I would have updated sooner but I got a little busy. Thanks for those who follow, favorite, or review. Any kind of feedback is extremely helpful, so please let me know if you'd like to see something happen in the story, I'll try my hardest to fit it in. Reviews make my day as long as they're not flames. Please enjoy and let me know how you guys like this chapter and I'll try to have another up soon!~ Bolts and Trees :D

Luke's phone rang and his boss's number flashed across the screen, "Hello sir?"

"Castellan, just the person I wanted to talk with. Are you located safely with the girl then?" he asked.

"Yeah, we're planning on leaving by the end of this week, but there's something I'd like to run across you. I think it would be much safer if there were only two of us who knew the location, I don't think Ethan should accompany us there." Luke said.

"You're telling me you want to take the girl out there alone?" his boss asked.

Luke answered, "Yes sir, that's exactly what I'm saying. I would actually prefer it if you'd let me do this on my own."

"Ok, permission granted, I'll give Nakamaura another assignment and you can escort her yourself. Now my other issue that I'd like to speak with you about is how much time you plan on spending with the girl, you've got work to do and we need you here." the boss said.

Luke rummaged through the fridge, "Give my assignments to someone else, I'm protecting her until Kronos is stopped, I'll even train her to work with me if I have to."

"You're going to train her to do the shit that you do by yourself?" the boss asked.

"If it comes down to that, then yes I will." Luke replied.

"Fine, if I need you I'll let you know, this girl of yours better be trained soon." the boss grumbled before letting the line go dead.

Luke set his phone down and turned when he heard the familiar sound of footsteps shuffling across the linoleum kitchen floor towards him. Thalia was wrapped in one of his hoodies, her glasses were on, and she looked sleepy like she had just woken up. He smiled when he saw her, "What are you doing up?"

"I got hungry." she shrugged and started going through the cabinets for something. Finally she found what she wanted but couldn't quite reach the cookies on the top shelf.

"Here you go." Luke said as he easily grabbed the cookies and handed them to her.

"Thanks." she smiled as she turned to face him only to find themselves inches from one another. Luke cupped Thalia's face with his hand and ran his thumb across her cheek. She smiled but pulled herself away. Luke restrained himself from showing his disappointment and he pulled out a gallon of chocolate milk from the fridge because he knew Thalia would be asking about it at any second.

"You remembered." she smiled as she poured herself a glass.

"Of course I did, it's not that often that you meet someone who doesn't like regular milk." Luke chuckled and grabbed himself a cookie. He bought Thalia the kind that you bought in the bakery section near the produce because those were her favorite.

"And you bought the good cookies." she smiled.

Luke found himself smiling as well, "Yeah I did because I knew you liked those kind."

"They're the best." she grinned as she took a bite out of it. The icing on it was orange for fall with sprinkles shaped like little leaves.

"Seriously, no other cookies taste like this." Luke agreed as he poured himself some chocolate milk. He looked over to see Thalia was watching him, "What?"

She shook her head, "Nothing."

"Why are you watching me?" he asked curiously.

"I wasn't, you're delusional." she rolled her eyes and went back to munching on her midnight snack.

"Zeus sleeping?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah, he went out like a light after all that running he did today." She smiled. Thalia adored her dog and Luke was happy his gift was something that had made her happy. The whole point of him buying Zeus for her was so that he would protect her when Luke wasn't around to. Luke never really got to finish his training because he and Thalia had broken up, but Luke had also seen how Zeus never leaves Thalia's side willingly.

"He's pretty protective of you." Luke noted.

Thalia raised her eyebrows, "I feel like someone trained him to be that way."

Luke shrugged, "You'll never know, maybe he picked up the habit of protecting you on his own."

Thalia shrugged, "Maybe, but he almost slaughtered a chipmunk the other day for getting to close to me."

"Wow, he's pretty protective." Luke whistled.

"Yeah, reminds me of someone." Thalia muttered.

"Did you just compare me to a dog?" Luke asked curiously, there was a laugh in his voice.

She shrugged, "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't."

"Very cute Thalia." Luke shook his head and took another bite of his cookie, "Tomorrow we start your training."

"Training for what?" Thalia asked curiously.

"You're going to start working with me as my assistant." Luke smiled.

"What is it exactly that you do now that I know you're not really an accountant?" Thalia asked with an eye roll that she was famous for.

"Well, you know James Bond?" Luke asked.

Thalia nodded, "Yeah, so you're telling me that you do what James Bond does?"

"Sort of like that." Luke nodded.

"You're a spy? Where are all your cool gadgets?" Thalia asked teasingly.

"This isn't Kim Possible, Thalia. This is serious, I'm a spy and it's extremely dangerous to do the work that I do. I think you realize that now with the whole psycho ex-boss thing going on." Luke shook his head.

"Yeah, but you're saying you want to train me to work with you? I have no sort of spy training whatsoever and I'm a complete clutz." Thalia shook her head.

Luke smiled, "That's why we're training you, it'll be fun. We can work together, you'll get to do all the traveling you talked about, you'll love it. Plus you won't have to worry about finding a job."

"You're going to pay me?" she asked.

"Yeah, you'll get paid." Luke nodded.

Thalia was quiet for a moment, "I know I don't exactly have a choice but this sounds like it might be slightly fun."

Luke smiled, "There's my girl."

"You're girl?" Thalia asked raising her eyebrows.

He smirked, "Yeah, my girl."

She shook her head, "Whatever helps you sleep at night Luke."

They finished their cookies and chocolate milk together and went their separate ways to their own bedrooms. Luke wondered if Thalia would end up with him that night or if she'd actually stay in her own room, whatever the case was she was more than welcome to come to him.

Luke leaned against his door as Thalia did the same, "Goodnight Luke."

"Goodnight Thalia, I'm right down the hall if you need anything." Luke smiled.

Thalia nodded, "I know."


He waited until she disappeared into her room and shut the door before be finally went to his room. Luke had barely just settled into bed when he heard a scream come from Thalia's room. He rushed across the hall and nearly broke down the door to find Thalia petrified in fear, her room had been torn apart and Zeus had been knocked out to the point Luke thought that he was dead.

"What happened in here?" Luke asked as he checked over Thalia to make sure she wasn't harmed in any way.

"I don't know, there was a guy rummaging through my things, he jumped out of the window when I screamed." she was hysterical. Luke was positive he had never once seen Thalia this terrified. He wrapped her into a hug and cursed himself for not making the security tighter on the house especially around Thalia's room. Just having Thalia close was enough to make his heartbeat run a mile a minute. She looked up at him and frowned, "We're going to have to leave aren't we?"

"Yes, this means Kronos knows you're here. Gather your things and meet me downstairs in ten minutes." Luke nodded as he released Thalia from the hug.

She nodded and started gathering her things that had been strewn across the room, Zeus's breathing rate had returned to normal and Luke went to gather his things. He was serious about keeping Thalia safe and if that meant going to Plan B, then Luke was going to go with it.


Annabeth was starting to get worried; she hadn't heard from Thalia for almost three days now. They had been best friends since childhood and they always talked to one another at least once a day. She frowned when she checked her phone; not even a text message from her.

Percy was cooking, fortunately not burning the entire house down while he was at it, "Anything good in the mail today?"

Annabeth shuffled the envelopes she was holding in her hands, nothing but junk mail and coupons, "No, nothing interesting. Have you heard from Thalia lately."

"No, come to think about it, I haven't heard from Thalia lately." Percy shook his head as he put a stack of blue pancakes onto a plate, buttering them and drowning them in blueberry syrup. Annabeth was too distracted to yell at him about drowning her pancakes with syrup.

"She always calls though." Annabeth frowned, taking the plate he handed to her.

"Have you tried calling her?" Percy asked.

Annabeth nodded, "Yeah, that was the first thing I tried."

Percy frowned, "Didn't you say Luke was asking about her the other day?"

Annabeth frowned, "Yeah, but do you really think he's seen her?"

"He might have, you could ask him." Percy shrugged.

"I don't know his number anymore." Annabeth sighed.

"No fears, I'll call him." Percy grinned.

He dialed Luke's number, getting an answer by the third ring, "Hey, man what's up?"

"Well, my fiance is extremely worried about her best friend Thalia, and we were wondering if you've seen her lately?" Percy asked.

Luke was quiet for a moment, "She's with me, does Annabeth want to talk to her?"

Percy looked over at Annabeth, "You wanna talk to her?"

"Is she there?!" Annabeth asked sounding half relieved and half terrified. What if Luke was some psycho who had Thalia locked up somewhere in a basement.

"Here, why don't you ask her yourself?" Percy said handing his phone to Annabeth.

"THALIA GRACE WHERE THE HELL ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH ARE YOU!" Annabeth yelled.

"Chill Annie, I'm on vacation. Sorry I didn't call, I forgot my phone." Thalia sighed.

"Are you hurt?" Annabeth asked frantically.

"No, I'm fine Annabeth, honestly Luke and I are sitting at a cafe in...Italy." Thalia replied. There was something off about her best friend's voice but Annabeth figured Thalia was fine considering she didn't sound like she was dying or in danger. She didn't sound the least bit scared so that was a giveaway that Thalia was pretty much still intact.

"Are you sure?" Annabeth asked.

"Positive, I'm fine. Can you pass the information onto Jason, he'll be worried about me too?" Thalia asked.

"Sure, when are you coming back?" Annabeth asked.

"Not sure, but it won't be too long." Thalia promised.

After her conversation with Thalia, Annabeth wasn't completely convinced that everything was as okay as Thalia had made it sound. What if Luke was holding her captive? She wouldn't forgive herself if anything happened to her best friend and she could have done something about it.


Thalia looked over at Luke and handed him back his phone, "I feel bad about lying to her."

"Its the best thing to do." Luke smiled.

"We're not in Italy! We're in Colorado!" Thalia sighed as she and Luke sat in the mansion on the mountain side.

"It was a precautionary measure." Luke sighed.

Thalia pushed her scrambled eggs around on her plate, she didn't have much of an appetite after the previous night's events. They took a plane from Luke's boss to Colorado and they weren't even sure this was the last place they'd be going. She wanted to go home and see her family, her friends, she missed them, she missed her apartment, she missed her old life.

"Why are you so hellbent on protecting me anyway?" Thalia asked, looking Luke in the eyes.

"Like I said before, I care about what happens to you." Luke muttered before going back to his breakfast, "Eat, you're going to need all the energy you can get today."

"Why can't you just say it?!" Thalia demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Say what Thalia?" he asked crossing his own arms and sitting back in his chair.

She glared at him, "You know what I'm talking about."

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked you." Luke rolled his eyes.

"You're impossible." Thalia sighed, frustrated before storming up to her room to take a shower.


As she was changing Luke came around and knocked on her door, "Training starts in ten minutes! Meet me downstairs!"

She muttered and wore clothes that were appropriate for physical activity, cursed Luke, and headed towards the basement that was apparently a state of the art training gym. When she got down there Luke was standing in the middle of the room wearing a pair of jeans and a cut-off shirt which made him look like any form of gym nut trying to lift the max. His toned arms were completely visible, his legs were toned, and his hair was spiked up out of his face. What the hell had she gotten herself into?!