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,

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching. And a nose

into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

condition where, in a kidnap

you're getting attached to

have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise

“So?”

I your only

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 fingertip

why do you keep

chewing, mouth hanging a

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

me to feed you? We

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 as

continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola?

giggling. “So, you're

you, 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 you did the same to. You’ve not changed.

in her seat, arches her brows.

voice 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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 has changed. White-faced,

her heel, she stalks

as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to

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

single bite taken from the corner.

anything like this for…

For how long?

sense of time is out of

had

another,

wrong way and suddenly

it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated

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