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

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

know what

her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox,

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

“You saying you're

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

“So?”

your only friend,

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

do you keep coming

her chewing, mouth hanging

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

you do want me to feed you?

could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week.

simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only

swings her head, giggling. “So, you're my

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

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

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.

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

her heel, she

snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one hand, a cake with the other

of the camera.

taken from the

anything

For how long?

Months? My sense of time

had

of empanada, then another, I ram the food into

way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but

I barf it up, where it plops

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