Thirty Nine Minutes (COMPLETE)

Chapter Twenty One: Jettisoned

Before he had entered the room where Craig was being held, Neil had gone to see his mother. With his dad having passed seven years ago, she was his last tie to his former life.

His parents had been separated not long after he'd turned five, but they had remained friends; their lives had just been too different to stay together. Neil ended up spending six months at a time with each parents, entirely home schooled by the two of them.

He had never admitted it to his mom, but he always preferred spending time on his dad's boat learning how to tie various types of knots and weaving nets. That was far preferable to her teaching methods: chained to a desk with his mother leaning over him like a sentinel ensuring he had carried his numbers properly on his equations. Unfortunately, due to Craig's turning up in his father's net, Neil had found himself back behind a desk again instead of on the high seas, wishing he could just go off and be a pirate.

With his dad's passing came the end of any ambitions of joining him into a humble fisherman life, and besides, a steady income was just far too enticing to give up. And so, like a coward, he took the safer option, silently watching over Craig, learning the ropes of federal government work and keeping his mouth shut. His heart would always drift back to the sea, even when adjusting his collar in the morning, or brewing coffee in the break room.

So when his mother had reappeared back in his life once she discovered where his life had taken him at his father's funeral, Neil saw it at no mere coincidence. She wasn't a bad person, but given her deteriorative body, she was just desperate. Aware her body was failing her, and very aware her late colleague had thrown away a potential cure for her. He stood before her small bedroom and knocked on the door.

"It's me, mom."

"Come in, boy." She rarely called him by name. Neil stood in the threshold, taking up most of its space and knotting his fingers before him. "What is it? Spit it out, I'm busy."

"Helen's just gone, do we have her coordinates?"

She put down her pen and focused on him, grey eyes like chips of ice, devoid of humor or even warmth. A reptilian glare from her position, and Neil wanted to shrink at it. "Why on Earth would I want something like that?"

Neil blinked. "...What?"

"Are you deaf? I don't need it. Don't you have a teenager to babysit? Leave me be."

Avoiding any more headbutting by correcting that Craig was in fact in his twenties, Neil swallowed, and left, a heavy pit churning in his stomach. His mother had always been cold and autocratic, and her personality had only hardened the more severe her condition had become. What had she meant by she didn't need to know about Helen's coordinates? Was someone else dealing with that? Or was he missing something here? The weight in his stomach tightened.

Unfortunately, Ichmaël didn't speak a word of English, which was a shame because he was definitely the most sincere of everyone here. The gentle giant was sitting on the deck in a battered chair, watching the horizon when Neil walked out into the setting sun. Perhaps he knew where Odette was.

"Bonjour," he said. His French was pidgin at best. Ichmaël raised a brow but returned the greeting. "Uhhh, où est...où est Helen?"

He shrugged. "'sais pas."

A similar response from Odette, although their conversation was a little more than bare bones. She assumed the radio communication and everything concerning Helen was all being dealt with by his mother. Neil was starting to feel sick as he knocked on the door of Odette's quarters.

"Hey Odette, got a minute?"

"Oui."

"Good." He slammed her against the wall, his forearm crushing her neck so she couldn't yell in protest. "What the hell is my mom up to with Helen?"

"Ack! Neil what are you…!?"

"Shut up! The magi plant's made up, isn't it? I remember it from a story she used to tell me as a kid. What does she need?"

Odette, despite her earlier bravado, crumbled like a leaf under Neil's questioning. She sold Fleur out almost immediately with barely any more prompting. "She doesn't need anything but the fish boy! She wants the barbs under his forearm skin!" Her confession was followed by a series of grunts and rasps.

"So Helen's down in that cave for no reason? Is she trying to kill her?" He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and went straight for Craig's tank. Hopefully he could rouse him and convince him without too much trouble.   

*****

"Craig, what are you doing?"

"Get lost, Neil." The sound of his wet tail being dragged along the floor was akin to dropped catch on the deck of a boat. He grunted in his effort. "It's your fault I ended up with David in the first place."

"Oh okay, you want to blame your circumstances on a fifteen year old kid? Grow up." He grabbed Craig under the arms and began to drag him towards the door. "God, you're heavy."

"What are you doing?"

"Because I still feel bad, okay? Let me help you and Helen."

Progress was slow. Against the cold metal floor, Craig's large form and the full weight of his body was practically glacial in their alacrity. "You really wanna do this, Craig?"

"I'm gonna try. I'm going to try as hard as I can."

"Good, because I might as well say this now, but the magi plant doesn't exist. It was just a way to get Helen out of the picture. What they want is something under your skin. Barbs or something."

Craig suddenly got a lot lighter as his powerful arms wrestled himself free and he pulled himself to the stairs in record time. "Ugh, dammit." He turned to Neil. "How do we get up these damn stairs?"

Neil was tall, but not half as well built as Craig, who was nearly 100% muscle. He wouldn't be able to hoist him on his back, but he had an idea. He ran to the canvas and dragged a large sheet down. "Get in this. I can help you pull your tail up if you use the rail."

Any other circumstance, Craig would have laughed at getting back in a hoist, but at that moment, in those circumstances, Craig had to keep going, else he'd think about the depths just mere feet from him, hidden under the boat. Helen had been disposed of down there, just a convenient death easily written off as an incident, and it boiled his blood.

He grabbed one corner and started tying it around his waist. Neil also started tying a knot at the base of his tail, creating a sort of makeshift bindle with Craig's torso sticking out of the top.

"Here goes nothing." Neil took the first couple of steps towards the final orange rays of sun and Craig, likewise, grabbed the first rung of the stairs rail.

Progress was slow, but surprisingly effective. Neil was becoming ever more conscious someone would undoubtedly come and find them looking utterly incriminating. Craig was breaking out in a full sweat, his body not accustomed to being out of the water for so long, and he was panting in his effort.

As they reached the open door and the wooden floor beyond, David Kotohiki stood at the end of the ship, watching them as they slumped out on the deck in their exhaustion. Neil saw him first and without even stopping to hesitate, kicked Craig, canvas and all, off the side off the boat.