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…

dark openings, more scratching. And

long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle

*****

you know

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

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

saying you're getting attached

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

“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 a

do you keep

in her chewing, mouth hanging a

wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to the

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

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

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

head, giggling. “So, you're

hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The

in her seat,

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,

“Solana…” she hisses.

Instead, she stands, the 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

heel, she

what's 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

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

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

anything like this

For how long?

My sense of time is out of the

had

of empanada, then another, I ram the food

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

gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated

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