A Neurological Study on the Effects of Canine Appeal on Psychopathy, or, RIO ADOPTS A PUPPY: A Russell's Attic Interstitial Read online

  She’d called on the righteous to help and gotten Rio.

  “How are you?” she asks, stepping closer to him. She’s such a small woman. She comes near and stares up at his face, her eyes penetrating, and he knows what she is asking.

  “The same,” he answers.

  She still thinks he can be saved. It is, perhaps, a mark of how good a person she is, to believe something so impossible.

  “I need you to take this,” Rio says, and holds out the crate with the puppy. Inside, the animal whines and thumps its tail.

  She’s confused, he can tell, and probably reading an incorrectly flattering context into this interaction—she takes the crate from him with the start of a smile, and the image comes to him unbidden of what he could do to that smile—how he could make it scream forever—

  He turns away and heads back toward the path.

  “Rio,” the sister calls after him.

  He stops. Turns.

  She puts the crate with the puppy in it down gently in the garden and comes after him. She touches his arm. Not many people are brave enough to do that, or want to. He shifts an inch away so her hand no longer makes contact, and she lets it drop.

  “He always has room for you in His love,” she tells him. So earnestly. “If you repent, you can be forgiven. It is still possible.”

  He repents all the time.

  Then he sins again.

  “Take care of the dog,” he says, and leaves her standing in her garden on the mountain.

  EPILOGUE

  Rio drives back to Tali Kha. It’s long after dark when he arrives, so late the owners of the small local hotel snipe at him in irritation and balk at giving him a room. But he unfolds a few more bills onto the counter, and they say they suppose they can clean one up.

  He uses the hotel phone to check the various places he maintains for communication, and finds no messages. He hasn’t planned where he’s going next, so when morning comes he goes to an Internet café and reads deep into the news, past the mainstream articles and into the bits and pieces most consider too exhausting to be newsworthy. Brutality exists everywhere, and if repeated often enough becomes unsensational.

  He’s moving from one news site to another when he catches a brief mention of recent upheaval in Los Angeles.

  He reads the article. Reads another one.

  Before he turns to his next crusade, he has a duty. There’s no evidence she was involved, but…he has an intuition born of experience.

  He considers calling, but perhaps it’s past time to assess in person.

  ♦

  She hasn’t hidden herself from him. He wonders if that would ever occur to her. Whether it should disturb him that it might not.

  He leans against the doorframe and watches her approach. Her arm is in a cast and sling, but a broken arm catalogues in Rio’s mind as a minor injury, and other than that she appears to be fine.

  Better, even. More relaxed. Happier.

  He supposes that’s a good thing.

  He’s right to stay out of her life. Just as he was right to give away the dog.

  Guide my choices, Lord. If he is too weak to stop himself, at least when he takes lives he must also save them. He knows this. Guide my hand.

  She looks up. She sees him and half-smiles. That’s wrong, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

  Except leave again, soon.

  He’s feeling the itch again anyway.

  FICTION BY SL HUANG

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  The Russell’s Attic Series

  Novels

  Zero Sum Game

  Half Life

  Root of Unity – coming 2015

  Plastic Smile – coming 2016

  Short Stories

  Rio Adopts a Puppy

  Ladies’ Day Out – coming 2015

  Other Works

  Hunting Monsters [Book Smugglers Publishing]

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SL HUANG majored in mathematics at MIT. The program did not include training to become a superpowered assassin-type. Sadly.

  You can find out more about SL Huang than you ever wanted to know by visiting www.slhuang.com or by following @sl_huang on Twitter.

  Table of Contents

  A Neurological Study on the Effects of Canine Appeal on Psychopathy or RIO ADOPTS A PUPPY A Russell’s Attic Interstitial

  Epilogue

  Fiction by SL Huang

  About the Author