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 gunmen, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a nose pokes

into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

you know

from her lunchbox,

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

sniggers. “You saying you're

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

“So?”

your only friend,

off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it

you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to feed

come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I

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

swings her head, giggling. “So, you're my

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

her seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed. White-faced, white-lipped, scarlet spots at

heel, she

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,

blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera.

bite taken from the corner.

not eaten anything

For how long?

Months? My sense

had a

then another, I ram the food into

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

meal, I barf it up, where it plops

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