Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water

My eyes bugged out and my heart’s slow pumping pounded in my ears. My fingers subconsciously curled around the dilapidated seat, white and firm. I felt the color and life drain from my face. My muscles seized up, locking me into place. I was in a car.

“Cas? Cas? Caspian?” Samantha sounded confused and worried. And that made me feel happy, despite the fact that the taxi dude was pulling out of his parking space and rumbling away toward what could only be imminent death. Either that or the beach.
My eyes—glazed an dead-looking, as one of the multiple mirrors told me—stared unseeing out the windshield, but not the way it had been when Sam touched me. I couldn’t see then because of physical ecstasy. Now it was because I was blinded by fear.

“Caaaaaaaspiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” Jeremy sang into one of my ears. “I know you’re in there! You’ll be fine. I sincerely promise on my word of honor.” He emphasized it so much, it could only mean that he had gotten a glimpse of the future. I was going to be fine. Jeremy and his visions knew. They promised.

I was going to be fine.

I managed to uncurl my fingers from the seat and my eyes came back into focus. But my back stayed perfectly straight. I was still terrified. My eyes darted all over the street making sure our driver avoided all sidewalks, street lamps, cars, pedestrians, baby carriages, dogs, cats, pigeons, rats, mice, pebbles, imploding atoms…

Those street lights that hung above everyone’s heads and told you when to go forward by flashing green scared me beyond all reason, as was usual. It was so precarious. Didn’t everyone realize that the wire that held it up could snap at any moment, and the light itself would explode because some terrorist put a bomb inside it? How could they not think about that while walking and driving like their lives aren’t in danger right under the fearsome thing itself? It was ridiculous! How do they do it?

Then we went by a skyscraper.

It felt like the end of the world. I pressed my face to the window—squashing Jeremy in the process—and stared at the gigantic pinnacle of death. It was like a very tall, thin anthill. What if too many people got on one side and it fell over? What if a plane ran into it, like the Twin Towers? What if a bean at the bottom broke, or a floor collapsed and the whole thing came toppling down and smashed directly into this taxi? What if…

Looking at the top began to make me dizzy.

Once it went by, I pulled back and took a deep breath. I was interrupted three quarters of the way through by Jeremy. He poked my arm—don’t know how he managed it—then gave me the one-eyebrow quirk when I faced him. I shrugged in return.

Then another finger pressed against my other arm.

Samantha.

I let out a deep breath—it was not a sigh—my mouth opening slightly, eyes slowly blinking closed then open again.

Jeremy gave me a wry smile as if he knew the turmoil Samantha caused in me.

I narrowed my eyes at him, then turned to look at Samantha.

“Cas, could I ask you a possibly personal and potentially hurtful question?”

I had a much easier time hearing things when she wasn’t touching me, but even this barely made sense to me. She talked very fast.

I shrugged, pretty sure I’d understood her. “Shoot.”

She frowned lightly, and twined her fingers together. She looked curious yet nervous. “Why do all of these everyday things scare you?”

“This is a conversation for another time,” I said nicely, smiling a bit. I didn’t want to talk about this in front of Jeremy. He’d add in little stories to my explanation all the time. Like how I had been sure the telephone was booby trapped and if we called someone it would trigger something in the wires and the house would go up in flames. Fallen was my older half brother who barely knew me. It didn’t seem right. And the taxi driver must have thought I was demented enough already. No way in hell was I talking about this in front of a stranger. Samantha was right. It was personal. I had my problems, and other people had theirs. They respect mine, I’ll theirs alone. I’m a fair person. “Vampire”. Whatever. I’m a slightly enhanced human.

Since I was so physically advanced, did that mean that my emotions were stronger, too? Was this why I reacted so strongly to Sam’s presence? Would I be like this around any random girl? Or is it a Sam-only feeling I’m cursed with? Wow. My life is intricate. Interestingly intricate. That was inventive.

Oh, wow, fail. I can’t believe I just thought that.

We reached the beach, unloaded the taxi without incident and paid the driver a hunk o’ moola. Dough. Lettuce. Naw, that sounds gay—never mind, lesbian.

Then, for the first time in my short life, I was hit very forcefully with the smell of the beach. It smelled like salt, sun lotion, food and seagull crap. It wasn’t my favorite smell in the world, but it was okay.

I like the sound of the waves better. It calmed me down and kept me relaxed. The waves themselves scared me out of going into the water higher than my knees. I waded in and back out swiftly, an alarmed expression on my face. I received multiple dirty looks from little kids. And the sounds of the people, I didn’t like half as much as the waves’ crash.

Sam was with me the whole time. Neither of us took off our shirts to swim, and neither of us decided to swim. The handcuffs didn’t compromise easily. Instead, we sat ourselves down amidst some tall grass stalks on a dune and stared out at the people and the sea. It was strangely beautiful, the emptiness of the ocean, the vast, endless space of the sky. They completed each other in an odd blue way.

“Cas, is now the ‘other time’?”

I frowned for a second, looking at the horizon line. It was about ten in the morning, and Fallen was teaching Jeremy how to body surf by listening and feeling the current of the water. The water toys lay forgotten on the dry sand. Never mind, some kids had stolen two of the bags…

“Oh!” I exclaimed, realizing what she meant. “Oh. You wanna know why I’m scared of stuff?” It had been much more intelligent-sounding when she had worded the question before, but she just nodded a “yes”, her hair blown into her face a bit by the breeze.

She tied it back with a ponytail holder she had kept on her wrist. That was pretty
smart of her.

“Well…” How to word it, how to word it… “I was brought up away from all this.” I gestured at the roiling mass of people. And it wasn’t even midday. “For two years I was brought up by the woman who found me—”

“Why did she find you? Did she adopt you?”

“No. My parents got rid of me before I was a week old. Marietta—the woman—found me and raised me until a little after my second birthday. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve been told.” Surreptitiously sneaks peek at Jeremy. “Then I was sent to an orphanage and stayed there until I was five.”

“That’s not too long of a time, right? Three years?”

I nodded. “One kid was driven insane after two, though.”

“Insane?”

“Yeah. He had been part of a seriously wealthy family. It was too much of a reality check for him when his parents died in a drunken car crash and he landed in the hands of his relatives who shoved him like a bit of worthless crap into the orphanage.”

This looked like it was disturbing Samantha. She immediately changed the subject. “Who adopted you? Jeremy didn’t, did he?”

I laughed. “Oh no… It’s more like I adopted him.”

She looked at me questioningly.

“Tell ya later. It’s part of my wonderful life story.” I gesticulated with open arms to emphasize my sarcastic point, making her smile with one side of her mouth and shake her head.

“So, if it wasn’t Jeremy who adopted you…who did?”

“Logan. I don’t even know his last name.”

She started laughing.

“What?” I asked. What the heck was so funny? It’s not like I said, “Oh, hey, guess what? Cheese is a mammal.”

“Sorry.” She reined herself in. “That sounded…well, it sounded sorta gay.”

Now I laughed. “Well, Logan was probably around his mid-forties or early fifties.”

“Oh gosh,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “Yeah. You’re definitely not gay.”

You have no idea…

I smirked. “Anyway, Logan adopted me, and I lived at his manor in Idaho.”

“His manor?”

“Yeah. They’re like mansions—”

“I know what they are! But you grew up in one?”

I nodded.

“Who don’t you live in it now?”

“I’m getting to it!”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Thank you. Anyway, I also grew up with Troy, who was about my age, and Kaitlin, who was fifteen years older than me.”

“Why doesn’t Kait—”

I put a finger to her lips. Well, my finger hovered a centimeter in front of them. I felt brave.

Once I pulled my hand back toward myself, she zipped her lips and threw the key away. Figuratively.

She had really pretty lips…

Figuratively.