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 a nose pokes

into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

know

from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

a kidnap or hostage situation, the

you're

have her attention. “… But

“So?”

your only

flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and

do you

pauses in her chewing, mouth

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

you. I assume you do want me

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

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

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

someone's going to come and save 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. The same heartless bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under

her heel, she

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 one hand, a cake with the

my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It

from the corner.

anything like

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had a

then another,

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

meal, I barf it

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