BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

57.

"Yeah," Piper repeated, bringing out her dagger. "I'll be fine."

"Good." Eden looked at the fucking giant ass shrimp monster. "Let's—"

Then, all she saw was green.

* * *

After the green disappeared, along with the monster and Fire Boy, Frank, and Hazel, they did some shit.

Annabeth, Coach Hedge, and Buford the table rushed around repairing things so that the ship wouldn't sink. Eden and Percy, despite being exhausted, searched the ocean for their missing friends. Perfect Jason, also exhausted, flew around the rigging like a blond Peter Pan, putting out fires from the second green explosion that had lit up the sky just above the mainmast.

Piper looked in her knife to see where they were, as well as did an Iris-Message with Annabeth to Chiron.

While they were doing that, Eden and Percy had scoured the seafloor and found nothing. Now they were alone on deck. Eden hated that fact. She didn't want to be here, with him, alone.

It was funny. They were supposed to be the closest platonic relationship, and yet they were the farthest from it.

Well, unless you counted that stint with Leo, Frank, and Hazel a thing. Then sure.

Eden had been avoiding this. Being stuck with him. Even in that tank in Atlanta, they'd had Frank, and she just wanted to get out.

But the universe hated her, as usual. Procrastinating didn't work. Maybe it was the work of the gods.

He finally speaks. "You don't look that tired anymore,"

"Yeah." Eden replied shortly, looking anywhere but him. "Piper's really helped."

Silence. One whole rest. Two. Three. Then—

Percy asks why they aren't closer. As if he knew what she was thinking about earlier.

"You fucked it all up for me," she continued looking down into the ocean, as if she could see Leo down there, or literally anyone else to save her. She couldn't.

"How did I fuck it up for you?" Percy asked her. "I didn't ask for this. For anything that happened."

"I'd been preparing for that moment my entire life," Eden snapped, turning toward him, and, god, she didn't see the resemblance of why they were siblings. Bonded by blood. By the ocean.

"And I mean my whole life." She broke eye contact with him. "When I was four, Roman demigods took me in. They were exiled from Camp Jupiter. They knew, that I was powerful. But I was too young to fight, so they taught me how to heal. How, as a child, to deceive and lie and bail myself and them out of situations. That was after they put Achilles's blood in me, getting it from god knows where. They taught me how to heal because my powers were weakened by his blood. And then I learned how to fight from them, and I was . . . powerful. I learned all of my dodging tricks by fighting with them. The adrenaline. Predicting moves. They were supposed to teach me more, about my lineage, about how to use more weapons — but then they got caught. The gods killed them. They killed the only parents I knew."

"Then the gods put me in camp. When I was revealed as the daughter of Poseidon, I was immediately getting lessons from Luke. He taught me what weaponry I needed to use in which situation. Which one I needed to be flashy. I heard the prophecy, because they believed it was for me. I had prepared myself to face whatever challenge it was. I was destined to be a hero, and then you came. You dragged me along on every quest that I should've had. And I hated it. I didn't want to go, I just wanted to be with my friends. With her. I was destined to be you, and you stole everything from me. And you assumed that I was always on your side."