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

It’s just a rat…

scratching.

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

you know what Stockholm

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage

saying you're getting

attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes

“So?”

I your

lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and

you

her chewing, mouth hanging a

you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to the

I assume you do want me to feed you? We can always change that

But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a

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

giggling. “So, you're my friend are

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 the same to. You’ve not changed. And I’m going

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat,

my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?”

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel, she stalks

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

of the camera.

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have

anything

For how long?

My sense of

had a

of empanada, then another, I ram

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

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

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