Author's Note:OK, so I feel like a broken record when saying this, but there is only one review and it is far from anything helpful. so, please, after you read, please review. Thanks!

Big Luke

I hadn't flown civilian in I don't know how long. In fact, I don't think I had ever flown commercial. In the military, there was usually only one plane on the tarmac if there were any planes at all. For the most part, we rode in helicopters in no particular assignment. Thankfully, Brittany had flown before and was able to get us on the right flight. JFK airport was a freaking mess of people and TSA.

I was sitting in one of the passenger seats with Brittany reading a magazine in the seat next to me. She wore these silvery reading glasses with her gray sweatpants and light blue tank top. Her blonde waves were tied back in a pony tail. She had slipped off her white tennis shoes and revealed her pink toed ankle socks. She looked comfortable.

I on the other hand, was far from comfortable. I was wearing a gray button-up shirt with black cargo pants. Normally, I would have my 1911 on the inside of my waistband, but today I had to hide it away along with my M16 in a magical case that wasn't going set off the metal detector. Of course, that didn't stop my metal belt buckle and then my metal dog tags from setting it off.

Oh, yeah. Brittany was laughing it up when the TSA agent decided she wanted to strip search me. The things I do for my camp, I thought as I turned around in my boxers and showed the TSA agent that I didn't have anymore metal on me.

"Ladies and gentleman..." that snapped me back to the present. "This is your Captain speaking..."

"Your not my Captain," I said under my breath but Brittany heard me and nudged me with her elbow. "What?"

She replied with a death glare over her silvery frames. Then rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine.

The plane ride was long. The in-flight movie was some chick flick that Brittany loved, I fell asleep. My dream was more like a nightmare. I was just walking home from the recruiting station in my hometown in Louisiana.

I could actually smell the swamp that lurked nearby. It was very dark and the long, thin trees loomed around me like gods looking down on their disciples in the darkness. My step-dad's one-story house was just around the next two corners. I couldn't wait to get back home and tell my step-dad off. Tell him that I was leaving. Tell him that I wasn't coming back.

The first thing that I saw rounding the last corner to the house were police lights. All the synapses in my brain were screaming at me like a drill instructor to run, but I was too curious to leave. Besides if I ran, then I would appear guilty. It was better to play dumb than take my chances on the road.

The last thing I had thought about was whether or not my mom was alive. I was thinking that maybe someone had tipped off the cops about me running shine. Then I thought that maybe my mom called the cops on my step-father. I only got scared when I noticed the ambulance. They wouldn't call the ambulance unless someone was hurt. Then I saw the yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the perimeter of the property and blocked off the wide open front door.

Being the ignorant, seventeen year old kid that I was, I ran for the caution tape and pulled it over my head. One police officer that I knew well, Officer Beau (Mr. Beau to me since I was three. Living in a small town means knowing everybody, even the cops.) walked up to me.

"I'm sorry, Jon Luke, but your going to have to stay back," he told me.

"What's going on? Where's John and my mom?" I asked.

"Come here, Jon Luke. We really need to talk." Mr. Beau ushered me over to his squad car. He let me sit on the push bar as he looked me in the eye. "Son," (He always called me that. I was never really sure why) "Your mom has been murdered. I'm so sorry."

"What? No way. Your messing with me," I said, standing up off the push bar but Mr. Beau put a fist on my chest and sat me back down.

"I would never do that to you. You know that," he told me.

"Yes, sir," I replied.

Then it hit me. My mom had just been killed. The one good thing in my life had been stripped from me. I slumped forward and placed my face in my hands. Mr. Beau placed a hand on my shoulder to try and comfort me.

"Jon Luke, I know this is hard for you, but we need to ask you a few questions. It shouldn't take very long. It's just protocol," he said in a tone that told me that he already knew the answer to his questions.

I looked up from my soaked hands and nodded. I didn't look at him just looked at the ground.

"OK. Where were you between the hours of 8 and midnight tonight?" he asked. It was probably around 1 or 1:30 in the morning.

"I was at the recruitment office roughly two miles away. Tom that works there can confirm that," I answered.

"What were you doing there?"

"Joining the Marines."

"OK, can you think of anyone that might want to hurt your mom?"

That's when my step-dad walked by on the other side of the yellow tape. He wore a stained, gray T-shirt and faded blue jeans. He hunted gators for a living but they were out of season so he was out of work. We weren't poor, but we weren't filthy rich either. We made do with what we had. I couldn't stop myself. I launched myself at him but Mr. Beau caught me around my chest.

"You son of a bitch!" I yelled at my step-dad. "Why the fuck did you do it?"

The look on my step-dad's face told me that I was right. He wasn't smiling but he wasn't crying either. I would expect him to be a little more broken if he had found his wife murdered.

I fought against Mr. Beau's hold but I wasn't going anywhere.

"Calm down, son. It'll all be OK," said Mr. Beau.

I shook off his arm and looked at him square in the eye.

"You want to know who could've killed my mom? That fucking scum right there!" I said jabbing an angry finger at my step-dad who was still watching me make a scene.

I was yanked from being seventeen to the present. I woke to the plane shaking violently. Turbulence. We had hit some nasty air pockets in military aircraft before but it was nothing compared to this. I could see the wing of the plane out my window, it looked as if it would snap off any minute now.

All of a sudden the nose of the plane dipped and we started falling out of the air. Brittany grabbed my arm, she was scared. I wasn't afraid of dying, but twenty-three was too young. I didn't think the pilot was panicked just yet because the oxygen masks hadn't fallen yet.

"It'll all be OK," I said to Brittany who had dropped her magazine hours ago.

"Is this it? We die before we ever make it to Switzerland?" she yelled over the chaos that was filling the fuselage of the airplane.

Just then, the nose of the plane picked up and my stomach lifted from my ass from being thrown down. The plane stopped shaking and I couldn't help but to crack up laughing with relief.

"Nope," I answered. "Your stuck with me for a little bit longer."

Brittany punched my arm but I just kept laughing along with most of the people on the plane. They weren't laughing with me, just relieved that this didn't turn into an episode of Lost.

It was a long flight to Switzerland, then it was a much shorter flight in a small bush plane to a helipad where we took a helicopter to the ski resort. Something told me that this was all just a waste of time. Why would Percy be in Switzerland?

I was carrying all of our luggage from the helicopter to the side door of the building. We walked through to the front desk and I set all of our crap down.

"Hi, we have a reservation for Mr. Rob and Lori Ryder. I think we are in the west wing," Brittany said to the lady behind the desk. The aliases were Chiron's idea.

"OK. One moment please," she leaned forward in her office chair and typed away at her computer. "Alright, looks like your in room 312 in the... west wing. Your right!"

She handed Brittany a brass key. In the United States, it probably would have been a disposable card that would open the door.

"Danke," replied Brittany in German.

The receptionist just smiled as we left.

"I didn't know that you spoke German," I said as I hauled our luggage.

"I took two years of it in High School, Honey. You knew that," she replied as she laced her arm through mine. Right. Undercover, I thought.

We took one of the elevators up to the third floor. Hence our room number being 312. We walked down to the door and Brittany opened it. We stepped inside and I placed our bags on the bed. Of course, Chiron decided to book us a room with only one bed. I guess two would have been a red flag.

"Honey, I'm going to get in the hot tub. Care to join me?" asked Brittany as she grabbed something that I didn't quite get a glimpse of and stepped into the bathroom.

"Yeah. Sure, Babe." I responded the way I did because I wasn't sure if the room was bugged or not. Whether I believed the intel or not was no reason to not be cautious.

I was currently rummaging through my suitcase to get to the magical case with my guns in it. I found it and lifted it up onto the bed. I unclasped the chrome latches and lifted open the black lid. I didn't go for my gun or anything first. I picked up my bug finder. It looked kinda like a stud finder that a carpenter might use but a little different. It was flat black instead of construction yellow.

I flipped the power switch and lifted it up to the TV. If I was going to hide a bug, the first place I'd put it it the TV. It was an easy way to power the device without having to do too much. I checked the dressers and the beds, then the heater and the telephone. So far, the bug finder didn't pick up on anything.

I turned around when I heard Brittany step out of the bathroom. She had changed out of her comfortable sweatpants and tank top into a yellow, string bikini. Her flat stomach was the first thing that I noticed. Then her semi-wide hips wear the yellow strings tied off. Then those gods-awfully long legs. Moving up a little bit to her breasts. They were about a C-cup, if I had to guess. Her hair was tied up in a bun. She was hot.

"Jon Luke? You're staring," she stated.

I involuntarily shook my head. "Sorry," I replied, looking at the ground and putting my hand on the back of my head. "It's just... I don't think I've ever seen you in a swim suit before."

"You're cute when your cheeks blush like that," she said as she bit back a laugh with her pointer finger. She had a great smile. "Now, are you going to get in the hot tub with me or am I going to have to relax alone?"

She walked past me without waiting for a response. Her butt was high and tight kinda like a volleyball players but it still jiggled a little under the bikini bottom.

"I don't know, Bo. Brandon and David are watching us. You know that right?" I asked in return.

"Let 'em watch," she replied, wrapping herself in a towel before stepping out onto the balcony, just to take it off again before stepping into the hot tub.

Brandon

We had seen Big Luke and Brittany walk into the ski resort and then we watched as we saw the sliding door open to their room and Brittany stepped out in that towel. Then she took it off and we could see damn near every-thang.

"Holy shit," David and I both exclaimed at the exact same time.

"She is throwing herself at Big Luke, and he don't want any part of that?" asked David.

"Oh, maybe he's changed his mind. Watch." I gawked as Big Luke stepped out of the room as well in a pair of long blue swim trunks. He set his 1911 on top of one of the sides of the hot tub, then he climbed into the water with Brittany.

Big Luke

"I never knew you had tattoos," mentioned Brittany.

"Yeah? I got them during my deployment," I replied, looking at the inked skin on my left arm and the right side of my chest.

I have the Eagle, Globe and Anchor in black and gray on my shoulder. The letters USMC written underneath it. Then I have a skeletal soldier with a basic M16A4 with a bayonet leaned up against its shoulder. It had a desert style helmet sitting on top of its head and a tan plate carrier draped over its boney ribcage. Then I have a life-sized Ka-Bar done in black and gray down the right oblique. The point facing up towards my face.

"Which came first? The scars or the tattoos?" she asked me.

I've got several scars over chest and arms. Most of them from my deployment.

"Well, this one I got helping a fellow Marine in a knife fight," I explained, pointing to the jagged military stitching that ran up the M16's stock. It just happened by coincidence that the knife found the tattoo. "Got stabbed in the chest. The blade was just barely short enough to not puncture my lung. If I had just inhaled sharply, I wouldn't be sitting here now." Brittany got up from her side of the hot tub and came over to sit next to me. My arms were already sitting on the rim of the tub so she just slid right in next to me.

Brittany started to trace her finger along several of the scars that weren't covered by the water. Several cuts on my shoulders and forearms. Most of them were small and insignificant, so I didn't remember the stories. Others I could remember all too well.

"Did you get shot?" asked Brittany.

"Yeah," I answered. "The bullet went right between my heart and lung. Luckily I had exhaled milliseconds before it happened. I didn't even realize it until my buddy asked me about the blood on my T-shirt."

"Do you ever have air in your lungs?" she asked through a stifled laugh.

I sighed jokingly. "On occasion."

"You get extremely lucky," she replied.

I heard the sliding door on the floor below us open and realized that we were speaking out of character.

"I must be pretty damn lucky if I'm married to you, Mrs. Ryder," I replied and pulled her closer to lay one on her cheek.

Smooth... smooth like Keith Stone, I thought to myself.

"Oh, that's sweet, Baby," replied Brittany, keeping up with the act.

I looked over to where I was sure that David and Brandon were watching us from. I shot them a look: Go to bed, boys. There's nothing for you to see here.