BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

47.

THEY'D RAN INTO the city and immediately found a bookstore, so Piper had dragged Eden inside instead of going to the cute cafe. When Eden saw Annabeth and Reyna inside the cafe, she didn't want to go in there anymore.

Even if she wanted to know where she'd met Reyna before. The girl was so familiar, in the weirdest way . . .

Anyway, the bell jingled inside the bookstore, and it was really cute. It was small, but there were so many books around. Kaleidoscope's eyes lit up at the sight of it.

"It's a lot different than the ones in the city, isn't it?" Eden looked over at her girlfriend and grinned at her.

"Yeah, but it's really cozy in here," Piper leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for bringing me here."

Eden rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Of course," she looked over and someone was walking over to them.

"Hello," the bookkeeper said. "Looking for anything in particular?"

"Uh . . ." Kaleidoscope squinted. "Could you bring us to the English books, please?"

Dyslexia and all, Eden could still read a little bit of Latin, and half the books here were definitely in Latin.

"Of course!" the bookkeeper took them to the back section of the library, and then left them there. Piper started rifling the books, and Eden watched her.

"These look really good," Piper confessed, turning toward her. "Which one should I get?"

Eden snorted. "One? Babe, I'd buy the entire library for you if you wanted me to. Grab three. Or fifty, I don't care."

Piper's gaze softened at her. "Darling . . ."

"As long as they look pretty," she pressed a kiss to Piper's cheek. "I am not spending that much money for something that looks so ugly. Like that one," she pointed at a random book. "Why is it so ugly?"

Piper giggled, leaning in to peck her lips. "You're the best, love, thank you."

"Course," Eden held her hand as she picked out books, and carrying them all, they headed to the register where Eden took the bag of books and Piper paid with Eden's totally not stolen money, as per usual, when they'd heard a loud shrill sound.

They looked at each other. Eden hated these looks. They didn't mean good things.

"We should . . ." Eden pointed out the door.

"Yeah, we should," Piper gave her the bag. God, what a dork.

Eden carried the books anyway, because she loved Piper too much to let her run with the seven or so books in the bag. Also, Eden was just better at running, so the extra weight didn't matter.

* * *

They ran to absolute chaos.

Fistfights galore. Lots of noise. Eden hated it, for once.

"We need to get up there," she said, as Perfect Jason joined them.

"What happened?" He asked, putting his hand against his forehead so he could stare up at the ship without the sun in his face.

"Do you really think that we'd know?" Eden snapped. "We need to get to the ladder and leave. There's too many to charmspeak."

"You sure we can run to all the way over there?" Piper frowned.

"This is bad," Perfect Jason said. "Why is Leo doing this? Can't he stop?"