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.

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

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

you're

mockery, but I have her attention. “… But

“So?”

your only friend,

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

you keep

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

you wanted was to watch me rot, you

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

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

and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only

giggling. “So, you're my friend

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 all the others you did the

back in her seat, arches her brows. “I

have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have you changed

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel,

to know 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

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

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

anything

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

had

empanada, then another, I ram

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

meal, I barf it up,

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