Paz sees me. “Please help!”
I don’t waste any more time. I run into the apartment and wrap my arms around Frankie and wrestle him off that man. Frankie elbows me in my stomach so hard that I taste acid in my throat, and he backs me up into the wall.
This is how I’m going to die . . . against a man who is fighting for his life.
He’s looking at me like I’m a ghost when I punch him in the face.
I won’t go down without a fight either.
Frankie is massaging his jaw when I see that Paz has vanished from the doorway. I hope he’s hiding somewhere. Maybe I can get Paz out of here, back downstairs where he can be safe with Orion’s guardians, who have kept me alive for as long as they did. Then Frankie is swift with picking up a broken chair leg and swings it into my head over and over . . .
I’m dizzy and stumbling backward and scared and tearing up and being torn up and— He kicks me square in the stomach and out his apartment and— Down the stairs, reaching for the banister and— I miss and grab ahold of Orion instead—
Why is he on these stairs, I told him to stay back— Am I going to die holding him or—
The memory of our first hug, back before Death-Cast called— My forehead bangs into a step, and I’m bleeding— The memory of us running away before I fell onto the curb— Squeezing Orion tight to absorb the blow—
The memory of his hand against my heart and mine against his— We’re about to slam down onto the landing I think— These memories are rapid and jumbled—
I hold on to Orion—
Is this what they mean when they say your life flashes before—
Paz Dario
6:44 p.m.
Death-Cast did not call Paz Dario because he isn’t supposed to be dying today, and he’s very confused because his mother isn’t supposed to be dying either, but his father is beating her up.
This isn’t the first time either, but this time is the scariest.
Normally Paz doesn’t see any of this happening. His mother always tells him to stay in his room and put his chair against the door, just like she would when he was scared of the monsters in his closet. The chair is so tiny that it would break if anyone else sat on it. It’s been painted to look like a happy dalmatian with its tongue sticking out on the backrest. But Paz knows the chair doesn’t keep anyone out because his mother always eventually comes back into his bedroom without him having to move the chair first. She’s always crying and holds him close until they fall asleep in his bed together. Other times his father will come inside his room and ask him if he’s okay, and Paz will say yes, and he will ask how his mother is doing and his father will say she’s okay too, and then the door gets closed again.
Paz has lost count of how many times this has happened.
But his mother screaming for help is a first, he knows that much.
So Paz stepped outside his bedroom, wanting to help his mother as his father hurt Rolando so much that he has a nosebleed. But he didn’t know what to do until he saw the new neighbor, Valentino, and asked for his help. Then Paz ran into the closet, not to hide, but with an idea of his own on how to help.
People think Paz is a bad guy because he played one in that movie, but he’s a hero.
He’s a hero who is going to save his mother’s life.
Paz runs back into the living room, which doesn’t feel like a room for living after he points the gun at his father and pulls the trigger.
Frankie Dario
6:45 p.m.
Frankie is about to land another punch on Gloria when fire strikes him out of nowhere.
He falls on his side.