They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast #1)(60)

“You’re all good to go here, Mateo. Gonna have to veto this for myself.”

“You should skip this too,” Lidia tells him. “I know I have no real say here, but veto, veto, veto, veto.”

Mad props to Mateo for getting in line anyway; I want this for him. There aren’t any more croaking frogs, so I know he heard me. This kid has changed. I know you’re paying attention, but look at him—he’s in line to leap off a cliff and I bet you anything he can’t even swim. He turns and waves us over, like he’s inviting us to a line for a roller coaster.

“Come on,” Mateo says, eyeing me. “Or we can go back to Make-A-Moment and swim around one of their pools if you want. I honestly think you’ll feel better about everything if you get back in the water. . . . Me coaching you through something is weird, right?”

“It’s a little ass-backward, yeah,” I say.

“I’ll make it short. We don’t need those Make-A-Moment stations and their virtual realities. We can make our own moment right here.”

“In this artificial rainforest?” I smile back.

“I made no claims to this place being real.”

The arena attendant tells Mateo he’s next.

“Is it cool if my friends and I jump together?” Mateo asks.

“Absolutely,” she responds.

“I’m not going!” Lidia says.

“Yes you are,” Mateo says. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“I should push you off the cliff,” I tell Mateo. “But I won’t because you’re right.” I can take on my fear, especially in a controlled environment like this with lifeguards and arm floaties.

No one planned for a swim, so we strip down to our underwear and yo, I had no idea how damn skinny Mateo is. He avoids looking my way—which I find funny—unlike Lidia, in nothing but her bra and jeans, who’s looking me up and down.

They attendants give us our gear—I’m calling the floaties “gear” because it sounds less cute—and we slip it on. The attendant tells us to jump when we’re comfortable, which shouldn’t be too long since a line is forming behind us.

“Count of three?” Mateo asks.

“Yeah.”

“One. Two . . .”

I grab Mateo’s hand and lock my fingers in his. He turns to me with flushed cheeks and grabs Lidia’s hand.

“Three.”

We all look ahead and below, and we jump. I feel like I’m falling through the air faster, dragging Mateo with me. Mateo shouts, and in the few seconds I have left before hitting the water I shout too, and Lidia cheers. I hit the water, Mateo still beside me, and we’re underwater for only a few seconds, but I open my eyes and see him there. He’s not panicking, and it reminds me of how settled my parents looked after they set me up for freedom. Lidia has disconnected; she’s already out of sight. Mateo and I float back to the top with our hands still locked, lifeguards flanking us. I move toward Mateo, laughing, and I hug him for this freedom he’s forced onto me. It’s like I’ve been baptized or some shit, ditching more anger and sadness and blame and frustration beneath the surface, where they can sink to who-cares-where.

The waterfall pummels the water around us, and a lifeguard ushers us to the hill.

An attendant at the bottom of the hill offers us towels and Mateo wraps his around his shoulders, shivering. “How do you feel?” he asks.

“Not bad,” I say.

We don’t bring up the hand-holding or anything like that, but hopefully he gets where I’m coming from now in case he had any doubts. We head on up to the top of the hill, drying ourselves with towels, and retrieve our clothes and get dressed. We exit through the gift shop, where I catch Mateo singing along with the song on the radio.

I corner Mateo as he picks up one of the “Farewell!” cards offered here. “You made me jump and now it’s your turn.”

“I jumped with you.”

“Not what I’m talking about. Come with me to this underground dance club place. Deckers go there to dance and sing and chill. You down?”





OFFICER ANDRADE


4:32 p.m.

Death-Cast did not call Ariel Andrade because he isn’t dying today, but since he’s an officer of the law, getting the call is his greatest fear every night when the clock strikes midnight. Especially since losing his partner two months ago. He and Graham could’ve been a buddy-cop movie, the way they handled business and traded dad jokes over beers.

Graham is always on Andrade’s mind, and today is no exception, with these foster kids in the holding cell who are acting out because their brother is a Decker. You don’t need matching DNA for someone to be your brother, Andrade knows this. And you definitely don’t need the same blood to lose a part of yourself when someone dies.

Andrade doesn’t believe the Decker, Rufus Emeterio, who he stopped pursuing in the early-morning hours, is going to be trouble—if he’s even still alive. He’s always had a sixth sense for Deckers who will spend their final hours creating chaos. Like the Decker responsible for Graham’s death.

On the day Graham received his alert, he insisted on spending his End Day working. If he could die saving lives, it was a better way to go than one last lay. The officers were pursuing a Decker who was signing up for Bangers, the challenge for online feeds that has had a heartbreaking amount of daily hits and downloads the past four months. People tune in every hour to watch Deckers kill themselves in the most unique way possible—to go out with a bang. The most popular death wins the Decker’s family some decent riches from an unknown source, but for the most part, it’s just a bunch of Deckers who don’t kill themselves creatively enough to please the viewers and, well, you don’t exactly get a second shot. Graham’s attempts to prevent a Decker from riding his motorcycle off the Williamsburg Bridge only got himself killed.