The Arrangement

Chapter 7

Hello lovlies! I hope you all enjoy, I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter yet, but thank you for reading. :D So you should vote and comment at the end <3

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Chapter 7

True to his word, Trent stopped picking fights. I was relieved at that. The tension didn't go away, but it was definitely lessened. Strangely enough, the more polite and cooperative Trent was, the more Rory seemed to be annoyed.

Weird. I'd never seen Rory act like this. Before this I would have said I knew Rory like the back of my hand, but now . . . . he was like a whole new person. It made me question if I'd ever really known him at all.

"Alright Mikaela, you good to go?" Jason asked, double checking the monitors.

"All the gear seems to be working perfectly. Tanks are full and functioning, I'm prepared to go down."

"Rory?"

"Good to go."

"Be careful down there you guys." Meri warned.

"I will." I assured her. This was my forte. We were tagging as many sharks as we could today. There is hardly anything known about the one of the largest known animals on earth. I'm hoping to put an end to that. The whole reason we're in the Gulf of Mexico is this is one of the few places in the world where these sharks congregate. I fixed my mask and jumped in. Santi and Trent were still on the main boat, Merideth and Jason came out with Rory and me with the equipment on the smaller boat. I surfaced and Meri handed me the tagging spear. Rory jumped in after me. He had the camera gear.

I will always be in awe of these fish. This massive creature survives by eating some of the smallest creatures on the planet. Granted exorbitant amounts of plankton but still. My favorite part of the whale shark is its gentle nature. They are very passive. Rory and I could swim around with them all day long and they wouldn't care.

I signaled Rory and we set up. He started getting the footage we needed. I got the tag ready and swam up to one that was about twenty five feet. I tagged her without a hitch. I got my next tag ready and got another. I got through five more before I noticed I was not alone. The thing about fish is, the small fish attract the bigger fish. I hadn't been paying enough attention and a school of tuna was here swimming with us. I noticed the shadow before anything else. It took me a moment to register just what I was sharing the water with. A great white shark.

Great white's aren't as bad as Jaws would have you believe, but they are curious. I looked for Rory and saw him maneuvering around the tuna. I indicated for him to get out. I was in the middle of the whale sharks, chances were I wouldn't even be noticed. But damnit Rory, what was he thinking? He started to follow my lead and tried to carefully make his way to the whale sharks. If he panicked or thrashed he'd attract attention, but if he moved too slowly, he'd look like an injured animal. I was looking around for more sharks. Sometimes Great Whites hunt alone, sometimes they hunt in packs. They've been known to travel in school of up to six. The one I noticed was a solid ten feet. Then I saw it, another one, and then another. Three to watch. Rory ended up next to me and I shook my head and signaled for him to surface.

I could watch his back while he surfaced. Once he was out of the water he could get Santi and get a cage lowered if the great whites didn't leave soon. The school of tuna was now darting in between the whale sharks. Thus, this made my new hiding spot less safe. Rory shook his head and told me to surface. I shook my head. No. He was part of my team. I was the lead, everyone's safety was my responsibility. He was trying to argue with me. I pointed to his tank and then up. We had a decent amount of air left, but if he kept arguing, there wouldn't be. Then I noticed how close one the great whites were to me. They were following the tuna. Now that several had been caught, the frenzy was starting. The fish were panicking, and darting here and there and the sharks were corralling them. Rory noticed as the great white swooped by. They were a curious fish, if we didn't get out of the water, we were in serious danger of getting tasted. Humans are not a great white's favorite food, but they aren't the pickiest eaters either.