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But this was something else. Something worse.
As I stepped deeper into the store, I canted my head to the side as realization hit me.
Not beef. Not animal meat at all, in fact.
Tilting my head toward the exposed wood beam ceiling, I closed my eyes and inhaled, pulling a deep breath of contaminated air into my lungs.
The scent was tainted with sadness and grief.
I tsked, then righted my head, shaking it as my gaze landed on Franco behind the counter. “You’re dying,” I said as I strode toward him.
The man’s eyes widened, not from surprise at the statement itself, as it was fact, but certainly surprised that I’d caught on so quickly. Even after all this time together, he was shocked by my inhuman abilities.
After a long stretch of heavy silence, he nodded curtly, then began to place my order in the refrigeration bags he reserved for me.
Had I not stayed away so long between supply runs this time, perhaps I would have caught it sooner. Perhaps I could have alerted him in time…
As I got closer to the counter, the putrid scent of his illness grew stronger.
“Cancer,” I said quietly. It wasn’t a question, and there was no sense in pretending, because by the droop of his shoulders and the sadness in his eyes, the heady scent of grief permeating the air—and the intensity of the decay—it was obvious that the disease was too far along.
What a shame.
I wasn’t prone to overt shows of emotion, or feeling much emotion at all, really, but as I watched him busy himself with his task, avoiding my eyes, a strange sense of sadness came over me.
The butcher and I had long been acquainted, decades of something slightly akin to friendship between us. Though I could not say I would miss the man necessarily, I had developed a sort of fondness for his terrible jokes, his gruff personality, and the business relationship we had honed over the years.
Which was why, in this moment of being presented with the profound fragility of the human condition, a selfish question arose in my mind. And, as I was not one to mince words or intentions, I found myself asking, “Who will take over in your stead?”
Franco froze.
Even his breath stalled in his throat.
But in the silence of the butcher shop, his fragile little heart took flight, pulse racing like the beating wings of a bird.
It was then that I noticed his hands shaking. Not a lot, just a slight tremble, so slight that the human eye might not have been able to perceive the movement.
“Butcher,” I said, and his heartbeat stuttered. “Look at me.”
He took a deep breath and lifted his gaze. Fear made his deep brown eyes wide, the whites on full display, but he quickly schooled his expression. Not quickly enough, though, I’m afraid. And there was no denying the panic in his most vital organ.
“What are you afraid of?” I whispered.
Lying would be futile. He knew that, had experienced the results of lying to my kind. It was how we’d originally found ourselves in this… arrangement so many years ago.
But the butcher had also been around me long enough, had grown comfortable, even, and had somehow figured out a way to circumvent the truth.
I saw it in his eyes the moment he decided to lie to me, which instantly piqued my interest.
“Jack will take over for me,” he said.
My eyes narrowed. Not quite a lie, but not the whole truth.
Interesting.
What was he hiding?
Then he dropped his gaze and returned to the task at hand, filling the bag with this month’s order. And, as intrigued as I was with his sin of omission, I allowed Franco’s lie to sit in the air between us.
