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…

more scratching. And

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. Between

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

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

saying you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

I your only

brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a

you

mouth

watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up

feed you. 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 as I can reckon, you're

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

her head, giggling. “So, you're my

sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same

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

I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze

“Solana…” she hisses.

she says 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

her heel, she

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 cake with the other before,

of the camera.

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

not eaten anything like

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out

had a

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

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

it up, where it plops

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