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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a

an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

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

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

you're getting attached

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

“So?”

I your only

off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with

do you keep coming

mouth hanging

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

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

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

I your only friend, Sola?

swings her head, giggling. “So, you're my

you, Larry? 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 through you.

back in her seat, arches her

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel, she

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 cake with the other before, with a click, the light winks

eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters.

a single bite taken from the corner. And

anything like

For how long?

My sense of time

I had

another, I ram the

way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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

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