Hot Revenge Box Set 4

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…

faced down

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching. And a

if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know

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

in a kidnap or hostage

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes

“So?”

your only

You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off

do you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth hanging

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

you do want me to

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

your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered

her head, giggling. “So, you're my

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 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 going

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

changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have you changed

“Solana…” she hisses.

contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping

heel, she

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

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

untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything

For how long?

Months? My sense of time

had a

of empanada, then another, I

down the wrong way and suddenly I’m

swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess