Hot Revenge Box Set 4

Chapter 52

Klempner

What's the obsession with potatoes?

I called her Potato Face when she was a kid.

What does she look like now?

Jenny was no looker at that age…

… But she matured. Bloomed.

Juliana... Never the same twice.

I scratch at my beard. I’ve never liked facial hair in hot climates, but I don’t have a choice right now. Even so, the flourishing colony of lice that has stowed aboard adds an extra edge of irritation.

Lice…

Where the fuck did they come from?

Can rat lice live on humans?

Having a fucking good go at it…

I catch one, squeezing the revolting thing between my fingernails. It bursts with a Pop!

Only another 999 to go…

*****

The boredom’s the worst. Endless hours. Endless days and nights. I’ve no idea how long.

The only breaks in the monotony are Juliana’s visits: just long enough to sit, eat something at me, toss a potato at me.

No, not Juliana: Solana.

Why's she so obsessed with the name?

How many names have I used over the years? Worn like a suit of clothes to be discarded when the weather changes and something different is needed.

I’ve never been defined by my name.

But she sees it differently…

Something skritches and I jerk a look sidelong

It’s a rat…

Just a rat…

down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

know

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin.

in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an

you're getting attached to

me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to

“So?”

I your

of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into

you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging

If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.”

want me to

bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far

chews and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get close

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend are

save you, Larry? You believe you're worth saving? That there's anyone out there who thinks you're worth it? The daughter you had slated as a sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped

sits back in her seat, arches her brows.

say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I

“Solana…” she hisses.

scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than

heel, she stalks

the fallen food, ignoring the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one hand, a

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on

a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

not eaten anything like

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

I had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and

on my scavenged meal, I barf it

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