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.

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

you know

her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties

condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner

“You saying you're

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

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

you keep

mouth hanging a little

was to watch me rot,

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

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

“Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that

head, giggling. “So, you're my

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 that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest

in her seat, arches her

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 you changed

“Solana…” she hisses.

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.

her heel, she stalks

up the discarded meal

blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My

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

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

My sense of time

had

empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing

gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it

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