He groans, which is great because only living people groan, which means I can breathe knowing that he can too. His eyes flicker open, and his bare hand is shaking as he raises it to his wound.

“Don’t touch it,” I say. The last thing he needs is an infection. “Let’s go back and get you checked out.”

“No, I’m fine. I can clean it up at home.”

“You sure?” I ask, helping him to his feet.

“I’m sure. Let’s just get off these streets.”

I make sure he’s not dizzy as we continue on, and he seems as stable as someone can be considering they just busted their face on the sidewalk while running away from masked men. This night is fucking insane. He’s right that we need to get him home, where he’ll be safe. I’m not used to the Upper East Side, but the city grid makes it mad easy to get to Seventy-Seventh and Second.

“I thought I was going to die,” Valentino says.

I’m not going to tell him I was thinking the same thing.

“In that moment, I mean,” he adds.

“You’re good, though.”

“It would’ve still worked out for you probably. Brain damage and being this close to the hospital is a recipe for success.”

I can’t give air to that thought without feeling like shit for being the one who encouraged him to leave the hospital and almost got him killed and would have benefited from it.

Valentino is quiet, and I don’t know what to say. Should I apologize?

“Zombie,” he finally says.

“Uh, what? Oh shit, you have a concussion!”

Valentino shakes his head. “No, you had said I looked like a zombie. Before everything. I think that would’ve been a better name for Deckers.”

As someone who has reread the Death-Cast website a thousand times, I know why Deckers is the official title. “So Joaquin Rosa thinks of Deckers as the captains of their own ships and—”

“I get that. I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Interrupt away!”

“Calling us Deckers feels too intellectual. We’re zombies. The living dead.”

“Doesn’t that feel too obvious, though?”

“Middle ground: Dead Enders.”

“That’s too morbid.”

Valentino stares dead ahead. “Dying is morbid, Orion.”

Frankie Dario

3:15 a.m.

Death-Cast can’t call Frankie Dario, but that doesn’t stop Frankie from calling them.

Someone who works there, at least.