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…

openings, more scratching. And

into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

you know

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

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

you're

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

“So?”

your only friend,

The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off

do you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

assume you do want me to feed you? We

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

your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get close to

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

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 through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along with

seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

heel,

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

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

only a single bite taken from the

anything like this for…

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out

I had

of empanada, then another,

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

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

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