I felt like driving around an entity of questionable morale standards was pretty much like playing in the middle of traffic, but at least you knew what was going to hit you before you ended up a pancake on the front of a rig somewhere. 

I didn't know if Felix was a put-the-lotion-on-the-skin-and-get-the-hose-again kind of person or if he was straight up just wanting to find Ender so he could talk to him and figure out what was going on like I was. All I knew was that if he wanted to, he could kill me whenever he wanted, and, more than likely, he could make it very painful and rip my spine out of my ass. 

He just chose not to, for whatever bizarre reason.

As we neared New York, I began to search for a way out of this "win or die" situation. The city was huge, and I knew I could easily send Felix into a convenience store to buy a pack of gum or some cookies before ditching his little ass while he was inside. Abandoning my car and catching a bus downtown to my apartment would be easy—almost foolproof.

I reach over to turn off the radio mid-Elton John belting out The Circle of Life, which was ironic considering that the guy sitting beside me was death incarnate. "Hey, Sparkles, the car's almost out of gas," I tell Felix curtly."I'm going to find a place to stop and fill up. You think you could run inside and grab me a couple of snacks since I'm in my underwear and all?"

"Oh, goody!" Felix exclaims and claps his hands. "This is the best road trip I've had in months!"

"Months?" I reply, grimacing a little, "Is that how long you've been looking for Ender Calloway?"

"So, you do know him!" Felix muses with an irritably smug little smile and a cock of his head. "It's been almost a year since he registered on my radar. Like I said, I tracked him down a couple of times, but he always managed to slip away before I could pinpoint his location. Ever since then, it's been takeout and questionable motels for me."

"Alright, Dog the gay-ass Bounty Hunter," I scoff, definitely not taking him seriously at this point. "What do you plan on doing when you track him down?"

"Oh, that's easy," Felix replies simply as he casually scrolls through his bubblegum pink phone in the seat beside me. "I'm going to kill him."

I get cold chills in an instant when I hear him say that.

"Ender can't die," I point out. "How are you going to kill him when he's just going to come back?"

Felix, perhaps for the first time since we began this whole ordeal, calmly sets down his phone and looks me in the eye. "As an official Death Bringer, I have to ensure that individuals like Ender, who refuse to die for whatever reason, make it to the other side. If he dies at my hands, I'm going to make sure that he stays dead. It's kind of my job."

Felix pauses to show me a few sloppy-stitched small patches on the lapel of his blazer. "Take a look at this," he says. "I get a patch for every ten souls I harvest."

I glanced over, and from what I could see, he was basically covered in morbid Girl Scout patches. Some of them had "DB of Tomorrow." Or, "Approved for Unusual Deaths." Others were simply dates and locations of where I was guessing he'd killed some poor innocent bastard like Ender.

I feel sick to my stomach by the time I find an 8-11 to pull into.

"Can you just grab me a Sprite and some barbeque chips?" I ask Felix as I park the car next to an old-looking gas pump and dig a twenty out of the divider between our seats. "Get whatever you want. Spend the rest of it on bubblegum. I don't give a shit." I tell him, offering him the twenty.

Felix takes the bait and snatches the twenty before crinkling it a little between his hands to make sure it's legit. He then stuffs it into his pocket and gives me a big smile, his cheeks puffed and his lips slightly pursed. I felt like if I reached over and squeezed him, he'd make a squeaky toy noise. 

"You know, you don't have to be scared of death, Hector," he tells me.

"Can we seriously not talk about this?" I ask him, and I lean my weight against the steering wheel. "I've had enough death for the last week and a half."

"Ender Calloway's suffering, and you and I both know it," he tells me anyway. "He's been dying over and over again for months. Do you think that's the right way for a human being to live?"

I roll my eyes and focus on a crackhead wandering across the dirty parking lot, waving his hands and everything while he talks to himself. The city was full of people who had gotten lost in the system at some point and never found a way out. Some of them even died out there on the streets, never knowing what it felt like to have a home or a family.

I wondered why Felix didn't put people like that out of their misery—not the ones who wanted to live, but the ones who were hanging on by a thread and needed that release.

Was Ender really suffering, or was he just doing the best he could according to his situation?

"Just a Sprite and barbeque chips, right?" Felix asks me cheerfully and pops open his door.

"Yeah," I reply without looking over at him. "That's all I want." 

I hear him get out of the car, and I flinch when the door slams, my heart doing a skip in my chest because I knew this was my chance to escape once and for all. 

I rip off my seatbelt, grab some clothes and what little money I have from the back seat, and throw everything on as fast as I can before clamoring out of the car, my bare feet hitting the hot tile. There didn't seem to be a bus stop nearby, but there was a ton of traffic on the nearby road, and it was entirely possible I could get a cab to stop and take me downtown or just flat-out run for my life.

I cast a glance at the gas station to see where the Girl Scout of Terror had gone off to and see Felix paying at the counter, a happy look on his expression as he chats with the cashier behind the counter, who's ringing up a mountain of snacks for him.

Oh, shit.

I shove all my belongings into a bag and slam my door closed before turning around.

And come face-to-face with the barrel of a gun.