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couldn’t stop. Not yet.
    The firefly pulsed inside her closed fist.
    There was still one more thing she had to do.

Lucas watched as the girl disappeared into the crowd, her shock of tangled blond hair obscured by the smoke.
    For a second, he was torn. He had an instinctive desire to follow her. She had the craziest eyes he’d ever seen.… Gray, but tinged almost with purple, like the bay reflecting the sunset.
    And that streak of blood across her forehead—it looked like she’d been hurt pretty bad. Poor girl. The woman in the car … he hoped it wasn’t her mom. Christ. She was probably in shock, running blind.
    But she was already gone, lost in the throng of people that was swelling by the minute. Two police cars with flashing lights screeched to a stop at the intersection. Several people, Luc noticed, were filming the action on their phones. Sick.
    Maybe he should have tried harder to stop the girl. She might have a serious head injury. She might need help.
    Luc glanced back at the wreck again, really
seeing
it this time. The car still hissed like an angry snake and a figure was slumped over the steering wheel. Luc’s stomach lurched. He took several deep breaths, then moved out of the way as a pair of EMTs came running past him. He wanted to walk away, but for some reason he was rooted to the spot, both terrified and transfixed.
    Cop cars, sirens, accidents—they always did that to him.
    In under a minute, more emergency vehicles converged, their red revolving lights casting a dim, blood-colored glow over everything. A hush fell over the crowd and Luc watched a paramedic wheel a gurney away from the car. The figure on it was covered with a white sheet.
    The lights, the people in white jackets all brought back sickening memories. His chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. When he was six, he’d found his mom passed out in the kitchen and had to call 911. And just last week, it was Jasmine who’d been loaded in the back of an ambulance. She’d taken Ecstasy at a party and passed out. Thankfully, one of her friends had at least called 911. Luc didn’t even remember getting the phone call, or making the drive to the hospital, half blind with fear. It wasn’t until he’d reached the parking lot that he realized he’d left the house without any shoes.
    Jasmine had recovered. Thank God. But Luc was still furious with her—for doing drugs, for going off her antidepressants without telling anyone.
    Again.
    Luc turned away from the accident. Blood pounded in his ears, making everything sound distorted. He worked his way out of the mass of people crowded around the wrecked car and the ambulances. The air drifting off the bay felt cool against his skin. He drove his hands deeper into the pockets of his army jacket to keep them warm.
    The street was crowded with cars, backed up by the accident, and the blast of horns punctuated the evening.
    Luc sent a quick text to his girlfriend, letting her know he was running late. Karen hated it when he was late. And she was still pissed at him for missing dinner with her parents last week. He was going to have to be extra nice tonight.
    He walked toward Market and caught a bus going south, toward the Mission, and descended when it stopped at Twenty-Second Street. Bright lights illuminated window displays full of bold-colored clothing and artwork. People were crammed together at the tiny tables outside various cafes, laughing and clinking glasses. The lit windows of the high-rises in the distance looked like rows and rows of teeth, grinning down at him.
    Like he was being watched.
    He lowered his head and hurried toward Trinity Café. He saw her before she saw him. She sat at an outside table. Her tanned legs were crossed, and he noticed a delicate gold-and-diamond anklet encircling one of her thin ankles. A gift from her dad, probably. She had recently cut and highlighted her hair, and for one second, in the half dark, he almost didn’t recognize her.
    If not for