Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water

“Oh,” she said. “I thought you’d have locked it.” She shrugged.

I held out the towel I had chosen to her, and she put it around her neck while saying, “Fallen, you look like a friggin ghost. What’s up with—”

I grabbed her wrist and clamped one end of the handcuffs to it.

“Hey!” Fallen protested, lunging forward.

I put my free hand to his chest. "Cool it. I’m not gonna hurt her.”

Samantha sighed, resigned, and turned so that I could clamp the other end to her free wrist.

I had…other ideas. I secured the other end around my own wrist, ensuring that she would not escape. Jeremy would be all over the place, and I didn’t know if I could trust Fallen or if Samantha could persuade him to comply with her wishes. I was the only option left.

“If anyone asks,” I said, stowing the key in a zippered pocket on my shorts, “this is a dare, ’kay?”

Samantha rolled her eyes and nodded. “But really, is this necessary.”

I nodded.

“Then why doesn’t he get tethered to someone?”

“’Cause he knows better than to leave us, and I trust him not to do so.”

Fallen gave a half-hearted smile, hands back in his pockets.

Samantha frowned. “What? Fallen, have they brainwashed you or something?
What’s up?”

He closed his eyes and kept them that way. “I can’t tell you, Sam.”

“WHAT?! Why not?! I haven’t done anything—”

“Exactly!” I interrupted. “No one knows if they can trust you yet. You haven’t done anything.”

She blinked at me.

What? I thought that was pretty smart for a guy like me.

“Fallen, I’m Sam! I’m your cousin! You can tell me!”

“It’s sort of a package deal,” I said for Fallen. “He can’t tell you unless Jeremy and I agree. And I wouldn’t tell you if Fallen or Jeremy didn’t agree.”

“Agree to what?! Some stupid…porn club? Just tell me! How bad could it be?”

“Horrible.”

End of conversation.

The train ride was hideously uneventful. Except for the part where Jeremy—being more blind than a bat—started walking down the escalator. The wrong escalator. He went positively nowhere for two minutes straight while the rest of our group stared before asking, “Hey, Cas? How much farther?”

Sam, Fallen and I all laughed at him. Fallen chuckled in a depressed manner, Sam tried to hide her giggles behind her hand and I had to prop myself up against the wall to stay upright.

Jeremy didn’t understand what was so funny. He was tired, couldn’t see where he was going, had never been down a staircase this long and ever since he had stopped walking he felt like he was floating back up the way he had come.

He fell into a hot girl promptly after reaching the top of the escalator.

And that was it for the interesting stuff. My iPod ran out of battery when we were about halfway there. Fallen stared out the window the whole time, Jeremy hummed tunelessly to himself—he scared one old lady half to death—and Sam and I kept receiving funny looks. I guess handcuffs draw a lot of attention on trains and their stations.

All the bags drew attention, too. Sam held one, Fallen held two, Jeremy held two and I lugged a cooler of food and drinks along with me.

I really needed to get myself a license. Cars have to be quieter then these damned trains.

When we finally arrived at our last station, I got to find out if I was right. Fallen, without even checking with anyone, waved down a taxi. The driver dude loaded our stuff into the back, and asked us where we were headed while doing so. The other three all looked at me (Jeremy looked a bit too far to the left) and I said, “To the nearest beach.”

The guy nodded and told us to get in. Fallen took the front while Sam, Jeremy and I had to cram ourselves into the crappy backseat. Stuffing puffed out like confetti when
Jeremy fell into the seat. The sound it made was like a very old grandpa farting.

I was petrified. This would be my first time in a car. What if the roof collapsed? What if the seat fell apart and we landed butt-first on the road? Then got squished? What if we got into an accident and went flying out the windshield (I think that’s what it’s called)? What if we all died?

“Cas?”

I peeled my eyes away from the yellow and black checkered death trap to see
Samantha looking up at me.

Why was she calling me Cas when I only called her “Samantha”, “Samantha Royce” and “Miss Royce”?

“That is your name, right? I heard Jeremy say it when he was on the escalator.” She smiled at the memory. Jeremy was such a dumbass at times…

I couldn’t smile back. I was about to ride in a car. For the first time.

Incase you haven’t noticed, this doesn’t give me a good feeling.

“It’s Caspian,” I squealed, then cleared my throat. “I-I mean…I’m Caspian.”

There we go. Much more normal.

She nodded. “You’ve never been in a car, have you?”

I shook my head, looking back at the taxi.

Yellow is an evil color.

“Well, can I call you Cas?”

I nodded numbly. Those black wheels could crush me. They could fall off and we would be pulverized by oncoming cars.

Fallen was looking at me weird. The taxi driver was shutting the trunk. The sound it made when if slammed shut sounded ominous to me.

“Caspian, listen to me.”

I glanced at her. “I’m listening.”

“Cars are perfectly safe. And even if we do get into an accident, the seatbelts—see them; they’re right on the sides—they’ll keep us safe. Airbags will puff out so that we won’t hurt ourselves.”

I took a deep breath. “What if the seatbelts snap? What if the airbags pop?”

“They won’t. They’re designed not to.”

“What if—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“Enough of your ‘what if’s’. Get in the car.” She pointed at the open back door. “If you don’t go in first, I can’t go in, thanks to these stupid handcuffs.” She softened the words
with a light smile.

I took a deep breath and stepped half a foot closer to the taxi.

She rolled her eyes and tugged on the chain that held us together, pulling me closer to the car—and her.

“It won’t bite. Get in.”

I wasn’t so sure that I wouldn’t bite. I was closer to her than I had ever been before, and she smelled…appealing.

Aw, who am I kidding! She smelled delicious! Scrumptious! Tantalizing beyond all reason!

Curse my great to the millionth degree grandparents for being cannibals.

I put one foot into the car and tested the floor a little for a possible weak spot.

“Oh my gosh…” I heard Samantha mutter.

Then, she pushed me, and I went flying into the farting grandpa seat, my face landing in a pile of not-stuffed-anymore stuffing. It even smelled like grandpa. Or as far as I could tell. I’ve never gone up and sniffed an old person before. And I don’t plan on doing it.

The handcuffs had started a chain reaction—no pun intended. Sam pushed me, I fell and now it was her turn to fall.

Right on top of me.

My skin burned. My blood boiled. The scent of her skin, hair and blood wafted my way and clouded my senses, blocking out the old grandpa smell. Where her weight was on my legs, a tingling sensation erupted between the burning and the boiling.

It felt amazing. I’d never felt more alive in my life. My heart pounded powerfully, probably causing earthquakes in China. My mouth was dry. My throat was impossibly constricted. Part of me was raging for Samantha’s blood. My eyes were wide, but I didn’t register what I was seeing. I could have been watching the world burn to a chicken nugget and I wouldn’t have noticed—or given a crap. All I knew was that I was touching Samantha, and she was touching me.

“You two okay?”

The driver’s voice brought me back to reality. The whole sensation realization had taken about a second.

Samantha’s silvery laugh trickled into my ears, forcing my brain to go numb, my eyes to close and for me to sigh.

“Sorry, Cas.” She scrambled to get off me, but accidentally yanked on the chain and fell back down.

I was hit all over again, my heart jittering like a mouse’s, limbs limp with the feeling of ecstasy at the contact of bits of her skin and mine. My eyes closed again and I managed to
hold in the sigh that tried to escape my lungs.

Sam laughed again, and I felt her vibrating along with it.

Get off me, girl, before I embarrass myself further by, like, fainting or something!

“Cas, we gotta do this together, okay?”

I barely managed an “mm-hmm” in return.

“Okay. Sit up on three. Ready?”

“Yeah.” I sounded like I had just woken up. I think. I don’t think my ears were working right.

“And…one…two…three!”

What were we doing, again?

Somehow I managed to remember that I had to sit up. Now.

I jerked upright directly on time miraculously.

Samantha laughed again. “Wonderful job, Cas. Put on your seatbelt.”

I blinked. What the hell was a seatbelt?

I shook my head fiercely to clear it from the fuzziness Samantha had caused.

And realized the depth of what had jut happened. Samantha Royce was destined for my King. She shouldn’t—couldn’t—have this effect on me. If I ever came to "like-
like" her, Mr. King would have my head for dessert. Well, come to think of it, was he even a purebred? George, Fallen and I were supposed too be the only ones left right?

OMG. I just realized something.

I was in a car.