punish come limping // jaci and val

White noise, the tapping of my foot, god I hate silence. Right after people who wear khaki shorts and right before bullet wounds, if I had to list. I got so used to it before; Marina when she wasn't yelling, Luzia running away and Elena hiding- Jacinta being away. Violetta would always be in my room, but it's my fault Sebastien's my favorite, huh. There's some things you learn to miss, but this isn't one of them. Everything was so loud that I'm just now realizing I hate this now, and hey, maybe it's my own guilt. 

Call me a bastard, right? 

They all think I hate them and back then that's what I thought I wanted, to be my mother. And hell, it's obviously worked in little ways -- no deaths yet, not even she could pull that off. It's too late to erase, too early to forget, and I'm still not sure if it's the wrong decision. I mean hell, maybe if Jacinta hated me a little harder I wouldn't be petty eating fucking filet mignon. But then I hear her heels, from the entrance of the manor to my own ears and there's a yell I have to catch in my throat. An anger I've seen in my wife and I keep to myself, there's few things I hate more than bullet wounds and, god, this might just be one of them. 

But credit to the stylist team -- they almost made her look like my daughter. Part of me wants to say I brought home the wrong girl from the academy, that a kid I raised couldn't be this fucking stupid, but hell that's parenting huh? I would question where she got all her nerve from but I'm married to that answer. I sip Bloody Mary, Jacinta staring at me from the doorway. 

"I think they did a rather fine job. At least I can still wear earrings."

"Your grandmother would roll over in her grave if you couldn't," I already disappointed that woman enough, no need to raise her spirit to spite my daughter too. I recognize the hate in her voice, but I don't mind -- I'm trying to enjoy the night at least. "You have nothing to say, huh?" Talking, my favorite, I catch her stare over the glass's rim. "But I supposed it's no surprise, really. Parenting has never been your strong suit."

And I smile, a big toothy grin. Tongue pressed against canines, "that's sweet," a heavy exhale as I push myself up with hands pressed on my lap. "I know you think I'm shit because you killed a couple of kids with a knife," my hand reaching for the handle of the butcher knife next to me. "But you know as well as I that there are people with our name on a hit list, with things a lot scarier than a dagger, so if you're so ready to talk down to me-?" Blade in my right palm, its wooden hilt to her and my left hand to my chest,

"Go." I nod to the entrance, "kill them yourself." 

Bitter sweet, humor in my voice like I'm joking and god, I hope she thinks I am. Truly, I'd love the entertainment of the shortest lived victor; a double tragedy. And I hold there for a second, silence between us like a string- from my heart to her's and do I dare break that? Grasping the sharp end of the knife harder, so if she takes the hilt I'll at least bleed out here instead of living with two Marina's. "Or-" a drawn out drawl, smile in the corners of my lips. "We can catch up over something I cooked," I say, nearly with dread in my voice.

"That'd be nicer, right?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Oh?" So that's how they're going about this - understood. He isn't surprised any, not before this dinner and not as he rises from the table and places the knife in the middle of the it. Valentino hasn't been surprised by Jacinta Salazar in a very long time, and it's only just been disappointment. There's nothing more than a laced shame as she swears at him and he sees hate in her eyes. For him.

Kids, am I right?

Valentino clears his throat as she talks, only giving her another guilty glare. Part of him thought she would have grown from trying to throw her life away - as if there'd be some maturity from her at the end of it all. He wanted to see a bit of the Salazar's pride anywhere in her, but all he saw was more and more of what he already knew. An inch away from death, Jacinta laid in her own blood and crawled from the cliff of being killed. 

There's an oblivious wish to say she won on her own merit, but he knows different. Somewhere is a rich, blonde gentleman in district one who watched his daughter die to the second most capable in the room, and even just knowing there's a doubt in someone's mind of what the Salazars can do- can be. It's a green anger, writhing under his skin. Had Jacinta won by being the quickest, the smartest, the strongest, he would have met her a different tone maybe.

But she wasn't.

Of everything he gave her, and she still nearly lost it to a career. "You don't need me?" A blank expression, lifted brows, almost a serious question but they both knew the answer. She didn't. She had her capitol money now, a clean life, congratulations, Jaci, you won. He says it all in an exhale; maybe she doesn't need him, and she's still trying to die and it's out of his hands. 

He should give up, move on with Marina and raise the rest of their children. Nobody would complain but her siblings. 

"What do you want me to say then, Jacinta. That I'm proud you didn't kill yourself?" There's a pity in the way he looks at her, "who's life did you save while you were trying to prove how invincible you are- oh." Valentino's eyes grow wider, placing his hands on his hips under his suit coat. 

"Jezebel, was it, the Zodiia girl; when's the last time you talked to her?"

He did nothing but click his tongue on the roof on his mouth as he watched Jacinta. Hair slicked back and he sees himself in the way she holds herself; it's shameful. Both of them pulling the facade of being better, of being stronger - neither know what it truly is. Only to stand and stare, and he's almost concerned she isn't fighting back as hard. 

Almost level headed, so unlike her that it's near terrifying. 

Part of Valentino thought that maybe there was something cooling in the conversation, it showed in the way he eased his neck and shoulders. Rolling them back and holding his chin up to look at Jacinta, his daughter. And to think about Jezebel, his daughter's weak spot. Personified, embodied, all but existent in ways similar to Clementa Lowe. They both built stain on the bottom of their shoes in a way he would not stand for it. 

Not anymore, not after Jacinta made it cleverly aware to him that it wasn't worth the risk. Now that she's brought herself to the nation's eyes what's next, Sebastien is reaped? Luzia runs herself into the axe with an unearned gusto? Never mind that Salazar would now be known in a way that wouldn't let snakes fall through the cracks any longer, they would be watching in all new ways. They would be watching him, Marina- they would be watching Jacinta. 

Perhaps, he questioned, it were better not to be family. 

"Hmm," Valentino hummed, before beginning to dig into his under suit pocket. He shuffled for a bit, eyes fixed on his clenched knuckles, "don't you think your closest friend would have sent out by now?" A raised brow, feigning concern, "ah," until he pulled out the letter. Rose in its embroidery, he read its contents of course. Such a shame, a girl with no hands could never delivery such a thing.

Especially when it meant so much to his daughter. 

Especially when it meant this letter would cause his daughter's suicide. 

He slid it across the table, hitting it on the table flat before sending it towards Jacinta. "For you, I believe," expression drained from his face. There was no regret in what he did, not unlike his daughter and her own decisions. An eye for an eye, two hands for one daughter. 

Well, two hands, Jezebel's head and two bullet wounds in her parent's foreheads. 

But who's counting? 

"If she could have delivered it herself, I'm sure she would've." He was sure they both knew that. 

Jezebel would have embraced Jacinta first, before Valentino ever would have. 

So perhaps, she is to blame after all. 

Would this make him a good father? 

To punish Jacinta, to rectify her mistakes and make her learn consequences. That's really what it is all about, that's all it should be about, but Valentino can't help but bite something bitter in the way he looks at her. The guilt seeping through his chest something- she made her own mistakes, not him. A bite of delusion, "what did you do?

What did you do to her?"

His face is expressionless. Pained, even, in a way, he sees Jezebel Zodiia as the root of his problems. That she ruined his family, softened his daughter, made Jacinta so weak- so heroic. Jezebel Zodiia broke Jacinta, who broke Valentino. And unfortunately, there is a debt to be paid when you are caught in the field. 

Valentino found her, the second Jacinta tried to hide her once again. The one problem that has drove his family into the ground for far too long, and oddly enough it came from the reaping bowl. He found her, and he killed her, and he killed her parents. Valentino took that memory and that weakness, and he made sure it wouldn't happen again. Perhaps he went too far with it, but in the end of the day Jacinta would have to understand. 

Or not. Either way, "Jacinta, you know what we do to them." Jacinta Salazar has made her mind up again and again; she would take this however she wanted and Valentino could never convince her any different. 

Jezebel was killed for many reasons. 

For Jacinta's shame. 
For Salazar's strength. 

And in part, just because he had a personal vendetta against a girl who knew how to kill him quicker than any enemy. That's how it's been for years- they don't ever target Valentino, they target his children. His one weak spot, and as long as they are weak, he is weak. 

"You can't keep making these stupid, stupid mistakes, Jacinta, it gets people killed-" people you care about. For better or worse. "Good damn people!" He says, placing his right hand onto the table, "she was dead regardless and you have to understand you can't just kill yourself over these- these people who don't matter!" Not when there's more people to protect. 

Not when she can't even protect herself. 

Not when he can't even protect her. 

"She doesn't matter, Jacinta, and she never should have." 

He didn't understand what made him a bad father. 

It inflated in his chest while she yelled- fathers and their kids, they fight. Family fights, there was a coldness to the way he watched and reacted only internally. She was hurt. Good, that means he made the right decision. Break the bone, let it heal stronger than it was before, that's how this family worked. An empire of broken bones, let her cry, his mother would say. If she were still alive, Valentino knew she would approve of his actions the same way Marina did. 

If he thought about it, he would realize it too, that becoming his mother was good for only the gang. But Jacinta grieved in the way that frustration grew in his chest -- she shouldn't matter. Why does this matter, what good is a father who doesn't understand his oldest daughter? What good, then, is a strong family that stands six feet apart, knives in their hands and their eyes on each other's throats. 

Is that what strength is? The ability to kill your family without ever raising that dagger? 

If so, Valentino proved to be the strongest in that mansion, killing his daughter in ways that Cynthia Rose could only dream of. And he did so proudly; watch the little girl grow from those traumas. She will be a stronger Salazar because of it, she will grow to hate him in the same way he hated his own mother, and if she turns out to be just like Valentino then he did something right. Proved something right, in a way only a terrible father could understand. 

Jacinta picks up the knife, and Valentino imagines what his mother would think. 

"How can you say that, Jacinta? When I have done nothing but protect you and you do this to yourself-" quick in his words, just as a snake bites, "you had your chance to play it by your rules and look who's fucking dead now!" Valentino slams his fist on the table top, a man who speaks in actions is an uncontrollled man. 

He is disappointed in every Salazar in this house. 

Rich as they may be, powerful as they may be, Valentino and Jacinta are cosmic in the way they explode. Useless, ruining, the way the universe continues to create just to destroy, he was never a good father, only a prideful one. The way Jupiter overshadows its moons, "you throw that knife and you will be the loneliest woman in this district," you will die alone. 

Without family you are nothing. 

Internalized, Valentino forces himself to believe he is correct in the worst ways. 

What am I to you, Valentino? 

My daughter, until the knife is thrown, "think for once in your goddamn life, Jaci." 
 

As you've come to hear it, you might have realized by now that Valentino Salazar is a spiraling beast. Struggle placed under his skin in disarray as if to replace his blood stream, he is a stressed man. Tense in the neck, in the way he looks at Jacinta, in the way he clenches his jaw -- he can't tell if he is a good father of a strong daughter, or a terrible one of the weakest person in seven. 

She raises the knife as if to threaten him, it's both brave and stupid. Do it then, he has never been scared of a challenge- only the consequences. The result of this, part of him wants so desperately for the two of them to break composure and be disgusting, but he would never. Valentino has never been able to drop that facade, not since Jacinta's life was put on the line for what he hoped would be the last time. 

It seemed so ridiculous looking back, like he would ever be able to truly keep her alive. 

Jacinta Salazar, a girl who barely survived being born. She's chased death and danger and discipline like it were something fun, and she lived, and she was crowned for it. Every step of the way here and every step forward, there was a girl who stood before him who would continue to throw her life on the line for every stupid reason she could. 

For the thrill? For the accomplishment? He wondered if she felt proud, holding a knife to her own father. To dismantle thirty six years of work; he hoped she was. Dearly. Truthfully, Valentino hoped Jacinta held some pride in herself for how many times over she should have died. 

There had to be some one who was, to applaud her for the worst suicide to date. 

"DO it then, Jacinta," he threatens her with it, teases almost, "you'll do whatever you wan-" spoken, until she throws the knife. 

Valentino does not flinch, only blinks. Grimacing in the way the knife slices to his cheekbone and yet it wasn't the one scar the two of them had from this night, it cuts the air from her hand to the wall and everything in between. He himself including, perhaps she was his child- only for her ability to destroy. To kill and ruin and hate, and she had been bred from two of the best in that sense -- Valentino holds his palm to the gash, biting the pain with his molars.  

For a second, Valentino thought he had already endured every type of pain, but Jacinta forged a new kind -- he saw no regret in her eyes. Just pride, green in its presence. 

Good, the room echoes the sound of the knife spearing the back wood of his kitchen. 

"Get out." Die before you come back, let the last words Valentino hears be the shutting of your casket; marry fast, live as reckless as you want, as long as you die with a new last name. 

She had confirmed it all -- she hated him, wanted to kill him. To hurt his family, he couldn't look at the blood on his lower palm. 

"You are no Salazar."