The First to Die at the End (Death-Cast #0)(76)

As we’re returning into the darkness, Orion howls in euphoria, and I do the same, our voices echoing through the tunnel.

I’m aching to stay out here, but he wisely nudges me back inside.

“So?” Orion asks, flipping his thumbs up and down.

I don’t even know what to say. This is one of those passages that you can only stumble on if you don’t get out of the train when you’re supposed to, and I got to live something that most New Yorkers won’t in their entire lives.

I answer Orion’s question with a hug. “Thank you for being the most thoughtful person ever.”

Orion squeezes. “You kidding? You won that award when you offered me your heart.”

The train pulls into the station, and I don’t want to let go. I don’t care if thousands of people pour into the car. That’ll only push us closer together. I want to hold on to Orion because he’s under this ridiculous impression that someone won’t love him in what I have faith will be a long, long life after the transplant. But I have to let go because Orion says, “This is our stop.” I get out and follow him up the stairs and outside the station with a new mission before I die.

Make sure Orion knows he deserves the world.





Gloria Dario


12:15 p.m.

Gloria tries breathing.

In, out. In, out.

Why does it feel like she’s a breath away from an asthma attack?

The restaurant is a little stuffy. She removes her light jacket and tucks it into the corner of the booth where she’s sat across from Pazito. Her son is telling her all about one of his assigned books for summer reading, but Gloria is struggling to focus, to keep her eyes away from the door where Rolando is expected to walk in any moment now. She wonders if he’ll be carrying a bouquet of sunflowers like he did their first—and last—time here at Desiderata’s, the day where Rolando told Gloria he was deeply in love with her.

The day where Gloria regrets not saying it back.

The truth is, Gloria knew she loved Rolando, but she wasn’t as certain that she was in love with him. Those lines can be blurry, especially when you’re young and haven’t known love yet—or known what it’s like to be in a relationship where things aren’t as they should be.

A marriage, even.

The early days with Frankie were passionate, as if they were floating above everyone else in their orbit, to the point where whenever Gloria was brought back to earth, she missed that high. So much so that she ignored the red flags billowing in the winds.

Who would have thought that falling in love could take you to the skies?

But people don’t have wings, and walking through life is how you get to be in it.

It’s up close, it’s personal, it’s real.

Gloria regrets not having kept her feet on the ground, especially after how often she found herself being thrown to the floor by the man who once took her to impossible heights.

Here she is now, seated at the restaurant named after her favorite poem, written by Max Ehrmann as if he was staring into her soul as he put pen to paper. Desiderata is about what you need in life, what you desire, and when the door opens and in walks Rolando, Gloria breathes as if he’s the oxygen she’s been craving.

It doesn’t even matter that he’s not carrying sunflowers.

“Uncle Rolando!” Pazito slides out of the booth and rushes to Rolando, almost crashing into a waiter.

“Hey, Paz-Man!” Rolando hugs Pazito with a love and tenderness that Frankie doesn’t.

Gloria thinks—no, she believes with her whole heart that Rolando will be an amazing father one day. She’s mostly sad that she didn’t realize this, oh, twenty years ago when he confessed his love for her, but it’s okay. Gloria’s greatest creation is Pazito, and she wouldn’t change a single hair on his head or bone in his body, and that means accepting some of those hairs and bones come from Frankie too.

She gets out of the booth with a smile and a hug.

“Great to see you,” Rolando says, as if it’s been years since the Fourth of July when they last saw each other for a barbecue in Althea Park, the same day he applied for the Death-Cast job.

“You too,” Gloria says. Even though she wants to hold on to Rolando for dear life, she lets go and sits opposite of him and Pazito. “So . . . tough day?”

Rolando’s tired brown eyes seem to say so. “I should’ve known what I was getting into with that job.”

“Did you cry a lot?” Pazito asks. “I think I would cry a lot.”

“That’s because you have a big heart,” Rolando tells him. “I’m going to be honest, I haven’t cried.”

“So you don’t have a big heart,” Pazito says.

Rolando chuckles. “I like to think I do, Paz-Man.”

Gloria is a breath away from agreeing before her son fires off his next question.

“Have you found out how your bosses know who’s going to die yet?”

“No, I haven’t. I actually won’t—”

“I think everyone has a prophecy,” Pazito interrupts. “And Death-Cast somehow knows everyone’s destinies. Prophecies are a big part of the Scorpius Hawthorne books.”

“You might be right, but I won’t be able to find out the big secret. I quit this morning.”