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Rufus wheels his bike beside me as we pass this gym. “I’m hooked. What did he say?”
“That love is a superpower we all have, but it’s not always a superpower I’d be able to control. Especially as I get older. Sometimes it’ll go crazy and I shouldn’t be scared if my power hits
someone I’m not expecting it to.” My face is warm, and I wish I had the superpower of common sense because this isn’t something I should’ve ever said out loud. “That was stupid. Sorry.”
Rufus stops and smiles. “Nah, I liked that. Thanks for that story, Super Mateo.”
“It’s actually Mega Master Mateo Man. Get it right, sidekick.” I look up from the postcards. I really like his eyes. Brown, and tired even though he got some rest. “How do you know when love is love?”
“I—”
Glass shatters and we’re suddenly thrown backward through the air as fire reaches out toward a screaming crowd. This is it. I slam against the driver’s side of a car, my shoulder banging into the rearview mirror. My vision fades—darkness, fire, darkness, fire. My neck creaks when I turn and Rufus is beside me, his beautiful brown eyes closed; he’s surrounded by my postcards of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Union Square, and the Empire State Building. I crawl toward him and tense as I reach out to him. His heart is pounding against my wrist; his heart, like mine, desperately doesn’t want to stop beating, especially not in chaos like this. Our breaths are erratic, disturbed and frightened. I have no idea what happened, just that Rufus is struggling to open his eyes and others are screaming. But not everyone. There are bodies on the ground, faces kissing cement, and beside one woman with very colorful hair who’s struggling to get up is another, except her eyes are skyward and her blood is staining a rain puddle.
RUFUS
1:14 p.m.
Yo. A little over twelve hours ago that Death-Cast dude hit me up telling me I’m a goner today. I’m sitting on a street curb, hugging my knees like I did in the back of the ambulance when my family died, straight shaken now over that explosion, the kind you only see in summer blockbusters. Police and ambulance sirens are blasting, and the firefighters are handling business on the burning gym, but it’s too late for mad people. Deckers need to start wearing special collars or jackets, something that’ll clue us in on not flocking in one place. That could’ve been me and Mateo if we were a minute or two slower. Maybe, maybe not. But I know this: a little over twelve hours ago, I got a phone call telling me I’m gonna die today, and I thought I made my peace with that, but I’ve never been more scared in my life of what’s gonna go down later.
MATEO
1:28 p.m.
The fire has been put out.
My stomach has been screaming at me for the past twenty minutes to feed it, as if I can call time-out on my End Day to have another meal without wasting valuable time, and as if Rufus and I weren’t almost just killed in an explosion that claimed other Deckers.
Witnesses are speaking to the cops and I don’t know what they could possibly be saying. The explosion that destroyed the gym came out of nowhere.
I sit beside Rufus, his bike, and my bookstore bag. The postcards are scattered all around us and they can stay there on the ground. I don’t have it in me to write anything when there are Deckers who’ve now found themselves in body bags, on the way to the morgue.
I can’t trust this day.
RUFUS
1:46 p.m.
I gotta keep it moving.
I want more than anything to sit across from the Plutos and talk about nothing, but the next best thing to break me out of this mood is a bike ride. It’s what I did after my parents and Olivia died, and when Aimee broke up with me, and this morning after beating down Peck and getting the alert. Once we’re away from the chaos I get on the bike, flexing the brakes. Mateo dodges my gaze. “Please get on,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve spoken since being thrown in the air like a wrestler.
“No,” Mateo says. “I’m sorry. It’s not safe.”
“Mateo.”
“Rufus.”
“Mateo.”
“Rufus.”
“Please, Mateo. I gotta ride after what went down and I don’t wanna leave you behind. We’re supposed to be living, period. We know how this ends for both of us, but I don’t wanna look back on any moment thinking we straight wasted it. This isn’t some dream and we won’t wake up from this.”
I don’t know what else I can do. Get on my knees and beg? It’s not my style, but I’ll give it a go if it gets him to come with me.
Mateo looks seasick. “Promise to go slow, okay? Avoid going down any hills and through puddles.”
“Promise.”
