If not, it would be a waste of a tragic moment.
Valentino
12:12 a.m.
Everyone is running for their lives, but not me.
I no longer have one to run for.
I’ve always done my best to move forward when life is challenging me—morning jogs, jumping up to the next weights during sets, all those casting rejections that made me feel horrible about myself—but what am I supposed to do when life is ending? Just accept it?
When I heard that gunshot, I froze up.
I never expected to see bullets flying around tonight. Is that how I’m going to die?
It’s such a terrifying thought that I can’t get my body to do anything except lie here on the ground, shivering like an animal that’s been abandoned in the cold. The stampede continues around me. There’s footsteps running past me, others skipping over my whole body. I even get kicked in the back. One moment, Orion is lying down with his eyes on the sky, and the next, Dalma appears out of nowhere. She’s helping him sit up as she yells for help—as she yells my name for help.
“He’s having a heart attack, Valentino, please help!” Dalma cradles Orion to her chest, slipping some pill into his mouth and telling him to swallow. “Hold on, O-Bro, I’m going to get you help.”
It’s so strange how we tell someone who’s dying to hold on, as if they have a choice.
Do I have a choice? Can I just tell the world, No, I won’t be dying today. Try again later.
“We need a doctor!” Dalma shouts.
Not a single person stops running. How many of them assume Orion must be dead already? Well, they’re stupid. I am too. Orion could’ve run away, but he didn’t. He stayed by my side. More than that, he saved my life even though he knows I’m dying.
I was wrong to think I no longer have a life to run for. I do. It’s just not my own.
If there’s anything I can do to make sure Death-Cast doesn’t call Orion too, now’s the time.
I don’t think about my personal situation, I put all my focus into my body—tapping into my core to sit up, hands flat on the ground to push off, firm stance on my feet. “Let me get him,” I say.
Dalma gives me space, picking up Orion’s hat that’s fallen off his head and revealing a brown forest of curls. I hoist Orion into my arms, carrying him like I’m Superman after catching a civilian out of the sky. If I do everything right, I just might be a hero.
“Where do we go?”
“This way,” Dalma says, leading us away from the stampede and down Forty-Seventh Street.
“Should we call an ambulance?”
“I can’t risk them not treating Orion over someone who’s been shot.”
How long is it going to take for medics to not even bother treating someone if they know they’re a Decker? A week, a month, a year?
“So what do we do?”
“I’m looking up nearest hospitals,” Dalma says while scrolling through Google Maps. “NYU has a hospital on Thirty-First, but Orion had a bad doctor there one time so we should go uptown to Lenox Hill on Seventy-Seventh instead.”
“I live on Seventy-Seventh,” I say.
Dalma looks over her shoulder, as if she’s expecting me to elaborate on why that coincidence is important. It isn’t. “Keep him upright,” she says.
I don’t understand why keeping Orion upright is necessary, but I do as I’m told. I shift his head so that his face is resting on my shoulder. His eyes are closed, and he keeps pressing his hand into his heart like he’s giving himself CPR. I suppose that’s what he’s doing. I don’t know how much it’s helping, since he’s also trying so hard to get a full breath in, but he’s stopped short every time. This is what it looks like to fight for your life.