Impossibility of Tomorrow Read Online Free PDF Page A

me. “That would be really great,” he murmurs into my hair.
    A flock of birds lands on the concrete, then takes off, one by one, dipping and swooping in the air, aloft on invisible streams. And free, like I could be if I succeed.
    “Not right after school, though.” I make my voice confident, breezy. “I have a few things to take care of first.” I need it to be dark when we set out on the path. I don’t want any witnesses to what I intend to do.
    I pull away and smile at him. “That’s allowed, right?”
    “I suppose so,” he says, cupping my cheek with his warm hand. Behind us, Eli’s band launches into another song, a traditional ballad that reminds me of something my mother used to sing, a mournful tale of love and loss.
    I turn away from Cyrus and set my lips grimly, watching Eli’s fingers dance over his violin strings. Cyrus agreed readily—perhaps too readily—to my plan. Perhaps he has no intention of taking me back to San Francisco, and I have just set the scene for my own murder.
    I can’t think like that. I’ve been losing to Cyrus for centuries, but this has to be the one game I win.
    You’re a killer, Sera. That’s what Cyrus always says. Now act like it.

SIX
    I can’t stop staring at the girl’s hair. She sits with her back to me, headphone wires trailing from her ears, plugged into a sleek laptop. She has no idea I’m here, hunched low in the library’s poetry section, but I’ve been watching her for close to an hour, the minutes ticking by far too quickly. When I leave here, I will meet Cyrus, and I am scared. No— terrified .
    The girl’s hair is wavy, rippling down the back of her faded green sweatshirt, and veers between auburn and scarlet and brilliant persimmon, depending on the angle of her head beneath the fluorescent lights.
    From behind, she looks exactly like Charlotte, my best friend for two hundred years. But then she twists and bends to her side, pushing down her knee sock to scratch at a mosquito bite on her pale ankle. Her profile is nothing like Charlotte’s—her nose is strong, rather than pert, and she’s missing Charlotte’s light smattering of freckles.
    The illusion broken, I glance at the clock that rests on a sagging shelf of reference books—4:25 P.M .
    Reluctantly, I leave the safety of the library and make my way outside. The wind shows no signs of stopping. It lifts my hair, whipping it harshly around my face. The gusts are warm and dry, but the weather reminds me of le mistral , a freezing wind that rages across the south of France. In 1349, right after he made me into an Incarnate, Cyrus and I fled to Les Baux-de-Provence. Le mistral was in full force, ripping tiles from the roofs of houses. Local legend said it brought ill spirits and bad tempers, but I loved it. I loved the way it threw my long, dark hair above me like a banner. The way it blew away memories of my childhood in foggy London, of my mother and father. Losing them was too painful to think about, but the wind scrubbed me clean.
    Oh, California wind, please do the same.
    I reach our meeting place, the gnarled oak tree now backlit in the rapidly setting sun. Cyrus sits with his back against the trunk, his knees pulled up to his chest, poringover a thick text. My heart is pounding, but I force my face to remain impassive, to pretend that this is a normal afternoon. To pretend that this isn’t the afternoon when either Cyrus or I—or both of us—will die.
    “Hi there,” I say, a sweet smile on my face.
    He looks up, surprised, acting as though he wasn’t aware that I was standing in front of him. His expression is a lie, just like mine.
    “Are you ready?” he asks, his eyes steady and flecked with gold in the dying sunlight. Static electricity bridges the air between us.
    “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say.
    He stands, swinging his backpack over one shoulder. I am struck by how tall he is, how hard he will be to overpower.
    We walk toward the parking lot, arms brushing. I wish