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…

dark openings, more scratching. And a

gaze long enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

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

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where

“So?”

I your

you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with

you

mouth hanging

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

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

do. But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon,

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

giggling. “So,

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

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

mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?”

“Solana…” she hisses.

lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping

on her heel,

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

of the camera. It hardly matters. My

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

eaten anything

For how long?

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

had a

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

the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and

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

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