It’s such a terrifying thought that I can’t get my body to do anything except lie here on the ground, shivering like an animal that’s been abandoned in the cold. The stampede continues around me. There’s footsteps running past me, others skipping over my whole body. I even get kicked in the back. One moment, Orion is lying down with his eyes on the sky, and the next, Dalma appears out of nowhere. She’s helping him sit up as she yells for help—as she yells my name for help.

“He’s having a heart attack, Valentino, please help!” Dalma cradles Orion to her chest, slipping some pill into his mouth and telling him to swallow. “Hold on, O-Bro, I’m going to get you help.”

It’s so strange how we tell someone who’s dying to hold on, as if they have a choice.

Do I have a choice? Can I just tell the world, No, I won’t be dying today. Try again later.

“We need a doctor!” Dalma shouts.

Not a single person stops running. How many of them assume Orion must be dead already? Well, they’re stupid. I am too. Orion could’ve run away, but he didn’t. He stayed by my side. More than that, he saved my life even though he knows I’m dying.

I was wrong to think I no longer have a life to run for. I do. It’s just not my own.

If there’s anything I can do to make sure Death-Cast doesn’t call Orion too, now’s the time.

I don’t think about my personal situation, I put all my focus into my body—tapping into my core to sit up, hands flat on the ground to push off, firm stance on my feet. “Let me get him,” I say.

Dalma gives me space, picking up Orion’s hat that’s fallen off his head and revealing a brown forest of curls. I hoist Orion into my arms, carrying him like I’m Superman after catching a civilian out of the sky. If I do everything right, I just might be a hero.

“Where do we go?”

“This way,” Dalma says, leading us away from the stampede and down Forty-Seventh Street.

“Should we call an ambulance?”

“I can’t risk them not treating Orion over someone who’s been shot.”

How long is it going to take for medics to not even bother treating someone if they know they’re a Decker? A week, a month, a year?

“So what do we do?”

“I’m looking up nearest hospitals,” Dalma says while scrolling through Google Maps. “NYU has a hospital on Thirty-First, but Orion had a bad doctor there one time so we should go uptown to Lenox Hill on Seventy-Seventh instead.”

“I live on Seventy-Seventh,” I say.