iago garza [fin]

It’s been said that he is swift.

Divine agility and temperament to match the staccato beat of his erratic heart. Impossible to still or calmly exist in place, Iago is often referred to as the HARE by the other hired hands of the Salazar crime ring.

In truth? He is springy. A dash of Tumeric both warm and bitter to taste. The son of middle-class mediocrity clawing themselves to simply stay float. A washed-up boxer turned grunt and a woman with roots of wood and lumber as far as the genealogical tree expands. The only son, he is cut of wooden thighs and knotted bark as fists.

It started when Santiago was seven years old and on the playground for the first time with the older kids playing kickball. A burst of energy sent the rubber soaring through the sky and a quick step made him too good at this game. He gets shoved while turning on second and skids through the grass tumbling against jagged rocks in the process. A fire turns on and the pain manifests into anger, on his feet and lunging for the kid, Iago lands four solid punches against the other kid's jaw before someone pulls him off of and the kid remains unconscious.

We'll call this strike one and through desperate pleading and a lucky break, he isn't sent to the detention center for being a mere seven years old.

They decide it's time to teach the kid discipline. Around fighting throughout his childhood, it's no wonder he believed it to be the way to solve a tussle in school. His dad takes the time to share what it means to be a boxer and Iago's little eyes beam with potential. To be in the ring, to fight is to be truly alive and the kid's speed was his greatest asset.

To his parent's decision, it worked for the most part. He was dead tired from boxing basically every single day after school and burned a lot of the energy Iago had pent up. It wasn't until he was fourteen that he had been walking home from school one day and accidentally pushed a brutish man that quickly turned itself into a fight. Iago was just quick enough (i.e. lucky enough) to knock him out.

Well, this was one of the Salazar's hired hands and could have easily became a case where Iago had to go to suffer the consequences. Instead? he knew this wasn't for him. The life the universe had laid out, starry eyed and milky galaxy aligned. He craved a speed that he couldn't possibly possess in a mundane lifestyle.

That's when he was asked to join the Salazar's crime syndicate and quite frankly, he had never looked back or ever been happier to use his fists as weapons and dangerously live with their well being at the top of necessities.

It's how he found himself so intertwined with RAFAEL SALAZAR. The man akin to ascension as the next kingpin of the family. A casual encounter a year ago had his eyes on the man as he continued to do odd jobs for the family, he hadn't wanted anything more than to be of the hare and find use for his abundance of energy.

For now? Santiago Garza is a teenager settling in with his family with a secret connection to a crime syndicate,  a jackrabbit with a penchant for dashing for sheer curiosity and a citizen of district 7 with no desire of going anywhere else or being anything more than what he was. He hadn't a goal or a desire but to exist and be. Besides, who needs happiness, anyway. It was just another thing to be used against you when being sought out for retribution.