Me and the Devil

6.

I pull up to The Chateau and see everyone already hopping into the HMS Pogue. I can feel the anticipation building - a familiar itch under my skin. I run to join them.

Kiara sits with the five tanks in front of her, unscrewing the regulators to check the air levels. "Empty. These are all empty. You took empty tanks." Kiara picks up the last tank and unscrews the regulator. The air gauge bounces up. "This one is a quarter full. That's enough for one of us."

"I love it when a plan comes together," Pope mumbles under his breath.

"Who knows how to dive?" Kiara asks.

John B, JJ, Pope, and I all look at each other.

"Kind of a kook sport..." JJ starts.

"I read about it," continues Pope

"Oh great. Pope's read about it, so somebody's gonna die." Kiara teases.

"If you come up too fast, nitrogen gets into your blood, and you get the bends." Pope says

"Bends? Like bend over?" JJ assumes a sexy pose and winks at me while I laugh.

"The bends kill you." Pope states. JJ stands up straight, and I stop laughing. I see Pope give us a skeptical glance.

"I can dive."

We all look at John B, stunned. I know why he offered- there;s something inside him screaming for the meaning in the middle of all this. I understand that more than I care to admit. Part of me almost wishes it was me down there, pushing limits, flirting with something that could go wrong. Pope starts to explain to John B some calculations he made in regards to the dive.

"That boat's about 30 feet down. So it'll take 25 minutes at that depth. Which means you need to make your safety stop at about ten feet for two minutes."

I step up onto the bow and take my shirt off to reveal my favorite pinstripe bikini. I jump into the water still holding my shirt. As I resurface, I hear JJ saying that he liked it. Kind of hope he was talking about me.

"I tied my t-shirt to the anchor chain. Ten feet down. That's where you do your safety stop."

Pope gives John B a few last-minute directions. John B steps to the edge and looks down. We can see the wavering image of the boat beneath. The sun comes out from behind a cloud and the glare disappears quickly. This is all starting to seem a bit sketchy, but I can't bring myself to stop it. The adrenaline is rushing through me.

"Diver down" John B says

"Diver down," we all salute back.

Kiara gets on her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. JJ and I look at each other with the same aghast look on our face. Anyways, we send John B off with a few words of encouragement and some thumbs up.

John B turns to the water. He takes a deep breath, showing that he isn't feeling all that confident and puts on the mask and inserts the mouthpiece. He jumps and hits the water. JJ, Pope, Kiara, and I watch him disappear beneath the surface.

The four of us take our seats trying not to think about the fact that John B is definitely risking his life for potentially nothing. As the minutes slowly tick away, we don't say much. We just keep looking over the edge to the water below, hoping for some sign that John B is doing ok.

A siren blares in the distance. I turn around and see Deputy Shoupe and his partner start to pull up alongside our boat.

JJ and Pope start to freak out as I push my hair behind my shoulder and say "Guys, just act frickin' normal."

"Hey there officer," Pope kindly says.

"How are you kids doing? You know the marsh is closed?"

"No..No wow. I didn't know that. Why is it closed?" JJ plays dumb.

"Well, we're conducting a search out here. Boat went down. Seen anything?" Shoupe asks.

We all kind of side eye each other making sure we have our stories straight. "No. No boats."

Shoupe starts to question where John B is, since he knows that we all usually hang out together. Kiara chimes in about him having to work, saving John B's ass or so we thought. Shoupe asks to check out the boat and we grant him permission aboard.

Shoupe checks out the boat, eyes drifting to each of us. Eyes lingering a little bit longer on my tits. I start to cover up as Shoupe walks over to the edge of the boat John B jumped off of. I bite my lip. Nervous that he will see the boat, however the sun comes out and creates a glare on the water prohibiting Shoupe from seeing the boat below.

"Let us know if you see anything." Shoupe says as he exits the boat.

"Will do officer."

As Shoupe motors of, John B surfaces gasping for air.

"You scared the shit out of me" Kiara says to him.

"I ran out of air." John B explains as he hoists up a bag.

I reach out my hand and grab it from him asking if he is ok. After he tells us that he is, I go to ask what's in the bag. I'm dying to know. I'm sure everyone else is as well.

"Bogey. Ten o'clock" Kiara points.

We all turn to see a fast and powerful boat coming. I rush to grab the anchor. I don't want to stick around to find out what they want when the marsh is closed.

"Don't wait for me!" I yell as John B starts the boat going and we head into the marsh.

"They're following us!" Kiara yells.

John B tries to take the HMS faster, but with their duelies they are gaining on us. We hear a popping sound as we realize they are now shooting at us.

"Everybody get down!" JJ yells.

John B is still trying to go faster and makes a sharp turn, almost throwing everyone out of the boat, but it's no use. I decide to take matters into my own hands.

I get up and open the hatch to retrieve a net with floaters. As bullets whiz past my head, I don't freeze. Instead, there's a wild rush of adrenaline that drowns out JJ's yells. The danger sharpens my focus, and before I can think twice, I fling the net into the marsh. . The pursuing boat catches the net, makes a crazy whine and dies.

I collapse on the floor of the boat, as we speed away from them. "Who fucking was that!" I exclaim through my heavy breaths. JJ comes and sits right next to me with concern in his eyes and rests his hand on my knee.

"I don't even want to think about it. Let's keep going." JJ says.

John B pulls into a covered cove near the chateau. After a much needed minute we all seem to remember the bag that John B found on the wreck. I take a step towards the bag and slowly start to unzip it.

"We all risked our lives back there, me more than others." I joke. "I wanna know if it was worth it!"

John B pulls out a smaller bag and a compass falls out. No one but John B seems to notice.

"Oh good, another bag. There better not be another bag in that one" JJ says.

"This was my father's." John B whispers. We all look at the compass and then back up to John B. What is going on here?