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

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

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

“You saying you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

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 fingertip then

do you

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

you do want me to feed you? We can always

come once a week. Or even, once a

continue. “Am I your only friend,

her head, giggling. “So, you're

anyone out there who thinks you're worth it? The daughter 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

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows.

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel,

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 a click, the light winks out and I'm left

adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly

single bite taken from the corner. And

anything like

For how long?

sense of time is

had a

another, I ram the food

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

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a

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