“What are you going to do?” Alano asks.

“You know I can’t talk about that,” Joaquin says.

Alano whines. “I’ll keep it a secret.”

“When you’re older,” Joaquin says.

“It’s taking too long to be older.”

It’s amusing how much Alano believes he’s ready to know how Death-Cast works when he still believes in Santa Claus. There are many conversations to have first, such as who actually puts presents under the Christmas tree. Not to mention everything about the birds and the bees, and, to be frank, Joaquin suspects it will be more of a bees-and-bees talk, which he will embrace willingly should he discover he’s right. Regardless, Joaquin is protecting both Alano’s childhood and security by not giving him the tell-all about Death-Cast. Perhaps when he’s thirty, they can discuss it over a beer.

Joaquin kisses the top of his son’s head and scratches the puppy behind his big brown ears before walking into his wife’s arms.

“I’m going to be out of touch for a while,” he says.

“I’ll see you when I see you,” Naya says.

The two part with a kiss.

Then Joaquin is out the door, on his way to a vault where no one can follow.

Valentino

3:04 a.m.

I will live my End Day, however long it lasts.

I brace myself before Orion and I leave the hospital. There are millions of ways I can die in the city. I’ve been thinking about them all night, but everything feels so much more possible now that I’m out in the open. Shot, strangled, stabbed. Or run over by a car or bus or taxi or motorcycle or even a train if I fall onto the tracks. Maybe something will fall out of the sky and crush me, like scaffolding, since every other block I’ve passed tonight appears to be under construction. I could have a heart attack of my own, which would be a cruel twist of fate, though better for Orion to know sooner rather than later that I actually won’t be the one who will save his life.

Even though my apartment is only an eight-minute walk away, I’m nervous as we’re walking down the sidewalk. For all I know, that litter on the ground is concealing manholes that can drop me into the sewers or an actual land mine that will blow me up. The options are endless. I’m tempted to walk on the street instead, but this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy where a car kills me and—

“Look alive,” Orion says.

“Look alive?” I ask.

“Look. Alive. You’re walking like a zombie.”

“Still. That’s a pretty heartless thing to say.”

“Is that a knock on my heart?”

“Only because you told someone who’s dying to look alive.”

“You right, you right.”

Orion is quiet, though I really like him best when he’s talking.