“I really love that. I can show Scarlett the pictures when she gets here.”
“I love that too—I mean, it was my idea, but I’m into it.”
Valentino is lost in thought, and I’m scared he’s going to back out. “I have one condition.”
“Anything,” I say, and I mean it.
“If you’re going to be my photographer, we need to get a really good camera. No phone pictures.”
“Done deal. One really good camera, coming up.”
We’re going to turn this End Day around.
Not like a fucking ship but like two boys who are determined to make every last moment count.
“Thanks for not leaving me alone, Orion.”
My eyes travel from his heart-shaped lips that I want to kiss straight to his gaze.
“I’m your friend to the end, Valentino.”
Valentino
8:38 a.m.
Nothing is open yet on my End Day.
These department stores being closed feels like another slight against me, even though I know it’s just bad timing that I’m dying on a Saturday. I don’t have the luxury of waiting until ten or eleven to buy a camera. Hopefully some businesses are planning more overnight operations for the Deckers who won’t be starting their End Days at the crack of dawn with everyone else.
“I think I found a spot,” Orion says, reading something off his phone. “It’s a pawnshop that’s open twenty-four-seven. I don’t know if they’ll have a camera, but worth checking out.”
“Is it far?” I’m already thinking about getting back on the train to see if my luck changes with the subway performers.
“Three blocks back.”
As Orion leads the way, I read all of Scarlett’s text messages that chronicle her time on the plane. She was panicking—scared that the pilot was going to fly everyone to their deaths, scared that she would be proof that Death-Cast was wrong, scared that I would be dead before we can see each other again one last time. All her words and every last typo from frantic typing burn into my brain, and I hate that she had to experience this fear. I want to apologize, as if dying is my fault; I guess it sort of will be if dying safely for the heart transplant is an option.
Scarlett won’t want me to go through with the operation.
“You’re walking straight into your grave,” she’ll say.
Then I’ll tell her, “I’m going to die anyway.”
“But what if Death-Cast is wrong?” she’ll ask.
That’s the big gamble. If I roll those dice and still die, then Orion might too.
I want to live, but I can’t risk that, can I?
It’s unfortunate that my End Day is Death-Cast’s first day. If I had more information on their accuracy record I could know if my call was an error after all. But I don’t, and I won’t get it. It’s just yet another reason why I’m dying with bad timing.
Naya Rosa
8:40 a.m.
There have now been eleven reports of Deckers dying without Death-Cast calling.
Naya is back in the company suite, resting on the couch while Alano uses her lap as a pillow and Bucky is asleep at her feet. She can’t move without waking them, and she doesn’t know where she would go if she could. The company’s future is on fire, but she can’t be the one to put it out. She’s sitting there in fear, feeling much like her grandfather who told many stories of what it was like waiting for Naya’s grandmother to return home from the war. She wants the door to be flung open with Joaquin emerging, even if he couldn’t solve the problem, couldn’t win the war. She simply wants her husband to be a survivor.