BODYS ; M. MUNROE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

★彡

AT FIRST, the two walked in complete silence, the squeaking of mice and the general noise of tunnel being their only comfort; but eventually Cassandra caved, and stopped walking, grabbing Mike's attention instantly.

"What was that back there?" She quickly asked, the dampened flames of the unheard argument between Mike and Emily had played in her mind on a loop.

Mike carried on walking, forcing a shrug. "What was what?"

The girl waited a few steps before she followed him, reached out, and pulled his arm to get him to face her. "You know what. The thing with Emily, she wanted to talk — argue — about something. And I'm not dumb Mike, it was about me."

At first, Mike looked ahead of the two, down the stretch of corridor was a set of menacing double doors which no doubt led to where they needed to go. Slowly, Mike turned to look at her, he stared at her eyes, then her nose, then the spray of freckles over her nose and cheeks, then finally her lips. He sighed, and blinked three times. "You seriously want to talk about this now?"

Cassandra pursed her lips into a thin line. "Yes actually... I agree with Emily, I think we should talk about something else to take our minds off of our current situation."

Mike scoffed and continued to walk. Despite scowling at him, Cassandra followed. "Are you just going to ignore me? You wanted to tell me something earlier too—"

"D'you remember Jessica's sixteenth? She had that big party, you got drunk for the first time because Will couldn't make it?" Mike suddenly said, he didn't look at her as he spoke, instead focusing on the doors that they were getting closer and closer to.

Cassandra furrowed her brows, quickening her steps to keep up. "Kind of. I remember being hammered." The two stopped at the double doors, Mike grabbed onto the handle and pushed it open, the act emitting a loud screech. Once they were through, he put a loose plank of wood between the handles, slamming the lock down at the bottom of the door for good measure. 

Mike then snickered, remembering the night quite well. "Do you at least remember when we had to play seven minutes in heaven?" He looked down at her, slowing his pace as they continued to walk.

Cassandra felt her cheeks heat up. "I'm not sure, I remember the bottle landing on you... And then Beth gave me a shot of something for my nerves and then..." She blew out a breath, unsure.

"Yeah, you were a lot drunker than me, than anyone, really." Mike snickered again, shaking his head, he then squinted as the tunnel suddenly grew a lot darker. "Basically, we went into the closet and we just started talking — you mainly, I was just happy to listen. Eventually you started rambling on about chess, of all things, you went on and on about all the pieces and the moves and famous chess players and then..." He cut himself off.

The whole time he spoke Cassandra had been staring up at him, his face was less visible now, but she could still see the curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose. "And then?"

Nervously, he blew out a sharp breath. "And then I fell in love with you."

Cassandra's eyes widened, and she coughed as she sucked in a gasp. "What?"

"Don't make me say it again." He eventually said, forcing out a chuckle, he had yet to look at her.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Cassandra's brows remained furrowed, she was no longer cold as her body had been set ablaze by his confession.

Mike shrugged, shaking his head. "I was sixteen and in love. My parents were high school sweethearts and they hate each other. I was scared that'd happen if I said anything." Finally, he looked down at her, despite her face being in near darkness, he could still map out her features.

"And Emily earlier?"

"She knew," He said bluntly. "I don't know when she figured it out, some time around the twins' disappearance, she 'put it together' as she liked to say. I'm not sure how many of the group know."

Cassandra forced herself to look ahead of them, she noticed the tunnel was getting narrower, the guessed the sanatorium must be close. She sighed through her nose, hugging herself despite being warm. "I... I'm not sure what to say, I didn't realise, I'm sorry."

Scoffing, Mike shook his head with amusement. "You're too kind for your own good Cassandra," He paused and looked away from her. "you don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know."

~

BACK IN the main hall of the sanatorium, Cassandra stood in the middle of the room as she watched Mike retrace his steps from when he'd followed her here. She'd yet to say anything else to Mike about his confession.

"Mike, I-"

"Cassandra, it's fine, we don't have to talk about it anymore." His tone would've come off as dismissive but the slight waver in his voice told her he was still nervous about it, shy.

The girl looked down to her boots and nodded, perhaps she'd made a mistake, urging him to come clean about what was burdening him. She hadn't thought about what she thought of Mike yet, she liked him, of course, he was sweet, funny, confident and spoke his mind; she always found him attractive too, but that wasn't unique, so did everyone else. It had never occurred to her to have feelings for him, he seemed too out of reach, always with another girl on his hip, though now hearing his reasoning for that made her blush.

The shuffling of rubble made Cassandra turn her head and her eyes widened seeing Mike on the second floor, she watched him silently as he dropped down through a hole, landing in a gated room.

"What did you find?" She stepped towards him, hands in the pockets of her jacket.

"This bad boy and a bunch a' bullets." He opened the gate triumphantly, showing a sawed-off shotgun to Cassandra, before slipping it into the waistband of his jeans. "I think you'll be needin' this, Miss Sharpshooter." He pulled out the revolver and a carton of bullets, offering them to her, he was smiling now, and Cassandra realised how much she'd missed that so quickly.

She nodded sheepishly up at him, swiping the gun bullets from his hands, her fingers running along his palms as she did so. "Machete and a revolver," She mused. "wendigo won't know what hit it." Cassandra felt her cheeks redden, realising she was smiling too.

it's been so long i'm sorry😭
this WILL be finished though