Clarke gives her own raw laugh and leans against the railing backward. “I was in love with you when we were seventeen. I don’t think that’s a great target to aim for.”
“I was in love with you then, too.”
It twists Clarke into knots, like it has every time he’s said it. Thank the saints he wanted to talk, not hook up, because herhead’s clearing more with every second and she’s remembering why they decided, time and time again, not to cross that line. “We agreed not to do this.”
“I remember.” Julian’s voice is fraught, tense. “And I havetried. But don’t you feel, just a little, like the universe keeps pushing us toward each other?”
Clarke takes the easy way out. “No one made you come here tonight.”
“No, we just have friends in common who scheme to get us in the same room. We just have to see and hear about each other all the damn time at work. My parents just ask me about you every time we talk, and our teams are just scheduling literal playdates for us. You’re next to me in half the memories from my life, Clarke, how am I—” He cuts himself off and takes a hard breath. “How am I supposed to put that in front of a camera and act like losing you wasn’t one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me?”
Clarke’s chest tears open as Julian talks, everything he’s saying ringing true for her, too. He doesn’t get like this often, but it’s brutal when he does. The intensity that’s so core to who he is turns inward, sometimes, and flays Julian bloody. “I’m sorry.”
“Why areyousorry? I signed on for this stupid plan before you even knew about it just for an excuse to be around you more, and it’s becoming really painfully clear that you don’t have a say in anything that happens at Elemental, so—”
Clarke whiplashes from shattered to annoyed and shoves away from the railing. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He gets a hand around her biceps, just like when he stopped her from falling on the dance floor, and runs his thumb over herinner forearm. “Yeah? So you misspoke, earlier, when you told me that Elemental has you chipped like you’re Yves’s fucking pet?”
Sirens go off in Clarke’s head, even as she yanks free. “It’s the standard biometrics chip. Why are you so worked up about it?”
“No one uses chips, Clarke! No one, not even Val, and she’d definitely like to have that degree of control if she thought she could get away with it. We have patches, temporary adhesive ones, the same as we used in Juniors.”
Clarke is…deeply unsettled by this, but immediately starts trying to rationalize it. “A chip is more practical. And it’s probably more reliable. And—”
“And it means Yves can control you even when you’re not working,” Julian says, spitting the words like he doesn’t like the taste of them. “What else do they monitor? Your location?”
“No, of course not,” Clarke says, although she doesn’t actually know that for a fact. “Just my heart rate, so my trainer can make sure I’m doing my workouts. And my blood sugar, for the nutritionist. And my sleep patterns, I think, for the performance coach.”
Julian looks like he’s about to jump over the railing, slide down the outside of the dome, and run across the moon to Yves’s house for a violent confrontation. “And you agreed to all of that?”
“It’s in my—”
Clarke snaps her mouth shut. It’s in her contract. Also in her contract: a clause that permits her immediate termination if she discloses the terms of her contract.
“It’s in your contract,” Julian finishes, then drags a hand down his face. “Gods, Clarke.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
Julian now looks like he might throwClarkeover the railing. “You don’t actually believe that?”
Clarke does, sort of. She has to. She needs to be able to convince herself it’s okay, because otherwise the indignity makes her want to rip her skin open and pry the chip out with her fingernails. It’s all information she’d be providing to the team anyway. This is just how things work in F0.
Except Julian’s saying this isnothow things work in F0. And if Elemental’s lied to Clarke about this, what else have they lied about?
“We should get back to Thierry,” Clarke says. She knows Julian isn’t fooled, knows he can tell she’s not okay, but she also knows she can’t keep standing here dealing with this in public. With him watching.
“Clarke,” Julian tries.
“No, I—thank you, for telling me. I’m glad I know.” She is not. “But we’re here for Thierry’s birthday. Please, Julian.”
She walks away. Julian, of course, lets her, but she can see that it costs him. He’s considering breaking his own rule, stopping her when she wants to leave, taking the choice out of her hands.
He doesn’t, in the end. He follows her back to the dance floor, leaves her to her own devices. But seeing the conflict in his eyes makes Clarke wonder, for perhaps the first time, how much longer he’ll be able to hold himself back.
14
The second half of theF0 season always opens on Luna.
