Julian finally gives Clarke her leg back so he can root through the cupboard. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes for—Julian, no.” Clarke turns the gloves Julian just tossed her over in her hands. They’re made of a tough black fabric, and there are small circuitry pads on the fingertips. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t joke about glow tag.” He dangles a set of tactical goggles from his finger.
It’s a game they haven’t played since childhood. Her hand reaches for the goggles without her permission. Anticipation is already humming behind her breastbone. “We’re supposed to be getting along, not feeding our competitive sides.”
He puts his goggles on. “The cameras are gone. We can be as competitive as we want to be.”
Clarke slips her goggles on, too.Player 1: 0. Player 2: 0, says the readout in the top-left corner of her vision. “You will not get out of this unscathed.”
Joy and mischief gleam in his dark eyes. He drags his gloves into place with his teeth, the muscles of his tattooed forearm flexing. “It’s you and me. I wouldn’t expect any different.”
It’s too weighty of a thing to say. It carries too much, leaves too much open to interpretation. It stuns Clarke into a second of hesitation.
Mistake.
Julian lunges. He’s got four inches on her, and the reach to match. Clarke shrieks and tries to dart clear, reflexes firing like she’s coming off the starting line, but it’s not enough. The lights are still on, so she can’t see the twin glowing streaks he just left on her arm, but the display on her goggles updates.Player 1: 0.Player 2: 2.A ten-second countdown starts, too, noting the grace period between tags.
Julian is grinning, this big open thing that she suddenly realizes she hasn’t seen from him in years. Her heart is bursting with wants, one after another: She wants him to always be this happy. She wants to bite at the hinge of his jaw, just to see what happens. She wants it to be this simple forever, just the two of them, no solar system outside waiting to see what they do next.
Clarke yanks her gloves on. “You realize, of course, that this means war.”
Julian’s grin gets deeper. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
He reaches out to a panel next to the wall. With a single touch, all the lights in the building go out.
15
They shouldn’t run. It’s pitch-blackin here, and the room is full of stuff they could trip into or over. This should be a game of stealth, not speed.
No one told Julian that. He takes off down a path he must have planned out earlier, the cheating bastard, only his rapid footsteps to mark where he’s gone. Clarke gives chase, blind in the dark but buzzing with excitement. She’s the faster runner and catches up before they hit a corner or a wall. She judges the distance between them by how close his footsteps sound and gets a hand on his shoulder blade, four fingers leaving smears of light on his back.Player 1: 4. Player 2: 2.
Julian barks a laugh as the grace period timer starts. Clarke pivots and sprints the other direction for as long as she dares, then slows and fumbles until she feels the raised edge of a ring. She wiggles under the rope and lies on her front, hiding her glowing forearm under her belly, slowing her breathing until four streaks of light come into view, and then she attacks.
It goes like that for several minutes. They come together and break apart over and over, leaving bigger and brighter marks as they get easier to spot. They’re aggressive, but not vicious, and it’s ridiculously fun, and Clarke has missed this dearly.
She fakes right, goes left, and manages to streak some light across his ribs. Instead of breaking off for the grace period, he hooks a knee behind hers and twists, bearing them both to the floor. She lands on her butt, one of his hands behind her head to cushion the fall. He has her pinned in seconds, his knees squeezing her wrists tight against her hips.
“Are we done already?” Clarke asks, squirming, searching for the leverage to throw him off. She hasn’t been trying to keep track of time, but that didn’t feel like fifteen minutes.
“Just taking a breather,” Julian says, and lightning tickles her spine at how close his voice is. She can only see the parts of him that are glowing, but she canfeelhow they’re positioned: his palms flat on either side of her head, his torso suspended over hers.
Clarke was already warm from exertion, and the awareness of his body feeds oxygen to that fire. Her heart hammers, so loud she’s sure he can hear it. “You should talk to my trainer, if you’re already out of breath. Get a better conditioning plan.”
His weight shifts, one of his hands dropping down her side to get to her left forearm, still trapped against her hip. “That the same trainer who’s monitoring your heart rate right now?”
The heat takes another turn, this time toward anger. “Is that why you set this up? You want to talk about the chip again?”
“We didn’t talk about it at all the first time. You shut me down.”
Clarke plants her heels and bucks her hips hard to the left. “Because it’s none of your business.”
Julian lets her shift him, takes a seat on the floor alongside her. “If a pilot’s being mistreated by their team, it’s—”
“Oh, fuck off,” Clarke snaps, sitting up. She’s well and truly mad now. Mad at him for bringing the chip up again whenClarke’s been trying not to think about it, for ruining what had been a surprisingly enjoyable outing, for approaching it so loftily. “I read the relevant section of the F0 Pilot Welfare handbook. The chip isn’t against any rules. And I agreed to it, so—”
“Did you know you had another choice when you agreed?”
