within an hour , he ends up here , not far from the fibers of scratchy carpet , crusted of mysterious sap , not far from leftover chinese , festering within white cartons , not far from his badge , discarded and deliberately left behind on stand . he’s aware of the gravity of his mistakes , either impending or pending of fate , and these in particular have yet to be made … still loitering , left of room for revocation before it’s too late , but alas , he never glances over his shoulder , failing to wonder the possibilities of what’s likely – the sweats to succumb , the dizzy of a nauseating headache to die , or for things to go horribly wrong , for blood to congeal along the dirt already smeared down his fingers , and for dread to finally stimulate his senses and fill the empty gap in his chest .
outcome ? the burden dwelling inside his head tells him , who cares . and when door hauls open , it’s more eagerness than anything else leaning hand on frame , letting him almost leer in with confidence , some kind of wild , excitable stare in the pit of bulldog eyes , epitomizing man of desire , of vices that can’t go amiss , albeit spoken . “ followed a vine straight to here – ” faster than he would’ve expected – it’s strange how these routes are easier to find now at this time of night , than they are in the middle of the job . and yet , he remains unfazed for regularity of affairs , despite a noticeable contrast between one and the other . he barely spares them a second glance , turning more attuned to the space around them , the air over their shoulder , among surroundings and what threats could be hiding .
then , finally , fixes back onto their eyes … “ – you can empty my pockets , whatever , i just need to find a way to sleep . ”
—
it takes a split second to process the image before their eyes, and the inevitable thought that pops up as the man leans over the door frame is a harmless rendition of he looks like shit. not that they aren’t used to this — the puffy eyes, half-crazed look. that, if anything, is the sign of good business, or a loyal customer if you will. surely someone who’ll come again, and again, and provide reliable payments for fear of any trouble. kara smirks, head tilted in curiosity. perhaps they get a kick not just out of the business — there’s a soft kind of pleasure in supplying to the self-named good guys, isn’t there? to know the light of whatever bright, morally-guiding lighthouse leads them gets dimmer each time they show up on their doorstep.
“thought you narcs got them for free on the job”. a half scoff let out (their disliking for that side of the law does not come from a nature-dictated rivalry between their factions. they just really can’t stand the stupid faces they pull when they claim to be sacrificing themselves for the greater good). a distant corner of their brain echoes back the notion that perhaps they should be able to sense a deeper sympathy for the man before them: recognize parts, if not of themselves, surely of their brother in the way he looks worn, shadow-like, half faded out of existence. the awareness instead only turns them harsher, their clay-like demeanor hardening at the intrusion of a thought much rather buried deep within.
“you look like shit”. the off-handed remark hides a secret message — i have the upper hand, it says. you have your badges and your cuffs, your monthly pay and dental care, but i own the filthy core of your shame and the one thing keeping you as sane as someone as fucked up as you can be. kara smirks, stepping aside just enough to give off the appaearance that they care enough to let him in. “what do you need?”
location: parking lot in north side.
time: late evening.
“She’s a bitch,” Jack murmured as he paced around the parking lot. His wandering gaze never seemed to stay in one place, or on one car for too long before he’d go on to the next. And who did he have to thank for his sudden need to steal a vehicle? His lovely sister of course. She had fucked him over. Bonded by blood, his own sister had been the one to take away any meaning Jack had left in his life and now, his car. “Took my damn car.” Sure, that was four years ago but it was his and the money she got for the parts she sold belonged to him too. He kissed that good-bye the moment he put two and two together upon his return to Red Ridge. Now he was left to his own devices. Jack passed one car after the next without so much as a second glance to those cars that had price tag worth phoning the cops for. “Rich asshole.” The observation came as the tall male eyed one of those perfectly clean white Tesla electric cars.
But Jack’s own self serving monologue had come to an end the moment he realized he wasn’t alone. A tall man lurking in a parking lot, didn’t seem to raise suspicion at all…”Shit.” He began to dig around in his pockets until Jack produced a lighter, close enough to appear like a key fob as he pressed the top of the metal with his thumb repeatedly. The smile he gave the couple that passed him failed to reach his gaze. The same couple that had glanced back to look at Jack who finally came to rest on the hood of the first car within his proximity. A 2004 white Ford Explorer. Easy enough to lift, possibly.
There was only one issue, once again he wasn’t alone. The couple may have left but now there was some woman in the parking lot making her way for…God, was this her car? Jack’s gaze fell to the lighter in his grasp. His brows knitted together and his lips pursed. His jaw strained, teeth pressed firmly down as his index finger began to once again tap against that metal lighter, but as he looked up, his shifty gaze once again caught sight of the same individual. Shit.
—
truth be told, kara was bored. reasons for boredom could be many, though they’d mostly all gather around the notion that business was slow and jordan wasn’t around. a thursday night would usually be spent in a corner at violet, waiting for that unmistakable look by someone needing just the right fix for their sad excuse of a night out. but people hadn’t been much in the mood to party, lately, and kara’d been forced to venture out in other forms of business. it had been a while since the last time they’d jacked a car, usually a task too tiresome and somehow not truly enticing enough to justify the effort. but it was business, still: and, at least, a decent way to fill up an empty evening.
they were quiet as they walked around the parking lot — mindful of streetlights, security cameras, dark-claden and discreet, the very definition of inconspicuous. truth be told, that car wouldn’t have been their first choice, but they spotted a man lurking around it, and the way they hovered around the vehicle didn’t exactly give off the vibe of them being the owner. kara kept their distance, eyes narrowed as they watched the scene unfold. a vague smirk crossed their lips as they saw him sit on the hood of the car, perform a rather convincing act — one that might’ve fooled them, had kara not seen the prologue. of course, there could be the possibility he was just a very awkward dude, or that he’d lost his keys, that he was just weird. either way, kara decided to take a leap of faith (if anything, fuck around and get a kick out of it).
approaching the car slowly, kara tilted their head and stopped just a couple feet from the back of the car, arms crossed. “excuse me, if you wouldn’t mind getting your ass off my car, i’d need it”.
for a moment, the outside world went dark. there was nothing but kara: their lips, their hands, their light to draw her forward. kara kissed her and it felt like instinct; something natural, like going back to the very beginning. kara kissed her and jordan wanted more, always. their touch was enough to silence her, and reduce her to a state of sheer want. all she could do was offer them a gentle squeeze of the hand — she: a woman burning.
jordan waited for the garage door to shut before unraveling, her smirk a mirror image of kara’s own. “i can say the same for you, can’t i?” like magnets, she found herself following their every movement, orbiting around them and the space they occupied — space that she wanted in on. jordan pulled them toward her and placed their hand on the warm skin of her hips beneath her sweater, doing the same with their other hand, too. she’d never voice it, but jordan often felt she didn’t know who she was if she wasn’t being touched. what little solace she could find was here: planted in kara’s very own palms.
jordan let her own hands travel up their arms — flesh against flesh — before brushing the hair out of their face, hands careful as they held the most beautiful face she’d ever seen. her lips had parted to speak, but jordan couldn’t help herself — not anymore. she leaned down to kiss them again, humming against their lips. “sorry i didn’t text first.” their noses rub sweetly, purposely. “doesn’t really look like i’m ruining any plans, though.”
—
the awareness that they could lose control came to kara very early, and just as early it had terrified them — they’d spend a lifetime fighting the external world and its many pathogens, unplanned incursions threatening this self-preservating existence of theirs. and yet this moment found them spinning out of their planned trajectory — always, always slipping out of their own grasp when it was jordan’s hands grabbing them instead, guiding them onto different, winding paths. learning the concept of fear in a form they could accept: drink it down in its purest form, unadulterated adrenaline. lips curled against jordan’s, slipping in and out of a shape that barely felt coherent anymore (their very act something transcending the laws of physics, the way bodies were supposed to have a container: it felt like nothing but electricity instead, a map drawn out of jordan’s touch along their feverish, eager skin).
“you say that like this wasn’t your plan”. they tease, they never show too many cards: each display of want must be met with an equal and opposite demand, for this can be sweet and hungry and warm but it is, most of all, a gamble. their hands easily accommodate jordan’s movements, trailing the curve of her back upwards, fingertips grazing the ridge of her spine. kara’s mouth inches closer, leaves a trail of gentle, silent kisses along her cheek and then moves back again, over their lips. “what’d you tell them?”, kara whispers, a hand moving to tuck jordan’s hair behind her ear, the back of their fingers then grazing along the profile of her face. “that you’d be out catching a bad, dangerous villain?”. their smirk is sharp, cuts their face in half: it is a reminder, of sorts.
then they’re moving away. gently slipping like water, but welcoming jordan in the hazy, orange light of their garage. “want a drink?”, they muse, turning sideways towards her as they cross the length of the room to the tiny, camping fridge in a half-abandoned corner of their living quarters — there’s no alcohol they can offer anyway, just an ungodly amount of cola and a couple drinks that look far too pink to be anywhere near healthy. still, theirs isn’t really a suggestive question: more an excuse to get her to stay
jordan was too baked to think of a witty response, much less a safe one. it was a bout of insomnia that’d brought her there — having since learned that tossing and turning in an empty bed wasn’t, in fact, the antidote for this bone-deep restlessness. see, it was kara that she thought about when she closed her eyes, when she was stuck staring at the ceiling, and when she decided to put a hand between her thighs. it was them; always them. this fixation felt metaphysical — cosmic, almost, in the way it beckoned her, having drawn her to this very doorstep. she swallowed, helpless against the way her heart raced. it didn’t matter that she’d smoked before this — jordan couldn’t hide from kara if she tried. her gaze followed the dip and swell of their form, eyes ever careful not to linger too long. she didn’t want to give them any ideas — not that the way she’d dressed would even allude to anything. her hair was mildly disheveled still, smelling of citrus and cannabis; her body hidden beneath a black hoodie and cotton shorts. it was sleepwear, pure and simple.
her lips parted as if to say i’ve missed you, but there was no sound. only air — the same air that nipped at her skin and painted her in hues of pink. it was in that shared, quiet moment that it came to her: finally, the ‘safe’ answer. “if i let you touch my tits, will that cover it?” jordan stepped closer, a wry smile blossoming on her lips. behind them, she could hear the distant sound of a television running. she wanted to ask if there was someone else there, too, but that was a query better left unspoken. kara wasn’t hers; that wasn’t a thought she had any right to claim — and yet.. jordan ducked her head. smaller, softer now: “can i come inside?”
what a sick, twisted game they loved playing. kara had never been one to gamble, and poker had always felt far too slow, too strategic for them — but they figured this, whatever this was (the unspoken pull between their molecules, pulling into one another, pulling back, crashing, tossing, colliding) had to look a lot like it. laying out their cards, hiding them again — kara could feel blatantly exposed now, obscenely so, jordan’s gaze washing over their features and awarding them a new concept of body. they’d never much cared for the container of flesh keeping their organs in place — not until her eyes had begun giving them shape. they could feel something tingling, a flutter somewhere deep beneath: the smirk that raised the right corner of their lips was its physical expression, for lack of words to explain it.
language, they’d accepted this long before, fell short of explaining anything when it came to jordan. it seemed as though their belonging to different worlds came hand in hand with a communication problem, and kara often found themselves rethinking their moves, recalculating the path around her that would make them come out of this, if not victorious, at least only mildly scarred. but they barely had any control left. something about jordan — perhaps the way her head tilted, exposing more of her neck: perhaps the softer note in her voice, something inciting kara’s want — was a hidden cue, and they moved in, a hand finding its place around jordan’s head, pulling her close, their kiss slow but fierce, hungry. “i can work with that —”, a half whisper, breathed against jordan’s lips, and then kara’s hand slid down — desperate in her need to touch her, to give her something that would inevitably keep her coming (sort of like a drug, sort of like a simple, harmless business matter). instead it found jordan’s hand again, and as kara turned to step back into the garage, their hand was tied to jordan’s. “come on”, they mused. “wouldn’t want your buddies to see you and think so badly of you”.
where: kara’s garage, on the outskirts of red ridge, 1 am.
to: open @redridgehq
a knock on the metal door, this late at night, was far from unusual. over time, they’d come to consider it as part of the natural soundtrack surrounding them — the cars speeding not too far from their garage, on the highway. the distant howling of dogs and coyotes, as if becoming one by a rule of the wilderness. the gunshots, now and then, which somehow always brought a faded smirk along their lips. the knocking — among those sounds, perhaps it was their favorite. meant there was business to be done. meant, most of the time, that there were reasons to get bloody. lazily, kara dragged themselves out of the messy, disheveled bed they’d been lying on, absent mindedly watching a movie from the old, grainy tv in a corner of the room. crow raised his head lazily as they passed him, and kara patted his head delicately, letting him go back to sleep. (it’s alright, boy).
when the loud, creaking door was dragged open, kara leaned against its frame, unashamed by their half nudity (on their person nothing but underwear and a shirt from the 1998 red ridge summer camp they never attended, but got a leftover shirt from one of the other kids at st. david’s — shouldn’t be so surprising that it still fits). arms crossed, there’s a curve to their eyebrows — half skeptical perhaps, but intrigued. “so? there’s a night fee for emergencies, you know”.
Full Name: Kara Davidsen
Nickname: N/A
Age: 31
Gender & Pronouns: Genderfluid, They/Them, She/Her
Ethnicity: Indigenous (Awaetlatla First Nations + Himalayan; this is unknown to them, as their arrival in the orphanage was not met with any information regarding their biological family).
Sexual & Romantic Orientation: Pansexual/Demiromantic
Occupation: Criminal (mostly dealing in petty crimes, theft, drug dealing, the occasional ass kicking).
Affiliation: Deviant
Faceclaim: Tanaya Beatty
URL: roadklls
hello, rylan (27, she/her, gmt+2) again, introducing you to my lil angry hedgehog by the name of kara davidsen + more info, wanted connections. / @redridgeimp
name: kara davidsen
nicknames: n/a
age: 31
ethnicity: Indigenous (Awaetlatla First Nations + Himalayan; this is unknown to them, as their arrival in the orphanage was not met with any information regarding their biological family).
gender/pronouns: genderfluid, they/them, she/her
sexual/romantic orientation: pansexual/demiromantic
been in red ridge for: on and off all their life
occupation: criminal (mostly drug dealing atm)
affiliation: none (deviant, though occasionally will lend a hand to valencia or whoever needs it)
positive traits: loyal, observant, clever, headstrong, generous, determinate.
negative traits: proud, aggressive, cold, hot-headed, cruel, resentful.
BIOGRAPHY —
(WARNINGS for child abandonment, abuse, bullying, substance abuse, medical misconduct / patient abuse, overdosing, death, violence).
red ridge, nv, 1989. left, discarded like unwanted leftovers — they found them in a cardboard box, half-freezing, on the doorsteps of the charming orphanage. they were given a name that was supposed to be temporary, until a family would pick them up: kara. something breaking, something thunderous, like the storm raging on the night they’re found. their last name davidsen, from the orphanage of st. david’s. lost in the world, but they soon found an ally in a child left, discarded like they were — delphine, though sharing none of their blood, became their sister.
red ridge, nv, 1993. it was clear from the very beginning that the two would have to fight teeth and nails for their place in the world, but their bond served as a double-edged weapon, kept them safe with one another and the rest of the world away. the two barely ever left each other side, and kara, in particular, soon developing a violent protectiveness over their sister. this bond would allow them to sustain the abuse, the violence, the difficulties they were soon thrown into the second they were assigned to their first foster family. it is a poisonous environment, one that corrupts the valorous side of them to leave the broken parts behind, the damage. together, they fight back. together, they survive.
red ridge, nv, 1999. taken out of the foster family, they both return to st. david’s. it’s not a victory, but it’s the chance for something better to happen - kara won’t admit it, but they hold hope someday this might have a sense. find a family for the both of them, with food on the plate and fresh clothes every day.
red ridge, nv, 2001. delphine might just get that. changes of getting out st. david’s are always slim (there’s a thing about kids grown in the desert, they bark and bite as if coyotes themselves have been the one raising them), but delphine is taken away. off to a good family, off to a better family: the bond, the magical bond that had kept them fighting through the various different wildfires life had enjoyed putting them through, it suddenly broke. kara was left behind. dumbfounded, angry, a question left ringing in their head without the knowledge to put it into coherent words: what’s the point of loving, what’s the point of caring — if it all gets taken away?
red ridge, nv, 2003. but they do love, and they do care. in their own misguided, clumsy way; and one day they bring another kid in the orphanage, two years their younger, a scared, wide-eyed kid. the other kids enjoy teasing him, enjoy the look he gets when they knock the glasses off his face and he has to go scramble to find them. kara hates that. kara enjoys putting themselves between them and him and grin at them: say come on, what are you gonna do? what’s that, are you afraid? (maybe they mimic the way delphine would look after them. maybe, in their own half broken language, they are just trying to summon delphine — or their spirit, the protective archetype of an older sibling — back into their bones. they vow they will protect eric, even though they have to endure the other kids’ beatings in his place. but one day it is too much: we gotta get out of here, they say to him one night, after they found the other kids collecting punches in eric’s gut and the tutors pretending to look the other way. we gotta get out of here.
somewhere across the nevada / utah border, 2005. breaking out wasn’t the hard part; by now kara knew exactly how to slip out, just had lacked a motivation to leave the orphanage. the hard part is when they’re out in the cold, freezing their asses off somewhere in utah, trying hard to find a fucking way to live and coming up empty. they steal cans of meat from a barn; the owner finds them, threatens them both, a shotgun aimed at kara’s throat. he sees something in them, and then somehow understands: these aren’t thieves. these are assets.
eureka, ut, 2006. scott halbridge has a lot of flaws, but one couldn’t say he isn’t a resourceful man. there isn’t a single felony he and his makeshift clan haven’t dabbled with, even just for a taste of it — and the two orphans he found in his barn might just help him grow his business. the younger kid, the one with the glasses, is soft and unassuming but he’s got a skill — he’s good at handling drugs, he’s good at selling ‘em too. the other one, the girl (he keeps calling them that and kara wants to bite the vocal cords off his throat but they won’t; they won’t, he won’t understand, it’s better they just play nice) — kara’s tougher to handle. but they’re great at kicking ass, and when needed they can slip in and out of buildings and steal shit without anyone ever noticing it. they’re both extremely useful. but eric gets to try the merch he sells and he begins growing a sweet tooth for it. when the money he brings back to scott every week grows shorter by one, two, ten doses — that’s when he understands. and his way of making eric understand, too, is by jumping on him, bashing in his head, slamming him against the wall. kara doesn’t think — it’s a single instinct that leads their arms to move, retrieving the shotgun by the side of scott’s desk, aiming, shooting. the shotgun recoils back and throws them off their balance. kara falls, but so does scott: his brain sprayed all over the walls. panting, eric stares at kara. they know what he’s seeing: something damaged. something terrifying. kara breathes, wipes the blood off the side of their cheek. “we gotta go”, they say, and then they’re on the road again.
elko, nv, 2010. another kind of scott halbridge ends up taking them in. a gang of sorts, someone who has use for their talents. kara’s attitude for fighting and taking one, two, a hundred punches, proved them to be a great resource for the needs of criminal enforcers. eric’s charm, instead, proved once again to be a fruitful assets in selling drugs: they found a life of their own, as unlawful as it was, and kept surviving on their own.
carlin, nv, 2013. eric was too soft for this world. kara had known from the beginning, and yet it still caught them off guard. the drugs got the best of him, swallowed him whole — after he’d given in to a manic episode in public, he was forcefully committed to a rehabilitation facility where the limits of ethics were more than a little stretched. they’d abuse him verbally, physically, use prescription drugs on him too liberally until he was left a screaming, aching mess of a human being. once kara learned of this (once they were able to track the place they’d taken him to), they followed through with the promise they’d made with delphine years before, the one that the loss of delphine had led to breaking but had to be respected now, for it was sacred: them against the world, no matter what. somehow, kara managed to break him out of the facility. somehow, he got his hands on drugs again. eric overdosed at the age of 22.
red ridge, nv, 2014. though kara had known anger all their life, this was the first time they experienced pain. on their own, with no destination, or even a reason to keep moving forward, they ended up back in the place where they’d began. red ridge, nevada — old contacts allowed her a way into the safe, usual business of fucking around and stealing cars, selling drugs, whatever could get them by. they were good at dealing, even good at fighting for respect. within years, they had a decent business network going on. though they didn’t care about valencia’s business in the city, and the many gangs trying to start shit in town, never did, really — they found the conflict, the violence, to be the healing balm for their aching soul. they soon began fighting at rogue’s club: though lacking discipline or any sort of training, they’d been fighting since the day they were born and could take punches for hours. the pain became a shelter, a relief. it kept them alert and out of their sorrow, out of their weakness. her life became a pantheon for violence — the fights, the ghosts, and the drugs she wouldn’t use. each of them a replacer for something she couldn’t get anymore. each blow landing against her ribcage, a reminder: this is for delphine, the way she was taken and gone forever, and perhaps a part of them had hoped coming back to red ridge would make her show up again, summoned by memories and whatever bond they’d shared — that’s a fairy tale, isn’t it? they always fucking hated those. this is for eric, the way he vanished out of thin air, no matter how much they tried to hold his molecules together, force shapeless air back into the container of his body. this is for their inability to accept it. this, at last, is for kara davidsen and all that’s left of them. a bag of bones, a blooming of bruises. and their anger: so thick, so venomous you could smell it in the air.
janainaart
snowghoul
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
kaledo-art
vaporwave
kianamaiart
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
