Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water

Damn these accursed trains! I thought angrily as the huge machine—or whatever it was—jolted forward once again. The only good news was that the train was running slightly faster than scheduled, so I’d be closer to my destination than I would have been if the train was running right on time.

Jeremy had decided to not join me on this trip. He didn’t like the confusing staircases, loud noises, pushy people and the inferior feeling he got around crowds of humans all set on their own destinations.

And speaking of destinations, I had done my research, like when I was searching for Samantha last time. I found out that none other than the devil himself lived in Los Angeles.

By devil I mean Wentz, of course.

“All the rookies leave your badge and your gun on the desk when you leave the roooooooom,” I murmured under my breath while listening to “Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes” by Fall Out Boy. I may hate the bass player—with a burning passion—but I can’t get over my liking for the band.

“Fall Out Boy?”

I whipped my head around, making my sunburn sting in protest, too see this blonde girl looking inquisitively at my iPod.

I nodded. “Yeah. You like them?”

She nodded like it was obvious. “Who doesn’t?”

“Oh, I’m sure you could find someone. Not everyone liked the Beatles.”

“Well, yeah. They’re old.”

“Talk about it.”

There was a moment of silence in which I switched to “Typical” by Mute Math.

“What’s your name?” she asked after peeking at the screen of my iPod again. I guess she didn’t know anything about Mute Math.

“Caspian Ross,” I responded, looking into her hazel eyes. “You?”

“Layne Colleen,” she said, then frowned. “It’s weird. You look just like Ryan Ross, and your last name is Ross.”

I looked back at my iPod. “What a coincidence…”

She laughed. I really didn’t see what was so funny. “Do you like Panic! at the Disco?”

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

She nodded. “I don’t really like Spencer.”

I frowned. “I like Spencer.”

“Have you met him?”

I shook my head slowly. “What, you have?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

Now I was slightly interested. “Uh, how?”

Yep. I’m subtle.

“Okay, don’t freak out or anything, okay?”

I nodded. “Trust me, I don’t freak out easily.” Haha.

She nodded, took a deep breath, then leaned in and whispered, “Keltie Colleen from the Pussycat Dolls is my older sister, and was Ryan Ross’s girlfriend.”

I frowned again as she pulled back. The eyes and nose and cheek bones all looked slightly familiar.

Then, it clicked.

“Oh…I’ve met your sister, this…Keltie.”

It was her turn to frown. “Really? When? How?”

“I work at F.Y.E. a music store. She was in there shopping, saw me, thought I was…Ryan…and slapped me across the face.”

Layne’s eyes widened. “She didn’t.”

“She did.”

“Then it must have been right after the breakup. She was really mad. Apparently Ryan had cheated on her. Again.”

The corners of my mouth turned up in dark humor. “Really?”

Layne nodded. “Last time…I don’t even want to talk about it. But this time, apparently Keltie met the girl, and she was at least five years younger than Ryan.”

“Huh,” I said.

“Yeah. And Keltie said she wasn’t even that pretty.”

“Well, then.” I almost said “my brother must have odd taste in girls”. It was really close. But I changed it at the last second and said, “Ryan’s got girl issues.”

“I guess so,” Layne agreed. Then she frowned. We seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “I think the girl was…Sabrina or something. Sophia?”

“Samantha?” I suggested, since the name was always on the tip of my tongue.

Layne repeated it. “Yeah, I think that’s it.”

I blinked in surprise.

“And her last name was very close to Ryan’s last name.”

I balked, then composed myself before asking, “It couldn’t be…Royce, could it?”

“Wow, that’s it!” Then she narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you know this…this Samantha Royce?”

I nodded. “Oh yeah.”

She looked like her frown was permanently carved into her brow. “You’re really…strange, Caspian. You’ve got Ryan Ross’s last name, you’ve met me, his ex’s sister, you’ve run into his ex, and you know who he cheated on his ex with for the second time.”

I could barely hear her. Had Samantha really had a…thing with my brother? It was absurd. Repulsive. Utterly impossible.

“Caspian? Caspian?”

I snapped back to reality. “What?”

Layne sighed. “Are you going out with someone?”

I wish. “No.”

“Well, uh, there’s this girl looking weirdly love-struck, and I could swear that she’s staring straight at you.”

Weirdish… I looked over and scoured through the crowd, looking for someone staring at me. Since Layne had said “love-struck”, that made me think of the song “Starstrukk” by 3oh!3, and I almost lost my concentration.

Then, I totally lost concentration. Samantha was right there. The train door was open, and I saw her, rooted to the spot, staring at me just like I was staring at her.

She burst into tears.

Bewildered, I stood as I saw her start to run toward the train I was on. Her unkempt hair flew back, and her reddened eyes made me want to just hug her and kiss all her sadness away. Baggy pajama bottoms flapped around her legs, and she only wore a tank top for a shirt. I tried really hard not to look at a certain place, but failed miserably. It wasn’t my fault that necklines are so pointedly low nowadays.

Then the doors started to close, and Samantha was only two thirds of the way here.

Throwing caution to the winds and ignoring the blaring siren in my head, I stepped deliberately toward the doors and pried them open, then stopped out, all thoughts of finding Fallen lost amidst the wonder of finding Samantha.

She slammed, full-force, right into me as the train started to pull out of the station, the door I had just ruined trying fruitlessly to fix itself. People all over had stopped dead, and were now staring at me like I was Hulk come to life or something.

Samantha’s body was convulsing with the force of her sobs. Her fingernails dug with the thin fabric of my shirt into my back as she clung to me like a raccoon holds onto anything shiny that catches its interest, no matter what’s coming after it. My sunburn didn't really like it.

I hugged her to me, burying my nose in the scent of her hair, and, as Edward Cullen so aptly put it, “sniffing the bouquet while resisting the wine”. Or something like that. I don’t go around memorizing Twilight like all the obsessed girls do nowadays. Her blood definitely had my mouth watering, but I had no problem resisting. The idea of biting her seemed absurd. I couldn’t picture anyone hurting this girl. She had done nothing wrong. She had been born cursed. It wasn’t her fault that she had a Guardian, that the King of “Vampires” wanted her for reasons I didn’t want to think about and that me of all people—“vampires”—was basically stalking her and trying to bring her to the King that wanted to do things I had no clue about.

And it most certainly wasn’t her fault that I kept spiraling deeper, deeper and deeper into my “crush” on her.

I had never felt more human in my life.

“Cas…” she gasped. “Caspian…”

“I’m right here,” I said soothingly, glaring at people until they decided they’d rather face the oppressive mobs of people than me, Mini-Hulk, minus all the green skin and boulder muscles. And, come to think of it, the excessively ugly face.

Samantha continued to weep profusely. I could feel the tears starting to seep through my shirt. She wasn’t clawing anymore, but was gripping just as hard as before.

“Coffee?” I asked. “Maybe Starbucks?”

“McDonald’s,” she gasped.

I bit my tongue. Literally. It hurt. Ever since watching Supersize Me, I hadn’t been to a McDonald’s. Should I—could I—break my vow for Samantha?

Yes. Yes I could. Yes I should. For, as Hercules and his Megara said, “People do crazy things…when they’re in love.”