BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

08.

"YOU SAID YOU'D pulled an all nighter, Eden?"

Eden nearly flinched at the sound of her voice. "So what? I can't have all nighters now?" Letting go of her dress which she was adjusting, she took her thermos and took a swig of whatever was in it — and judging by the burn of whiskey, she was about to get fucking drunk.

Which probably wasn't the best thing, but she could probably fight better drunk than all of them combined, so there was that.

"Of course I'm not saying that!" Piper said indignantly, as if she was actually offended. "Maybe you need some sleep too."

"Nice try," Eden laughed. "I'm not doing that anytime soon. And I mean it."

What did Piper not get about the fact that sleep deprived, she could fight better than them combined? That Eden was more godly, more legendary than them? That she wasn't just a demigod. That she was more than any of them could ever realize.

"Don't you need sleep to—"

"I will stab you if you ask me any more questions," Eden snapped, downing more whiskey. "I'm only here because the six — five — people I love would die if I didn't."

Six. Once, that would've been Silena, Connor, Travis, Clarisse, Rachel, and Thalia. Now, the former was gone. Forever. Now it was only five.

But those five were the only humans, the only things mortal, that mattered to Eden at all. Even if Thals wasn't mortal anymore.

If they weren't there, this world would've been destroyed a long time ago.

So who was Piper to tell her to do things? Who was she to flaunt along her charmspeak?

Because without it, Silena had made more of an impact on Eden than Piper did.

In the distance, she could see the outline of something big — like a castle, ones that are built in her dreams then taken down by Silena and where her loyalties had lied. So she decided to wake Sleepy Boy up so he could be a part of this nightmare as well.

"Wakey wakey, moneybags," she said to him, debating on pouring water on him — well, if water was in her thermos. "We're here. At a castle thing. God, I wish I could be a princess. They just sit around and do absolutely nothing. My kinda life."

Below them, an aesthetic looking city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plains around it were dusted with snow, but the city itself glowed warmly in the winter sunset. Buildings crowded together inside high walls like a medieval town. In the center was an actual castle — Eden assumed it was a castle, or maybe that was just her being sleep deprived — with massive red brick walls and a square tower with a peaked, green gabled roof.

"Tell me that's Quebec and not Santa's workshop," Sleepy Boy said.

"Yeah, Quebec City," Annoying Shit confirmed. "One of the oldest cities in North America. Founded around sixteen hundred or so?"

Sleepy Boy raised an eyebrow. "Your dad do a movie about that too?"

She made a face at him, but it didn't quite work with her makeup."I read sometimes, okay? Just because Aphrodite claimed me, doesn't mean I have to be an airhead."

"Feisty!" Sleepy Boy said. "So you know so much, what's that castle?"

"A hotel, I think."

Eden snorted. "No fucking way I got this excited about princesses for nothing."