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…

scratching.

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

you know what

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

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

saying you're

She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes

“So?”

I your only friend,

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

why do you keep

chewing, mouth

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

you. I assume you do want me

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

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

her head, giggling. “So, you're my friend are

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

sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

no more. 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 less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed.

heel, she stalks

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

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

delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

anything like

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of

I had

then another, I

the wrong way and

gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it

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