Freaks

9- Kisses At Beaches

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Jackson picked Harper up, as promised. She decided to wear a t-shirt based on the fact that she's in a car with two people she despises, one supposedly likes her the other is scarily violent. Uncomfortable is the perfect word, the reason for her shirt.

The parking lot is above the ground level of the beach, upon a hill. You see everything below, the sun facing perfectly towards them, families chattering their mouths off whilst yelling at their kids.

Harper takes the towels with her as she gets out. It's a perfect time to go to the beach, it's still hot but not scorchingly, and there are not quite as many people as there would be in the middle of the day or on the weekend. And if you stay long enough, you can watch the sunset. Harper rarely gets to go here unless it's her and her brother; Malakai and the others have gone everywhere but here, so she's somewhat fond of being here. If only she didn't have to spend it with these people.

As soon as they reach the sand, Alice walks faster, her feet eventually touch wet sand and splash themselves in water, "Thank god!" She groans, "It's warm." And continues to submerge herself into the blue.

Harper begins to lay a blanket on the warm sand, placing the other ones beside it. Jackson sets down a cooler next to them, looking at her, "Are you going in the water?"

"I guess I should." She smiles persistently.

"Better, before it gets cold."

"Right." She replaces the towels under the cooler in case any wind comes through. As she comes back up to meet with Alice, Jackson's hands are already and the bottom of her shirt, lifting it off for her.

She knows things like this are supposed to be things you would like or would find attractive, but it's not when it's...him. It's not attractive at all, it's weird, this is weird.

She tries to make her body less appealing by slouching her spine and helping him tear it off quickly. Pretending like it didn't happen, shoving her shirt under the cooler.

I don't have time to elaborate on what he just did, I need to talk to Alice.

Harper feels the water, which is exactly how Alice made it sound. Engulfing herself in the water as a cover-up, her new shirt now. Alice has already bent her back into the water, making her hair flatten and wet into a brownish color. Harper copies that, only to ignore Jackson as he sneaks in with a bottle. She hears the silence of the water for a split second but it's not very silent when there's a voice in her head demanding her to leave.

She comes up to see Alice closer than she was before as Jackson begins to float on his back, "You're pretty."

Harper twists her face, "Thank you?"

"I can see what Jackson likes about you." She looks her up and down, "But I can't see what he thinks about you, you're incredibly annoying."

"What's your point?"

"That." She laughs, "You ask so many questions. Why?"

"Because I want answers. I deserve them."

"Why do you want to know more about my father?"

"Like I said, I want to know your reasons."

"Yes, but why do you care?"

"Because I'm..new to murdering people? What do you mean? I should care. I want to hate your father as much as you do. So I can kill him with...passion."

She stares at her, their faces so close Harper thinks she would get pink eye if she blinked, "You're all or nothing?"

"I am."

She finally leans back surprisingly and glances at Jackson, "You'll get what you asked for then."

Harper nods.

"Andrew killed someone as well." Her blue eyes flutter, "And I watched him do it. When I was young." Her words should cry for pity but her face seems completely expressionless. Though, somehow Harper starts to feel bad for her in that sentence; young.

"He did lots of crazy things like that, torturing, robbing, bombing even." She pauses and looks at her reflection in the water, "He ruined an innocent family. The one thing he hasn't done was hurt a child or a woman. But he kills men." She looks at Harper, "He started doing all those things when my mother died."

"Who was your mother?"

She starts to smile, cocking her head, "Alison March, he named me after her."

Harper tilts her head with her, "So you never met her?"

Alice breathes uncomfortably, her collarbones sinking, "No, not really. I've seen pictures of when she was holding me as a baby, but I don't remember her."

"How did she die?"

"Breast cancer. Suffered with it a few months before my birth and died not too soon after I was born." She smiles tiredly as if she didn't care that much, "I would've liked to have known my father as the man he was before, when she was alive. But...he's just corrupted now."

Harper watches her in a sort of sorrow. She's starting to understand her better, she was raised horribly, and her life was surrounded by such gruesomeness.

Jackson takes hold of the attention as he makes the water move, sitting up quickly, "Oh, fuck me." He exaggerates with his head towards the dry sand where the others pass by, "Why are they here? I thought they hated anything..public." He sighs and turns to Harper for a response.

She shrugs and finds their eyes hesitantly looking towards her, blinded by the sun.

Jackson takes another good look at all of them and turns back to Harper again with a jerky smile, "Come here."

Harper's brows twitch as he only moves himself to her and grabs her chin, placing his lips on hers. She hears the bells of hell begin to chime in her head.

What is he thinking? I told him no.

She shoves him away instantly, inspecting him with wide eyes, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Alice watches between them like Katie watches her reality tv show. The others walking by look away easily.

While Jackson smiles, "Sorry!" He tries not to laugh, "Sorry."

Harper shakes her head and quickly drags herself out of the water, "I'm going to the bathroom." She mumbles, not even caring to take a towel with her, she's too angry to stay around them any longer. She doesn't care that the other saw it, it's the fact that he kissed her when she told him not to and then proceeded to find it humorous. The last thing she expected him to do, honestly. He never acted like that, he never acted as he does now, a jerk. He used to just be so blunt now he's weird, Alice deformed him.

Harper just keeps walking, the sand burning her feet as she can't tell what is water and what is sweat. The bathrooms ahead look like home to her now.

The closer she gets, she can hear a pair of footsteps behind her, now she probably won't be alone like she wanted to, oh well. Stepping into the humid, tiled room, she knows what she wants to do is just lock herself in a stall until she doesn't have the urge to knock Jackson's teeth out, until she calms down. But when she looks in the large mirror over the sinks, she sees Luka being those footsteps.

...