Chapter Seven: A Scared Bunny Rabbit

Cole walked behind the other two, the fat dude from Speculative Science and the tall, skinny girl being considered along with him.

Ingrid was pretty, with full bangs and large jade green eyes. Ingrid’s face was expressive and every ounce of disgust she’d felt for him had been plastered across it. A lot of people had that reaction when they first met him. There was something else though. Her eyebrows drew together and her pretty green eyes looked sad when he’d sighed and pointedly ignored her veiled insult about the no fly list. She was rude. That was definitely true. But she’d looked sorry for her rudeness almost right away. That had to be some sort of a good sign. Right? Shuffling along behind her, Cole tried to get his tumbling emotions under control. He hated to admit it, but it was true. He was a little freaked out by Ingrid. A little intimidated by her. He hoped he didn’t have to keep on a brave face while she sent knife-like little insults his way again. He hadn’t even been able to maintain eye contact during her brief moment of snark at the gate. His gut was still roiling from her scrutiny and sass.

They made it through the airport without incident. Ingrid’s bags weighed on his arms. His muscles strained beneath them. He wasn’t exactly sure why he’d offered to carry her bags. It might have something to do with the way she craned her neck down to speak to him, probably without realizing it. She had to be around five foot eight, making her about half a foot taller than him. Carrying her bags was a way to remind her that he was a man. He might be a small man. He was still a man, and he had more upper body strength than she did. Fuck, did his arms hurt though.

It was in the airport parking lot that it happened. Before Cole could make sense of what had begun, a crowd had descended, closing in around them, shouting questions, hands up high with phones documenting the whole thing.

“Cole Velardi, what have you been doing since your release from prison?”

“Are you planning to go back in time and finish what you started?”

“Why are you being considered for this experiment?”

Shutting his eyes, he pulled his arms close to his sides, trying to shrink into himself. Flashes of memory coincided with the flashes of cameras around him. His court date, walking into the courthouse behind Clay. Most of the reporters focused on Clay’s face, Clay’s reactions, but the ones who couldn’t get close to him swarmed in on Cole, demanding answers, answers that Cole didn’t have. People often had this strange idea that just because a person did something they knew why they were doing it.

The heat from the crowd of bodies closed in on him, and his residual nausea from the flight gurgled in his belly once more. His feet felt fluid, like they weren’t really standing on solid earth. The cacophony of voices collided together, stinging his ears.

A hand latched onto his arm and pulled him forward. He stumbled. He opened his eyes.

It was Ingrid pulling him, all while glaring at the crowd of reporters she’d charged through. “Back off,” she snapped. “Get away from us.” She looped her arm through his and quickened her step, pulling him over to a shiny black car where Scott fumbled with a set of keys.

“Everybody go home!” Scott shouted. “Nothing to see here. Is that Mark? Take that cheap camera and get lost! Spec has a restraining order on you. You already know that. Hey, who leaked on us?”

“You know Spec is springing leaks all over the place,” a man’s laughter-tinged voice answered. “Tell your volunteer to give us an interview.”

“Cole, do you still want to kill people?”

“Have you been keeping in touch with Clayton?”

Cole kept his head down, allowing Ingrid to guide him.

She tugged at the handle of the door, but it didn’t open.

A red-headed woman holding up an iPhone jabbed Cole in the shoulder and put her mouth so close to his ear that he could feel her breath. “What do you hope to achieve with time travel? Do you really think you’re the best choice? Why are you the best choice?”

Ingrid whipped around, sending knives flying with her eyes. “Get out of his personal space,” she growled.

The woman stammered, but took a step back.

“Scott!” Ingrid shouted over her shoulder. “The door’s locked.”

Cole peaked up just enough to see that Scott was trying to hold back the growing crowd of reporters, holding up both hands and throwing around legal jargon. He jammed a button on the jumble of keys in his hand and a moment later the car beeped, its lights flashing.

Ingrid yanked open the door and gave Cole’s arm another tug. Taking a step back, she pushed him forward.

He scrambled into the car and slammed the door shut. He leaned back, taking a deep breath that caught in his throat, dragging it through his heaving lungs. He dropped the bags on the floor and put a hand to his heaving chest.

Outside the vehicle, cameras were still flashing. Two reporters, men in their late twenties, had made their way to the front of the car and were eagerly filming, speaking to each other with smiles and focused eyes.

Cole hated the sensation of eyeballs raking over him, like pitchforks of judgment.

Scott was still trying to chase the reporters off, threatening to call the police if they didn’t move so he could back his car out.

One of the women in the crowd had started in on Ingrid. Somehow she knew who Ingrid was too. “Ingrid Agard? Wow, Speculative really chose a couple of winners. Is 2017 really such an awful place to be?”

“Get a life. Don’t you have any real news to report on?”

“Are you concerned about the risks of the experiment? What will you do if it fails?”

The door opposite Cole snapped open and Ingrid climbed in.

The same woman who’d been badgering her leaned into the car, her fingers on the car’s edge. “Give us a quote. Tell us how you’re feeling about all this.”

Ingrid shoved her face directly into the red-headed woman’s, and Cole saw the red-head’s face register fear, although she didn’t back up. “Here’s a quote: Move before I slam the door on you.”

“But if you could just-”

“I’m serious.” Ingrid reached for the door.

The woman scrambled back before Ingrid could make good on that threat.

Ingrid slammed the door with such force that the entire body of the car shook.

Cole folded his hands in his lap, watching Ingrid discreetly through his hair. She wore a frown, her plump lips twisted up into a haughty pout. Her eyebrows were low and her gaze was hard. Her chest heaved under the fabric of her flower-printed pink dress.

Scott opened up the driver’s side door and hefted himself into the front seat, still yelling at the reporters as he closed the door. “Can you guys wait until the official press release? Seriously. No patience.” He looked back over his shoulder and leaned on the horn. The sharp blare caused the crowd of journalists to back off a bit, and Scott hurried to put the car in reverse.

Cole’s muscles remained taut until the car was on the highway and Logan Airport disappeared behind them.

“Sorry, guys,” Scott sighed. “Mark ain’t wrong. Spec is full of leaks. We’ve got so much cool stuff in the works and people get excited. They like to talk. Especially Ashley. If she wasn’t such a great scientist, the confidentiality issues alone would have gotten her fired by now.”

“It’s fine. We’re okay.”

Cole raised an eyebrow, noting the way Ingrid answered for both of them, but didn’t correct her. She was right after all. They were fine.

Ingrid sat up straighter, twisting in Cole’s direction. Her lips were still set in that displeased little frown. “What was with that back there?” she demanded. “You were like a scared bunny rabbit or something.”

He looked away and didn’t answer. She didn’t know him, and he didn’t need her judgment.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” she quipped snottily. “Happy to be of service.”

“Would’ve been fine without you,” Cole muttered.

“Really? Didn’t seem like it.”

Cole said nothing. He’d dealt with women like her before. Some women didn’t know what to make of a quiet guy like him. And yeah, maybe he wasn’t just quiet, but also nervous and shy in some situations. Women always wanted men to be like Clay, loud and take charge and not afraid of anything. They turned into cunts when they met a guy like Cole, short and prone to freezing up when thrown into an unexpected situation.

“Does that happen to you a lot?” Ingrid asked. “Reporters hang around trying to get quotes?”

Cole crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Hello?”

“Sometimes,” Cole answered begrudgingly. “Not a lot. Just the week I got out of prison. Then they mostly left me alone.”

“When did you get out of prison?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure,” Ingrid murmured. “Sorry.”

There was a brief silence, awkward and tense, stretching horribly in the small space of the backseat, and then Scott cleared his throat, veering the car to the right and taking an exit. “Be prepared for another round of that in a few minutes,” he warned. “The vultures have been circling Spec headquarters all day.”

Cole’s heart stabbed painfully into his rib-cage, thumping so loudly it echoed in his ears.

There was a soft poke in his left shoulder. He lifted his head to see Ingrid staring at him curiously.

He met her eyes and she gave a tight smile, as if she wasn’t exactly sure if she wanted to smile. “Stick close to me,” she whispered. “We’ll get through it and be inside the building before you know it.”

His jaw clenched. “I don’t need you. I’m fine on my own. I’m not a scared bunny rabbit.”

She frowned, something unsure in her light green eyes. “I’m trying to help,” she said tightly.

Looking straight ahead, he said, “I don’t want any help.”

And that wasn’t true, but it was what he was supposed to say.

A man shouldn’t want help. A man shouldn’t be afraid.

Even if he really was. Even if all he wanted to do was cling to her arm and let her guide him through the crowd.