Chapter Text
August 31, 2006, 12:48 a.m.
You have six unheard messages.
First unheard message: Reyna? It’s me, Annabeth. Please pick up. I know it’s late, but I really need your help. I don’t really want to go over the whole thing over the phone. I can’t call the police for this so just call me back, ok? Bye.
Second unheard message: Hey, Reyna. It’s me again. Remember how I asked you to call back? I was pretty serious. I just really need your help. Call me back.
Third unheard message: Ok, I’m literally your best friend and you can’t answer a damn phone call? I know you always stay up until two in the morning reading almost every day, you can at least wake up to call your best friend at midnight. If do wake up, I’m in the woods a mile or so from Castellan's Jump. Help me. I’m freaking out, just so you know.
Fourth unheard message: Ok, this is getting really bad now. I think I’m being followed. I can’t see anybody else here, but I feel this weird presence and I’m freaking out. I tried calling other people but nobody else is answering and I trust you more than anyone. Call me.
Fifth unheard message: Reyna. I’m being stalked. I’m losing it. Don’t tell anyone I called. Can’t really talk right now. Respond.
Sixth unheard message: The incident, Reyna. It’s about the incident.
September 3, 2006, 3:07 p.m.
“Wow I can't believe it. This is so fucking wild, man. Annie was such a nice kid,” the cop said with strange fascination. He was tall and sweaty, and his unruly dark curls didn’t quite cover up his uneven eyes. He didn’t wear a name tag, or a uniform, but Reyna already knew he was Dakota Wilson, because everyone in a small town knew each other in some way. He was famous for buying alcohol for minors over Spring Break and Reyna had gotten her fair share of drinks from him, so she tried not to hate him that much for being so nonchalant about her best friend’s disappearance.
“Yeah, it's really shocking,” she said. Dakota didn’t seem to hear her. He was too busy guzzling a bottle of red Kool-Aid that smelled suspiciously of vodka and daydreaming about what terrible, gory things might've happened to Annabeth.
“I wonder if she was murdered. Damn, I hope she didn't get snatched by one of those freaks that cuts up little girls. I saw that in a movie once. Annie's too nice to have that happen to her." Reyna got a vision of Annabeth chopped up into tiny pieces. She saw her long, blonde curls soaked with blood and blunt nails peeled off and scattered on a dirty basement floor. It was so vivid that Reyna had the urge to reach over and chug the entire bottle of Dakota’s spiked Kool-Aid.
"I've been trying not to think about what might've happened. I just really want to find her.” She was going for laid-back with a touch of reasonable concern, but she ended up spitting out the words. The image struck something bitter deep into her bones that made it hard to speak or blink or breathe. Dakota must not have been as obtuse as he appeared, because he picked up on it and started to realize that the situation was actually pretty tragic. He blushed a little (but that could've easily been the alcohol, and there was no way for Reyna to tell) and frowned in apology.
“Good, good,” he slurred. “That's very mature. I know I would lose it if my best friend went missing. Especially with all the dead girls these da-”
“Hey, Dakota. Why don't you go over there to the front. A girl just lost her dog and I'm sure she'd love your help finding him.,” a woman said, cutting off what might’ve been the most uncomfortable situation Reyna ever had in all her 16 years of living. Dakota stumbled out of the chair and went over to help the little girl. Reyna silently prayed for her.
“Sorry about that, Reyna,” the woman said. She was a short woman with dark brown skin and angular eyes that held a scary sort of smothered cruelty, like she wanted to kill everyone in the vicinity but was trying very hard to keep herself from doing so. Reyna had heard all the rumors about Nina Nakamura having the expression of a murderer, but she never really believed it until she saw her up close. It didn’t make her feel any better about her situation.
“It's just that stuff this big hardly ever happens in small towns like Agesander. Mostly we just deal with missing pets, egged houses, that sort of thing. A lot of the officers here are happy to work on a case that actually matters. You'll have to excuse their, ah, excitement.”
“I understand.”
She didn’t understand. She didn’t think that she'd ever understand how anybody could be excited about Annabeth disappearing, and the fact that anybody could feel anything but dread while Reyna herself felt like locking herself away and screaming made her stomach burn. She tried not to show it. She didn’t want to get on Nina’s bad side.
“That's great. I know how hard this must be for you,” Nina said. It sounded weird to have condolences come out of her mouth. They were out of character. She looked like she had to force herself to say them. Reyna thought she would’ve been much happier as a serial killer than as a cop.
“I’m okay, for the most part,” Reyna said, and it’s half true—she wasn’t visibly freaking out, at least—so she didn’t feel too bad about saying it. “Annabeth’s not dead for sure. She could come back, right?” Nina fought to hide a grin, but Reyna didn’t know if it was a 'you poor thing' grin or an 'are you fucking serious?' grin. Both were pretty bad coming from the woman the kids called Nemesis.
“That’s a...nice way to look at it, but we have to be realistic. She was reported missing about three days after she left, and anything could’ve happened during that time that we’re just too late for.”
Reyna changed her mind: Dakota was much better to talk to than Nina. At least Dakota ignored her. Nina was brutally honest, and honesty was the last thing Reyna needed.
“Luckily, this is a very small town,” she continued, “and Annabeth was a very popular girl.” Was. Past tense. “Everybody will do their best to try and find her. Don’t you want to help find your friend?”
“Yes.”
“Good. All you need to do is answer a few questions about Annabeth and your friendship with her, ok?” Reyna nods and Nina pulls out a tiny notebook and pen.
“Would you say that you and Annabeth were close?” Reyna wanted to laugh because Nina knew damn well that they were best friends. Anybody who saw them together would know. It was like she could a physically change in the air when they were together. They were Rachel and Monica, Thelma and Louise, and Daria and Jane all wrapped up in one and everybody knew it.
“We’re best friends. We live right next door to each other.”
“Did she have any other close friends?”
“Yeah, we have a group.”
“Names?” She knew them already.
“My brother and sister, Jason Grace, Percy Jackson, Frank Zhang, Leo Valdez, and Piper McLean.” The gang. Her closest friends. Seven people who would never be the same because of this. Reyna wondered how they were holding up. If they were as crushed as she was. She wondered if they got any voicemails and if they had anything to hide. They probably did.
“When was the last time you saw or had any contact with Annabeth?”
“Two days before she went missing.” Reyna imagined a tiny lie detector in her brain flashing red and beeping. Nina didn’t look like she knew she’s being lied to, but Reyna rehearsed it enough that she thought it could convince a real lie detector if she had one.
“Did she seem unusual? Any erratic behavior that we should know about?”
“Not really.” Beep! Lie! “She was a little upset because her parents had a small argument, but that happens every now and then. She’s always gotten over it.” Beep!
“Did she ever mention running away from home?” Reyna shook her head.
“She never brought it up to me.” You got me there, the inner lie detector grumbled, It’s true.
“Can you think of anyone who might want to harm Annabeth? Or maybe somebody with an intense interest in her?”
This question was the hardest. She knew it was coming before she even stepped in the police station. She practiced her answer over and over again in her bathroom mirror until she had convinced herself that she could say it to someone else’s face. Lying was never something Reyna was a fan of, and the bigger the lie, the harder it was to say. Lies always tasted like vomit.
“No,” she said after getting rid of tears that formed in the corners of her eyes. She made sure to leave them there long enough for Nina to see them. Tears made people seem genuine. Crying about a missing friend was believeable. Nina noticed them and looked almost sympathetic. See, Reyna said to herself, even Nemesis believes you.
“Of course not. She was always so nice to everybody. I can’t think of anyone who would ever want to hurt Annabeth Chase."
“Oh, Reyna, I am so sorry about this,” Persephone, Reyna’s third mother, told her in the car ride home with her family. She couldn’t stand silence and with the local darling MIA, there wasn’t much conversation, despite the four other passengers. “You’re such a strong girl. I really admire how well you’ve been handling all this.” Her Texas Southern Belle accent made admire sound like ad-my-ah and handling sound like hand-el-en and Reyna felt oddly comforted by it. Persephone herself was comforting, with gentle Vietnamese features and a soft voice. She married Reyna’s father, Hades, when Reyna was ten, two years after he had adopted her. Persephone was only twelve years older than her—and Reyna sometimes thought she was six years younger—but she was the only mother Reyna ever truly had and the kindest woman she’s ever known. She was easy to love.
“I know it must be awful to hear that your friend is gone,” she continued when Reyna didn’t respond. “I promise that next time we go to church I’ll ask everybody to keep Annie in their prayers. We have to leave it to the Lord now. I know she’ll be found, though. God would never let anything bad happen to a girl as sweet as Annie. She was always so nice in church, and so smart. Wasn’t Annie just the sharpest little thing you’d ever met?”
The question was directed at Hades, who sat in the shotgun seat while talking business on his phone. He was a dark, brooding man that could scare the living daylights out of the average person without even realizing it, but he was surprisingly good with his children and his wife at times.Still, Reyna had a hard time accepting that Persephone picked him as a husband. Despite the incredibly ironic names, they were so different. Even as she spoke he was too tied up with business and maintaining his old money status that he accidentally ignored her question. But Persephone wasn’t offended; she did enough talking for the both of them. All she did was pet his gel-glossed black hair and turn to the kids in the backseat.
“How about we all go to Stoll’s for some ice cream?” she said when they stopped at a red light. “I think we could all use some cheering up.”
Reyna nodded and thanked her, as did her two siblings, but she wasn’t not thinking about ice cream. Nico, her brother, didn’t seem that excited about it either. He just stared out of his window at the passing buildings, humorless and mopey as always. Reyna always laughed about how people could always immediately tell that Nico was Hades’s biological son. Aside from the matching olive skin, dark hair, and black eyes, they were both so reserved and sullen all the time. She had known Nico for years and still had trouble figuring out what he was thinking or how he felt.
Hazel, the youngest and arguably the nicest, was the only one besides Persephone who didn’t appear to feel like tearing their hair out and screaming. In fact, she seemed even happier than normal, like she was trying to compensate for how lackluster everyone else was. Her umber skin practically glowed and her already bright, golden eyes gleamed with the same energy that made her tiny arms wave happily. She was probably the only person in town who was truly trying to be as positive as possible about this out of the good of her heart. It was hard to believe that she and Nico shared a dad. It’d be easier to believe that she was Persephone’s daughter. At least they had the same personality.
They got to Stoll’s ice cream shop quickly. It was an old, run down shack with a peeling yellow paint job and faded blue letters (courtesy of the then-10 year old Stoll brothers) that read 'Stollz' in big letters and 'We make ice cream' in smaller ones. Everybody figured that it was used for storage decades ago and the Stoll family bought it for a few pennies. But it sold the best ice cream in town and the Stoll family was easygoing on pricing, so nobody complained about the risk of lead poisoning from the shitty paint. Hazel ran out of the car like a winning racehorse and Persephone skipped after her.
“Why are they always so happy all the time?” Nico asked when they were gone, with more curiosity than bitterness. Hades was still in the car, but he was too busy on his phone to pay attention to their conversation. It was pretty much just Reyna and her brother.
“Some people are just naturally happy, I guess. We weren’t so lucky.” Nico made a raspberry with his mouth that practically dripped teenage angst and Reyna giggled. Hearing it made Nico crack the tiniest of smiles, which made her laugh even more. She knew he’s hurting, too. He was scarily good at hiding it since he was never very emotional, but Reyna knew that he had been really close with Annabeth. Hazel too, but she always found a way to stay peppy. Reyna and Nico couldn't do that on their own. They had to rely on each other for cheering up, and they always had a strange way of doing it.
“Don’t be too upset,” Nico said. “She’d be so happy if she saw how many people are worried about her. She lives for praise.” Reyna didn’t laugh, but it made her feel better that Nico said lives and not lived. She wanted to keep acting like Annabeth was still alive, no matter how slim the chances were.
“And at least we know that we’re doing all we can, right?” he added. Reyna paused. Nico felt her body tense up from where he sat next to her, but Reyna covered his mouth before he could comment. She quickly glanced over to Hades to make sure that he was still on his cell phone before opening the passenger door and shoving Nico out of the car.
“What the he-”
“I have to tell you something,” Reyna cut in. “You can’t tell anybody. Well, I guess you can tell Hazel and the rest of our friends, but absolutely nobody else. I need you to swear.” Nico half-grinned, probably thinking she was playing a joke on him.
“Sure,” he drawled, “I swear on the life of me, my dead mother, and the children I will probably never have that I won’t tell your secret. Except to Hazel. And the rest of our friends.” Reyna didn’t laugh.
“It’s about Annabeth.” Nico’s smile dropped before she can even finish saying her name. “She called me the day she went missing.”
Nico became silent, which was infinitely more worrying than if he started screaming. His black eyes seemed to turn darker, like his pupils swallowed the whites and the irises. Reyna took a step back. She would never admit it, but her brother scared her sometimes. He was stoic, sure, but underneath that was complex, intense coil of (usually conflicting) emotions, like a thick, untieable knot.
“You said that the last time you contacted her was days before she left,” he said. He voice was eerily calm. Reyna wished that he would start screaming instead. Screaming was expected. She could handle screaming.
“I couldn’t tell the police about it.”
“Why the hell not?” he yelled. Finally, Reyna said in her head with relief, but she still didn’t want him attracting attention. A couple eating ice cream on the cheap lawn chair Stoll’s had for outside furniture turned to them. They looked bored and intrigued, which was the worst thing bystanders could be if you were trying to keep a secret. Rumors spread fast in tiny towns like hers and she did not want anybody talking about this.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. It made him even angrier and she could hear his breath push through his clenched teeth.
“Why should I? I want to know what the hell you were thinking,” he said at a normal volume. He was smart enough to not want any attention either, but Reyna could tell that he was not letting her go without an explanation.
“She said not to call the police.” It was a weak excuse, and Reyna knew it, but it was easier than the real one.
“So? She could’ve died out there, Reyna. Wasn’t it worth going against her wishes just this one time? We could’ve gotten a lead. Hell, we could’ve found her!”
“It was about the incident,” she said. It was only a whisper, barely loud enough for Nico to hear, but sounded too loud in her ears. She watched the blood drain from Nico’s face as he understood what she was saying. They both looked around them to make sure that nobody heard them. Nobody was looking their way, but it suddenly felt like the trees had eyes and they were watching them. And judging.
“What did she say about it?” he whispered. The anger was gone. The fear in his voice took up too much room for it to stay.
“All she said was that it had to do with the incident a few years ago. If I told the cops, they would ask me questions about it or do some investigating. They would have to figure out that the incident was pretty big to have caused her to disappear and I couldn’t risk it.”
Nico nodded, still upset but with a resigned understanding. “Ok. Ok, I get it. But still, this is huge. the police could find out that you’re lying to them.”
“I only got voicemails and I already deleted them all. Annabeth’s phone went missing with her, so nobody will find it since nobody knows she called me. This town isn’t up to date on technology anyways.”
“That’s good, but...”
“But we could’ve found her,” Reyna finished. Nico looks at his feet, ashamed, but he nodded and spoke.
“What if she’s dead because of us?”
Reyna thought about that, too. She had been thinking about it since she deleted all traces of her best friend from her phone and swallowed down her guilt with a morning glass of orange juice. But Reyna had to pull herself together and practice lying in front of her mirror and keep a straight face when the news was announced and she wasn’t going to let her brother fall apart like she almost did. Not with everything at stake.
“Do you have any idea how bad it would be if anybody found out what we did?” She snapped. Nico winced and Reyna knew that her tone was too cruel and that she should be more gentle, but she couldn’t. “They would probably lose all sympathy for Annabeth. They might stop trying to look for her. And they sure as hell wouldn’t want us in their town anymore. This wouldn’t just screw over you and me, it would get all of us. You, me, Hazel, Jason, Frank, Percy, Piper, Leo,” she frantically counted the number on her hands for emphasis, “that’s eight people getting fucked. Add Annabeth and it’s nine. We can’t risk this.” Everything she said was true, and she thought about Nina’s brutal honesty biting her in the ass.
“I get it,” Nico said. “I really do. I just can’t help but feel bad. Our friend is gone.”
“I know. But I can’t go to jail. You know how important it is that I can’t go to jail. I can’t do it, Nico, I can’t go.” Tears fell and Reyna stopped. Nico wrapped his arm around her shoulder to comfort her, but Reyna thought they he just wanted something to hold on to.
“Aw, you poor things,” a voice said behind them. Startled, the pair jumped apart and scrambled to look for the voice. They turned around and saw Persephone with Hazel. They both had pistachio ice cream cones. Persephone was smiling brightly, but Hazel looked uncharacteristically distant and blank-faced. It didn’t look like they overheard their confession.
“I know Annabeth going missing has been hard on y’all,” she said sweetly. Reyna nearly passed out with relief and started to breathe again. “But please don’t cry. I hate seeing my babies so upset.”
She dug in her purse and pulled out a few pieces of paper. “Here,” she said as she handed them over to Reyna and Nico. “They’re flyers. I saw Silena Beauregard—a lovely girl, that one—and she gave me some to pass out. This way you two can make sure everybody knows what happened. That way we can find her even sooner?”
Persephone looked so hopeful and eager that Reyna didn’t have the heart to remind her that everybody already knew. It would’ve be pointless to.
Nico took a stack and headed over to Stoll’s to pass out some flyers. Reyna could see the red in his eyes but she tried not to worry about him. He would drown his guilt in vanilla ice cream like she drowned hers. He would survive. She took a stack of flyers herself and silently walked over to the nearest lawn chair to pass one out to somebody after giving her stepmother a friendly smile.
But she didn’t pass them out. She just held one in her hand and stared at it. The flyer read Local Girl Gone Missing: If you see this girl please call the number under the photo with a cheery Annabeth beneath it. It was a nice photo. The tan in the picture, which was deeper than her normal tanned skin, told her that it must’ve been one of the pictures Hazel took of her last summer for her photography class. She was wearing a light tank top and her usual shorts with her hair carelessly thrown back into a ponytail. She had been caught mid-laugh and all her pretty white teeth were visible.
Reyna always liked to look at Annabeth, whether she admitted it or not. She always looked so regal, especially with her intense grey eyes. She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous per se. Very pretty, but there was something else that Reyna could never put her finger on. There was just something about Annabeth that made people want to keep looking. Striking. Everybody thought so.
Reyna wondered what people would think about Annabeth if they knew what she did. They probably wouldn’t find her as attractive.
But Reyna pushed that out of her head and put the flyer back in the stack with the rest of them. Instead she thought about what she said to Nina Nakamura in the police station barely a half an hour ago:
I can’t think of anyone who would ever want to hurt Annabeth Chase.
Her inner lie detector went wild.