Denial || An OBX Story

Chapter Eleven

"This is empty. You took empty tanks?" Kiara complains as John B sits next to her on the front of the boat. She picks up the last dial and reads it with a frustrated look. "Okay, this one's a quarter full. It's enough for one of us."

The Pogues has made their way out to the sunken shipwreck later that evening. John B had made it back with the tanks, much later than he was expected to.

"Love it when a plan comes together." Pope remarks sarcastically.

"Can I go?" Maddie asks excitedly, sitting straight up as she spoke. Everyone's head shot in her direction and they all replied with a series of 'no'.

"Does anybody actually know how to dive?" Kiara asks, emphasizing the 'actually'. "Anybody?"

John B points at JJ who shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head in response. "It's kind of a Kook sport."

"I... read about it." Pope hesitates, looking at Maddie who smiles and points at him thinking he would be somewhat helpful to the dilemma they were in.

"Great! Pope read about it. So someone's gonna die." Kiara says, looking at Maddie who dropped her arm and let her smile fade.

"Look, you put the thing in your mouth and breath how hard could it be?" JJ asks.

"That's what she said." Maddie chuckles to her self. JJ bites his lip to hold in his laughter and drops his head.

"Can you shut up?" John B sternly says to Maddie, making her head turn away in order to hide the rest of her laughter.

"Well, if you come up too fast nitrogen gets into your blood and you get the bends." Pope says, looking at JJ with his lips drawer in a line.

"Bends like... bend over?" JJ smirks, holding onto a pole and arching his back inwards.

Maddie nearly falls off the side of the boat laughing. She smacks the boat, struggling to catch her breath. There was no good reason to find it funny other than the perfect timing for JJ to pull a joke.

"The bends kill you." Pope states. A smile never phasing the muscles in his face. JJ stands up awkwardly and looks at Maddie as he bites the inside of his cheek and replies with an embarrassed 'right'.

"I can dive." John B stutters, a nervous smile on his face.

"Yeah you can dive. I'm cool with that." JJ agrees, sitting next to Maddie as she refrains herself from bringing up the joke he previously used.

"Since when can you dive?" Kiara quickly challenges him, knowing he was lying and that he was only doing it to protect his friends from hurting themselves.

John B sighs and looks at Maddie, already ready to listen to her refusal. "I'll do it, it's fine."

"No." Maddie says bluntly.

"Yeah, I'll do it." John B argues back, lifting his shoulders. "I'll be okay. Trust me, alright?"

Maddie doesn't answer and looks down at the floor of the boat. It was quite dirty and had a browner tint since the last time she'd clean it. If it were up to the rest of the group, the boat would never be cleaned.

"Let me do some calculations real quick." Pope says, as Kiara rolls her eyes at John B. "Okay, so that boat's about thirty feet down, right? So it'll take twenty five minutes to get to that depth. Which means you have to make your safety stop at about ten feet, alright? For two minutes."

"Ten feet for two minutes." John B repeats him with a nervous tone.

Then, Kiara takes her shirt off and jumps into the murky water, swimming below the surface. Everyone stops and stares with their jaws dropped.