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…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What

for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

I your

produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a fingertip then into her

do you keep coming

mouth hanging a

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

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

bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as

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

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

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

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 into her

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

heel, she stalks

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,

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

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

not eaten anything

For how long?

sense of time is out

had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another,

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

swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it

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