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…

openings, more scratching. And a nose

an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped

*****

know

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

you're getting attached

Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's

“So?”

your only

a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake,

why do you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging

was to watch me rot, you have

want me to feed you? We can always

I do. But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're here every day or

“Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry.

in her seat, arches

keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her

“Solana…” she hisses.

tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of

heel, she

Launching myself at 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 cake with the other before, with a click, the light winks out and I'm left in

my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It

a single bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time

I had a

then another, I ram the food

and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking and

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess

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