Hot Revenge Box Set 4

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…

dark openings, more scratching. And a

enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual

a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to the

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

no. Don't misread 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 empathise

“So?”

your only

A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a

you keep coming

her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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 you? We

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

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

head, giggling. “So, you're

That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see

arms, sits back in 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 my gaze again, look

“Solana…” she hisses.

no more. Instead, she stands, the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this

on her heel, she

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

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

delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

anything like this

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of the

I had

empanada, then another,

Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking and

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