Dalma spots a taxi, and it becomes a race between her and someone else. She wins and guards the door to the passenger seat with her life. I do my best to get there as quickly as possible without falling, and when I reach the car, I prop up Orion in the middle and stretch the seat belt over his waist.
“Is he okay?” the driver asks.
“No,” Dalma says. “Please get us to Lenox Hill Hospital.”
“You should call an ambulance,” he says.
“My brother will die in your car if you don’t get a move on now!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
The driver begins our journey, and he keeps watching Orion from the rearview mirror. It’s not even during red lights either, it’s while he’s actively driving. It’s drivers like this why my sister was almost killed.
“Can you please keep your eyes on the road?”
The please doesn’t mask the attitude in my voice, but it does the trick.
As we’re driving, I can’t help but wonder if I’m endangering Orion and Dalma by being in the car. If I’m marked to die, does that make me a magnet for death? I don’t know, but it’s a really lonely thought to have. Isn’t the whole point of Deckers getting these End Day calls to give them a chance to get their affairs in order and hug their family and friends one last time? I suppose that doesn’t matter, since my family is on the other side of the country.
I reach for my phone, ready to call Scarlett to break the news. But it’s not in my pocket. I triple-check my pockets in my pants as if it’ll magically manifest since the third time’s always the charm. Nothing, of course. Where could it— Damn it.
I never put the phone away. I never got the chance to. I was hanging up with Joaquin Rosa when I heard the first gunshot and froze. Then Orion tackled me, and the phone must’ve fallen out of my hand. This is the worst start to my final day on this planet. Returning to Times Square to look for the phone would be so stupid. Fool me once, shame on New York. Fool me twice, shame on me for risking my life so I can call my sister and for holding out hope that Death-Cast might call back to tell me it’s not actually my End Day.
The phone is gone. I have to accept that just like my fate.
Besides, it already served its grand purpose.
No other call will be as life-changing as the one that started this mess.
Joaquin Rosa
12:21 a.m.
This isn’t how Joaquin imagined Death-Cast’s launch.
He believed the calls would be simpler.
Statistically, there are big spikes in death rates on holidays. More drivers on the road equals more accidents. Sharing a cigarette with a family member can lead to one’s lungs turning on them, and since they can’t be treated in understaffed emergency rooms due to the holidays, the day is stained with loss. Not to mention all the suicides in this unforgiving world. It’s all painful, but ultimately, not uncommon. But today isn’t a traditional holiday.
Perhaps it’s still too early, but Joaquin expected some praise to start flowing in by now. How many people are living differently, more thoughtfully since discovering this isn’t an ordinary Saturday, but instead their final Saturday, their one and only End Day?
Instead of treating Joaquin as an angel, they’re calling him the devil.
“They’re talking about me like I’m the villain,” Joaquin says to his wife. He’s in the company suite, scrolling through Twitter on his laptop while Naya looks over his shoulder. This is all so heartbreaking. And such a slap to the face. No one knows the sacrifices he made to bring these forecasts to the public. “The world knows I didn’t invent death, yes?”
“You’re reinventing death,” Naya says.