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12:20 a.m.

Even if I wanted to, I’ll never forget the first time I witnessed death.

It happened on September 6, 2011, five days after we moved into our Manhattan penthouse. My parents bought the place for just

shy of twelve million dollars after Death-Cast’s first successful year. From that high up with a view of Central Park and

the reservoir, my father thought we should’ve been crowned as the city’s royals. I overheard my mother saying how she would

sleep easier at night knowing no one could break in unless they were spies rappelling the thirty floors. I used to be terrified

of heights, but I was tempted out onto our rooftop garden because I wanted to stargaze with the telescope NASA gifted us in

gratitude for how Death-Cast was better preparing their astronauts for missions.

That following Tuesday afternoon, my amazing tutor Mrs. Longwell had just left after our second homeschool session of the new school year. I returned to my bedroom and was unboxing my Transformers toys when a bird crashed into my window. I told my mother, and we ran out to the rooftop garden to investigate if the bird was okay. Bucky sniffed out the bird, finding it gravely injured beneath a bush. The bird’s beak was hanging off its tiny bloody face, one leg was broken, and both wings were droopy, preventing it from flying away like it was trying to. I tried tending to the bird with my mother when my father rounded the corner, ending another call where the government was pressuring him to give advantages to the American military and withhold Death-Cast alerts to warring countries.

“What’s all of this?” Pa had asked, his frustration from the call alive and well. He inspected the bird. “Poor thing. Let’s

take care of it.”

I had thought we would bring it to a vet. My father dropped a brick on the bird.

I cried all night. “It could’ve lived, Papa,” I had told him when he came into my room that night to apologize. “Your stupid

job doesn’t know about animal deaths!”

“No one deserves to live in pain. I showed mercy.”

My father’s lesson lives in me tonight.

“You’ll help me kill myself?” Paz asks. In any other circumstance, I would love the hope in Paz’s light brown eyes. Right

now I hate it.

What I hate even more is my proposal, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “You’re scared of surviving another

attempt, right? I’ll make sure you don’t. It’s the least I can do to make up for every way Death-Cast negatively impacted

your life.”

Paz sniffs back his cries and wipes his tears. “You’re not just talking shit? If you are, I’ll...”

I don’t know what he’s suggesting—or threatening—but it won’t matter. “I hope you’ll change your mind, but I mean it. This is a two-way street, though. You have to promise to treat me like a lifeline first.”

Paz looks back up the mountain, like he’s weighing his options between just returning to the Hollywood Sign now where he can

try his suicide plan and risk surviving, or choosing to live a couple hours more with me so that he won’t be left to live

if he fails to kill himself. I’m relieved when he turns around and nods at me. “Fine. I promise,” he says.

“Awesome. Let’s get back to my car. I can drive us wherever you want.”

I head downhill, but I don’t hear Paz following me.

“Your turn,” Paz says, holding his ground in the exact same spot. “Promise me.”

The pleading in those two words is so strangled but alive. It’s strange how people usually beg to not be left for dead, but

Paz is begging to not be left for life. I think again about the afternoon of witnessing my first death and how badly I wanted

that bird to be able to fly again. How I can try to nurture Paz back to life, but he might call on me to be his brick.

“I promise.”