They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast #1)(31)

“Mateo?” Lidia groggily answers.

“Yeah. Were you sleeping? Sorry, I thought Penny would be awake by now.”

“Oh, she is. I’m being Mom of the Year by hiding under my pillow while she talks to herself in the crib. Why are you awake at ass o’clock?”

“I . . . wanted to go see my dad.” I’m not lying, after all. “Can I come over for a bit? I’m in the area.”

“Yes please!”

“Cool. See you in a bit.”

I hail Rufus over and we walk to her apartment. It’s in the kind of projects where the superintendent sits on the stoop reading a newspaper when there’s clearly more work that can be done—like mopping and sweeping the floor, fixing the blinking lamp in the hallway, and setting up mouse traps. But this doesn’t matter to Lidia. The breeze she gets on rainy evenings charms her, and she’s taken a liking to her neighbor’s cat, Chloe, that wanders the halls and is scared of mice. It’s home, you know.

“I’m going up alone,” I tell Rufus. “You’ll be okay down here?”

“I’ll be fine. I should call my friends anyway. They haven’t responded to anything since I left.”

“I won’t be long,” I say. And he doesn’t tell me to take my time.

I run up the stairs, nearly falling face-first on the edge of a step before I catch myself on the railing, hovering an inch away from what could’ve been my death. I can’t rush toward Lidia’s company on my End Day. That urgency can—and almost just did—kill me. I reach the third floor and knock on her door. Penny is screaming from inside.

“IT’S OPEN!”

I walk in, and it smells like milk and clean clothes. There’s a laundry basket right by the door, clothes spilling out. Empty formula bottles are also on the floor. And inside the playpen is Penny, who doesn’t have her Colombian mother’s light brown skin tone, but is instead very pale like Christian was, except right now she’s red from screaming. Lidia is in the kitchen, warming up a bottle in a cup of hot water.

“You are a godsend,” Lidia says. “I would hug you, but I haven’t brushed my teeth since Sunday.”

“You should go do that.”

“Hey, nice shirt!” Lidia fastens a top onto the bottle and tosses it to me, right when Penny screams louder. “Just give it to her. She gets pissed if she doesn’t hold her own bottle.” Lidia ties her messy hair back with a rubber band and speed-walks toward the bathroom. “Oh my god, I get to pee by myself. I can’t wait.”

I kneel before Penny and offer her the bottle. She has attitude in her dark brown eyes, but when she grabs the bottle from me and sits back down on a stuffed bear, she smiles and flashes me her four baby teeth before getting to work on her bottle. All the baby books say Penny should be done with formula already, but Penny resists the real stuff. We have that in common.

Lidia comes out of the bathroom with a toothbrush hanging from her mouth as she puts batteries into a plastic toy butterfly. She’s asking me something, but toothpaste-y saliva drips down her chin, and she rushes to the kitchen sink and spits. “Sorry. Gross. Do you want some breakfast? You’re so damn skinny. Gross, I sound like your mother.” She shakes her head. “Oh god, you know what I mean. I sound like I’m mothering you.”

“No worries, Lidia. And I ate already, but thanks.” I poke Penny’s feet while she drinks, and she lowers her bottle to laugh. There’s some gibberish I’m sure makes perfect sense to her, and then she returns to her bottle.

“Guess who got the alert?” Lidia asks, waving her phone.

I freeze while holding Penny’s foot. There’s no way Lidia knows I’m dying and there’s no way she’d be this casual about letting me know she is. “Who?”

“Howie Maldonado!” Lidia checks her phone. “His fans are devastated.”

“I’m sure.” I share an End Day with my favorite fictional villain. I don’t know what to make of that.

“How’s your dad doing?” Lidia asks.

“Stable. I keep hoping for one of those TV miracles where he hears my voice and snaps awake, but that obviously didn’t happen. Nothing we can do but wait.” It’s crunching my insides talking about this. I sit beside the playpen and pick up some stuffed animals—a smiling sheep, a yellow owl—and bounce them toward Penny before tickling her. I’ll never have any moments like this with my own kids.

“I’m sorry to hear that. He’ll pull through. Your dad is badass. I keep telling myself he’s just taking a nap from all that badass-ness.”

“Probably. Penny’s done with her bottle. I can burp her.”

“Godsend, Mateo. Godsend.”

I wipe Penny’s face clean, pick her up, and pat her back until I get that burp and laugh out of her. I do my signature Dinosaur Walk, where I stomp around like a T. rex with Penny in my arms, which always seems to relax her. Lidia walks over and turns on the TV.

“Yes, it’s six-thirty. Time for cartoons, aka the only time I have to clean up the previous day’s messes before it all goes to hell again.” Lidia smiles at Penny, slides toward us, and kisses her on the nose. “What Mommy meant to say is what a treasure her little Penny is.” Under her breath and behind a smile she adds, “A treasure that leaves nothing buried around.”