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

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a nose pokes

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

do you know what

lunchbox, unwrapping one

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

saying you're getting

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

“So?”

I your only

chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin

you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth

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

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

do. 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,

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

swings her head, giggling. “So,

at me, “You think someone's going to come and save you, Larry? You believe you're worth saving? 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

arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I

have changed. Who ever really

“Solana…” she hisses.

mouth working, she says no more. Instead, she stands, the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it

on her heel, she

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

to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My

bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

anything like

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is

had a

mouthful of empanada, 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

it

The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

Comments ()

0/255