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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

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

saying you're getting

tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

I your only

of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she

why do you

chewing, mouth

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have

to feed you. I assume you do want me to feed you?

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

regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it?

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

finger at me, “You think someone's going to come and save 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

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

my eyes, 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 her face. “Have

“Solana…” she hisses.

of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under

her heel, she stalks

pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

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

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

Months? My sense of time

had a

then another, I ram the food

and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

my scavenged meal, I barf it up,

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