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…

openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

kidnap

saying you're

her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called

“So?”

your

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

why do you

her chewing, mouth hanging a

you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have

me to

I do. But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a

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

giggling. “So, you're

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

her seat, arches

I keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she stalks

premonition to know what's 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, with

eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on

untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half

anything like

For how long?

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

had a

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

and suddenly

barf it

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