Sew.

"CAMBID." (Dolores POV)

Her leadership hadn't been satisfactory, and in front of Abuela, Dolores cried. She'd never be good enough for her, no matter how hard she, or any of the others tried to make things work...

And that's when it dawned that helping, or should she dare say, preventing? Things didn't work, because people only hold certain rules up to par when they have a problem, they don't believe you when you try and warn them.

It also furnished itself in Dolores' mind for the final time she'd never be good enough. For what she wanted to do, which was lead the proper way, or even good enough at simply being a Madrigal.

Again, she'd failed so many times. Got screamed at so many times. Got- trusted- but- not- as- much- as- before so many times... And the cycle repeats. That wasn't what was supposed to happen. That wasn't who she was supposed to be.

Supposed.

Luisa would never be strong enough, Isabela wouldn't be perfect enough, Camilo wouldn't be happy enough, he wasn't allowed to glitch- What standards were set in place that she, or any of them under that they had to live in a mindset of "work until you drop"? And what could Dolores do to stop it?

"Calm..." She hummed, slowly rocking back and forth on her swing. She was on her swing... She was in Isabela's garden.

The family was inside.

They couldn't hurt her here.

*

Calm...

Truly, what had she done wrong here? Be the only person who showed any outward care? Was that her only crime?

Perhaps. And if so, that was sad.

A crack.

A shuffle.

Dolores tilted her head up.

Ugh.

One lone crow, feathers sleeked back, a bright eye on the watch. For her. Dolores could practically feel it's cold gaze on her skin. She shivered.

It has to be said Dolores despised a crow... For one, the fact a group of them was called a murder, that in itself was off-putting. Second, crows were considered bad luck, and three...

Because Bruno had a connection. Please forgive Dolores if that was all she'd like to say on the matter for now.

She turned her head back around, letting her long skirts twist themselves behind her. She squinted in the dim light.

An old, bloody, yellowed card so conveniently placed beside her- She whipped her head around to catch the trickster, perhaps one of the crows had laid it beside her in their mischief, but no one was there. In faint scratching of a blue pen, the card read, in bold letters:

CAMBID.

*

Okay, let's just pause for a moment, Dolores would like to get something straight. She had had no intentions of keeping the card a secret for this long. She planned on announcing her find three days later, when the family had calmed themselves down, but she never did.

All she wanted to keep the peace for as long as she could.

Just listen.

She had bundled up in one of Casita's many broom closets, seated on her knees with a lantern, and note in hand. Upon hearing footsteps outside, she quickly turned the lamp shutters down. Way down.

Dolores had barely breathed when she unfolded the card. She brushed the cobwebs away and squinted to see the word, and what was beside it- Again.

"Who is it..." She whispered to herself. Through tangled, childlike drawings did she make the very initials of the Madrigals scattered on the page. Every. Single. One. For Pepa, Julieta, Felix, Luisa, even two A's had been scrawled beside the others (this confused Dolores a bit, as there was still an A in the acronym- what gives?)... But that in itself didn't interest Dolores. No, what interested her was the fact that those letters were scratched out from one, from one word, and now that she examined the word closer, she noticed that the blood splattering's were a little too... convenient. Just like when she'd found the card in the first place. Too convenient. Staged. Downright terrifying. The red drops settled above each hand scrawled letter.