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…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a

enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one

a kidnap or hostage situation,

you're getting attached to

pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

I your

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

do you keep coming

pauses in her chewing, mouth

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

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to

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

only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

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 potatoes for the rest of my life. Along with all the others you did the

back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face.

“Solana…” she hisses.

rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even

her heel,

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

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

sense of time is out

had

then another, I ram the food

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

barf it up, where it plops

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