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…

more scratching. And a nose

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped

*****

know what

lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What

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

you're getting attached

Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a

“So?”

your only friend,

you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up

why do you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth

was to watch me rot, you

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

come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can

and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola?

giggling. “So, you're

You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped me

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even

heel, she stalks

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

green blink of the camera.

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of

I had a

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking and

gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it

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