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…

more scratching. And a nose

into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

you know

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

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

“You saying you're

her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called

“So?”

your only friend,

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

you keep

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to

I assume you do want me to feed you? We

me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're

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

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

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

arms, sits back in her seat,

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel, she stalks

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 with the other before,

blink of the camera. It hardly

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

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of

had

another,

pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer

meal, I barf it up, where it

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