Nobody's Safe
A Percy Jackson and the Olympians Story
Chapter 4
Written by: SlntLullaby
Anyone could be the killer. You have to learn to trust no one but yourself.
A/N: So... I finally got around to updating this story. I'm really sorry I haven't updated it, or any of my other stories. I'm attempting to get inspiration and ideas for updates on my other stories, so hopefully those will be updated soon. And I'll try to update this again really soon too. Thanks for sticking around and waiting for it though.
Mindless chatter filled the dining hall that night. The word murder was heard fairly often, but everyone just kind of ignored it in fear.
At the campfire that night, everybody seemed uneasy and on edge. When someone touched someone else by accident, the person would jump as if the person who had just touched them had burned them. About four times, someone swore that they saw a shadow lurking in the woods, but every time Percy, Beckendorf, and Nico checked, there was no one there. When the campfire had almost died down completely, Thalia told everyone to just try to calm down and sleep on it. That things wouldn't be so crazy in the morning.
At about one in the morning, two people crept out of their cabins and down to the beach. Thankfully, no one else was awake, or they probably would've freaked out about seeing two shadows, thinking they were murderers. But alas, it was just Percy and Annabeth. They sat next to each other at the end of the dock, which had just been built recently, their legs in the water and Annabeth's head resting on Percy's shoulder.
"Hey Seaweed Brain?" she asked without looking at him.
"Yeah Wise Girl?" he replied, also looking straight ahead at the dark water.
"Do you think there's really a murderer?" she asked him quietly. The words seemed to echo across the water and blow away with the warm breeze surrounding them.
Percy nodded his head, swallowed hard and said, "Yeah, I do. Do you?"
"Of course I do. It's the only logical explanation. There's no other way it could've happened. And you know that I believe logic pretty much always. I just don't get who would do it or why they would," she said, shaking her head sadly.
"Neither do I. It doesn't make any sense why a camper would kill another camper. It also doesn't make sense how the killer wasn't seen, now that I think about it..." Percy said, confused.
Percy could feel Annabeth's body start shaking lightly. At first he thought she was crying, but then he realized that she was chuckling softly.
"Um... what's funny?" Percy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's actually not that funny," Annabeth said, smiling in disbelief at herself. "I was thinking how it's sorta like Clue. You know, no one knows who killed Mr. Boddy or what they killed him with. And it's up to you to figure it out while you're getting all these clues like 'the murder occurred with a blunt weapon' and 'Scarlet had the poison', which makes you think, 'Okay, so the murder weapon couldn't have been the poison and so therefore the murderer couldn't have been Scarlet.' But you always think about how what if there's more to the clues or what if the clues were actually false to begin with and you just assumed they were right because they were being fed to you and you're told not to question them. What if you've been looking at all the wrong things the whole time?"
"What the fuck kind of Clue did you play?" Percy said, laughing. But then he thought about what she had just said and he realized something. "Annabeth, you know, actually, that makes sense... Everyone is just assuming something, but what if there's more to it? Like what Nico said, about how nobody's safe. What if someone really is going to go and try to kill more people? And what if they're right under our noses and we don't even realize it? Because if this is happening, the murderer is going to try to lead everybody off track so they don't realize it's them."
"Well that's why you've all got me, the oh-so-wise one," Annabeth said, looking up at him and smirking. "To find this motherfucker."
"You're cute when you act all tough," Percy said, cracking a smile.
"Only when I act tough?" Annabeth asked, giving him a look.
"Nah, all the time," he said, smiling even more and then leaning down to kiss her. Yeah, they were sort of completely in love with each other and maybe they were sort of secretly dating. And everyone knew it too. But if anyone asked them though, they'd totally deny it.
The next day, everyone wasn't as nerve wracked as they had been the previous night and they all resumed their normal activities.
Everybody seemed to now be saying, "Oh, there's probably actually really nothing to worry about."
But there was still fear etched into their eyes and they were very wrong about the situation.
They should've worried as if their lives depended on it.
Because their lives did.
Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Sixteen, red-headed, green eyed, pale, freckle faced.
She liked to subtly stir up drama with Annabeth, mostly by flirting with Percy (which he didn't even realize with that seaweed brain of his).
She did her own thing. Everyone else thought there was a murderer at camp, but Rachel believed just the opposite. She thought everyone was overreacting and that they should just think rationally. She thought they were wrong. She also thought that everyone should stop believing everything that the oh so very wise blonde one told them.
She should've actually listened to Annabeth for once.
During lunch that same next day, Rachel realized that she'd forgotten her cell phone in Percy's cabin, where the whole group had been hanging out right before going to the dining pavilion.
"Ugh, I'll be right back," Rachel said to Percy while standing up.
"Where are you going?" he asked, confused.
"Forgot my cell phone in your cabin," she explained and he nodded, understanding. "If I'm not back in ten minutes, I probably got killed by the camp murderer," she joked, laughing. Percy cracked a smile a let out a laugh.
"Just go get your phone," he said, rolling his eyes and still laughing. Rachel smiled and walked quickly out of the pavilion and towards the Poseidon cabin. As she walked by the Artemis cabin, which no one ever went in because Artemis had no children and all, she heard a rustling noise.
She shrugged. "It's probably just the wind or some animal," she said to herself. But then she heard footsteps. She stopped and turned her head to the cabin. Normally she wouldn't have stopped, but she found it strange that someone was in the Artemis cabin. No one ever set foot in there. It was dusty and boring with a whole bunch of cobwebs in that cabin. She contemplated just leaving it alone and continuing to Percy's cabin, but her curiosity got the best of her.
She walked up the cabin and stopped in front of the door. "Hello?" she called out. There was no reply and she couldn't hear any noises anymore either. She shook her head, thinking she probably just imagined it.
"I'm letting all these damn killer ideas get inside my head. So stupid," she said, rolling her eyes. Just as she turned and went to walk away from the cabin, she heard a creak and then someone muttering from inside the cabin. She whipped back around. Is someone trying to play a stupid game with me or something? Because it's not funny, she thought to herself.
"Um, hello?" she tried again. But still she was answered with silence. She sighed, annoyed. Who the hell is in there? she angrily thought as she heard someone whispering to themselves now.
"Okay seriously, who's there?" she snapped, pushing the cabin door open and walking inside. She looked around, seeing no one, just as she suspected.
All of a sudden, from behind her, she heard, "It's your worst nightmare." Rachel scrunched her nose up in confusion. She knew that voice...
She slowly turned around, only to have her mouth and eyes covered tightly by two black gloved hands. She thrashed about, pushing her bony elbow into the person behind her.
"What are you doing? Let go of me!" she attempted to yell with her mouth covered.
"I don't think so, sweetheart," the person said, walking with her to the middle of the room. They uncovered her eyes, but still held their hand over her mouth and then they proceeded to take out a knife and hold it to her throat. Tears started to run down Rachel's face from her wide eyes and she kept trying to get away, but to no avail.
"Aw, and to think, you were the one who thought there was no murderer. Maybe instead of staring at Percy wishing he would date you, you should've been listening to everyone. Too late now, huh?" The person said, and then swiftly slit her throat deeply. Thick, crimson blood oozed out quickly, making Rachel gasped for air as the person removed their hand from her mouth. The killer dragged Rachel over to a dusty bed and laid her down on it. Tears still fell from Rachel's eyes as she tried to speak; tried to ask why this person that she knew was doing this. But she couldn't get a word out and after a minute, her eyes finally closed completely. She was dead.
"Suicide," the murderer said, placing the deadly knife in Rachel's lifeless hand. Then they walked out, smiling at the red-head who was no longer living.
As they say, curiosity killed the cat.