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…

the dark openings, more scratching.

enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an

*****

know what

lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a

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

you're getting

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 the

“So?”

your

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

do you

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

you do want me

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

I your only friend,

head, giggling. “So, you're

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 same to. You’ve not changed. And I’m going

seat, arches her brows. “I am

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the heavy

on her heel, she stalks

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

adjust to the green blink of the camera. It

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense

I had a

empanada, then another, I

Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the

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