I pile all my stuff into a gym bag. My toothbrush and some clothes, an extra phone charger, and the wad of tips I had saved up from working as a waiter before everything went to hell. 

I didn't know when I was going to see this shithole again, if ever. There really wasn't anything for me to come back to except my art, and I didn't see myself picking up a paintbrush if it meant packing up and losing everything in thirty-five days to the apocalypse again. 

It was bittersweet because I'd spent the last five or six years dragging myself back to this apartment covered in bits of food from my job or paint from college, thinking I was going to become this big-time artist who got to show off his weird art in galleries to a bunch of rich people. Instead, I was chasing down this guy who looked like he should have been in a Mcdonald's uniform advertising the next quadruple-meat Big Mac on a poster somewhere. 

Oh, wait.

I shut my room door and head out into the hallway, where I can hear Felix and Bones arguing loudly in the living room, their voices growing louder as they get more heated.

Groaning, I reluctantly head outside to meet them, wondering how I'd gotten stuck playing babysitter to two of the biggest assholes on the planet. 

"What the hell do you mean I'm stuck looking like this, chapero?" Bones is yelling at Felix, "I thought you said my skin would grow back in a week! You know I got a girlfriend to go back to, right? What's she going to think when I pull my pants down and I don't have a dick!"

"I never said that," Felix replies as a matter of factly, and he's holding my turtle in one hand, who was for some reason wearing a pink knit sweater around his shell now. "Besides, I'm sure you're girlfriend's not missing out on much." He says, and then flips his hair and pops his tongue.

That sassy motherfucker.

Bones lets out a furious scream and throws himself at Felix, but not before I grab him by the back of the jacket and yank him backward. He weighed as much as a bag of flour, which wasn't much, and his bones all clanked and rattled together when I pulled him to a stop, which was somehow both horrifying and nauseating to listen to.

"Can you two shut the hell up for five seconds?" I demand, and I shoot both of them one of my meanest glares. "Look, I didn't ask either of you to be here. You forced yourselves into my car, and I'm sure both of you are wanted criminals in several states. Felix, you literally kill people for a living," I turn to him and he smiles cheerfully. "And Bones, you just robbed the crap out of me!"

"You looked like you needed to be robbed." He replies with a squint of his eye sockets. 

"All I want to do is find Ender Calloway and try to figure out how I'm going to stop the world from ending again so I can go back to being miserable in piece!" I practically shout, my voice cracking from effort. "I don't need you two following me around!"

I pick up my bag before either of them can protest, and I grab my turtle from a startled Felix before I head for the front door, somewhat hoping that they won't follow me outside or to my car this time. Everything I had ever done, from enrolling in college to getting my first apartment, had been the fruits of my struggles and my efforts. 

I didn't need someone holding my hand and walking me through life like I was some big baby, and I sure as hell didn't need Bones and Felix tagging along for the ride. Especially Felix, whose motives for finding Ender were still questionable at best. He still wanted to kill him—as in permanently, I didn't know if I could get on board with that.

"Come on, Sheldon," I tell my turtle as I step out into the hallway. "We don't need those guys, do we?"

I jog back downstairs and walk out into the parking lot where my car still sat out front, thankfully untouched. But as I load everything into my trunk and slide into the front seat, I look around a little and realize how empty it was without Felix playing his obnoxious Disney songs in the seat beside me, or how Bones filled the backseat with his clacking noises as we bumped along.

I must have been fucked up in the head because I didn't even know Felix or Bones like that.

I hadn't known Ender, either, and yet here I was about to scour all the Mcdonald's to find him and get some answers. Or was that all it was? Maybe I really liked him in a weird, unconventional way. It was kind of hard to tell when emotions started getting involved. 

There's a light tap on my window, and I hang my head and sigh before reluctantly rolling down the window with a teeny-tiny squeak that goes on forever.

"What?" I finally ask Felix through the gap without looking over at him.

"Hector? Can we come with you?" He asks me, sounding hopeful, "I figured we'd ask this time."

I roll my eyes and stare straight ahead, refusing to admit that I might have liked having them around, filling the void in my heart and in my car.

I finally lean over and open the door for him before sitting back in my seat, arms crossed.