BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

13.

EDEN WAS HAPPILY sipping on her coffee and having chocolate that Connor had put in her backpack when someone behind her went, "Cyclops!"

She flinched. "Oh, Jesus," she swore, glaring back at Perfect Jason. "That was my last piece of chocolate! Stupid white boy."

"Eden," Pretty Girl glared at her, though it didn't really work, before looking down at Jason. "Sleepyhead. You're alright."

"D-Detroit," Perfect Jason stammered, and he seemed a lot like when they crash landed into the lake. Good times. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Fire Boy said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

"How did you — the Cyclops—"

"Leo ripped them apart," Kaleidoscope said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"It was nothing," Fire Boy said quickly.

Pretty Girl snorted. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him"

She told their entire story from start to finish. Eden felt kinda proud at her powers part — it'd taken her forever for her to even bring out a little bit of her power out. Now that she did that, though, her body probably needed a recharge that it wouldn't get.

Pretty Girl finished telling Perfect Jason about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin. Whatever the fuck that meant. Eden didn't give a fuck.

"I'm not alone, then," Perfect Jason said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Kaleidoscope said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

Eden scrunched up her nose. "You don't have me."

"Eden!" Kaleidoscope snapped at her.

"I — I know . . ." Muscle Boy said, and he almost sounded as if he was from Twilight. "But something Hera said. I was having a dream . . ."

Wow, a dream? Eden didn't know that a boy who could get everything could have those.

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.

"Ugh, fuck Hera," Eden said after, and the sky struck with lightning, and she would be lying if she said that it didn't scare her; stupid heights. "Come on, Zeus, you need me in order for you to live. Jesus, what a bunch of whores."

"An exchange?" Pretty Girl asked, sending a glare at Eden. She seemed to like doing that after their adventure in Detroit. "What does that mean?"

Perfect Jason shook his head. "I don't know. But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"

"Or save us," Kaleidoscope said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy — that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

Fire Boy cleared his throat. "About that . . . she kind of appeared to Eden and I back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."

Muscle Boy frowned. "Did you say . . . Porta-Potty?"

Fire Boy told them about the big face in the factory yard, because Eden didn't know how to explain it. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted us to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"

Eden snorted. "I wanted to. But hero complex. You're lucky I have it."

"She's trying to divide us." Pretty Girl said, a little sadly.