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…

scratching. And a nose

into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

know what Stockholm

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

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

you're getting attached to

no. Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise with the

“So?”

I your only friend,

lips. “Friend? You think 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 with a

you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your

I assume you do want me to feed you?

But 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

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

giggling. “So, you're my friend

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.

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

to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 under the heavy make-up, her colour

on her heel,

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

my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera.

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

anything like this for…

For how long?

sense of time is

I had a

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food

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

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it