Saying Luke wasn't nervous at all would've been a lie. He kept glancing out the window like Ethan would appear any time now and roll his eyes at them.

Bianca was just as anxious, though instead of fretting and glancing out the window like Luke, she was drawing with kids crayons on the paper place mats. Octavian was tapping his foot with both hands placed around his coffee mug that had gone cold a fifteen minutes ago.

The waitress came around giving them funny looks and refilling Luke's mountain dew.

None of them said anything as she did.

"Can I get you any thing?" The waitress asked politely.

Bianca gave her a forced smile. It was so good Luke almost thought it was real. He off-handedly wondered how many times she'd used it against the customers at Mcdonalds. "No thanks, We're still waiting for a friend. He should be here any minute, though."

The store's chime of a bell went off signaling another person coming in. All three of them looked over in hope that it was Ethan, but it was just two middle-aged guys in business suits. The first guy was wearing a black suit with a yellow tie, the other guy looked the same just with a green tie.

Luke let his shoulders fall. He checked his watch again, for the fifth time in seven minutes, and recounted the minutes. It had been at least twenty minutes since Ethan had run off. And with each passing moment Luke couldn't help but feel like something really, really, bad had happened.

Had Percy figured him out? Had Annabeth caught him? Did he get hit by a meteor from space? He'd tried calling him on the new phones that they each had but Ethan hadn't answered.

Another waitress lead the business guys towards a table in the other half of the room behind a decorative glass divider that split the restaurant into two different sections. Luke frowned as one of the guys said something to her and the woman appeared a little confused but then switched the tables to one on the same side as they were.

Bianca didn't pay them any mind and went back to drawing....Luke thought it was suppose to be a happy meal box but it kinda looked like a square with boobs. Luke took a sip of his soda so she wouldn't notice his snickering.

"If your friend isn't here in the next five minutes, I'm ordering food." Octavian grumbled half-heartedly, "I didn't eat this morning."

Luke didn't bother mentioning all he'd eaten in the past 24 hours was half a slice of cold cheese pizza. He was also really hungry. And still tired. Luke played with the condensation on his glass drawing a smiley face and a frowny face. His stomach growled.

"So I don't think I quite caught your names." Octavian said if only to distract their obvious worrying.

Bianca looked up surprised, "Huh, I guess not," She said, "I'm Bianca. Bianca Di Angelo."

Recognition flickered in his eyes, "Di Angelo, like Nico? Son of Pluto?"

Bianca let out a sorrowful sigh, "Hades, and yeah. He is...was... my brother."

Luke suddenly got a chill. He frowned looking around the store feeling like yet another person was walking over his grave. In total Luke counted there was about five families, including them. Two families on the other side, with little kids (Luke could hear a mother chastising them), and on this side there was an old senior couple stubbornly refusing to talk to each other, and the two business guys. You'd think with such a big city, there would be more people coming in to IHOP even after the lunch rush.

"Luke? You okay?"

Luke snapped back to were Bianca was looking at him. "Huh? What?"

She sighed.

Luke looked at Octavian,"Luke Castellan, ex-son of Hermes." Luke glanced out the window again hoping to see Ethan walking down the street.

"Aren't you that guy from the Greek camp that almost got the gods destroyed?"

Luke winced like it was a physical blow. He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to block out the memory. It was like ripping off a band aid really fast and hard without warning, "Yes," He choked out, "I would be that guy."

"If it makes you feel any better I wasn't that good of a guy either."

"You keep referring to the Roman form of Gods like you aren't Greek." Bianca noted pulling a hair tie out of her back pocket and trying to pull her hair up into a pony tail.

Octavian looked confused at first, then he seemed to get it, "You died before we got there." He said mostly to himself, "Well the Gods have two part of them, they're kinda double faced. A Roman Form, and a Greek form. A while ago Greeks and Romans were always getting into fights so the Gods agreed to separate them. Except a couple months ago Gaea tried to rise and take over the world, and Juno, Hera, decided to merge the two groups back together to stop her..."

Octavian proceed to tell them a brief recount of the events in the Demigod world involving the Romans and Greeks. Luke tried to listen, but he was still distracted by Ethan's disappearance. How long did it take to walk a couple blocks? He was tempted to go out and look for his friend but at the same time he knew if Ethan was cornered by Percy or something, Luke showing up would be a little less than optimal.

The waitress came back around to them. "Has your friend arrived yet?" She asked kindly. Bianca and Luke shared a frown.

"Nope." Octavian answered, "But if you could, I would totally like these Stuffed French toast, with Strawberry vanilla topping. Oh and can I get a side of bacon with that?"

The waitress though surprised immediately whipped out her pad and paper and scribbled out his order. She skipped over to Luke for his order too. He sighed glancing out the window for Ethan again before opening his mouth to order as well.

Suddenly the table started vibrating. Luke snatched up his phone which was bouncing with its vibration from the phone call. The Caller ID picture was of Ethan, who was trying to block Luke from taking his picture with his hand.

"It's him." Luke said to Bianca before he jumped up. He stepped a little bit away from the table to answer.

"Ethan!" Luke said, "Where are you? You said you'd be here-"

"You've got five seconds to run." A voice said that was definitely not Ethan's. It was too deep and oddly gruff, like someone had been eating construction nails. For a second Luke panicked thinking it was some type of monster. But it couldn't be. They were all ordinary now. Monsters didn't come after them.

"What-" Luke said, "Who the Hades is this?" That cold feeling he had grew sharper like a cannonball in his stomach.

"Time's up." The voice said.

"What the-"

"LUKE GET DOWN!"

Luke whipped around barely having time to actually process the words before the room exploded in sound. Bianca screamed, tables were thrown over. Luke slammed to the ground. The glass windows shattered with an explosion of bullets. Luke couldn't help but yell in unison with the rest of the customers.

Glass shards pelted him and Luke lost his phone in the chaos.

"Luke!" Bianca's voice called out over the ringing that was left in his ears.

The senior couple stumbled through the emergency exit they had been sitting next to. The families on the other side of the diner were screaming, a father figure scooped up a crying kid and ran towards the exits.

Bullets whistled right next to Luke narrowly missing his lanky figure. He shoved over a table throwing syrup and napkins onto the for. The gunfire rocked the barrier, barely allowing Luke to even figure out were the source was. He vaguely remembered that was the direction of where the Business guys had been.

Why were people shooting at them?! And more importantly, why weren't they running away?!

"Go!" Luke heard someone yelled, Octavian maybe, "MOVE!"

"OCTAVIAN!"

Something heavy hit the floor nearby, followed by Bianca's scream. Luke flung the table in the direction of the bullets with a springing kick. The gunfire stopped with a thud.

Luke let to his feet, and charged towards the Business guys. They both had been knocked off their feet with the table. Luke kicked the gun out of the guy in the green ties hand.

Before he could do anything, the yellow tied guy tackled Luke to the side. Luke rolled and skidded to his feet blocking the yellow tied attempt to punch out his temples with his elbow. Luke stumbled back off balance and tripped over a discarded syrup bottle.

The guy lept on top of him and Luke yelled out as he landed on the leg of a table. His head hit the the table board dazing his senses. At the same moment the guy wrapped his hands around Luke's throat with an iron grip.

The air was choked out of his lungs. Luke struggled against the hold. His eye site blurred for a couple seconds as he fought. Luke suddenly wished he had his sword, the one that could cut mortals in half. It didn't count against him if they shot at him first right? It's technically self defense.

Luke's head feel light and airy and his chest burned. Even after everything he'd done, even as a Demigod fighting monsters with Thalia on the run, this was how he was dying his second time? In an IHOP restaurant by a crazy accountant?

Luke weakly grabbed at his hands, but with every gasp for breath he felt his body jerking, losing control and consciousness.

He'd never even get to tell Thalia he liked her.

Then suddenly the crushing grip loosened and Luke nearly choked himself inhaling oxygen. Shattered bits of a plate sprinkled onto him and the guy who'd been trying to kill him slumped backwards either dead or unconscious (Luke really didn't care which at the present time). A tall Middle aged guy stood over him repeatedly asking if he was okay.

The guy helped him sit up. "The police and ambulances are on there way," The guy said, but Luke really wasn't paying attention. He assumed the guy had been part of the families on the other side of the restaurant and used a plate to stop Luke's attacker. The IHOP was a mess, the entire place smelled like smoke, and Luke's ears were still ringing. The blonde Waitress who'd been serving them was sobbing on the ground nearby, probably traumatized.

"Luke!" Bianca yelled.

He took a deep breath, letting it out in stiff shallow puffs as slow as his beating heart would allow. She had a gash across her right cheek with a thin line of blood, but other than that she looked mostly okay. But her face was streaked with tears and her entire body was shaking. She was kneeing over a body her hands a covered in red.

Beneath her Octavian gasped in pain. His pale features beaded with sweat and disbelief. His hands were trying to slowing the bleeding of a bullet wound in his chest. It wasn't working.

"He-He jumped in fr-fr-front of m-me!" The Waitress sobbed, "He s-s-saved my l-l-life!"

Luke coughed, swallowing hard. His mind was numb with everything that had just happened. They were Mortals now. Apparently that didn't mean random people were going to stop trying to kill them. Luke's hand rubbed his neck where two bright red hand prints were blatantly imprinted now as the distance wail of an ambulance got louder.

Octavian was down. And the two guys in business suits, were knocked out. Luke was stunned. Those guys couldn't haven't been just run-of-the-mill guys. They were professionals. Someone hired them to kill Luke and Bianca and possibly Octavian too.

"Ethan..." Luke rasped out to himself, "What exactly did you get into?"