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…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

you know what

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation,

saying you're getting attached

no. Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

your only friend,

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

you keep

chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

me to feed

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

“Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered

giggling. “So, you're my

kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am

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.

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

heel, she

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

blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I

eaten anything like this

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of the

had

empanada, then another, I

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

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto

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