New York Alano
New York July 24, 2020 Alano
12:56 a.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)
Death-Cast is calling any minute now to tell me I’m about to die.
I’ve been fading in and out of consciousness, always waking up to a burning pain that makes me wish I was still asleep. The
doorman, Mr. Foley, called 911 the moment Agent Dane barged outside to help me; I would be dead already if it weren’t for
the police’s swift arrival to detain my assailant so Agent Dane could apply pressure to my wound until the ambulance came,
but I have no doubts that I’ll be dead soon enough.
My parents arrive to the emergency room before I can die, both of them grabbing at my hands and hair and face, letting me
know that they are here.
“I love you, Alano,” my mother says through tears.
“It’s okay, mi hijo, it’s okay,” my father says.
He’s giving me permission to die, to find out what happens after this life. This is for the best. I won’t be able to ruin any more friendships. I’ll be free of all my pain and the things I can’t forget. Dying is also tragic. I’ve gone skydiving and mountain climbing and paragliding and deep-sea diving, but that’s not living. Not really. I would trade all my adventures around the world for a loving relationship where someone becomes my world and every day with them is an adventure. But I will never live that life. Still, I thought the Death-Cast heir would at least get a proper End Day.
Thankfully I already left my parents a time capsule.
Last year on September 2, my family attended the opening day of Present-Time Gift Shop, a one-stop shop for Deckers who want
to leave behind something special for loved ones but can’t afford to spend their precious time shopping at different stores
or waiting in line at the post office to send a gift across the country. The shopkeepers can engrave any of their timepieces
and even upload recordings into some of their objects.
The first shop opened in Chicago, built across the street from Millennium Park, a high-traffic area where the rent was only
affordable because of our investment. The founder, Leopold Miller, was a recipient of our End Day Enhancement grant, created
to support new business ideas that would improve a Decker’s End Day. We toured the shop while being followed by camera crews
from ABC, CBS, CNN, and WTTW. The WTTW cameraman was so close to my face that my mother linked her arm through mine and pulled
me away, like she has my entire life when my personal space isn’t respected. That was right when Leopold Miller was telling
my father about the time capsules.
“Present-Time isn’t only for the dying,” Leopold Miller had said, speaking up for the cameras as encouraged by my father, since Leopold in reality was an older man of few words who was posing as a salesman for a good cause. “While I encourage Deckers to make Present-Time one of their first stops on their End Day, our doors are open to anyone who would like to prepare time capsules for their loved ones in advance.”
“Present-Time will save you time on your own End Day,” my father had said, pointing at the camera for all the viewers at home.
I took Leopold’s advice when a Present-Time Gift Shop opened in New York on December 1, the day before I went back to school.
There had been a pretty aggressive campaign throughout the holiday season with subway ads and billboards saying DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. GIVE THE GIFT OF TIME TODAY! and MAKE YOUR GOODBYES LAST FOREVER . I’d been holiday shopping with Rio for his little brother, but buying a time capsule was something I needed to do privately,
so I went my own way.
I’d arrived at Present-Time after seven, and it was the busiest I’d ever seen any of these shops, which meant there were eight
customers and two employees struggling to tend to everyone. The cashier either didn’t know me or was too stressed to recognize
me, so I was able to discreetly buy my time capsule with cash and raced home to prepare it.
My time capsule will unlock later tonight when I die, containing a parting message for my parents about how grateful I am for the life they’ve given me (something I’m rethinking here on my deathbed), instructions to let Bucky smell my corpse so he understands that I’ve died instead of thinking I abandoned him, and my confession for something I’ve sworn to myself I would take to the grave.
I hate that I’m not getting the chance to hug Bucky or scratch him between his ears one last time, but I also can’t face my
parents when they discover that I’m far from the perfect son they believe I am.
“What’s his condition?” Ma asks a nurse. “He’s so pale,” she adds while sobbing.
“He lost a lot of blood, but all major arteries in his abdomen are intact,” Nurse Yasi says.
“Where’s Dr. Garcia?” Pa asks.
“I don’t believe Dr. Garcia is on the schedule this evening.”
“She was not until I personally called the hospital and requested your most senior surgeon. Find out where she is and arrange
for my son to be moved to a private room,” Pa says, turning his back on her. “It is outrageous he is still exposed like this.”
“Please,” Ma says to Nurse Yasi, who leaves immediately.
“Sir,” I hear Agent Dane say.
“You,” Pa says. One word breathed, and I already know this won’t be the gratitude Agent Dane deserves. “Under no circumstances
should my son ever be in a hospital under your care. He could have been killed.”
“I apologize, Mr. Rosa. I inspected the assailant’s person, but not his phone.”
“That mistake almost got Alano killed.”
“I understand. I’ll never let it happen again.”
“If it were up to me, you’d be fired, but Naya, for some reason I do not understand, wishes to give you another chance.”
“Because you saved Alano’s life,” Ma says.
“I apologize for not trusting my instincts, Mrs. Rosa. I will not fail you or Mr. Rosa or Mr. Alano ever again.”
My father grunts. “Should someone so much as cough on my son you will be fired. Now go keep watch outside the ER.”
“Yes, sir.”
I need to take the blame, since Agent Dane was only honoring my requests, or even pin some on my father for not letting guests
up to the penthouse in the first place, but anytime I try speaking, my words get buried under my groaning.
“Relax, mi hijo, you will survive this,” my father says. He leans in and whispers, “Today is not your End Day, Alano. This
I know, already. This I know.”
2:37 a.m.
Tonight my father broke code for me.
After learning that a Death Guarder tried assassinating me minutes before midnight, Pa ran straight to the Death-Cast call center, where Roah Wetherholt has taken over as head herald on duty after Andrea Donahue’s termination. Pa demanded to see the full roster of Deckers. This privilege has never been awarded to anyone, not even the president of the United States. Not until tonight, when my father scanned the list to make sure my name wasn’t on it.
I’m special, apparently.
“You are to be protected at all costs,” my father says after Dr. Garcia finishes stitching my wounds and returns home for
the night.
We’re in the comfort of a private suite, a bigger upgrade than we actually needed, but the medical field remains grateful
for the advancements in their practices and preservations of resources that Death-Cast has allowed.
“Speaking of—Naya, any word from our team on reaching Carson Dunst?”
“No, Joaquin. We shouldn’t expect anything tonight. Let’s be present,” Ma says, sitting on my bed with me and holding my hand.
“Why won’t he take our calls? I just want to talk to him,” Pa says. The murderous look in his eyes says otherwise.
“You need to calm down. Alano is okay.”
“He sent an assassin after our son!” It’s rare for my father to raise his voice at my mother. “How would he like it if I do
the same with his daughter?”
More shocking than the thought of that threat is the fact that my father says it out loud. I’ve been raised to operate as if every room I’m in has been bugged because of my family’s secrets. Secrets my father plans to tell me when I’m older. We’ve already been burned before, sadly, but despite all of that, my father is threatening to exact revenge on Bonnie Dunst, the daughter of the presidential candidate whose campaign has been built on undoing Death-Cast.
My mother catches onto my father’s mistake too. “You don’t mean that, Joaquin,” Ma says out loud, but really speaks her true
warning through her eyes. “You’re just angry, as any parent would rightfully be.”
“Of course I do not mean that, Naya,” he replies, his clenched fists betraying him. “It is not as if we would have ever given
them the martyr they are so desperate for.”
I read between the lines. An eye for an eye, a child for a child.
“Don’t worry, Pa. I’m still alive,” I groggily say. I’ve been better mentally, but physically I’m okay because of Dr. Garcia’s
medical attention. Ever since learning I would be surviving and that my assailant missed all my major arteries, I’ve been
more concerned about losing control over my upper limbs, but my brachial artery went unharmed, so all that’s changing will
be the new scar.
“Besides, if they had killed me, all they would’ve done was make me a martyr for Death-Cast.”
“They would’ve done more than that,” my father says quietly.
He never says what would happen, he couldn’t, not even among family. But his murderous gaze says everything and lives in his
eyes for the rest of the night, long past the Death-Cast call that we weren’t supposed to know was never going to come.
4:25 a.m.
The doctor advised that we spend the night in the hospital, but my father trusts no one. All it takes is one worker or patient to expose our location and another assassin may arrive to finish the job. We know they will fail tonight, but there’s only so much damage my body can survive.
Once I’m discharged, the full force of Shield-Cast is at my service, forming a barrier around me and my family as we go through
the hospital and out into the cold night, where our car is waiting. My father is still so furious at Agent Dane that he allows
only Agent Andrade to ride with us. It’s outrageous, but I need my father’s temper lowered before fighting that fight.
My mother withdraws my phone from her purse. “You have missed calls.”
I scroll through the missed calls and I call the person responsible for each and every one.
“Alano?” Rio answers, like he’s scared someone is calling to give him bad news.
“It’s me,” I say groggily.
“I thought you were dead. No one was telling me anything. I tried calling your parents and Dane—”
His voice sounds extra loud with my migraine. “Security is tight,” I interrupt.
“Are you okay? Did Death-Cast call?”
“No. I’m going to live.”
Rio exhales. “I need to see you. What hospital are you at?”
“We’ve just left the hospital. Going home now.”
“No you’re not,” Pa interrupts, setting down his own phone.
Surely the drugs I’m on have me misunderstanding everything, but even Rio overhears my father and he’s confused too. “What
do you mean?” I ask.
“You don’t survive an assassination attempt at home and then return there.”
I want to argue that we have a highly secure panic room, but that only matters should we find ourselves running into any issues
while inside the penthouse. I was attacked outside the building. “Then where are we going?”
“Elsewhere,” Pa says, not saying more while I’m on the phone, as if Rio can’t be trusted, when he’s the only one who has called
to check in on me.
Ariana not calling feels more devastating than if Death-Cast had.
“How long are you going to be gone?” Rio asks.
“I don’t know.” There’s no point asking when I won’t get any answers.
Once again, I’m not in control of my own life.
Not even when it comes to the one friend I need now more than ever.