Circuit City

Chapter 15

"What is going on?" I leaned forward as I directed my question at him, making the new leather beneath me squeak slightly with my movements. "And why am I suddenly your girlfriend?" a smaller voice asked in my head, making me direct my stare to the one hand of his that was resting on the steering wheel.

The pointy finger tapped the helm like a metronome to a quiet song, or perhaps more like a pendulum that counted the seconds until the red light in front of us would turn green.

"You tell me," he answered after a couple of seconds.

Involuntarily, my gaze traveled up to his profile. Only his cheekbones and eyelashes reflected the light from the streets, leaving the rest of his face to be engulfed by the darkness in the car. Even with the dim lightning, I managed to notice dark circles under his eyes. A faint movement made my eyes drop further down, to the hand that was stroking his chin.

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

Taking a deep breath, he turned to stare out of the window on the left, depriving me from seeing any expression on his face. A few more seconds passed in complete silence. Then he whipped around to face my side of the car.

"Well," he sighed and held up a finger. "First, we asked you to stay inside. In response you went on a... rampage in the city."

I felt my eyebrows go up in indignation. "Wait a minute, I did not go on a rampage-"

"And then we ordered you not to say anything to anyone-," He raised a second finger, not caring about my protests.

"But didn't say anything!" I burst out defensively.

Ehren nodded in agreement. "Instead you decided to appear on the biggest news channel of Domerion and allow every criminal in this town to find out where you work."

"I didn't-" I began to protest but after my head managed to process the meaning of his words, I shot out of my seat. "You said I appeared on what now?!"

He didn't repeat himself and continued to focus on steering the car through the crossing.

"I was on the news?" I grabbed the back of his seat for support as I leaned even more forward. The seatbelt chaffed my collarbone but I paid it no mind. "Why was I on the news? The man from before didn't even get to turn on his camera before you appeared!"

Without a word, he reached forward and pressed a few buttons on the screen that was attached to the dashboard. The screen lit up and, suddenly, I found myself staring at a blurry image of me in my scrubs and a hoodie, frowning at a bunch of microphones. I winced as I recognized the background from the ER. In the red banner below, the news station had written "Hospital has yet to release any information."

"Oh..." I covered my mouth with my hands as I read the words on the screen again and again. "It wasn't his camera that captured me," I finally got out.

"Lucky for you," he muttered while doing another turn. "It is the only thing that saves you from facing a lawsuit right now."

"But I wasn't going to say anything," I began to protest but my voice died off as realization hit me. "Is that why you were so adamant on making me run away from the reporter? So that I wouldn't be captured on camera again?"

"Obviously."

"But what difference would it make if I was captured for the second time?" I frowned and gestured at the screen in front of us. "My picture is clearly out there anyway. Albeit blurry and small-sized-"

"There's your answer," he interrupted me while nodding towards the frozen image of me in the mass of people.

I frowned deeper at him. "What answer?"