They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast #1)(35)

“I get it. But walking? I got this.”

I look both ways again before crossing the empty street. If anyone should be nervous, it’s the guy who watched his family drown in a sinking car. I didn’t exactly beat my grief to the point where I would’ve ever seen myself comfortably getting in a car over the next few years, but then there’s Malcolm, who digs fireplaces even though he lost his parents to a house fire. I don’t have that in me. But I’m also not looking right to left, left to right, like Mateo is until we make it to the opposite curb, like there’s a ninety-nine percent chance a car will pop out of nowhere and run us down in point-five seconds.

Mateo’s phone rings.

“Make-A-Moment people making house calls?” I ask.

Mateo shakes his head. “Lidia is calling from her grandmother’s phone. Should I . . .” He puts his phone back in his pocket and doesn’t answer.

“Well played on her end,” I say. “At least she’s reaching out. Haven’t heard shit from my friends.”

“Keep trying.”

Why not? I park my bike against the wall and FaceTime Malcolm and Tagoe. Both are no-gos. I FaceTime Aimee, and right when I’m about to hang up and send all the Plutos a picture of me flipping them off, Aimee answers, breathing quickly, her eyes strained, her hair sticking to her forehead. She’s home.

“I was knocked out!” Aimee shakes her head. “What time is . . . You’re alive. You . . .” She loses my eyes for a second; she’s staring at one half of Mateo’s face. She leans over like the phone’s camera is a window she can stick her head out of for a closer look. It’s like when I was thirteen and flipping through magazines, I’d scout for pictures of girls in skirts and dudes in shorts and would tilt the page to see what was underneath. “Who’s that?”

“This is Mateo,” I say. “He’s my Last Friend.” Mateo waves. “And this is my friend Aimee.” I don’t add that she’s the girl who body-slammed my heart, because I’m not trying to make everyone uncomfortable here. “I’ve been calling you.”

“I’m sorry. Everything got crazy after you left,” Aimee says, rubbing her eyes with her fist. “I got home a couple hours ago and my phone was dead and I set it to charge but fell asleep before it came back on.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Malcolm and Tagoe got arrested,” Aimee says. “They wouldn’t stop mouthing off and Peck threw them under the bus since they were with you.”

I storm away from Mateo, telling him to stay put. He looks pretty frightened; so much for taking any suspicion of me being a shitty person to the grave. “Are they okay? Which station?”

“I don’t know, Roof, but you shouldn’t go looking around for them unless you want to spend your last day in a holding cell where who-knows-what will happen to you.”

“This is bullshit. They didn’t do anything!” I raise my fist to punch in this car window, but that’s not me, I swear it’s not, I don’t go around hitting things and hitting people. I slipped up with Peck, that’s that. “And what’s good with Peck?”

“He followed me home, but I didn’t want to talk to him.”

“You ended things with him, right?”

She doesn’t answer.

If we were chatting on the phone instead of over video, I wouldn’t have to be disappointed by the face she’s giving me. I could pretend she’s nodding her head, getting ready to break up with him if she hadn’t already. But that’s not what I’m seeing.

“It’s complicated,” Aimee says.

“You know, Ames, it didn’t seem complicated or confusing when you broke up with me. That legit sucks, but there isn’t a bigger kick to the nuts than you turning your back on the Plutos for the punk-ass kid who got them locked up. We’re supposed to be tight and I’m gonna be out the picture soon enough and you’re actually gonna tell me to my face that you’re keeping that motherfucker in your life?” Screw body-slamming my heart, this girl ripped her own out mad long ago. “They were innocent.”

“Rufus, they weren’t totally innocent, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, bye. I gotta get back to my real friend.”

Aimee begs me not to hang up and I hang the hell up anyway. I can’t believe my boys are in jail for my stupidity and I can’t believe she didn’t tell me sooner.

I turn around to tell Mateo everything but he’s gone.





AIMEE DUBOIS


7:18 a.m.

Aimee gives up calling Rufus. There are three possible explanations for why Rufus isn’t picking up, ranked from greatest hope to biggest fear: 1. He’s ignoring her but will call her back.

2. He’s blocked her number and has no interest in reaching out.

3. He’s dead.

Aimee goes on Rufus’s Instagram, leaving comments on his pictures asking him to call her back. She charges her phone, raises the volume, and changes into an old T-shirt of Rufus’s and her shorts.

Aimee has really gotten into exercise ever since becoming a Pluto. When she originally snuck into her foster parents’ room, looking for something to steal from Francis, who gave her the weakest welcome, she spotted Jenn Lori’s bedside dumbbells and gave lifting a shot. Her own parents, locked up for robbing a family-owned movie theater, inspired her kleptomaniac urges, but Aimee discovered working on herself made her feel more powerful than stealing from others.