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…

openings, more scratching. And a

into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

know what Stockholm

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties

a kidnap or

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise

“So?”

I your

cracks off the small round cake, dropping

do you

in her chewing, mouth hanging

rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to the blinking

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

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

me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might

“So, you're my friend are

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 same to. You’ve not changed. And I’m

sits back in her seat, arches her brows.

I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my

“Solana…” she hisses.

lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than

heel, she

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 click, the light winks out and I'm

blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention

bite taken from

anything like

For how long?

My sense of time is out of

I had a

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 choking and

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in

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