Natural Selection

by Amanda Lance

  She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he were a small child. Did she really think so little of him?

  “Really,” she seemed to emphasize more than usual. “I was trying to do something nice by being with you, multitask by gaining a little experience for myself… but enough is enough. This has gotten way out of hand and you need to get over it.”

  “I—you…” Kasper pulled at his head, trying to put a valve on the volcano inside him. How appropriate would it be for him to die right then and there?

  “Okay.” Emilia sighed. “Listen, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you really don’t seem to be getting this, I guess I have to. Tut was never sick. I just wanted an excuse to stay away from you. When you called and I invited you to come up, I was going to end this right then and there.”

  “You gave us a really good laugh to start the night off.” The young man squeezed her hand tightly. “We made our own laughs later though, didn’t we, baby?”

  “You—you were with him?”

  “That’s right, freak show. Now, I believe the lady asked you to leave?”

  Emilia walked over to the door and held it open for him—not unlike the first night he came to her. So it seemed his body would not be merciful enough to fail for a final time. How terrible, he thought, that he shouldn’t get to perish at the feet of the gentle villain who killed him…

  “I-I am sorry, my foolish girl,” Kasper said between sobs. “I should never have wasted your time.”

  “No kidding,” scoffed the young man.

  And then he was gone, scuffled along by his slow feet and Emilia’s unwillingness to look at him.

  ***

  She might have lasted an entire thirty seconds before she began crying, large, rich tears that fell without mercy and blocked all of her other senses. Every word that she made herself tell him was a depraved pronunciation of her lie—a vile untruth she could barely make herself say, let alone act out. And yet, he had believed her so easily, barely even disputing her claims to not love him. Had she broken him so easily? Destroyed their nearly cosmic relationship with a few well timed gestures and harsh words? What if they got out of this unscathed and he didn’t forgive her—couldn’t forgive her? Hated her for not thinking up a more clever way to escape Cyrus’s clutches?

  Cyrus, oblivious to her pain, hurried to the door, peeking outside before he allowed himself to celebrate. Once it became obvious that the hall and stairwell were empty, his face lit up and his inability to control his glee only disgusted Emilia more.

  “Did you see how great that was?” He laughed joyfully, jumping in a circle and clapping his hands madly. “Ah ha! How wonderful! He was crying like a baby and I didn’t even have to touch him!”

  Her silent tears turned to bawling as she attacked him. No longer caring about her own well-being, and replaying the anguish she saw in Kasper’s eyes, it was perhaps only a surge of adrenaline and the advantage of surprise that took him so off guard, allowing Emilia to slap him across the face at least once before he regained control of her wrists.

  Even when his hands reached out to grab her, she still tried to beat him—throwing punch after punch that never reached its target. For a moment, he seemed amused by her meager attempts, and she loathed him even more for it.

  “You son of a bitch! I hate you!”

  Spitting at him, Emilia felt the slightest twinge of victory at the disgust that crossed his face. She knew it wasn’t much overall, but that small lapse in his demeanor, the mere inconvenience she had caused him by forcing him to wipe her saliva away was like winning a trophy. For an instant, the smallest bit of confidence about her abilities was revived.

  Then, he slapped her back.

  Tut, who had been sitting and squealing with mere curiosity in the corner, jogged to Emilia’s side, eager to sniff out her distress and lick up her tears after she fell to the floor. His propensity for whining, however, turned to one of growling when he heard the change in Cyrus’s vocals—the normally kind voice he was used to hearing, now leading with obvious anger and aggression.

  Withdrawing the gun from his back pocket, Cyrus chuckled to himself at the way the shock crossed over Emilia’s face—the way her cheek reddened as she tried to massage the feeling back into her face, rub out the hurt he had caused there. And once her eyes focused in on the gun, she reached one of her hands out to plead while the other one simultaneously tried to hold Tut back by his collar while shoving him behind her. What if he used her dog for target practice before killing her? Punished her disobedience by killing her dog?

  “P-please—” she tried. “You don’t have to do this.”

  That sounded pathetic even to Emilia’s ears, and she cursed herself for being so useless—cliché with her pleas in her final moments. If this had been a movie—even a terrible one—she would have at least gone out with saying something clever. One last smartass remark to signify her worth.

  “Oh yes, I do. After all, what’s to keep you from going to the police? Or even back to him?”

  “I-I won’t!” she pleaded. “I swear I won’t.”

  “I’d like to believe you, Em.” He sighed as he aimed the gun. “But after that great performance you just gave, it’s pretty obvious you’re a wonderful little liar and I just can’t trust you. It’s too bad, though,” he said, looking her over once again. “I can’t tell you how many nights I sinned over thoughts of you…”

  Tut’s barking increased, and even over her fear, Emilia could see how the hair was standing on the dog’s back, his body rigid and his jaw snapping.

  She staggered to search her mind, for something—anything that might save her.

  “I-I can help you! I know the code for the safe he keeps his money in. It’s for emergencies, but it would be a great stepping stone to ruining him, wouldn’t it?” It was a lie, and a mediocre one at best, but Emilia faintly hoped it would be enough to change his mind—or at minimum give her time while he considered it. When his eyes rose to the corner of the room however, seeming to think of something distant and far off, Emilia’s instincts kicked in and she knew that he would never let her go alive. If she didn’t do something while she had the chance, then that would be it—she would never have the opportunity to make it up to Kasper.

  Reaching for her dermatology textbook was only a minor interruption—an attempt to make noise at the least. Just maybe, if she created enough ruckus, the half-deaf woman next door would call the police or someone passing by the stairwell would get nosy enough walk onto her floor. Cyrus wasn’t stupid enough to kill her with a possible witness around, was he?

  While she had only looked to disrupt him, throwing her textbook at him was good in more ways than one. As Emilia reached for the oversized book—drawing Cyrus’s attention to the corner of his eye—she was forced to let go of Tut, who all but broke out of his mangy collar, anyway.

  Studies suggest that some dogs that defend their owners are merely defending their territory—that they are technically property of their owners isn’t relevant. If their human is in danger, their protectiveness will outweigh their sense of self-preservation, causing them to do just about anything to keep their person safe—to protect their property. Similar theories propose that it is the pack mentality that possesses the dogs to become protective—the survival instinct to keep the species strong overwhelming everything else. All scientists agree however, that dogs feel the emotions that radiate from humans. In the way electronic currents are used to turn on a light, they can feel when you turn your switch from one emotion to another—the change in energy changing the atmosphere considerably.

  Regardless of whatever exactly it was that made Tut bite Cyrus like that—lunging from his position, tilted head and splayed front legs to charge in the air—Emilia couldn’t deny how grateful she was that the dog’s lower and upper jaws latched onto her would-be killer without any sign of release. Cyrus screamed instantly, his gun discharging twice into the floor while the clenching muscles of his h
ands spontaneously forced the trigger. And through her hatred for violence and condemning spite, Emilia still got up and moved for the ceramic lamp—the heaviest object in her immediate sight.

  The ceramic lamp was her one and only lamp, and even though it didn’t provide much light, she had never felt more confident about the yard-sale purchase. When it cracked against the back of Cyrus’s head, she could have sworn it sounded like music.

  She screamed for the first time then, called out as the gun fell to the floor and though they scrambled for it at the same time, the dog’s ambitious grip kept his jaw fastened onto Cyrus’s arm— the dog preventing him from moving much of anywhere. From what Emilia could see, Tut’s remaining teeth were digging past flesh and into the tender muscle; the cause of Cyrus’s wearing and shouting in Farsi.

  As a last ditch effort, Cyrus tried to shake the dog off by raising his arm and clubbing Tut against the wall. Tut remained vigilant however, seized on while blood gushed and splattered against the wall. Emilia, meanwhile, commanded her shaking hands to control the gun, to aim and fire at the opposite wall. She might have done more, even aimed to kill she was so filled with emotion, but her protectiveness of Tut (and lack of esteem about the accuracy of her aim) prompted her to shoot off what she understood to be a warning shot.

  Finally, Tut let go of the arm, snapping and growling again, only to begin tearing into the flesh between his legs. Emilia looked on helplessly, unsure whether she should try to intervene or just let Tut kill him. In addition to Cyrus’s shrill scream however, a fist started pounding on the door, and with more than one voice asking what was going on, it became clear that the choice would no longer be hers. She called out then again, screamed for help in the sudden vastness of the room as she stumbled to let in the good Samaritans. Tut had finally let go, it seemed, but only because the threat went limp.

  Chapter 15

  To Hell

  In a way, Allah’s punishment made sense. After all, Kasper had been a non-believer for years and when he was, he did little more than curse Allah, going so far as to desecrate a Qur’an in one instance. Why should he have waited until dying to see the seven doors of hell and be faced with their wrath?

  Yet, Emilia’s abandonment was more than Jahannam, it was venturing through each door itself and feeling the craters of fire rain down on him, his skin falling off and regrowing only to be seared off again and again…

  Kasper wanted to be angry. Told himself as he drove back to the hotel to gather his things that above all, he should feel betrayed, to focus on that and nothing else. And yet, his rage was dulled by the terrible fullness of his sadness—the most suffocating sensation of all.

  That pain that was her gorged itself on him completely. A greedy emotion if there ever was one—the pain—showed no signs of releasing Kasper, even as he emptied out this room’s mini-bar and threw countless dollar bills at the bell-hop to take his bags away. The moment the small refrigerator was voided of its alcohol however, his self-hatred lusted for more and it was all he could do not to demand some of the small bottles to-go. Yet what about the drive back to Massachusetts? How was he supposed to go those few hours with his self awareness still intact?

  He would have laughed to himself if he remembered how. Was it not the crime of driving while intoxicated that had finally driven the little peach away from her mother? If she hated her own flesh and blood for doing that, then why should she have forgiven him for such a crime?

  Then again, why should he have cared what she thought? That Delilah, that heartbreaking viper! He had been in her sights all along! Ready and eager to stack him up like chips on the table, he had been nothing more to her than a resource, a reserve of affection that she could contort to her whims—and he had been a fool to believe.

  She was a dream, her feelings for him a mirage that had worn off with the cold laugh of reality. At least, he mused, she expressed some regret at the evaporation of the mirage—a slight sadness that he had detected even as she laughed at him. That must have been her sympathy however, the pity that she prided herself on. It was an added bonus that she had claimed to be remorseful, trying to continuously hold back her amusement as he had begged.

  And maybe he should have been grateful for that, feel lucky that he had been the subject of her initial kindness. Perhaps, being the charitable project of a beautiful girl was the best someone like him could have hoped for. Once upon a time as a young man, he certainly recalled it being so, but Kasper had had a taste of the real thing, and after such an undiluted narcotic as Emilia Ward, he was certain he would never be able to go back.

  ***

  The police had been surprisingly precise in their investigation and clean-up, making Emilia feel vaguely surprised even as the shock attempted to take hold. With at least one broken rib and potential internal bleeding, Emilia had refused to talk to anyone until Tut was taken to the veterinarian —rushed there by two rookie police officers who cradled him in their arms like a baby while he gnawed on an old sock.

  From there, there seemed to be a constant line of people going in and out of the apartment. Detectives, uniformed officers and forensic photographers alike, tracking their feet on the lobby carpet and rattling off a series of numbers and codes into their radios. Emilia watched with a certain mix of disdain and fascination, the disbelief of what had happened and what might have happened circling her mind like a never-ending drain pool.

  “So you said he moved in shortly after you did?”

  She swallowed hard and watched the uniformed officers chase off more rubberneckers at the crime scene tape.

  Her apartment was a crime scene.

  She had almost been part of a crime scene.

  “Ms. Ward?”

  “Huh—sorry, um…yeah. Andrew-Cyrus—whatever his name is, sublet the apartment about a month after I moved in. He said he had just transferred from upstate and the fall semester was just beginning so—” She cut herself off and stared at the sidewalk beneath her feet. No longer able to stand even the lobby of the building, she had jumped at the female officer’s suggestion for fresh air. And now that she was standing outside, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to go back in.

  “Yeah,” the detective said, flipping through some papers of his notebook. “Immigration tells us that he came here over a year ago on a student visa, but the social security number he gave the school belongs to a man who died several years ago.”

  Was it difficult to purchase someone else’s identity? To steal it and pretend to be someone else? Emilia wanted to ask but found herself unable to, staring instead at the drops of blood on the curb that Cyrus left behind when the paramedics took him away.

  “We’re trying to get in touch with this, ah—” The detective flipped over a page of chicken scratch and used his finger to find the answer. “Jasper Zafar?”

  “Kasper,” she corrected with more damnation in her voice than he expected. “His name is Kasper.”

  “Right,” the detective said slowly. “Well, we’ve tried to contact him at the number you gave us and the hotel, but apparently he’s already checked out.”

  Emilia shut her eyes tight. What did she expect? She had, after all, told him to go home. She just faintly hoped he wouldn’t do it so quickly. Despite the violation, the depth of her sorrow, she wanted him, needed him more than ever.

  “I said some terrible things to him.” The tears were coming up again before she could stop them. “Horrible, terrible things…”

  The detective sighed and looked over his shoulder as if searching for a lifeline. “Listen—ah, considering the situation, I’m sure he’ll understand… everything will be all right,” he was quick to add.

  Emilia, however, wasn’t sure about that at all.

  Kind enough to retrieve her phone and wallet for her, Emilia tried to text Kasper throughout the entire ride to the police station, only stopping when the annoyed detectives threatened to take it away from her. Even then, she gave her statement with contempt,
sarcasm, and just a touch of cynicism. Why were these people asking her so many questions? Asking her to repeat the same things over and over? Didn’t they know that she had broken a man’s heart today? That she had hurt her best friend and potentially ruined the greatest thing she ever had?

  “I have to go,” she responded to another question. “I have to get a hold of my friends, check on my dog—”

  “Your dog is doing just fine, Ms. Ward. We’ve taken samples from his teeth and gums and sent them to the lab.”

  “Great,” she said, tapping her fingers impatiently. “So he’ll go to jail? Get punished for what he did?”

  “Well…” They looked back and forth at each other skeptically. “INS will probably deport him.”

  “And then he’ll go to jail?”

  Their silence and an awkward head scratch told her all she needed to know.

  ***

  When contact with Kasper failed and the police seemed content enough with her responses to escort her back to her car, Emilia utilized her contact with Mrs. Levkin, scolding herself that she hadn’t thought to just do that in the first place.

  She almost cried with relief at the sound of Mrs. Levkin’s voice, her warm, kind ambiance practically slipping through the phone.

  “Mrs. Levkin!” she half cried. “I’m so glad I got a hold of you…”

  “Emilia? Dear, what is it? You sound awful.”

  “I—” She flinched at the distasteful sound of a car honking at her as her ran a yellow light. “Something awful happened today…with Kasper’s cousin.”

  The silence lasted eternities before she finally responded.

  “B-but Jamshid is dead. He died years ago in prison!”

  “No,” Emilia said, shaking her head. If only that was the case. “His other cousin, the younger one.”

  “Oh dear…but—but he was just a baby when Kasper left that house. How would he possibly even know…?”