"It's 2 in the morning. If you're offering a contract with anything less than six zeroes, I'm hanging up and tracking you down to kill you when I wake up."

No frantic apologies came through the other end, or any sort of talk of a contract. Just the sound of heavy breathing and...crying? I was all set to hang up when a weary voice said, "Hi Boneyard."

I sat up and replied, "Lovebug? How the hell did you get this number?"

"I ran around town until I found someone who had it. I've been running all night."

"Look, whatever major threat you've got on your plate that absolutely needs my help to deal with, can it wait until--"

"Can I stay with you?"

My brain struggled to process what Lovebug had just said to me. "What?"

Lovebug sniffled. "Can I stay with you? Please? I don't... have anywhere else to go."

"Lovebug, I don't know what kind of issues you're having with your parents, but--" Lovebug's pained sobs cut me off. The realization hit me as I quietly said, "They threw you out, didn't they?"

"Since I started as Lovebug, I've been coming home late and forgetting or not having the energy to do my chores. I tried, I really tried to get home on time last night, but I couldn't make it. And when I came home, I found my dog on the doorstep with--with a hole in his chest. And my dad opened the door, and he had his shotgun, and he said if I couldn't be trusted to get home on time, I couldn't be trusted to have a pet."

I already wanted to kill Lovebug's dad, but she wasn't done. "The next day, I came home from school, and my parents were at the kitchen table with my laptop and my books, and they started screaming at me. They said they'd never be so stupid as to let their child be a....be a...I can't even say it. And they threw me out, and they wouldn't open up the door no matter how much I begged, and--" Lovebug couldn't take it anymore, and collapsed into pained sobbing.

I was already out of my bed and halfway dressed in my body armor as I said, "Give me your location. I'll come to you."

"I'm in the alley behind Dragon Pho. P--Please don't hang up. I don't want to be alone."

"I won't. I promise." As I loaded up my guns, I stopped to look at a photo on the wall. It was a picture of me with my platoonmates before we shipped out for Operation Torch. I sighed deeply, prompting Lovebug to pipe up, "I'm sorry I woke you up like this--"

"I'm not upset at you, kid. I'm just... disappointed people are still the same in the hundred and seventeen years I've been alive. I'll be there soon."