Aquata Cove Ch. 98

Belinda gets up, hardly feeling any of the pain aside from the initial impact from Merrick's ejection. "Belinda, I'm sorry..." Merrick tries to say as he cries, trying to turn, but confined to Adam's arms, "I'm sorry, Belinda... I'm sorry..."

"I am not hurt." Belinda panted, "I understand... I'm fine. I am sorry for..." She sighs as she reverts her arm into human flesh. "You've hurt me harder on accident."

Adam looks over at Jessica. She is on the shore, just out of the water, wheezing in pain as blood trails from her cuts in her clothes as the water washes up onto her, before draining back. He exhales deeply as he glares at her.

"I'm sorry, Adam. I'm sorry..." Merrick whines as his hand tightly grips Adam's shirt. Adam holds Merrick tighter, having seen something that was never supposed to come out again. "I'm doing it again... I'm sorry..."

"Wait here." Adam says before he walks away from Merrick. Belinda walks to him after cupping some seawater from the shore before gently letting the water touch along the bleeding puncture wounds she did.

"Is it hurting you? My poison, I cannot take it out." She says as the water heals his flesh.

"I am a Triton. Your venom isn't strong enough..." Merrick muttered, barely able to keep his voice low, "It did nothing..."

Adam walks to where Jessica is panting while lying on her back. "Jessica." She looks at him with blurry eyes, not even able to comprehend the pain consuming her.

"Ah-dam..." She cries lowly. Adam kneels down, and grabs the scruff of her shirt, "Adam! Achghghghgk!" She coughs as he gets low.

"Listen to me, Jessica, and listen closely. These are the last words you will ever hear from me."

"Hhghghh, Adam, please, don-"

"Shut up." Adam spat, "Jessica. I do not love you. I will never love you. Get this though your head once and for all..." He looks her right in the eye as his voice takes a ravaged undertone, "I hate you. I really, honestly, fucking hate you... I hate you more than anyone else I have ever known, and I was once kidnapped for a month by a very sick man. If you were to die right here, right now? I would not miss you at all. I would be finally glad that you're permanently out of my life. Do you understand me? I want you gone. You disgust me, and I do not ever want to see your ugly face again."

"Hhhohhohhohh" Jessica sobs. She can feel she has truly lost him. Aside from the ripping agony all throughout her body, her heart feels as if it is being internally stabbed as Adam talks to her now. What he's telling her... His cruelty after what she has just endured, he doesn't have the slightest sign of sympathy for her...

"You are a conniving hypocrite and you nearly had me killed. You almost raped me, you molested me, you lied to me, you broke the law, and you meddled with my recovery. But you know what? All of that, I could have forgiven." Adam moves his face closer to her, almost touching her nose, "But you drove my fiancé to a very violent place that he was never supposed to go again. You turned him into a monster all over again when he was supposed to put it behind him." He clenches his teeth as his fist trembled for a second, "You MADE him do this... And I will never forgive you for it."

"Adam, nooo..." Jessica sobs and gasps as she starts to cry uncontrollably.

"Merrick was supposed to cast away that side of him forever, and you made it run wild and tear you to shreds. You forced me to watch as he forgot who he was supposed to be. I want you to rot in jail for the rest of your miserable life for having me see that look in his eyes again."

"He... He was going to kill meeee..." Jessica whines, "Don't you feel any..."

"No. You brought it on yourself." Adam lets her drop and stands up, "This is how God truly operates, Jessica. What you done to me has been brought back to you. You finally look as pathetic and worthless as you've always been. You're nothing more than a mangled piece of trash."

"Adaaammm..."

"Goodbye, Jessica. Goodbye, good luck, and good fucking riddance." Adam huffed as he brushed the sand off his hand from holding her shirt, "I have nothing more to say to you. Go die in the surf for all I care."

"Adaamm... Come back... Adaammm... No..." Jessica whines as loud as she can as he walks away. Blood and saliva slides from her lips as tears also well from her eyes, still feeling Adam now as his footsteps grow further and further away from her. "Aa-a-a-Aaadaaammmm... Nooooohhhhh"

~~~

"Look, that's beside the point!" Adam says as he talks at Chloe, while she, him, Rajani, and Merrick talk in their apartment, "Why didn't you say something?! Jessica could've been put away along time ago!"

"I didn't want to, ok?" Chloe answers with a shurg, "I gave Jamal the Viagra pills, I told him what happened, and I left it at that. If he didn't say anything, then go bitch at him."

"You realize that Jessica almost had her way with Adam, right?? After he woke from his coma!" Merrick asked, "You were an eye-witness to what she did at the Waltz, and you did nothing! I just, I don't get you." He leers at her, "Why WOULDN'T you want to report her??"

"Because I didn't. Simple as that." Chloe says before she turns and walks off.

"C-Chloe," Rajani gets up, "Look, everyone, I think it wise if we did just put it to rest."

"No, I want to know." Adam tells her, "Jessica screwed with my head for 3 weeks, you know that?!"

"Well in all fairness, Adam, you're not that hard to begin with."

"Cut the jokes, Chloe, I want to know, why didn't you-"

"You know goddamn well why." Chloe says in a low, lethal voice as she suddenly turns and gets right in his face, "And if I have to bring it up again with you, I'm going to fucking break you."

"Chloe..." Rajani says as she comes to her, looking at her with estranged eyes, "Is this have anything to do with-"

"Stop. Just stop." Chloe glares at her Indian girlfriend, "I want everyone to drop it. Now." She looks at the two men, "I want you two to get out of my house. Now."

"... Oh Chloe, are you serious??" Adam tells her, "THAT'S why you didn't say anything?! You couldn't even-"

"No, I can't, alright?! Just fucking get out!" She suddenly says as she forcefully moves Adam back, "Just forget about it right now."

"No! I want to know." Merrick throws her hand off, "I want to know why you just let her get away."

"Merrick, just stop, please," Rajani insists carefully, "It is better if you-"

"NO! I want to know why Chloe let Adam get raped after he got into a coma-" Chloe strides over to him, and cranks her arm back. Merrick swiftly catches her fist, grasping it tight. He looks at her as her face gives a very primal glare as she yanks arm back, and tries to hit him again.

"Chloe no!" Rajani says as he pulls her back, with Chloe not even talking anymore as stray tears start to roll down her face, still struggling to get some kind of strike on Merrick.

"Stop! Stop, stop stop! We're going, ok?" Adam says as he blocks her arm and shoves it back, "Merrick, we're going," He takes Merrick's arm and moves him back.

"No we're not, I'm-"

"I said we're leaving!" Adam suddenly raises his voice, shocking Merrick for a second. "Don't argue with me, just leave it." A bit shaken, Merrick lets Adam take him out the door.

Adam huffs as he and Merrick get into Yuri's car, and drive off, "Merrick you REALLY need to stop pushing people like that."

"What the hell was that about??" Merrick asked, "One second I'm trying to get answers out of her, and the next she's trying to stomp me out!"

"Chloe doesn't ask twice. Trust me, I know." He turns out of the complex's parking and out into the street.

"But what was she so mad about?? What happened to make her want to hide what happened to YOU to anyone??"

"I can't say."

"... Wait, you know it, don't you?"

"Yes, but I can't tell you, I promised."

"Oh my God," Merrick rolls his eyes as he attempts to yank the wheel to turn.

"STOP! Alright, alright, alright." Adam pulls into a nearby Dairy Queen, and parks it, "Ok, look, I promised Chloe I'd never tell anyone, ok? So I expect you to do the same, Merrick."

"Alright, fine. Now tell me what her problem is."

"Hhh... When Chloe was a girl -- like, I think 10 or 13 -- her parents got divorced, and she lived with her Mom, and she got married to some guy..." Adam sighs as he looks aside, "A while after... The guy started molesting her."

"... What?"

"Her stepdad used to... Violate her at night. More than once, she actually thought she was pregnant, and started taking birth control pills -- THAT young. That's not supposed to happen... And the guy was Catholic. When he found out that she was taking those pills, he started hitting her on the ass..."

"That's... Horrible." Merrick shook his head, "Why didn't she tell her Mother??"

"He threatened that he'd kill her Mom if she said anything." Adam answered, "This... This went on for almost 2 years."

"Wha- 2 years???"

"Yeah... And when she came out as a lesbian, that only made things worse..." Adam bows his head, "That sick fucker thought it was very kinky to fuck a lesbian."

"Oh my God..." All of Merrick's anger dissolves as he covers his mouth.

"It only ended when her Dad walked in while the guy had her naked. From what I've been told, he just lost it and killed the man outright. They just bashed each other, and he got him with a kitchen knife." Adam feels uneasy as he tells Merrick this, "It all happened in front of her... And of course, her Dad was put in jail for murder."

"Fucking human laws..."

"It was only for 6 months due to the circumstances. Heh, oddly enough, Chloe's parents got back together after it happened -- her Mom visited him in prison everyday."

"Still... That was in the past. She should have come forward about Jessica."

"It's not that simple." He shook his head, "Chloe's been scarred for life because of it. She was so scared for a very long time, and any action to try and make it stop was punished. I can't tell you how many therapists and counselors have tried to get through to her to make her better, but nothing helped. She got kicked out of school because she's still pissed off out of her mind because of it."

"Damn it..."

"And she's even told me that she feels incredibly stupid for what went down. She thinks she should've been smart enough to get help instead of letting herself get violated like that for so long. And whenever someone talks about rape in front of her long enough, she just loses it for God knows how long. She just goes through these phases where she just wants to break everything around her."

"If I'd known..." Merrick puts his fingers into his hair, "Fuck, the way I talked to her just now."

"You know she's tried to break up with Rajani because of this?" Adam tells him, "Several times."

"What? Why?"

"Because Chloe gets very destructive when she gets into these moods. She's damaged, and she knows it. She's... Even struck Rajani on occasion."

"She actually hurts her?? Like, violently?"

"Yeah..." Adam sighed, "Chloe kept telling her to fuck off. That she was only going to hurt her if she stays. But no matter how much Chloe yells, or how bad it gets, Rajani refuses to leave. She just... Loves her that much."

"I can imagine..." Merrick says lowly, "Though actually, I will say Rajani did mention a long time ago that she's kind of a masochist when it comes to bed."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah. You wouldn't know it from looking at her, but she's into some hardcore stuff. So if Chloe does hit her when she can't control herself, it probably doesn't do much. If that's true, then I guess the two of them are just fine for one another."

"Heh, yeah..."

"So that's what she meant..."

"Hm?"

"Just something that she said when you were in a coma, and I was in a bad place."

"What was that?"

"... It's not important. Lets just head home."

"Ok, babe." Adam starts the car again, and starts to drive off, while Merrick looks out the window.

'I get it.' Chloe's snide voice echoes, 'I honestly, really get it. Someone took away the one thing you cared more about anything in this god-forsaken planet, and you just want the rest of the world to fuckin pay. And you think you have the right to smash anything you want, yell at everyone who looks at you, and just kill the ones who fucked you over. I. Get. It.'

'So what's YOUR solution?'

'Solution?'

'How do you cope with making the rest of the world pay for such a selfish attitude that we both have?'

'Good question. Why the hell do you think I act like such a cunt? Because no one ever, really, truly knows just how much you've been butchered on the inside. And really, heh, what business is it of theirs? They're just the idiots pretending to give a shit about some whiny little bitch who hates the world.'

'That's enough...'

'Seriously. What gives them the right to feel sorry for you when you're doing a fantastic job doing it yourself?'

'I said shut up!'

"So that's what she was talking about..." Merrick mumbled quietly.

---The Next Day---

"Recurring harassment. Sexual harassment. Sexual assault. Destruction of a court-ordered document." Judge Jacquelyn reads from the list of charges. Jessica sits on the right side of the courthouse, beside her own lawyer, who looks rather stressed as he rubs his temples, "Premeditated assault and battery, leading to willful life endangerment. Trespassing. Interference of psychological and medical treatment. Attempted rape. And finally, violation of a restraining order."

"Wait, restraining order?" Adam asked Erin, fully dressed in formal attire, as is everyone else in the courtroom, "When did that happen? She ripped mine in half."

"Your friend, Yuri, called me and asked me to arrange for another copy," Erin explained quietly, "After Miss Foster tore up the one you had. Miss Umiyama asked your parents to sign it on your behalf, and it was filed and officiated 3 weeks ago."

"Oh." Adam nodded. Merrick gently rubs his hand as he sits next to him. Adam smiles as he rubs back.

"Well honey, you are in a whole mess of trouble." Jacquelyn says as she looks up.

"Your Honor," Jessica's lawyer says as he stands up, "My client was only trying to help Mr Bryant put his life together, who has endangered himself on several counts."

"I know you're not serious." Jacquelyn responds with a raised brow, "According to this, her behavior has been going on for months, why is she still walkin' around?"

"No one has reported such incident before Mr Bryant found himself in his... Unfortunate condition."

"Well, it's reported now." Jacquelyn nods as she closes the folder.

"There is still the matter of the violent assault on my client." He continued, "My client states that this Mr Piscien viciously attacked her under the Fish House docks."

"Your Honor, I would like to answer to that." Erin says as she stood up, "Mr Piscien claims his actions where based on self-defense when Miss Foster started to exhibit her unstable and unconscionable behavior towards Mr Bryant."

"Your client's... Person," The male lawyer leers at Erin, Adam, and Merrick, "Injured my client and nearly drowned her. The court would hardly classify that as self-defense."

"Your client hindered the mental recovery of MY client, and has gotten away with more than-"

BAM BAM BAM BAM

"Order, order people!" Jacquelyn raises her voice while slamming her small hammer. Both lawyers quiet down for the moment, "In light of Miss Foster's actions in the past, this court sees that she has greatly provoked a number of people from her clinically obsessive devotion to Mr Bryant, who has chosen to give her many chances and warnings for her to stop. If the multiple accounts are correct, her crimes have gone unpunished under the law for far too long, and such results are what caused Mr Piscien's hostility towards-"

"I object, your Honor!" Jessica's lawyer said out loud, "Mr Piscien has knowingly crippled my client ruthlessly from the slightest-"

"Overruled." BAM Jacquelyn cut him off with a slam of her grovel, "The overwhelming amount of evidence has spoken for itself. Your client will be fined $1500, and will carry out a prison sentence of 20 years. Further, she will also be required to be assigned a psychologist to ease her mental state through counseling sessions. Case dismissed." Jacquelyn slams her grovel again, and the attendees of the court get up from their seats. The bailiff escorts a very miserable Jessica out of the courthouse, sobbing as she goes.

"That went well." Adam says as he stands up.

"Few more wins like this, and I'll get that promotion." Erin says as she packs her papers.

"Awww, you won't be my lawyer anymore?"

"Hahaha, Adam. I'll ALWAYS be your..." She fumbles for a word, "That... Person who knows law stuff... For you. And stuff." She nods for a hesitant moment.

"Hah, ok. And stuff. Read you loud and clear." Adam pats her shoulder as he turns to Merrick.

"Oh shut up, I skipped getting coffee and breakfast to get here on time." Erin defended. "You owe me a raspberry danish."

"Hahahaha" Adam laughs, "Right, I'll take you to someplace nice. The vending machine is just around the corner, right?"

"Oh no, you're going all out at the Sugar Shore." Erin tugged his ear while snickering at him.

"Can I change now? I hate wearing these clothes." Merrick irks as he tugs at his shirt collar.

"But baaabe. You look freaking handsome in a suit."

~~~

"Once again, I owe you big time." Merrick says as he talks with Jacquelyn outside on the railing.

"Look, Adam's lawyer was able to talk yo way out of getting arrested for beaten up that lady, but I still have to put you on a one-year probation -- the violation of which will result in a determined sentence. So don't do it again."

"I understand, I just couldn't help myself after I found out..."

"Listen boy. If I went around beatin on everyone's ass fo-"

"Jackie!" Adam says as he holds his arms open and up, "It's been ages."

"Ahhhh, how you doin, boy??" She greets as she hugs Adam, "Good to see ya, hun."

"When did YOU become a judge, and... When did you start smoking?" He asked as he noticed the wisping cigarette.

"Round the same time few months back. How is Jamal, is he doin good?"

"You could ask him yourself, you're his counselor."

"Eh, I... I can't, really." She shook her head, "He ain't that keen on me."

"Oh yeah, and you're his relative too, aren't you?" Merrick asked, "What were you called again... You are his mother's sister, right?"

"Oh, you're Jamal's aunt?" Adam asked with surprise, "I never knew that."

"Yeah, that's me..." Jacquelyn nodded as she sighs.

"Oh, then... Wait a minute, if you're his aunt, then why didn't he move in with you when he came to Hawaii?" Adam asked, "Not that I don't love having him, but wouldn't he be put with his next of kin?"

"It's... It's complicated, aight?"

"How complicated? Do you hate him?" Merrick asked innocently.

"Naw, I don't... Well, I do, kinda... I don't HATE him, I... Damn, I told you, it's complicated."

"Alright, I understand." Adam nodded.

"Well I don't, what's the problem?" Merrick asked.

"Hhh... You know his story, right? He was caught makin crystal meth, and even did it once, and that's how he got in trouble. He said his brother told him it was just weird candy they needed to sell so they can see they Mama in rehab. They Daddy was always workin his ass off, and when Jamal was caught, his brother took off with all the money he made -- to this day, we don't know where he is."

"When his Dad found out, he just disowned Jamal, and put him into foster care. It was a rough year for him. Eventually, he moved over here, and that's when we met. He figured out right away that we were related. Said I look just like his Mama."

"So why didn't you let him live with you?"