“I’m pretty sure the fish love things like human urine. Adds flavor to stuff.”

“Wow. I’d forgotten the high intellectual levels of the east-siders’ conversations.”

Carson said this, having arrived a few minutes earlier with several of their compatriots from the west side. He was a giant of a man, muscles bulging in places where Isaac didn’t know muscles existed. Carson always looked a little out of proportion, as if he worked one part of his body too hard, and then had to spend some time evening things out with different exercises. When the day came that he got everything just right, all of it in perfect harmony, his skin would probably explode from the stress and he’d die in a bloody, meaty mess.

“We could’ve used those guns of yours”—Sadina pointed at his biceps—“as we dragged these suckers down the cliff.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Lacey, here, had a bit of a stomach issue and we decided to wait for her.”

Lacey, her spirit about a thousand times larger than her diminutive size, punched Carson right in the stomach. He tried to hide it, but his sheath of muscles didn’t entirely protect him.

“Am I lying?” he asked, half-groaning and half-laughing. His hand had found its way to the spot where she’d socked him.

“No, but you didn’t have to tell the whole group. Gunk of klunk in a trunk.”

The whole group snickered at that. Lacey was famous for her absolute refusal to use any of the traditional swear words because she thought it made people look very uneducated. But her grandpa had passed down some writing he’d made of his time with the Gladers of old, and he’d included a list of slang that had died out over the decades. Lacey was doing everything in her power to bring them back. No one had a clue as to why, but it did provide a lot of entertainment.

“That hurts, Lacey,” Carson said solemnly, “even more than the right hook to my gut.”

“Next time, I’ll aim lower.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

Trish clapped her hands once. She had a double-oar in the crook of an elbow and looked ready to go. “Come on, guys. Not sure how it helps talking about Dominic’s and Lacey’s human waste procedures, but how about we get on these damn boats and row out to the Point?”