Home > Shattered Ice (Fury #3)(7)

Shattered Ice (Fury #3)(7)
Author: Monty Jay

Some saw vandalism. I saw the voice of the unheard.

Outlaw art. A victimless crime that seemed to fit me perfectly. The quiet kid that scared everyone. It was an underground subculture, an art fucking movement. It was dynamic, explosive, unpredictable.

Climbing fences, making sure you didn’t get caught. It was an adrenaline rush that rivaled hockey.

When I first started, I was just following the New York graffiti style, tagging my name on subway cars, nothing too fancy. I wanted to leave my mark, to show that I was here. But then I found Banksy and my world really shifted.

Banksy is an anonymous street artist that started out as a snot-nosed graffiti artist in Bristol, England as a way to shove his middle finger to the British government. However, over time he created a new revolution, something more complex than graffiti.

Street art.

To most it sounded like the same thing as graffiti but it was a beast all its own. With street art you could create murals, bigger, more powerful designs by using premade stencils. Banksy always had political undertones that the masses seemed to understand, people related to. He was changing the world one satirical painting at a time. Art with a message, with a meaning.

The man was a leader of a rebellion. He hung his paintings in the Louvre for Christ’s sake and still wasn’t caught. He hung his art with Warhol, Picasso, a fuck you to the prestigious art world, and I was enthralled.

It was the ultimate anarchy that woke the world up making it ask the questions.

What is art worth? Who does art really belong to? And who decides what art is priceless and what is not?

I wanted my art to mean something. To capture the heartbeat of society, to bring attention to issues we weren’t looking at. Art for the fucking people.

At first I was bombing everything I saw with spray paint, but as I got older, as I studied people like Banksy, Kato, Ben Eine, I started to plan my hits more. So I racked my cans and made outlines. I picked specific locations. I wanted to be loud, but also stay anonymous.

I was seventeen when I painted my first fallen angel. I wanted to bring attention to children in need, homeless kids, orphans, street kids, the ones without a voice. I wanted to be their megaphone.

I was doing it to release my demons, not for the recognition. So I never tagged my work with a name. I left it entirely anonymous. Until I stumbled across the girl with wings.

I was twenty-two, just finished a piece when I saw her flying into oncoming traffic. I wasn’t superman, but I wasn’t going to let her die either.

She couldn’t have been any older than eighteen, and young was never my type.

I was into some kinky sexual activities some might find…rather disturbing, but age play wasn’t it for me. I preferred my women to be legal and willing.

Still, there was something compelling about her. Extremely intelligent, witty, funny, and she seemed to understand things on a deeper wavelength than the average stranger.

When I was young, I read all of the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children books. I read quite a lot as a child, anything that would help me escape from the reality I was living.

I’d read these books, and when I saw her, I felt childlike again.

She looked like a character straight from those novels, like she had fluttered off the pages.

With blue hair that reached just above her shoulders, knee high striped socks, a Ramones t-shirt and a pair of weathered combat boots. There was no denying just how peculiar she was.

But it was her eyes.

They were an ash grey, almost silver.

Almost as if her mother had stood outside on every single full moon making wishes while she was pregnant. The shining orb had granted her daughter with eyes that were mysterious, illuminating.

Her moon eyes were how she was able to see the world so differently, because the truth of the matter is, the sun? It sees your skin, but the moon? She sees your soul.

Whimsical eyes for a very peculiar girl.

Everything about her seemed different. Like she aimed to be as odd as possible every day.

There are just some people out there who beat to their own drum and she? She was one of those people. I’d nicknamed her the girl with wings because she had this lightness about her, a frail soul, it reminded me of a blue jay.

When she gave me the tag name ‘The Fallen’ I kept it.

Because for the first time, someone saw my art for what it was.

Painful.

Toska.

So I started tagging my work, every mural I painted after that had my chicken scratch handwriting in the bottom left corner signed, ‘The Fallen.’ I’d gained quite a following since then, I even once was trending on Twitter.

But the social media attention had never been the goal. It was all about exercising my personal demons. Showing the world the truth behind the curtain of lies. Not all children had happy childhoods.

It’d been nearly a year since my last mural. Twitter wanted to know where I had disappeared to. Some thought I died.

Truthfully, I lost the inspiration. There wasn’t anything I’d been sketching that seemed worthy of the side of a building.

I open the box, working on unpacking more things into my new home. The sun had begun to set and I was nearly done with setting up everything.

Until my security system had gone off and Cereberus took off toward the front door growling at what he is assuming is an intruder, but I can hear the culprit at large cursing and I know it isn’t anyone that’s a threat.

“Fucking eh!” I hear before shit starts falling on the floor and something breaks.

“Motherfucker…” I grunt.

I tear down my staircase, spotting an intoxicated Emerson trying to type in the security code, but failing miserably. A vase I had already planned on tossing out is broken, and he is holding a bottle of vodka.

“When I let you move in, I didn’t realize I signed on to be your permanent goddamn babysitter,” I scolded like a father to a disobedient son.

To be honest, I feel like everyone’s guardian. First Nico, now Emerson. Except while Nico knew his limits, Emerson liked to push far beyond his.

Cerberus is growling at him, snapping and snarling defending his territory. Emerson is slumped against the wall, hands in his hair whispering something about ‘good doggie’ over and over again.

“Kai, can you get your fucking demon dog? Please? I’m piss drunk and he is looking at me like I’m a ribeye steak. I’m way too pretty to be a chew toy.”

I scoff, clicking my tongue, “Рядом,” I order, which just means heel in Russian.

“It’s seven at night, Emerson, on a Wednesday and you’re smashed,” I note as I walk toward the security system, typing the code in, quieting the alarms.

He presses the bottle to his lips, his mop of curls flopping in his bloodshot eyes as he wipes the excess off with the back of his hand.

“Just a head start for the weekend, pal!” he chants raising the bottle in the air.

Here is the thing. People don’t get addicted to drugs or alcohol. People are addicted to forgetting. To chasing a high that numbs them.

I was sick in the head and chose to face my demons sober. I liked the pain, it was a reminder.

But Emerson? There was something he was trying to bury with cocaine and booze.

He stumbles to the couch, simultaneously trying to pull his skinny jeans off. He trips over his feet landing on the edge of the couch with a dull thud. He kicks his jeans off giving me a show of his Captain America underwear.

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