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…

scratching. And a

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin.

kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to

you're

Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She 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?”

I your

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

you keep coming

mouth hanging a little open.

wanted was to watch me rot, you

you do want me to feed you? We can always change

But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can

speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it?

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

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

arms, sits back in her seat,

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel,

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 before, with a click, the light winks

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

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the

not eaten anything like

For how long?

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

I had

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly

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

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