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

into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

you know what Stockholm

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

sniggers. “You saying you're

tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor

“So?”

your

my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into

why do you

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to feed you? We can

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

not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that

“So, you're

You believe you're worth saving? That there's anyone out there who thinks you're worth it? The 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

in her seat, arches her brows.

claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

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.

her heel,

coming. 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

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

eaten anything

For how long?

I’ve no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had a

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

way and suddenly I’m

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

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