The Alchemy of Forever

my fingers, hoping the cop will drive past. After a beat he does, and I exhale with relief.
    A hand falls on my shoulder. “Do you need something?”
    My heart in my throat, I whirl around and find myself staring at a thin-lipped construction worker. “N-No,” I stammer, and take off once more. But when I reach the side street where I had parked my car, I stop short. There are dark brown drips on the asphalt, drips that might look like oil stains to anyone else. But I know they’re blood. Kailey’s blood. And the black tire tracks are still there, like scars, on the surface of the road.
    The car is gone.
    Panic courses through my veins, but I force myself to take a deep breath. It was probably just towed , I remind myself . There was nothing in it that tied it to you, except fingerprints from a body that is now dust.
    These thoughts aren’t reassuring, and dropping all pretenses, I sprint to the crane and start climbing the ladder. My foot slips on the second rung from the top, and I let out a loud gasp as I nearly lose my grip. Clinging to the bars, I regain my footing and hoist myself onto the top of the structure.
    The wind up here is forceful, bringing with it a far-off giggle and a loud, catcalling whistle. But I hear nothing, feel nothing, because just like my car, the bag is gone.
    At that moment a gray cloud blots out the sun and it begins to rain. As the steady stream soaks through Kailey’s hair, dampening her loose curls, panic fills my body. This cannot be happening. That bag had everything in it—my old ID, my money, Cyrus’s book.
    Taryn.
    I sink to my knees. She was an addict and after six hundred years of observing human behavior, I can picture the scene too well. After seeing my body disintegrate into dust—something she would not be sure was a drug-induced hallucination—she climbed back up the crane, looking for the angel who tried to save her. Instead she found the bag, which contained car keys, money, a brand-new identity, and a strange old book.
    The horn of a boat in the harbor emits a mournful cry, a crane nearby groans to life, and the smell of rotting lettuce assaults my nostrils. What will Taryn do with the book? My mind catalogs a million possibilities. She could try to sell it to a rare-books dealer when she runs out of money and needs her next score. It could end up in police custody if she’s arrested—or dies from an overdose.
    Or worse, maybe she already tweeted a picture of it, along with a post about how someone in Jack London Square gave a teenage girl CPR, then turned to dust, giving Cyrus a roadmap to find me in 140 characters or less. No doubt Cyrus would be prowling the Internet for any mention of me, for any hint that I could still be alive. And Jared, as penance for losing me in the crowd, would go to the ends of the Earth to bring me back.
    I don’t know what it means that I am still alive right now and whether I should keep this new, healthy body or dive into the harbor to finish what I started last night. But I do know one thing: I am never, ever going back to Cyrus. And if I can help it, Cyrus will never find his book.
    I scale back down the ladder, jumping onto the pavement when I’m still four rungs from the ground. Ignoring the burning pain this ignites in my shins, I push my legs fast, making a sharp right onto Second Street and dashing toward the bar. Maybe the bartender there knows Taryn, and if I could get her last name, I could track her down.
    I am thirty feet from the saloon when the wail of police sirens pierces the air. My forehead is covered in a fine mist of sweat, my stomach clenches, and I feel the precursor to an anguished cry choke my throat. I consider making a break for it, but I’ll never be able to outrun a police car. So I stop in my tracks, panting as I watch the officer who had been following me earlier get out of his vehicle and walk toward me.
    “Excuse me, miss,” he says, “but shouldn’t you be in school?”
    Bending at the waist to catch my breath, I swallow a stream of curse words. I had forgotten how young I look in this sixteen-year-old body. The backpack isn’t helping, either.
    “N-No, sir,” I stammer. My mouth feels stuffed with cotton. “I’m on my way to work. I don’t have class at the university until tomorrow.” It’s a plausible lie—UC Berkeley isn’t far and being a college student would certainly explain the backpack.
    “Sure you do,” he says, with a withering smile. “Let me see your