The curtains part, and a doctor enters. Her curly black hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s radiating with her brown skin and bright smile as she looks at all of us. “Hello. I’m Dr. Emeterio.” She scans our faces again, like she’s trying to make sense of who’s who to who. “Is everyone here family?”

“I’m his sister,” Dalma says, not bothering to give the legal rundown. Props to this doctor for not questioning us given the different shades of our skin.

“I’m not family,” Valentino says. “I can leave.”

“Please don’t go,” I say. I don’t trust the outside world and that includes anything beyond this curtain. “We’ve all had a really, really rough night.”

“So I hear,” Dr. Emeterio says as she studies me and my ECG, aka my electrocardiogram, aka my recorded heartbeats. “It appears your heart didn’t get the memo that you were trying to have some fun tonight. Don’t you hate when that happens?” she adds with a wink.

She’s walking fresh air compared to some other doctors I’ve worked with who suck up everything good in a room. It’s simple, but Dr. Emeterio not blaming me for the heart attack is a huge plus in my book. My primary doctor, Dr. Luke, is always giving me shit for anything bad that happens while I’m out living my life, like I’ve got some death wish.

I guess I do have a death wish: don’t die with any regrets.

“You’re eighteen, so I’m happy to keep chatting with you, but are we waiting on your parents?”

“Guardians are out of town,” I say, not trying to get into my backstory. “But I’m good to start.”

Dr. Emeterio nods. “Noted. Can you walk me through what happened tonight?”

I don’t know where to start, or if it’s even my place. I lock eyes with Valentino.

“Death-Cast called me,” Valentino says.

I hate hearing those words come out of his mouth as much as I hate believing what it means for him. “Then I got shot at in Times Square and Orion saved me.”

“And, uh . . .” I’m reliving the horror all over again—the gunshot, fighting for my breaths, staring at the night sky like it would be my last. “My heart went into overdrive.”

“I gave him aspirin to buy us more time,” Dalma says.

Dr. Emeterio is speechless, and it’s like the light has left her eyes. I’m sure she’s seen it all in the hospital until she turns to Valentino, a real Decker who’s walking, breathing, living proof of Death-Cast’s predictions.

“I’m sorry that Death-Cast called you,” she says.