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.

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know what

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the

sniggers. “You saying you're

have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome,

“So?”

I your

brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping

do you

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

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

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 reckon, you're here every

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

swings her head, giggling. “So,

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.

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

mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have you

“Solana…” she hisses.

of it dropping

her heel,

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

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

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have

anything

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out

I had a

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

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

I barf it up, where it plops in a

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