Fairy Tale: Winter's Bite

Chapter 17: Mutual Understanding (Part 1)

The morning rays of sun refracted through the prismatic tunnel walls and provided a myriad of colors that Cassie had never seen before. Shades of blue from the sky and green from the jungle were prevalent, but there were unusual shades of pink and purple there, too.

When not captivated by the magnificence of her surroundings, her thoughts were vacillating, high and low, light and dark. She was doing her best not to let the conflict show. She kept her expression neutral and hoped her eyes would not betray her.

Joe, unable to stay silent for any duration of time, gradually quickened his pace to match hers. He nudged her and smiled. She smiled back. Her attention returned to Chris's sure footsteps, now a few more paces ahead of them.

It was unlikely he would even look back.

She tried to purge the ache from her chest with a sigh, but it was as if her throat were closing over. The wisp of breath that did escape was merely a sad quiver.

"Princess, you're awfully quiet today," Joe felt the need to mention. "The whole silence is a shield bit is more of a preference at this point, don't you think?"

"Perhaps," she voiced, both airily and evasively.

"What's on your mind?"

Recapture, likelihood of premature death, and . . .

Chris's head shifted slightly to the right. He didn't offer her an eye, but was it at least an ear?

"Don't hesitate. Just say it," Joe pressed on.

"Oh, nothing really," she lied.

His mouth twisted into a dissatisfied smirk. "I'm not buying it."

Cassie had an idea. It was foolproof. She would trigger Joe's monologue mode. It would break up the monotony and keep him content for a while. "Why don't you tell me why you decided not to become a medical doctor? It seems the occupation would have suited you."

Until this point, Chris had seemed consumed by his own thoughts. But he slowed down and made their single-file line into more of a cluster.

"That's an excellent question, Joe," he said. "You wasted a lot of money when you dropped out of med school, and it wasn't your money, either."

Joe immediately went rigid, from eyes to jaw to shoulders. Normally, his anger was the stewing sort, a slow smolder, but that didn't mean he was above the emotion. He could mask even fury and rage with a poignant quip and a forced smile, but he couldn't make all signs of it recede.

Too much provocation could result in an explosion. One brother or the other. Maybe both. Everyone had a limit, a threshold that should never be crossed. And at this stage of their journey, she didn't want to cause conflict on a topic so inconsequential. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should never have asked. It's not my concern."

"Don't be sorry. It was a fair question," Joe said with the forced congeniality Cassie had anticipated. "And for the record, it was money borrowed against the equity on my mother's house—a house neither my brother nor I will ever go back to." He was looking at her, but the words were clearly pointed at Chris.

Chris stepped ahead of them again. A shrug shuddered through his broad shoulders as if the answer were inadequate but not worth the fight.

"Well," Joe started, sounding calm and reasonable, yet lacking the same level of good humor he had before. "There was a combination of factors. I didn't like spending twenty hours a day memorizing material that I no longer found interesting. And then there was Rebecca. I know I mentioned her not too long ago. Do you remember?"