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 gunmen, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching. And a nose

into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

her lunchbox, unwrapping

condition where, in a kidnap

saying you're getting attached to

“… But there's a

“So?”

I your

A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a fingertip then into her

why do you

chewing, mouth hanging a little

watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up

me to

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

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

“So, you're my friend

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.

in her seat, arches her brows.

say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who

“Solana…” she hisses.

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,

her heel, she

premonition 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

camera. It hardly matters. My attention

bite taken from the corner. And I have

not eaten anything

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out

had a

empanada, then another, I ram the

goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking and

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

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