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…

faced down

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching. And a nose

if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment

sniggers. “You saying you're getting

have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's

“So?”

I your only

A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake,

you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your

want me to feed you? We can

could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once

your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've

“So, you're my

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 me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along with all the others you did

her seat,

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that

her heel, she stalks

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

to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

a single bite taken from the corner. And

eaten anything like

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

I had

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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

The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

Comments ()

0/255