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…

faced down

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a nose

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

my case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

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

you're getting attached

her attention. “… But

“So?”

I your only

off the small round cake,

why do you keep

chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

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

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

“Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone

swings her head, giggling. “So,

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

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side

her heel, she stalks

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,

eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

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

eaten anything like this

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of

had

empanada, then another, I ram the food into

soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer

to swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops

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