Page 49

2:46 p.m.

“You did what?!”

This isn’t the first time my father has shouted at me today.

Before leaving for Death-Cast last night, Pa had gone into my room to check on me but found only Bucky in bed. He personally

searched the mansion’s grounds, but couldn’t find me in the home theater or spa or by the pool. He called my phone and held

on to hope that it was only off because I’d forgotten to charge it. Then he went into the garage to discover my car was missing.

That’s when security reviewed the cameras to find me driving away and not returning home until after five, when police were

waiting for me.

At first I thought the police were there to aid in any search, but it was actually because the LAPD recognized me—and only me—on top of the Hollywood Sign. I spent the morning speaking with the officers, cooperating with their investigation in every way except revealing the identity of the “blond boy with the gun.” All I said was I stumbled on a troubled boy and managed to talk him down safely and that he’s now alive. I had the privilege of getting away with a warning because I’m my father’s son. Death-Cast has reduced nonfatal police shootings by 72 percent since 2010, now that officers can confidently work to de-escalate situations without fear of being killed. America is still behind other countries on this front, but President Page has highlighted this progress in his reelection campaign. If Paz and I didn’t escape Present-Time when we did we could have threatened that statistic.

Once the police left at 7:10 a.m., I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open, but I snapped awake when my father

called our bodyguards into the living room. He scolded them all for letting me out of their sight, but things tensed when

he got in Agent Dane’s face.

“Do you have some ulterior motive to get my son killed?”

“No, Mr. Rosa.”

“Am I not paying you enough to protect my son?”

“You are, Mr. Rosa.”

“Then why have you failed my son two nights in a row?”

“I wasn’t aware that Mr. left the premises.”

“Your ignorance could have gotten him killed. I won’t allow it again. You are fired,” my father said.

Agent Dane could be stone-faced during many interactions, but he couldn’t mask his shock here. “Sir?” He turned to my mother

as if she were going to defend him. She remained quiet.

I wasn’t. “This isn’t his fault. Dane wanted to accompany me to the Wisdom Tree later in the week, but I snuck out.”

My father snapped toward me. “And if you had died you would have paid the price with your life, but I am done paying him to

keep you alive when he is so incompetent at his job.”

“I’m alive, Pa! I would’ve been dead if Dane didn’t stop the assassin.”

“An assassin who should have never gotten as close as he did,” my father said, turning to our head of security. “Ariel, escort

Dane out of the mansion.”

I tried protesting, but Dane accepted his fate, showing himself to the door before I could even apologize. Getting Andrea

Donahue fired when she was actually guilty was bad enough, but it was a hundred times worse getting Dane fired all because

I went rogue.

I refused to speak with my father again, even though he chased me down the hall to my bedroom, yelling outside my door until

my mother forced him to give me space and let me rest. Despite how exhausted I was, my guilt made it hard to fall asleep.

I just cuddled in bed with Bucky and cried over the cost of how saving one person’s life got another fired.

I got three hours of sleep before I woke up from a nightmare where I was pouring gasoline over Dane Madden and set him alight.

There was no going back to bed after that.

Now I’m seated at the dining table with my parents, eating lunch prepared by our private chef. I redeliver the news that I

knew would cause another eruption.

“I deactivated Death-Cast last night,” I repeat, keeping my tone even.

My father taps his ginger beer, practically willing Mezcal into it. He’s on the verge of exploding again when he turns to

my mother. “Naya, he is out of his mind, yes?”

“Do not speak of as if he is not in this room,” Ma says.

“I do not believe he is. No son of ours would do something so stupid.”

I stop myself from shouting, wanting to rise above my father. “No son of yours gets to live his life as he pleases,” I say.

Pa’s eyes narrow. “How is it possible you are forgetting about the life you have?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You skydived

in Dubai. You climbed a frozen waterfall in Canada. You braved sharks in Australia. Those are some of your many ventures,

all of your choosing, all of which we arranged on your behalf. If that is not letting you live your life, then what is?”

There’s no way I can forget any of this. I conquered my fear of heights by jumping out of that plane over the Palm Islands

in Dubai and climbing Helmcken Falls in Canada. Then I took on my childhood nightmare of being eaten by sharks by traveling

to the Neptune Islands Conservation Park in Australia to swim with great white sharks. I was able to confidently do all of

this thanks to Death-Cast, but I may never have that peace of mind again unless I reactivate my account.

“How do you not get it, Pa? All of that is not living. I was almost killed and had regrets on my deathbed.”

My mother’s brown eyes well with tears. “That may very well be the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” she says, reaching

over to squeeze my hand. “How can we help change that?”

It’s clear that my father is about ready to try to crush the glass in his hand, but he’s biting his tongue to hear me out

instead.

“I need independence to explore my life as I see fit. I’m tired of being treated like I’m a child who needs around-the-clock protection while also having to be a company man who must conquer every last expectation projected onto me as if I’m inheriting Death-Cast tomorrow.”

Pa runs a hand through his graying hair, ready to rip it out. “You could not have chosen a worse time to act on these urges,

. It’s bad enough that you are evading protection exactly one night after surviving an assassination attempt, but have

you given thought to the severe ramifications around the world should anyone find out you deactivated Death-Cast?”

“I can’t be expected to live my life by the bottom line of your company. The internet didn’t collapse when Bill Gates forbade

his children from using it and iPad sales didn’t plummet when Steve Jobs banned the device in his own home. Your empire doesn’t

live and die by me,” I say.

The hurt in my father’s eyes swallows his anger for a moment. That moment is enough to haunt me. “If it helps, I don’t plan

on speaking about this openly with the public.”

“Did you tell the mystery boy last night?” he asks.

My silence is loud.

“Reckless, absolutely reckless. What is stopping that stranger from selling this secret?”

I understand the concern after Andrea Donahue. “That’s not who he is.”

“You don’t know him!” My father’s fist slams on the table. “You seek to be treated like an adult, but you are behaving like a child. The politics at play are not a game. If this gets out, you do not get privacy. You become the face of our enemies’ campaign for why our services must be so unnecessary and harmful that the heir himself has rejected his destiny. Your choice will single-handedly secure the presidency for Carson Dunst who will work tirelessly to undo everything I have built, everything I have built so that you may never suffer from the same heartbreaks your mother and I have known.”

He gets up and begins walking away, which is probably for the best, but my father spins right back around. “Your life may

not look as you desire and now your death will not fit our desires either. The unknowing of your death is a punishment to

us and us alone and perhaps you do not care because you will not have an End Day to grieve yourself, but your death would

haunt your mother and me for the rest of our lives.” My father puts a hand on his heart. “All I want in this life is to never

meet your ghost, mi hijo.”

Then he walks away for good.

I sit here, thinking about how if this is how my father reacts to the news that I might die unexpectedly one day, he wouldn’t

be able to function if he knew that I tried killing myself. It has me thinking about what Paz said about his mother threatening

suicide if he succeeded in his. I believe that my parents would try to live for each other, but the possibility of either

of them attempting to take their own lives breaks my heart too.

“I’m being selfish,” I admit.

My mother squeezes my hand. “So is your father, but everyone has the same goal of wanting the very best for you. He isn’t ready to listen to you, but I am. I didn’t fight to bring you into this world only for you to not love your life.”

Her ability to always show me grace is why I came out to her first.

I talk about how difficult this past week has been between the tensions with Ariana, the trauma of my first herald shift,

almost being assassinated outside my home, and managing to save a life last night simply because I was in the right place

at the right time.

“I don’t approve of you sneaking out, , but you are correct that it is your right to leave the house as you wish and

that if you had asked us for permission, we would’ve said no. Do you still have it in you to recognize why we are upset? Why

we are having trust issues? You didn’t deactivate Death-Cast and go to bed. You left the house without your bodyguard, trespassed

a canyon, illegally climbed the Hollywood Sign, and hung out with an armed stranger. This doesn’t instill trust in your choices

and instead leaves me concerned about your mental well-being.”

Her parenting has always been gentle and firm. I never want to fight back, and I’m always willing to listen to her say the

hard thing.

“What do you mean about my mental well-being?” I ask, nervous.

My mother picks up on my nerves. “I’ve witnessed what vicarious trauma has done for many of our heralds and how distress has

affected you in the past. I fear you’re on the verge of a psychotic break.”

I immediately have the urge to deny that a psychotic break is on the horizon as if that undoes my pleas for freedom before remembering psychosis runs on my father’s side of the family. My grandfather had Alzheimer’s disease, which caused him to lose his grip on reality in its later stages.

“It was devastating to see him that paranoid and unpredictable,” my father had lamented.

It has affected him too, in ways he is opening up about in his memoir. All of that led to me researching everything I can,

especially the likelihood of it passing down to me. If someone was actually diagnosing me with a psychotic break, they could

argue that my fight for independence is nothing more than the result of not thinking logically, disruption of sleep, intense

feelings, impulsivity, and a distorted view of reality. I want to resist this warning so bad, but it becomes harder to deny

when I remember that psychotic breaks can be triggered by trauma and physical injuries, and that my own reality has been challenged

many times over the years because of my brain.

“Okay.” That’s all I can say.

“Do you think that’s a possibility?”

“People having psychotic breaks don’t usually recognize when they’re having one.”

“How do you feel?”

“Powerless,” I say. Also empathetic to Paz, who is struggling with his own diagnosis, which I was studying in bed before lunch today. “I quit Death-Cast to regain control of my life and now it’s as if everything I have done was also out of my control. You would think my brain has given me enough trouble, but . . .” I choke on my words.

“You’re brilliant, , but you’re not untouchable. We will always want to protect you, even when it feels overbearing.

That has to mean protecting your sanity too. Your father and I will work together to lighten the load we have placed on you.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Ma.”

“I’m still not happy about your night out, but all’s well that ends well and you saving a boy’s life and coming home alive

yourself means this ended very well.”

“The boy called me a miracle, like you do.”

My mother smiles. “I’d like to know more about this boy,” she says before digging back into her spicy rigatoni.

“He’s had a hard life, which is why he’s so strong today, but I believe he’s going to be happy. He just needs some help.”

“We all do,” she says in between bites. “What’s his name?”

I look at Paz’s name signed alongside mine on my bandage. “Paz Dario.”

She stares down like usual whenever she’s trying to remember something, as if she will find the answer written before her.

“Why do I know that name?” Then she snaps up. “That boy from the first trial.”

“Who lost his father,” I say.

“Who killed his father,” she says, concerned. “That’s whose life you saved?”

In the months leading up to the trial I overheard conversations between my parents and their lawyers. Everyone agreed Paz was an innocent who’d killed his father in self-defense, but my parents were advised to focus on Death-Cast’s successes since the first End Day’s errors. Now I’m worried about Paz’s character being judged by my mother just as strangers have his entire life.

“Yes, I saved Paz and I would do it again.”

My mother picks up on my defensiveness. “I’m sorry. Of course I’m relieved that you saved Paz’s life. I was just caught off

guard and concerned that he might not be the best company for you.”

“Paz isn’t a threat. He only killed his father because he was nine and scared. He has more self-control now.”

“Last night he was planning for self-destruction, . If you’re not careful, he’ll destroy you too.”

I don’t like this slander. “Paz could’ve exacted revenge against Death-Cast, but he didn’t.”

“If you believe you are safe from Paz, then I trust you.”

“I do. He even threw away the gun because he’s committed to living. I’m going to help him.”

“You have plans to see him again?”

“Tonight.”

She squirms. “I will not get in the way of your seeing him because it sounds as if Paz needs your touch in his life, but...”

She begins tearing up and squeezes my hand. “Guard your heart in case you cannot save this boy forever. You may be our miracle,

but you are not a miracle worker.”

My mother’s word of advice feels more like a threat. I want to believe in the Begin Days, I have to, for my sake and Paz’s, but what happens if I don’t guard my heart and Paz breaks our pact? What if psychosis is making me delusional into thinking I can save someone who may be destined to destroy himself? Why does that thought make me want to go up to the rooftop and stand on the ledge?