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…

down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

long enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

from her lunchbox,

kidnap

“You saying you're

have her attention. “… But there's

“So?”

your only friend,

off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a

do you keep coming

her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

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

potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once

swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get close to

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

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

sits back in her seat, arches her

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

working, she says 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

her heel, she

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, with a

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

from the corner.

not eaten anything like

For how long?

I’ve no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of

I had

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

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

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where

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