The Neptune Revenge

Chapter 17

"Nere, I'm sorry it took so long to fill you in on everything, it's just-"

I hold up a hand to stop my father. "Sorry dad, but Robry and I can't really breathe above-ground for very long, so can we save the apologies for another time? I'd like to hear what Cam and the others are about to say."

My father nods and turns to Cam.

"Well, it starts like this-" Cam begins, but Robry lets out a small cough. We all turn to look at him, and I can see the guilt across his face. He must have tried to hide the cough, but it didn't work out too well.

"We'll be right back," I say, standing up and walking towards the door. Robry follows me, and the two of us speedwalk down the docks until we reach the ocean. We jump in and take a few normal breaths, then return to the conference room.

"Sorry," I say. "We're back."

"It's fine," Cam says, though I see the pained expression across his face. Concern. I watch Tip and confident Brooklyn exchange a hesitant glance, and then turn back to us. We sit at the table, Robry on my right and my father on my left, and Cam begins to speak.

"After we saw each other on the beach, they shot me with something that made me pass out. When I woke up, I was in a doctor's office. There was a metal square attached to my wrist, some sort of tracking device. A man came in after he decided I was fit to move around, and they brought me to an interrogation room. They wanted me to tell them everything they knew about the Neptune Project."

"D-did you?" Robry asks. Cam shakes his head and lifts up his right hand. I gasp when I see he's missing almost all of his fingernails, and his pinky stops a few centimeters up from his hand. They actually cut off his pinky.

Suddenly, I feel like throwing up the salmon I had for breakfast.

"You of all people should know my ability to bend the truth is superior to all," Cam winks at his little brother. Robry gives a shaky smile, eyes trained on his brother's stump of a finger.

"Basically, I was able to tell convincing-enough lies to get them to leave me alone. I told them the Neptune Project was operating somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, and I knew that because a met a few kids saying that's where they were headed. They believed me, just like that.

Once they released me from interrogation, they assigned me to a color group. I was blue. So were Brooklyn and Tip. We worked with our color group, we are with our color group, we slept with our color group. Everything operated on a schedule so we'd know when we should be working, in our rooms, or in the mess hall. If you weren't in the place you were supposed to be at the designated time, well..."

"Dead," Brooklyn speaks up, snapping her fingers. She looks furious, hearing Cam tell the story of their time at the work camp. "Just like that. I saw it happen."

Tip stays silent, and I notice something that almost makes me shudder. While Brooklyn's anger is red-hot and fiery, Tip's anger seems icy blue. Like he'd be perfectly content to set off a bunch of bombs in the place and let everyone fend for themselves. It's chilling.

Cam continues. "So we worked. We are. We slept. All of us slept in one big room, in these bunk beds that creaked so loudly that they gave the person on the bottom sweet dreams that one unfortunate night, that top bunk would collapse. We all wanted that bottom bunk. We all wanted the creakiest bed.

We just wanted to be put out of our misery."

Cam pauses for dramatic effect, letting his words sink in. Robry coughs again, and I pull him out of the room to get back to the water to take a breath. I can't believe it. It must have been awful there, especially if they all wanted to die. I think back to my time at Kuron's fortress as I plunge back into the ocean. I never wanted to die there; I had my friends and at least there was stuff to do there. But I guess life at a work camp must be worse than any giant, nearly-inescapable underwater fortress.