ROYAL-TEA [ON HOLD]

17.

"Where are we going?" Anthony kept asking. I smiled at him, glad to be freaking him out with my silence.

We obviously couldn't go to Portino. Our charming prince had messed up everything there. Everyone was on alert. Heck, the waters of Portino would be heavily guarded.

Zardinia was a no-go zone. My dad had invested a lot of capital in the project that basically bought the country for the Emirates' Empire. Obviously, the water would be guarded from there.

"Where are we going to go?" He asked me again, and I laughed.

"Do you still have a black belt in karate?"

"Why?"

"You're going to need it."

*&*&*&*&

Scuba diving is always fun, but doing it at night to sneak into a country is even more fun. At least for me.

"Are you ready?" I asked Anthony. He groaned, and I merely smiled.

"The closest point to Cape Moon is two nautical miles from here. It is looming up ahead in a nautical mile," Mr. Hunter offered.

"Wait! We are going to Zardinia?!"

"Going from Cape Moon to Zarvinia on the Zardinia Sea."

"What?! Are you trying to get us caught?!"

"We won't get caught," I told him. "So be quiet. Wouldn't want to get caught now, would we?" I zipped up my wet suit, pulled down the mask and jumped into the water with my accessories.

"I don't trust you."

"If we get caught, then i'll marry you and be that conservative and perfectly silent wife you wanted me to be when we dated. Okay?"

"Who said I wanted to marry you?" He scoffed.

"Okay. I'll marry your cousin anyway. He is cuter," I teased. The ginger immediately jumped into the water after me. "There's a good boy! Okay, so we need to swim to the Cape. Towards the north, they're putting up the project, so we have to swim towards the south. Okay?"

"Okay!" Antony said. "What else?"

"I'll see you on the flip side. Take my hand. Bye Mr. Hunter!"

The two wore their masks and dived lower into the water. Their torches immediately lit up, and they started to swim together slowly. The first few minutes went on well, but then, Anthony noticed a problem with the pressure of his tank. The neon coloured gauge and pointers indicated the pressure was not high enough and so, effectively, his oxygen tank was going to be useless.

He started to panic, trying to break through to the surface, but I pulled him back in. We swam together, glad that the nighttime vessels were not that many. None of us wanted to get sucked up into the propellers and end up as shark food.

I indicated to him that we would share my oxygen tank. He shook his head and pointed upwards, but I shook mine and indicated that we would be fine. We just had to strive and swim until when we needed to share.

We kept moving, and slowly, we inched towards land. I knew he was scared so I held onto his hand. We surfaced to see we were still about a kilometer from the land, but we were at the side we wanted to arrive at.

The lighthouse swept its bright light across the lake and we ducked back into the water just in time. We swam for a bit before Anthony showed me his gauge and I started sharing my oxygen with him. The look of gratitude he had would be something I would never forget.

Yes, we didn't get along much, but that didn't mean I wanted him to get hurt. If anything, I have always been very protective of him. Maybe it was because we dated, or perhaps because we knew each other since we were little kids. Either way, I couldn't tell.

So we inched closer to land, taking turns puffing up on the oxygen. This was the one time I wished we had oxygen pills that you'd take once and just swim underwater for as long as you wanted without coming up for air.

Anthony's large hands offered me a kind of security I had always loved and associated with him. Having him close to me was calming me down immensely. I actually enjoyed the swim to the beach.

"We're here!" I told him as we surfaced at the darker side of the beach. There was nothing but sand and rocks and perhaps crabs and other fauna. He helped me out to the beach where we shed off the heavy equipment and lay back in our wet suits to catch our breath.

"Thank you for saving me," the red head spoilt Prince muttered.

"You're welcome," I barely managed. After about ten minutes, we sat up and shed the wet suit too, before changing into warmer clothes. I didn't think too much about him seeing me in my swimming costume. It was very dark anyway.

"Let's go?" He asked.

"Yeah. Let's."

That was how we began a tiring sixty eight kilometer march to Zarvinia.