The First to Die at the End

The chapter begins by noting that Death-Cast should have called William Wilde. William, a photographer, and his girlfriend, Christi, went to photograph the Death-Cast party in Times Square. He planned to propose. However, he was shot and killed.

By 3:03 a.m., Joaquin is nervous that the company is going to fail before it can even get off the ground. He needs to leave to figure out how it’s possible they missed calling a Decker. His son asks how long he’ll be gone, but Joaquin reminds him that it’s a secret.

Joaquin tells his wife that she may not hear from him for a while, and then he goes to a “vault where no one can follow” (179).

Leaving the hospital, Valentino is afraid of how he might die. Orion tells him to “[l]ook alive” (181). Valentino responds that that’s a “pretty heartless” response, joking about Orion’s condition. Valentino asks when his heart problems began.

Orion recounts that his mom was in and out of the hospital all of the time when he was a kid, not realizing that he might inherit her disease. His first heart attack was shortly after his 16th birthday.

As they walk, they hear yelling and spot a group of people wearing skull masks as they hit car windows with baseball bats.