over and over again. Most of these pictures have been viciously scrawled over with black marker.

It's all too sinister, it's all too much like Oliver.

Karen clasps her hand to her mouth, the glint of a pair of scissors catches her eye and she goes over to them, half sick with confusion and curiosity.

The scissors are clean.

She tries not to think it but she expected to find blood.

She reaches for a leather bound journal and picks it up, recognising it as the one Oliver carried around with him.

As she reads each page. Memories flash in her mind, as a movie reel almost and she remembers how it all began.

Oliver had always been unhappy, his parents didn't see this, Karen did, she tried to help him but he was lost.

A long time ago, she thought she could help Helena instead.

Oliver began to spend long periods of time in Newport, staying at the family hotel; he was attached to Natalie Bishop.

Like Karen, Natalie was the only one who truly worried about Oliver, his parents put it down to youthful indiscretions but Karen knew better.

Then that incident happened. All she knows was that Oliver locked him in his hotel room and threatened to kill a girl he'd been obsessing over.

"not again" That was what his parents had said, then they'd covered it all up of course. Stuffed Oliver full of anti-depressants and then they'd gone skiing.

It was Helena had visited her brother at the psychiatric facility. She was the one who read to him when he reverted into himself. Brought him all his favourite CD's, fruits, sweets.

She cared for her brother, half blaming herself for neglecting him and letting him get to such a state, half hating her parents.

Then it happened.

Oliver; the doctors had said; had been found swinging from a beam in his ward. Karen had been suspicious of it from the get go, but she still called Helena. Told her the truth, all the while she wondered why the facility would not let the family come and bury Oliver.

Then another blow hit the family, Helena in a car accident? Luckily she was unharmed. Karen was relieved.

That was, until Helena returned.

She was a different girl, moody, sullen and paranoid. She had changed after her brother's death but for the worse.

She ended up staying with some family in LA, near the facility where Oliver had died.

Karen had looked into Oliver's death and her suspicions were correct, he'd paid the doctors off, and found himself a hideaway.

She'd made him go and tell his parents who were furious of course and disowned him almost on the spot.

Oliver had begged and pleaded for them not to disown him (Karen was almost certain this was because he wanted their money) and they had agreed as long as he told Helena.

In the end, Oliver had backed out of it, telling Karen that if she cared for him, she would do it and she would not breath a word of it to his parents.

Helena hadn't believed a word of it.

Karen steps out of her reverie and her mouth forms a grim line as she finishes reading the journal.

Helena has done some awful, terrible things.

Karen fears that the girl…Marissa…will be subjected very soon to Helena's wrath.

"KAREN!"

She hears the cry from Eleanor Trask coming from somewhere upstairs; Karen jumps guiltily and runs to find her boss.

Helena pushes open the French back doors of her house and stumbles into the kitchen, she hears voices from the living room and she knows she must be quick.

Using immense inner strength she ignores the pain she is feeling and heads for the basement.

She's more than a little shocked to see the door wide open like a gaping wound, exposing all her secrets.

She knows this is probably Karen or her mother's doing but she doesn't

care right now, the pain is making her confused, she wants nothing more than to kill Marissa Cooper but she's starting to lose sense of why.

Using the walls to prop her up, she inches down the stairs of the basement and searches around the room.

Then she finds it.

A small black pistol nestled in tissue in a wooden box next to some bullet cartridges; she loads the gun with as much cartridges as it can carry, some fall out of her hand and clatter on the ground but she couldn't care less.

She exhales as the feel of the gun seems to give her strength, wiping her bloody face she stalks back up the stairs and slinks out of the house again, now on her way to find Marissa Cooper and there is no one that can stop her.

Karen is shocked; Laurence has been found, alive; but only barely. He was travelling with Helena but she is missing and neither he nor Eleanor knows what to do. She and Eleanor find muddy footprints glaring at them from the gleaming kitchen floor and Karen instantly knows to whom they belong to.

"Oh god! Someone broke in!" gasps Eleanor

Karen shakes her head dismally "It was Helena. I think…I think I know what she's going to do. Oh god"

She runs back to the basement, her heart beating like a drum and of course there are muddy footprints. She starts as she sees what she hopes aren't bullets but she knows that they must be. Feeling on the brink of tears and begun sick Karen is at a loss.

Then she thinks back to the journal and she realises that there is only one person who can put an end to all this madness.

The party has dwindled to just Seth, Summer, Marissa and Ryan in the pool house, talking animatedly about a film they've just seen, they're all so engrossed in the conversation that they barely notice the ominous rain and the dark plumage of clouds in the skies.

Marissa thinks she sees something out of the corner of her eye, something pale but she ignores it.

It is only when a bullet explodes through the glass doors of the pool house that the group pay attention.

Helena stands illuminated in the glass her eyes are terrifying and almost endlessly dark.

Summer's screaming subsides and she gapes at Helena.

"Is that…Rory…?" gasps Ryan in confusion

Marissa who is crying nods numbly "She's calling me…" she states in terror

Helena steps through what was once a door and snarls at Marissa. "Come here…NOW!"

"What the hell are you doing!" shouts Ryan

Seth holds him back "Leave it man, she's got a gun"

Helena holds the gun firmly, although she has a slight limp from the accident she still manages to stalk purposefully towards Marissa, a deadly gleam has come over her features.

"I'm going to kill you. You killed my brother…and I'm going to kill you"

Marissa splutters "Your...who…what?"

"Oliver Trask?"

Then the group slowly realises why Rory seemed at once so familiar, the eyes, the smattering of freckles, the smile.

"You're his sister…?" stammers Seth

"Helena" she sneers

"I didn't kill him!" protests Marissa

Helena shakes her head "You might as well have, because of you…and the way you treated him they locked him up…sent him away and ultimately sent him to his death. He hung himself"

"It's not Marissa's fault that he was obsessed with her" snaps Ryan

This is stupid thing to say to Helena and Ryan realises it, but he fails to notice how close she is to Marissa until it's far too late.

Helena jumps and grips Marissa tightly by the wrist and starts to yank her out of the pool house.

"Scream and I'll blow your head off" hisses Helena

Marissa stops flailing about and lets Helena lead her off, but she isn't going to give up without a fight.

They stand by the pool, Summer, Seth and Ryan watching in terror and fear, desperate to help but knowing that it's too risky considering the proximity of Helena's gun to Marissa's temple.

"Please! You don't have to do this" Marissa wails

Helena stares at her, looking even madder in the pouring rain. "Yes I do"

And Marissa knows that she means it.

It's now or never.

Marissa suddenly shoots her elbow into Helena's side and the girl cries out sharply.

"HELENA! STOP IT!"

Both of the girl's heads turn and they see Karen and Oliver standing beside a shocked Sandy and Kirsten.

"What…what the hell is going on!"

Helena thinks she's seeing things. But the form that looks so much like her brother walks closer and there is an audible gasp from Seth, Summer and Ryan

"It's me sis." He says gently

Helena opens and closes her mouth.

"No. No! THIS IS A TRICK!" she screams and backs away, standing precariously near the edge of the pool.

Marissa tries to slink away but Helena has seen her, before a sobbing Oliver can do a thing about it.

A shot rings out into the night.

EPILOGUE.

Helena lies on a white bed, her arms lie flat by her side. A smile is on her face; she's finally at peace.

There is movement above her.

It's Oliver; he hasn't slept since it happened. Helena had fired an empty gun, there had been no bullet.

He never knew he could feel so guilty, but he does. It is truly because of him that his sister is now where she is.

"Oliver" she says softly

He looks down at her and grips her hand tightly

"I did it Oliver. I killed her. For you" she murmurs

A fat tear falls from his eye "Yeah. You did it," he croaks

"Are they going to put me in jail?" she whispers

He shakes his head "I'd never let them do that to you"

"You're the best," she says firmly

She smiles widely and stares blankly at the ceiling.