The First to Die at the End (Death-Cast #0)(44)

“You don’t have to whisper.”

“I didn’t know if you were sleeping.”

“You’ll know. I’m the loudest snorer ever.”

“You can’t be the loudest snorer ever and have a roommate in a studio.”

“My snoring is white noise to Scarlett at this point.” I turn over so I can see him, but he keeps staring at the ceiling. “Please don’t smother me in my sleep.”

“Only because you have something I want,” Orion says, glancing at me before turning away again. “That’s what I wanted to ask about, actually. Does Scarlett know about all the heart stuff?”

“Not yet. The End Day was enough to chew on for starters. As a fellow registered organ donor, she’s going to be supportive. My heart not being in my corpse isn’t the thing that’s going to make her feel like her life is incomplete.”

I groan as a horrible image comes to mind.

“What’s wrong?” Orion asks.

“Thinking about all this organ stuff . . . I just pictured Scarlett dying in a plane crash and knowing her organs can’t be donated like she wanted.”

I can’t shake it out of my head. The screams, the chaos, the fire, the smoke.

Orion sits up, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. The plane doesn’t take off for another few minutes, so unless Death-Cast is about to call all those passengers, Scarlett is going to be okay.”





Scarlett Prince


12:59 a.m. (Mountain Standard Time)

Death-Cast has not called Scarlett Prince to tell her whether she is going to die today, but as she’s entering this last possible hour for them to do so, Scarlett is white-knuckling her phone, unsure if she wants to share an End Day with her brother or face life without him.

Scarlett is no stranger to this anxiety, having almost died in May.

While she miraculously hasn’t been traumatized by cars, even when driving down the very freeway where that careless man crashed into her, there is an undeniable pain that has remained with her since the accident. It wasn’t the blood rushing to her head while upside down in her overturned MINI Cooper, or the tightness of the seat belt against her chest, or even the shards of glass that pierced her skin from the shattered passenger’s window, leaving some light scarring across her cheek and neck and arm. What hurt the most was the misery of how she was about to die alone, even though that’s not how she started her life.

That heartbreak still chokes her whenever she recalls that pain, a pain that her brother won’t ever know because she will be right by his side, even if it means witnessing a horrible death that he doesn’t deserve.

“I had a thought before blacking out,” Scarlett had told Valentino while recovering the morning after the accident. “That since I was the last one to enter this world, I would be the first one out. It’s like life got too crowded so people had to be fired.”

“You’re making death sound more poetic than it is,” Valentino had said.

“That’s the artist in me. Happy to be wrong.”

Scarlett was no longer happy to be wrong.

Valentino was the first one in and will be the first one out.

Unless they depart together, like a plane off to its destination, one-way.

Scarlett glances up to find everyone else in her row on their own phones, as if they’re all waiting to see if today will be their last. Then she has a horrible vision of a collective ringing throughout the entire plane, damning everyone even though they haven’t taken off yet. She doesn’t want to give that thought power, but it doesn’t help when she hears bells.

The Death-Cast ringtone.

They’re calling someone aboard this flight.

Scarlett’s phone is quiet and dark, and she’s immediately consumed by solving the mystery of the unlucky Decker. From her seat in the seventh row, Scarlett can hear the bells chiming from up ahead, possibly someone in first class. But everyone in that section is facing forward, staring up at the front cabin.

The pilot of this plane is going to die today.

What does that mean for everyone else?





Captain Harry E. Pearson


1:00 a.m. (Mountain Standard Time)

Death-Cast is calling Captain Harry E. Pearson to tell him he’s going to die today, moments before he was about to prepare his airplane for his centennial flight.

From the first officer to the flight attendants to the passengers, all eyes are on the captain. This is the kind of attention one dreams about during in-flight safety demonstrations, but people are often too lost in their magazines and phones to care. But now they’re rapt with great intensity, wondering when Captain Pearson will answer his End Day call. He’s about to when he feels a deep dread, such as when he used to watch horror movies but had to stop because his aging heart couldn’t handle the suspense and jump-scares anymore, and Captain Pearson becomes very suspicious of all on board.

If Death-Cast is calling while he’s not even in the air, then does that mean there’s someone on this plane who will kill him? A terrorist with intentions to hijack the plane? It can’t be a bomb because everyone would have to be a Decker, yes? Who’s to say everyone else isn’t about to get a call? This is all new territory.

In a state of distress, Captain Pearson makes a rapid decision, a decision that’s against all regulations because those guidelines were written for a world without Death-Cast, where one was to prepare for danger but not where you must accept inevitability. If he’s to save all his passengers from a hijacking, he must trust no one, including his first officer, who he shoves toward first class. Captain Pearson doesn’t wait to see where he lands. He locks himself in the cockpit, heartbroken he won’t make his one hundredth flight but proud of his commitment to safety first.