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…

more scratching. And a

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know what

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

where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner

you're getting attached

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

“So?”

your

you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin

you keep

chewing, mouth

me rot, you

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

potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I

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

“So, you're

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

sits back in her seat, arches

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this

on her heel,

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 concrete, scrabbling to grab broken

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

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

eaten anything like

For how long?

I’ve no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

I had a

of empanada, then another, I ram the

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

meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the

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