Natural Selection by Amanda Lance Read Free Book Online Page A

thanking him for his patience with an extra treat and a pat on the head. When she caught a glance of herself in the mirror, she grabbed her extra dark sunglasses and put them on. Though she had only sobbed for a few minutes, it was enough to make a great deal of difference in her appearance.
    Tut half-dragged her out to the sidewalk , and Emilia was glad to jog with him, stopping only so he could sniff the occasional fire hydrant or candy wrapper. Emilia never had to be bothered by other dog walkers or students who lived the neighborhood because they were interested in her dog or—heaven forbid—wanted to pet him. No, many people were afraid of pit bulls by reputation, and once they saw his face, they pieced together that he was a fighting dog and immediately steered their strollers and small dogs in the other direction.
    They assumed he was a monster.
    Was that what Paula and Claudette had thought when they met Kasper today? Emilia had never seen it first-hand before, but she had heard Kasper explain his theory of reactions and couldn’t help but assume he was exaggerating. There was no way that educated people, people who had grown up with the slightest bit of decency, could be that shallow, that insensitive…
    Maybe it was perspective that had made her doubt what Kasper always said about the responses people gave him, but clearly she had been wrong. And though she doubted it, Emilia knew how uncomfortable the introduction would make Kasper. Whether she was trying to hurt him or prove something, she did not know. Either way, she had obviously wounded him, and maybe subconsciously that was what she wanted—to hurt him with an ounce of the potency with which he had injured her with.
    When they got back to the apartment, Emilia washed Tut’s bowls before giving him fresh water with ice cubes, which he lapped up happily. Only once she saw he was satisfied and content did she get undressed and escape into a hot shower. Emilia didn’t need to search her subconscious to know that she still loved Kasper. Yet now that she had hurt him, what would he think of her?
    What if she had ruined her one and only chance?
     
    ***
     
    Kasper waited until after dark before venturing out again, needing that time to recover after his considerable embarrassment. It had been some months since his last “public appearance,” and though it had been longer since they were quite that bad, Kasper at least had time to prepare for them. He was not undignified without proper notice.
    H e could not blame Emilia for the ambush; she did know, after all, how to push all of his buttons. And if he wanted to damage someone, psychological would be the way to do it—damage without leaving a mark.
    He started by cruising around the laboratory she frequented on Thursday evenings for her dermatology course, stopping to stare into windows and imagining her dissecting the dead faces of felines with her brows knit and struggling to keep the strings from her headphones from contaminating samples. 
    From there, he went to the campus library , unimpressed by its singular structure and lack of security. But he only stayed long enough to envision how he could correct the mistakes before driving past the launderette she used and her grocery store.
    Her apartment complex was the last stop.
    Like the animal shelter, Kasper wished Frankford had alerted him to the condition of the building, how decrepit it was. Then again, hadn’t it been his decision not to know the details of her life? Hadn’t that been the way he had justified looking in on her again? That it wasn’t really a breach of her privacy if he had to imagine the specific elements?
    He had spent too long in the small car to spend any mo re time in there than he had to. So he parked in a spot that clearly did not belong to a resident and stood outside. Watching the buses and vehicles that passed, he was strangely relieved that they were just as broken and elderly as Emilia’s. It was this, in addition to