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…

more scratching. And

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 Stockholm syndrome

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

condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the

sniggers. “You 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 syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise with the

“So?”

your only friend,

lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small

do you keep

mouth hanging a

was to watch me rot, you have your camera

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

me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a

continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

had slated as a sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not

her seat,

otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed.

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 heavy make-up, her colour has changed. White-faced, white-lipped, scarlet spots at

her heel, she stalks

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

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

eaten anything

For how long?

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

had

then another, I ram

pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but

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

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