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Jan 31, 2022

twenty questions // emilio & tepin

TIMING: before the events of root 666 PARTIES: @monstersfear & @cattale SUMMARY: emilio takes it upon himself to investigate a series of animal attacks. tepin knows more than she's letting on. CONTENT: some references to parental death and sibling death

Typically, Emilio stuck to the undead in his hunting. As a slayer, it was what he was most equipped to deal with. But after the massacre in Etla, he found there was something to be said for expanding one’s horizons. If you could stop people from being hurt, you ought to do it. And Emilio certainly had the power to try, at least.

The ‘wild animal’ attacks in the Outskirts probably weren’t the work of a vampire or a zombie, but Emilio was looking into them anyway. It was what brought him to the Night Market, basket of vegetables in hand as he wandered. He knew security was keeping an eye on him, but he also knew they wouldn’t make him go unless he stirred up trouble. And he had no intention of doing that. He just… had a few questions. That was all.

Stopping in front of a stall, he glanced to the sign. Fresh Greens. He nodded to himself, looking at the produce. “You grow this yourself?” He looked to the woman manning the stall. “Must have a pretty good sized garden.”

Who would have poisoned the old man’s dog? The question ran through Tepin’s mind as she minded her own business, literally, by arranging her organic produce for the night’s sale. As she placed the large carrots beside the zipped bags of catnip, she hummed to herself the theme song of the detective thriller series she had started watching just a day or two ago. Tepin had been keeping to herself ever since she arrived in White Crest, only crawling out of her hole that was a cabin in the woods she inherited from a departed friend to make her livelihood through the bountiful blessings of her garden. She rarely leaves the safety of the Outskirts, usually trading some of her own produce for the services of a private grocer who would go into town to purchase for her the things she could not acquire through the Night Market, which wasn’t a lot.

So when someone approached the stall, she simply thought it was the child. “Oh, did you find the exact-” Tepin cut herself off when the face and the voice that met hers was clearly not of a child but of a strange man. He seemed to be exuding some sort of strange and mysterious aura, like he was both dangerous and interesting at the same time, a flame to her moth, perhaps. “O-oh, you’re not…” She quickly tried to compose herself, putting on the smile of a salesperson belatedly. “Y-yes! I grow these myself. I do have my own garden and I don’t use chemicals, so these are very healthy and delicious.” In a subtle panic, she grabbed one of the bags of catnip and offered it to him, not even thinking if he had a cat. He didn’t look like he was a cat person but it was hard to tell. No one ever thought Tepin was a cat person herself, a literal cat person, so to speak. “Are you interested in some…uhh…catnip?” She tried to offer him an awkward grin to save herself but it was too obvious. Oh god, oh god, oh god… He’s a dog person, isn’t he?

She seemed prepared to speak to someone else. A child, if her tone was any indication. Emilio smiled faintly, a hint of amusement sparkling behind his eyes. “Sorry to disappoint,” he said, raising his hands with a click of his tongue. Her accent was familiar as she continued to speak, and he marveled on how many mexicanos found their way to this small town in Maine. He thought, perhaps, it should have made him feel more at home. Instead, it put him on edge. He tapped a finger against his thigh absentmindedly, shifting his weight unconsciously as he did so.

“That’s impressive. I have something of a black thumb myself, I think. Never managed to grow a plant without killing it.” If he were speaking to someone else, someone more familiar, he might make a joke about how killing was mostly what he was good at, anyway. But to a stranger, it seemed a bad move to make. “Not unless you can recommend giving it to strays. Afraid I don’t have any pets myself. Might be better, in this town. I hear the Outskirts have seen a lot of animal attacks recently.” He feigned interest in the carrots, though he watched her in his peripheral to gauge for her reaction.

“Not at all…” Tepin instinctively flashed him an apologetic smile. It was meant to be warm, and it was to an extent, but it seemed more fearful than it should have been. “I just thought you were…someone else.” Her mind quickly wandered to the child, specifically their whereabouts, as her eyes began to wander around them as well, curious if the same child was nearby. Seeing that it was for naught, she turned her attention back to the mysterious man, trying her best to keep him at her stall until he at least bought something. It would be a complete waste if he would leave her empty-handed. “Oh, well, it’s not for everyone, I guess…” Another awkward smile coupled with a failed attempt to make eye contact. Something about him was putting her on edge. Was it his familiar accent? Was it his mystique? Or was it simply because she thought him…cute.

She immediately gulped when he mentioned the animal attacks. It’s such a broad thing to consider. The Outskirts had so many wild animals and attacks from any of them were possible. To Tepin, however, she immediately focused on the animal within, the cursed jaguar that took over whenever it wanted to, whenever she felt lost and vulnerable, sometimes angry or cornered. Her hands glided towards the zipped bags of catnip, taking two, and fiddled with them, while she looked away from him, pretending to be busy arranging the produce already on the counter. “O-Oh? Well, I guess the Outskirts have so many wild animals… Sometimes they just get lost, too far from their homes, and venture into human territories, places they shouldn’t be in… They get spooked like us and stuff happens, I guess. Not unlikely.” She feigned a cough but it wasn’t quite the smoothest of transitions. Far from it.

He wasn’t the only one who was nervous, it seemed. The woman looked a little on edge, even as she offered him a smile. Emilio was hardly personable, had never learned to be ‘good with people’ in any manner of speaking, but he tried to give her one back, anyway, tried to put her more at ease. People were more talkative when they were comfortable, less likely to lie. And, beyond that… Emilio had no reason to want her on edge here. It was just a conversation, for the moment. It only had to become something else if she was dangerous. “You seem to be good at it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen carrots this size.” He picked one up, studying it with a faint smile. “Does it come naturally to you, or is it a learned skill?”

If she was nervous before, it only seemed to multiply at the mention of the animal attacks. Interesting, but hardly damning. Most people were uneasy at the concept of wild animals living close to where they slept, even if they weren’t aware said animals were supernatural in origin. “Sure,” he agreed, “it happens sometimes. Strange for them all to happen in the same general area, though. You’d think the wildlife would be scared off after the first few encounters with humans.” The cough piqued his interest, and he glanced up. “You ever hear anything out there? Near your garden? Got any theories what kind of animal might be causing all the trouble?”

“Oh, thank you! I don’t use chemicals. Just a lot of tender love and care!” When the conversation found its way to her gardening, Tepin lost all fear and nervousness, relishing instead in getting noticed for an achievement that she has been working hard on. Years after leaving her home and her family after losing control to the jaguar, she has lived the life of a ghost, keeping mostly to herself and fending off any attention. To be seen this way, for something that she has put a lot of great effort in, always made her beam with pride and delight. Even as she mentioned her parents, the people she had left for their own safety, the pain of being far from them felt smaller than the validation she had received. Even if it was from a total stranger. “I did learn from my parents, who learned from their parents, and you get the idea…”

“Oh, well, I-I wouldn’t know anything about that… Maybe it’s one of those seasons? We have hunting seasons, so maybe the animals have, like, the same thing?” Although Tepin housed a hunter inside her, she herself was far from being one. She had no real idea what it took to kill someone, to take a life, human or animal. All of that was reserved for the wild animal that hid within her. She only ever woke to find the aftermath of its hunts, not remembering any time she herself took part in it. Still, a part of her believes she’s just as guilty as the beast. They share the same body, after all, don’t they?

“I don’t think that I do. Not near my garden, no…” She tried to bury any thought about that matter deep within her mind, but one scenario kept pushing back, trying to find its way to the forefront of her memory. When it succeeded, Tepin’s eyes grew wide with surprise, though she quickly gulped and tried to tone herself done, not wanting to be a part of anything that could potentially shine the spotlight on a part of her life that she wanted swept under the rug. “One of my customers… He goes to the university here… Said it could be a cheetah, but I’ve never seen it myself, so it’s probably just his imagination. Do cheetahs even live around here? Might just be a bear for all I know… Are you, uhm, with the police?”

“My mom always said that was the way to do it,” Emilio smiled faintly. His mother had never grown anything that couldn’t be weaponized, of course, but the statement didn’t have to be true. It only had to put her at ease, make her feel like she could open up to him. People were only easy to manage in two situations: if they were terrified of you, or if they thought you were like them. Choosing the former would likely end with him being forcibly removed from the scene, and honestly? Emilio was fine with the latter. When the person in question wasn’t one he thought represented a present threat to him, he didn’t really want to send them shaking in their boots. And this woman wasn’t undead, wasn’t a vampire or a zombie. She was just someone selling vegetables who might know enough to point him in the right direction. Emilio could turn on the charm for that. “Ah, a trade secret passed down through the generations. That’s nice, that you have that.” He had a few of his own, though none that could really be called nice. Things passed down from Cortez to Cortez tended to be on the bloodier side.

Clicking his tongue thoughtfully, Emilio shrugged. “Not much of an animal guy. Can’t say for sure one way or another.” A ranger would know more than he would, of course, about the kind of animal he suspected to be at fault for these attacks. This whole thing was likely well out of Emilio’s jurisdiction, so to speak, but he’d never been one for sitting idly by and waiting on someone else to handle a situation. Besides, his main goal had always been to keep people from being hurt. That was the kind of thing that went farther than taking out one or two specific kinds of things causing said hurt.

She was nervous. He could feel it now, the way it radiated off her. Emilio couldn’t tell if she was just uncomfortable with the questioning because of the nature of it, or if there was guilt buried there, but he was sure of one thing… She wasn’t telling the whole truth. “A cheetah, huh?” To someone not in the know, a balam would certainly look something like a cheetah. “Could be a zoo animal got out. Or some idiot tried keeping one as a pet. Hell, could be a college mascot that got tired of frat boys. Plenty of things that could explain it.” Including a few he wasn’t saying aloud. Raising a brow, he shook his head. “Not exactly. I’m a private investigator. Got a client in the area whose dog is missing. I’m trying to find her some closure.” The client was a fabrication, of course. This investigation was Emilio’s alone, and not one relating to his day job. But admitting to being a hunter in a conversation like this? It was enough to get you killed, sometimes. It was certainly enough to make whoever you were talking to clam up and stop giving you anything at all.

“Your mom’s a wise woman then!” She chuckled at the familiarity, though it was short-lived. Tepin missed her mom. That much is obvious. But the realization that she may never see her again, that broke her heart on so many levels, some of them she wasn’t even aware of. It was different, knowing something internally and then realizing it with someone else, a complete stranger at that. It was much easier, with just herself trying to come to terms with, but with another person? It just made everything much more painful. Still, she tried to hide that fact, though she barely succeeded. “D-don’t you have the same with your family? Traditions passed down from one generation to the next?”

When he revealed he wasn’t into animals, Tepin felt her throat become much drier. If he was, it would’ve been much easier appealing to that side of him. Animal lovers often give, well, animals the benefit of the doubt, much more than those who didn’t care about them. Animal attacks get more excused by the former than the latter, and for good reason. When you love something, you tend to turn a blind eye to their flaws, even if they can be dangerous to you as well. When you don’t? Then it’s much easier to see the truth for what it is, for what they are. She wondered if he wouldn’t hesitate to put the jaguar down if they ever crossed paths. Maybe it would be for the best…

“Oh, right, a zoo animal…” Tepin had completely forgotten about the zoo, which was odd because it was around these parts, too, but not really when you realize that it’s not a place she’d try to be close by. The zoo was a prison as much as it was an entertainment for humans. While Tepin loved the zoo, at least when she was younger, she had doubts that the jaguar would appreciate the premises, especially if it came close to any of the captive animals. It would probably be like a buffet to it, but I don’t think it’d just stop at the other animals… “A private investigator? Oh, I see… Well, I hope she finds that closure… I’m not much of a dog person myself, I don’t even have pets, but it must be really hard, losing someone important to you to a place where so many things could have taken them…” She would know. She was one of those things. Well, part of her was. “Have you, uhm, talked to anyone else about this? Did they…say anything?”

“That she was,” Emilio nodded, taking note of the expression that crossed over her face as she said it. Grief was a familiar look for him, at this point. He’d seen it in the mirror so often that it was easy to recognize it on someone else, even a stranger. There was something she was missing, he suspected, something the mention of his mother had reminded her of. It wasn’t hard to jump to conclusions based on the information he had. Keeping his eyes on the vegetables on the table, he nodded. “My family had all kinds of traditions,” he confirmed, and it was true. Most of their traditions had involved weaponry and bloody knuckles, but they’d been traditions all the same. “No gardening, though. Wasn’t really in our wheelhouse.”

He didn’t need to look at her to sense her discomfort. It felt like a tangible thing at this point, like a neon sign alerting him to the fact that she knew something, that the questions he was asking with little subtlety were hitting a mark somewhere inside of her. That much was easy to decipher. What was harder was what it meant. She could have been a shapeshifter, desperate to cover up her crimes. Or she could simply know one. Love, Emilio knew, made people do stupid things sometimes. Anyone would be willing to go to great lengths to protect someone they cared about, even if that person was tearing the world to pieces with their teeth. It would be easier if these attacks were caused by something undead, easier if his slayer senses could simply point him to the likely culprit. But… Emilio had never much cared for easy, anyway. He’d always preferred a challenge.

“Never know, in this town. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of these strange occurrences they’re always writing about in the papers accidentally sprung a damn lion, at this point.” His tone was light, but his eyes bore into the vegetables with enough force that they might have disintegrated in his grasp if such a thing were possible. “Yeah. A pretty good one, I like to think. Haven’t left a case unsolved yet.” That, too, was a lie, though not entirely because Emilio lacked the skills to solve the cases that came across his desk. Sometimes, it was in his best interest to leave a few mysteries unresolved. Other times, he had to choose between introducing a random person to the supernatural in order to get them a tragic end to a story or letting them live in blissful ignorance for a little while longer. But admitting that wouldn’t sell the point he was trying to drive home here — that lying to him was a futile effort. “I’ve asked around. So far, you’re the only one who’s given me more than a shrug.”

Tepin simply nodded, the disappointment in her face palpable. For some reason, she had expected him to say otherwise, as if gardening was a universal thing. She had almost forgotten that not everyone needed to grow their own food, to nurture their own remedies, to care about the earth. After all, everything these days could be easily acquired with just a push of a button. For the most part at least. Tepin wasn’t well-versed in such technologies. She avoided them like a plague, only hearing about these developments from the others at the Night Market who were so bored, they’d end up sharing stories with newly made acquaintances. What’s your wheelhouse then?, the question never left her thoughts, wary of what his answer may reveal.

“Lion, yeah…” She let out a nervous chuckle, the proximity of his guess to the truth catching her off guard, like a sack violently placed over her head from out of nowhere. A cough, feigned, more of a defense than any actual condition, soon followed without her consent, and Tepin found herself an excuse to look further away, down to the ground, her mind scrambling for a way out, an escape, should the worst come to pass. Has the jaguar been careless? Of course, it has! It’s a damned wild animal! But to have someone look into it… It must’ve left a trail that had become hard to ignore. “That’s…amazing. Every…case you’ve ever had…you’ve solved…” She wondered next if he’s taken a life. Probably has. Who hasn’t these days? Would he be able to take the jaguar’s life, though? And with it, hers? Would that be the best result at this point? No, I still need to come back home.

“Oh, really? Well, uhm, I guess it’s probably just because I live in a cabin deep in the Outskirts, so there’s really no point in me…hiding anything. I’ve got nothing to lose, I guess. Not that I’ve seen anything. I just mind my own business, my garden, and my stall…” A lot of that was true. She really hasn’t seen anything, but that was mostly because she loses consciousness every time the jaguar comes out, only coming back to when the animal was done with whatever it wanted to do. Plausible deniability… Someone had taught her that word not too long ago. In a way, she and the jaguar were separate entities. Or at least that’s what she should believe. A part of her can’t ignore that they shared the same existence, perhaps even the same body, which meant that all its crimes were also hers. She swallowed air, and another cough came out. “What are you going to do to the, uhh, animal if you find it?” She feared the worst, but she wanted to hear it from him.

She looked disappointed, and Emilio almost wished he had a different answer for her. He almost wished he could tell her his family passed down seed packets and tips on how to make things grow just so she’d feel a little more at ease here, a little less tense. But it was too big a lie to sell, too far from the truth for him to even pretend there was honesty to it. Emilio’s family had never grown anything. They were far better at cutting things down.

Shrugging, Emilio shook his head. “Not usually hard,” he admitted. “People come to private investigators with shit the cops are too busy to care about. Cheating spouses. Stolen jewelry. Missing pets.” Missing people sometimes, too, in White Crest. Emilio suspected that the Missing Persons Division of the WCPD was constantly bogged down with cases, which was probably why so many people were told that their loved ones had simply left town of their own accord. But those cases weren’t the kind he wanted to discuss with a stranger, especially not a stranger so squirrely about something that could be a potential cause of such mystery. Cheating spouses were easy to prove, stolen jewelry typically showed up in pawn shops, missing pets were searched for with the expectation that they might not come home. But missing people? Those were the cases Emilio found himself thinking about long after they were over.

“Yeah. You said that,” Emilio replied, and there was no accusation in his tone even if there was one lingering in the back of his mind as he looked her over. He wasn’t positive she was the one responsible for the wild animal attacks… but he was positive she knew more about it than she was pretending to. Maybe she was scared. Maybe she was guilty. Maybe she was trying to protect someone. But she was definitely covering something up here. At her question, he clicked his tongue. “Me? Most I can do is call animal control, right? I’m a private investigator. Not a wild animal wrangler.” Another lie. If he found out what was causing the attacks, he’d take care of it one way or another. It might not be his specialty, but he’d never been one to stand by and watch when people stood to get hurt. “But I would guess that what happens to it would depend on how feral it is. If it can be stopped without hurting it, or if it’s too far gone.”

“Oh, yeah? Were you a cop before you became a private investigator?” There was genuine curiosity in Tepin’s tone. A while back, she met another private investigator. He was older, however, and he was himself a cop, a detective, before he quit the force and tried to strike gold on his own. It was a shame, how he ended up caught off guard by a wild predator. Tepin gulped at the thought, the memory. It wasn’t something she was proud of. Hell, it wasn’t something she even remembered in full. All she could tell was that he was a nice old man who tried to help her off the streets, and the next thing she knew, he was gone, his body found mauled by “an animal.” Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts…

“O-oh, I did?” She flashed him an embarrassed grin but quickly looked away. Tepin didn’t want to see the old man’s face in him. It felt somewhat similar, the way this encounter was going with the way she had met the other private investigator way back. She wondered then if the ending would be the same, hoping it wouldn’t. “I’m sorry! I’m not really that smart. I…have the memory of a goldfish sometimes.” She tried to laugh it off, still looking away from him, focusing on the same batch of produce she has not walked away from since they started talking. “Y-yeah, I guess that’s…fair. If I were you, I’d still be careful, though, especially out here in the Outskirts. Whatever happened to the missing…pet you’re looking for… Whatever wild animal’s out there… I’d stay away from it myself.”

Calling animal control would be the safest thing to do, Tepin thought the same. She wondered if they’d manage to trap the jaguar, maybe take it down without killing it? It’s always been careful, though, having avoided the authorities wherever they’d hide. White Crest has been a safe haven for them for the past few years, mostly the Outskirts. There were too many dangerous animals out there like bears and whatever that most folks just waved off the carcasses they’d randomly come across. At least that’s what she believed. What else could be out there?

Emilio considered the question for a moment. It was straightforward, but it wasn’t. He’d never had a badge, but back in Etla? The Cortez family had been the closest thing to cops most people had. They’d been the ones taking care of the general public, the ones who made sure people were safe. (They’d been the ones whose names those same people had called as they died, one by one, terrified and alone. Emilio could still hear them, most nights. They drowned out every other noise.) “No,” he said at last, “I was never a cop. Not really my scene.” He wouldn’t have done any good with a badge. He couldn’t even do any good without one.

A nod took the place of a verbal response, eyes blank as he studied her. “I think you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for,” he offered, and it was true. If his suspicions were correct, she’d been hiding information from a lot of people for a long time now. That kind of thing required a certain level of finesse. Or a lot of dumb luck. He furrowed his brow as she spoke, eyes narrowing slightly. Was that meant as a threat, he wondered? Was she warning him away with an or else tacked on the end? “I’m pretty good at handling myself,” he replied, just in case. “I wouldn’t worry too much about me.”

She seemed to consider his ‘plan,’ like she was thinking it over. Emilio watched her, studied her like she was a particularly interesting case file on his desk. Animal attacks in the Outskirts. A woman with a garden and a secret. Two things that related to one another so long as you knew where to draw the lines. Looking back to the table, he held up a carrot. “How much for two of these?”

“Oh.” That was the only thing that squeaked out of Tepin’s mouth when her little theory was proven wrong, her insight clearly having rusted from all the times she kept to her little cabin in the woods, isolating herself from everyone else, every potential friend, only really coming out to trade, so she can live another day, survive another dance with the jaguar within. If he wasn’t a cop, does that mean he was the exact opposite? The thought made Tepin shudder a little. If she had been nervous about a potential cop asking questions around these parts, she was now more rattled by the idea that this man could be capable of more than just asking questions.

Tepin was no stranger to such men. Even in her tiny village back in Mexico, which most people could avoid and never knew existed, most men who could ask questions with no fear were the source of fear themselves. But she had not been to that village for so long. Perhaps things have changed. Yet here she was, cowering in fear in the presence of a private investigator who was never a cop but had the courage, no, bravado of one who had the more powerful weapon. “Thank you…” Her brown eyes stole a glimpse of him again, prompted by his revelation that he truly did not fear wild animals. “Okay. It’s just in my nature, my mamá once told me… To care, I mean.” She tried to offer him a smile but it came out too awkward and too brief.

A wash of relief came over her when he redirected the conversation to a purchase. It had been tense, Tepin felt. Too tense. Perhaps the most tense she’d ever had to endure for the past few…days. She had almost feared that the jaguar would come out right then and there. Without warning, of course, as it always did. Fortunately, something like this never caught its interest. With a grin, she looked over his choices and nodded in agreement, satisfied that the produce had caught his interest. As she opened her mouth to answer him, an idea popped up in her head. “Oh, just two? Uhm, I can give them to you for free, for, uhh,” She started to take a brown paper bag, quickly stuffing the carrots in there and adding a few others to boot, including a ziplock bag of catnip. Not too much, just enough to keep herself on his good side. “...for being a first time customer. We, uhm, have that, always have had that, promo, for a while now… But only for first time customers!”

“Nah,” Emilio replied with a shrug. It was the kind of thing that either comforted people or unsettled them with very little middle ground. If it were him, he would have been relieved that the person he was speaking to had no affiliation with law enforcement. With the exception of Marley, Emilio had never gotten along with the police, least of all on American soil. But the woman in front of him seemed unsettled, uncomfortable, like she might have preferred him with a badge. He wasn’t sure what to do with that. He never really was.

He looked down as she spoke, thinking, inevitably, of his own mother. If it had ever been in Emilio’s nature to care, she’d discouraged it long before the memory of such a thing could cement itself in his mind. She’d been right to do so, too. Caring, she told him once, belonged to other people. Not to them. If you cared too much, it would kill you. It would rip the heart from your chest, leave it to rot in the dirt. (Not caring, he thought, hadn’t given her a different end result in the end. He wasn’t sure that meant she was wrong.) “You should use that nature on other people,” he offered. “Not on me.” The advice was genuine, even if his intentions with this conversation were shrouded in ulterior motives. Emilio was a bad person to care about. Caring about him, more than anyone else, would certainly kill you in the end. There was a town of ghosts that could attest to it.

Brow furrowing, Emilio looked up from his purchases to study her face. A bribe, he suspected, though not the most tempting one he’d ever been offered. A bag of free vegetables was nice, but it would hardly keep his rent paid. It would hardly convince him to look the other way when there was blood soaking the ground. “I don’t mind paying,” he said, mostly because he’d never liked owing anything to anyone and this felt a little too much like a slippery slope that would leave him crawling on his hands and knees. “Not like I don’t have the cash.”

Despite the fear and uncertainty that she felt with the stranger, Tepin couldn’t help but steal another glimpse of him when she declined her…nature. Most people would’ve accepted it wholeheartedly, even taken advantage of it, but she supposed he wasn’t like most people. They weren’t like most people. There was a familiarity in that kind of thinking, though she remained wary of his own reasons, perhaps from his past or personal life, that had shrouded him in this seemingly jaded point of view. “O-okay.”

Tepin mustered a smile again, trying to win him over still. Shaking her head, she pushed the bag closer to him and even let out a chuckle, as genuine as she could make it seem. “Oh, it’s fine! Really. I’m sure we’ll meet again, Mister…?” She tried to fish for his name, not recalling if he had given it, though no one ever does until they had to part ways. “Almost everyone who buys from me always comes back. Come to think of, everyone actually does! Next time, it won’t be free, though, so you’ll have to bring a lot of money.” Tepin laughed, almost forgetting the danger that this man posed to her. Then again, she needed to laugh. It’s the positive mindset that has helped her survive her years of struggle against the jaguar.

“If there’s anything I can help you with, though,” the words crawled out of her lips before she could even think them through, a mistake that has always cost her something, whether it be a new friend or a part of her own soul. “...just let me know. I won’t always be around the Night Market. I usually just come in when I’ve got something extra to sell. Not the best business strategy, but I didn’t really go to business school!” She laughed again, as if trying her hardest to unload all that stress and tension, replacing them with a better and more oblivious attitude.

Almost reluctantly, Emilio took the bag with a nod. “Emilio,” he replied, providing only the first name. It was a defense mechanism in more ways than one. There were still plenty of supernatural creatures from Oaxaca and its surrounding states that would recognize the name Cortez, and since Emilio was the last of them… taking him out would provide anyone with an impressive set of bragging rights. More than that, though, his refusal to provide his last name protected him in an emotional sense. If you denied ever losing something, you could pretend to be free from the grief. You could pretend such a thing was possible at all.

Clearing his throat, he nodded. “I’m sure I’ll be back,” he replied, and it was true. He doubted he’d need any vegetables any time soon — he didn’t even really need the ones in the bag he clutched now — but she knew something. And Emilio was nothing if not stubbornly intent on finding out exactly what that was.

Pausing for a moment, he reached into his pocket and fished out a business card, holding it up before offering it to her. “Right back at you,” he replied. “If you think of anything else about these animal attacks, or if you need a detective… You can reach me here.” The card itself was certainly nothing special, but the implication, he figured, would get the job done. He couldn’t do much more than ask questions at the Night Market without being forcibly removed from the premises, but that didn’t mean he’d be giving up the case. And he wanted to make sure she knew it. “Thanks for the carrots. I appreciate the discount.”

“Emilio…” Tepin repeated his name for good measure. She waited for him to say his last name as well but was a little disappointed that he left it out. There was no blaming the man, though. He wasn’t there to make friends, she wasn’t even sure he was out there to genuinely buy her produce, only to investigate privately. She almost forgot but caught herself, providing him her own name in turn but also leaving out her last name. It wasn’t that important anyway. “I’m Tepin.”

She hesitated for a bit, brown eyes taking their time to look over his card, as if she had never seen anything before. Tepin wondered if she should refuse it, could, but ended up taking it instead, with a big grin on her face. “Oh, thank you…” It dawned on her that having a detective for a contact could be very useful in the days to come but she also feared that making any more contact with him would only allow further investigation into her situation. Until Tepin could control the jaguar, that would only serve to endanger everyone involved. “I’ll…be sure to give you a call.”

“You’re welcome!” She waved him goodbye as he left, as if she had already forgotten the danger their interaction could pose to them both. Still, Tepin believed it would be rude to do otherwise. He was kind enough to not overextend himself, to actually threaten her, not that she thought he would. Why would he? When she was just a nice produce seller at the Night Market. As he left, began to walk away, Tepin pretended to arrange her wares, despite having done so already for the nth time, watching him intently with those eyes, committing his very impressive form to her memory. Soon, there was nothing left of the mysterious stranger except for his card and the beat her heart had skipped.

#cattale #tepin: twenty questions #parental death tw #sibling death tw