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,

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching. And a nose

into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know what Stockholm

lunchbox,

the label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the

you're getting attached

misread 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 captor comes to empathise with

“So?”

I your only friend,

You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back

you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

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

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, you're here

only friend, Sola?

“So,

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

her seat, arches her brows. “I am

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now

heel, she

takes no supernatural premonition 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 concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one hand, a cake

of the camera. It hardly

delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of

anything

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I

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

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where

The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

Comments ()

0/255