Page 104 of The Love Interest

They don’t stand a chance.

Outside, everyone else is ready. Trevor’s wearing a brown leather jacket and designer jeans. Natalie’s wearing skintight black pants and an oversized pink sweater. Juliet’s wearing skinny jeans and a royal-blue coat fastened all the way up to her neck. They don’t look like rebels; they look like an average group of kids.

Juliet heads toward the car and gets in the driver’s seat. I let Natalie, Trevor, and Dyl clamber into the back, and then I climb in.

I pull on my seat belt. “It’s funny, I’m about to go into a scenario where death is highly likely, and I still have to buckle in.”

Juliet turns on the engine. “That’s a good thing. It means you’re not an idiot. Have you ever seen the stats? There are so many deaths every year that could’ve been prevented if they’d been wearing a seat belt.” She plants her foot on the accelerator and the car moves forward.

“Juliet,” I say. “Do you know that you’re incredible?”

She turns to me. The wind coming in from her open window is blowing her hair. “What?”

“I said you’re amazing. I want you to know I think that about you.”

“Thank you, Caden.”

“I think you’re amazing too, Jules,” says Trevor. “I hope you know I think that.”

“I do. Thanks, Trev.”

Silence falls over the car, becoming so thick it would take something really worth saying to break it. Juliet is staring forward, her eyes slightly narrowed, her shoulders hunched, her hands gripping the wheel at nine and three o’clock.

She looks like Dyl. They’re more alike than they realize, both super intense and confident. I’d bet most of the people at school don’t know Juliet is a science prodigy, even though she is literally the best at it in the entire school. It doesn’t matter to her that no one knows she’s so talented. She’s also incredibly brave and already saved my life once by destroying the Stalker. If I didn’t know before, now I totally know why the LIC wanted to monitor her.

I nestle into my seat and stare out the window. The forest blurs past.

After about an hour and a half, the trees start thinning, leaving gaps of foggy gray air between the smooth white trunks. Up ahead is a long stretch of flat earth. Fog fills the air, and the grass glimmers with frost.

Juliet pulls onto the side of the road and parks.

“This is where we leave you,” she says. “We can’t risk driving out in the open. Well, until you get the door open, that is.”

I step outside. I push my arms out in front of me, and feel the satisfying cracking of my vertebrae as they click back into place.

Juliet walks around the front of the car and stops in front of me. “Give me your hand, Caden. The one with the glove.”

I raise my gloved hand. She picks it up and starts fiddling with the wires. Then she presses the button above my wrist. Blue light streams from the base mechanism. With a buzzing sound, the wires start to glow neon blue.

“There,” she says with a proud grin. “It’s working perfectly.”

She passes me a pair of gray wool gloves.

I put the left one on my free hand, then hesitate. “Won’t the contact activate it?”

She shakes her head. “Nope, you need to press pretty hard in order to make it work. Like, really push into what you want to electrocute. It’ll be fine.”

Slowly, I pull the wool glove over the wires, then flex my fingers.

Juliet pats my shoulder. “Are you nervous?”

Of course.

“Yeah, I am.”

“You shouldn’t be. You’ve got this, Caden.”

She grips my shoulder one last time, and then she walks back to the car and steps inside.