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…

scratching. And

you gaze long enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

you know

She takes something from her lunchbox,

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

“You saying you're getting attached to

But there's

“So?”

your

produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she

why do you keep coming

chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

me to feed you?

bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I

not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that

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

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

seat, arches her brows. “I am making

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

some of it dropping just this side

on her heel,

the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal

blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in my

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

eaten anything

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of the

had

then another, I ram the

way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but

gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops

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