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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what Stockholm

her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What is

a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to the

saying you're

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 only

of chocolate cracks off the small round

do you keep

mouth

do you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot,

do want me to feed

bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even,

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

giggling. “So, you're my friend

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

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows.

“Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

of it dropping

her heel, she

snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling

my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters.

taken from the

anything like

For how long?

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

had

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram

the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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

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