There’s one more race this year, and first place is worth 25 points.Anythingcould happen.
The podium ceremony is raucous. It’s Barlowe’s first win of the season and their pilot’s first win ever; there’s a veritable sea of people in vivid orange clamoring to celebrate. Enclave and Chronicle show up in force, too, jubilant over having closed the gaps to their respective competitors. Clarke screams for Thierry and Julian until her voice gives out, then screams some more.
Her vocal cords still haven’t recovered hours later, when she’s waiting outside the Chronicle garage for Julian. She’s sitting on a storage crate that’s awaiting pickup, looking out at the bright lights of the city, and her voice comes out raspy when she sees who’s approaching. “No.”
“Figures I’d find you here instead of with your actual team,” Anders says, emerging from between garages. “I’m only here to apologize.”
“There is no planet in this solar system or the next on which I am interested in your apology,” Clarke says, wishing she had the volume to yell. He turned himself in a few hours after the gala, and negotiated the reduction of his punishment for defrauding Elemental’s shareholders down to a fine by telling the authoritieseverythingabout Yves. Clarke’d say she’s curious to see what the partnership between the two men will look like next season, but she’s really just…not. She’s given them more than enough of her time and energy.
Anders sighs.Sighs, like Clarke’s being difficult. “Madeline. You don’t need to make this more unpleasant than it already is.”
Oh, he hasn’tseenunpleasant. Clarke slides off the crate.“Anders, you and I haven’t been honest with each other a day in our lives, so let’s start now. You’re a shitty father, a bad person, and—and I’m saving this for last, because I know it’s the only one you actually care about—a second-rate pilot.”
Anders comes toward her, anger on his face. “You don’t understand what—”
Clarke’s too busy planning to use the quick jab to the throat Julian’s been making her practice ever since he saw footage of Yves attacking Clarke at the gala (A knee to the balls is great, Mads, but let’s try to avoid getting taken to the floor if we can) to hear someone coming up behind her, but the presence that makes itself known at her side is familiar.
“Anders!” Julian says, fake-cheerful. “Miserable to see you, as usual. Are you here to congratulate me on P2? Because I can’t think of a single other reason you’d come around.”
Anders grinds his teeth. “This is between me and my—”
“There’s nothing between us,” Clarke interrupts. She’s glad Julian’s here, but doesn’t need him to speak for her. “And you’re nothing to me.”
“We’re going to be in each other’s lives. It’s Formula Zero,” Anders tries. “We don’t need to be enemies.”
Julian’s torso tenses up as he holds in a laugh, knowing what Clarke’s going to say. It won’t mean to Anders what it means to the two of them, but that’s okay. It’s not about Anders.
She looks her biological father up and down. They could, in another life, have been a team. They could have made Elemental a force to be reckoned with. They could’ve been champions together.
Clarke wouldn’t trade that life for this one in a million years.
She smirks. “Elemental’s not good enough for us to be enemies. And you might be in my life now, but you’ll slink back intoobscurity once the embarrassment of losing to me in every single race next season sets in. Goodbye, Anders.”
She puts him behind her and walks away down the pit lane. Julian, of course, goes with her, still tight with suppressed laughter—
—ornotlaughter, as he takes the first available opportunity to pull her into a slightly concealed spot behind Martian Motors and crowds her against the wall.
“Julian! What are you—”
“My prep room or yours?” he asks, voice sounding nearly as rough as hers.
Clarke laughs when she realizes what he means. “Really,thatdid it for you? Watching me tell Anders off?”
“Look, I’m surprised, too, butmy prep room or yours, Clarke—”
The paddock hums around them as Clarke takes Julian by the hand and leads him back to Chronicle’s garage, still laughing. Anticipation is palpable in the air. This race might be over, but there’s another one in seven days that will decide the individual and team champions, and set the stage for the following season all throughout the order.
Vegas has been a spectacle in more ways than one, but it all comes down to Monaco.
49
“Gap to Thierry ahead isthree-point-oh,” Hodge says. “Pace is good. Need anything?”
There’s a section of this track that plays leapfrog with the piers in the port, soaring up over one row of extravagant boats only to swoop down and skim the water before hopping into the sky again. Clarke bounces her way clear. “What’s happening behind?”
“Gap behind is one-point-eight. It’s Raff, but he won’t be there long. Julian’s behind him, and Delphine.”
It’s the last three laps of the Monaco Grand Prix. The last three laps of the season. Three laps to decide everything. If Clarke and Thierry keep this up, they—
