Welcome To A New Episode Of: I Want To See This With My Own Eyes One Day (x)

Christian Serratos 📸 Stefanie Marie

@velocicatpurr

New tattoos by Dr. Woo.

Much Like Ace, the ringing in her ears post shoot out was deafening. All her being was tied to the weight of the metal in her hands. She watched as smoke sheepishly billowed out of the end of the barrel until her line of vision crossed her newest victim. She took in an eyeful of yet another body drowning in a pool of its own blood. There was a soft hum in the background but she couldn’t make it out until a new sensation took over. The gentleness in his touch when he outstretched his hand to remove the pistol from her death grip. She felt guilty when her recognized her body’s natural reaction to want to pull the trigger again and shoot before she knew it was him grazing her fingers and not an actual threat. “Just look at me.” Although her body resisted, she willed herself to tear her eyes away from the dead body and matched his hazel eyes. He was patient with her and she was thankful.

“Do you have everything?” Her mind went to her phone but she was glued to the ground, she would ultimately forget to look for it. The white room had begun to spin and with Ace moving so diligently around to erase any evidence of their presence, Kahlo was afraid of getting sick. She was able to make sense of holding it in – suppressing any and all emotion in this instance. It wasn’t until she too heard the footsteps in the outside hallway that she remembered the call for help. If she was going to survive the night, if she was going to help keep him alive, she needed to snap out of it. Survive the night and spend the rest of your life mourning the fate of your soul. Her nervous hands reached out to Ace when she saw him approach her again, this time with his finger to his lips and leading her toward the fire escape. She didn’t need an invitation to climb over the windowsill and swing a leg over until she was on the landing.

Despite being ready to get the hell out of there, she waiting for Ace’s final move. The sound of the fire extinguisher going off was her cue to start for ground level but Kahlo’s pace didn’t pick up until she was sure Ace was trailing behind her. She would’ve kept going until her shoes hit the pavement beneath them but his hand at her shoulder pulled her attention away from the goal. The choice was make a get away or hide out in someone else’s apartment. She was hesitant to destroy the lives of an innocent family but when bullets came raining down from above and they were forced to press their bodies as close to the window as possible, Kahlo simply nodded in his direction. There was a silent prayer for the apartment to be empty. Off in the not so far off distance, police sirens could be heard over the never-ending pop of gunfire.

One of the ricochet bullets missed her leg by not even 2 inches but did find its target in the downstairs window. With only a hole the side of her foot, the pair would have to finish the job if they wanted to slip inside and get out of range. As the sole of Ace’s shoe destroyed what remained of the glass, Kahlo managed to slip out of his jacket and set it on the sill to avoid slicing their thighs as they swung through the broken window. She motioned for him to duck in first and then she followed. The apartment was empty – not a piece of furniture in it. Instead, through the darkness she was able to make out cans of paint, masking tape all along the walls and two ladders all in the living room. Relief washed over her once she realized she wouldn’t be the cause of anymore trauma that night.

There were still a few stray gunshots, she figured the men on the eleventh floor hadn’t made out the shapes of their bodies disappearing into the building again so she took the time to inspect her body for any wounds. She was clear. No bullet touched her. The shooting stopped but she couldn’t pick up on anymore footsteps. She let her body relax some as she leaned against the wall of the empty apartment. When she remembered about her missing phone, her hands flew to the pockets of her jeans only to find her phone was still upstairs. “We can’t stay here.” There was exhaustion in her voice.

From above, “The Catscratch Club?” One of the men picked up her phone and looked at the lock screen like his fallen comrades had. Kahlo’s eyes widened in panic as she tried to find Ace in the darkness. They’d made a connection between the destruction above and her. “That wouldn’t be the one in Hell’s Kitchen, would it?” He was taunting them. Tormenting them. The club was closed, there would be no one there to meet their violence should then make their way downtown but who was to stay they wouldn’t cause another bloodbath tomorrow when her friends took the stage. It didn’t matter if Kahlo and Ace survived the night – this wasn’t over.

@vihilum​

Instinct pushed forward and Kahlo’s hands were already on the man’s body. While she waited to take the stranger’s lead in almost everything else, once it was made clear that he was still alive, that she was not as guilty as she prepared herself to be, she sprang into action. She slid her right hand underneath his limp neck and lifted just enough so that his airway was clear. Druggies, not matter how far deep you were, have seen overdose before. Although, she couldn’t keep her own body from trembling, she stayed the course and tried to make herself as useful to her savior as possible. A few words were exchanged but nothing drastic enough to make them look up from the nearly dead body that physically separated them. Perhaps it was Kahlo’s ultra focus on the man that prevented her from picking up on the rustle of the doorknob, but her make shift partner was there to save her ass once again.

If Kahlo had been blinking, she would’ve missed everything. It seemed that nothing would work out in her favor that night. The two opposing forces came into the apartment with seemingly no struggle, yet they had no key. They’d done this before. She felt hands on her arm yank her up with a paralyzing sense of urgency that left her unable to resist. She trusted this stranger with her life at this point. Following his swift movement, Kahlo allowed her body to be lead into the hallway closet. After he pressed her to the back wall of the closet, she watched as his hands fell from her shoulders. He turned and carefully shut the shutter doors, barricading them inside. He took front and center with his eyes only centimetres away from the light that poked through the gaps of the flimsy, wooden doors so his back was pressed to the front of the her body. What would have been a terribly tight fit for any two people was only just a tight fit both of their relatively slender frames.

Hearing everything without being able to actually see anything was a torment. Heavy footsteps gave away the steel toe boots the second pair of intruders were wearing as they thumped over the marble flooring. A patronizing tisk came from one of the men, now fully in the living room, while the other spoke out. “Benjamin, what kind of shit do you get yourself into, man? Looks like you had all the fun before we even got here.” There was something so sinister in the man’s tone that made Kahlo’s stomach fall to the floor and the hairs on her neck rise. Whoever they were, whatever they wanted, she knew she wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. Her life was already shit, she didn’t need anything else. Her mind would’ve kept racing if the silence wasn’t interrupted by the sound of a steel toe making contact with a skull.

First it was a crunch but after the fourth stomp it started to sound more like boots splashing around in globs of mud than anything else. Imagining blood, the color of crimson, splatter all over the white floor and walls - envisioning a gaping crater where the man’s face was only minutes ago was making her queasy. This was a person. A human being and they had no regard for the divinity of life. If she couldn’t get her own shit together, who was to say the pair hiding in the closet wouldn’t be met with the same fate, or worse. Desperate to steady herself, Kahlo’s hands found the hem of Ace’s jacket and she clung to him as she nervously attempted to self soothe. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. It seemed the destruction behind the closet doors was finally finished but noise from the two men continued. She couldn’t be sure but it sounded like rummaging through this drawer and that cupboard, knocking over this table and laughing about the way the man called Benjamin was already waiting for them, Kahlo tried so hard to remain still and silent as she listened for any more clues that would help her place the men in the apartment.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. When her mind couldn’t handle the trauma any longer, she started to dissociate thankfully however, biology took over as her brain willed her body to stand still while her mind carried her away from the cramped quarters she and her companion occupied. Thoughts of her tropical island flooded her senses. She could almost hear the waves crashing down on her Dominican shores, almost taste the sweetness of mango con chile after biting through a thick coat of spice, and the salt from the water, everything was always just an almost. She could’v-

Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzz.

Her eyes wasted no time to shoot open and widen in realizing she left her phone on the couch. She felt her partner’s body stiffen, really for the first time since closing the shutter doors. With the buzzing of a phone, she was back in the states. Back in the closet. She wanted to break out of their prison, dig her nails into this stranger’s arm and run as fast as her legs could carry them. She could do neither of these things and the trembling picked up again, this time the slightest bit more aggressively. “What the fuck is th-? It’s his phone. Shut that shit off, yeah?” Again, Kahlo listened hard to mentally picture where the men were in the apartment. The faint footsteps grew louder the closer one of them got to the couch. A gloved hand sliding over the leather and slipping into its cracks could be heard until the phone was found.

When the lock screen – a personal image of Catscratch dancers in fishnets and corsets in Kahlo’s dressing room -  was deemed not fitting for a, very dead, Benjamin, it was over. “There’s someone else here, boss.” 

If Kahlo were the fainting type, this would’ve been the time she hit the floor.

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💫🍁🔮

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 - August 12, 1988)

all women born after 800 AD do is tempt, blaspheme, witchcraft, eat potent herbs to aid in their foul divinations, and lie