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 pokes

if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

you know what Stockholm

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

label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

I have her attention. “… But there's a

“So?”

your only

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

do you

her chewing, mouth hanging

wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk

me to feed you? We can

bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're

your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

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

her seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel, she stalks

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 fragments of meat in one hand, a cake with the other before,

eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly

only a single bite taken from

eaten anything like

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time

I had

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

down the wrong way and suddenly

it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated

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