Hot Revenge Box Set 4

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

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a

enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

know what

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one

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

you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

I your only

“Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round

you keep

in her chewing, mouth

do you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk

do want me to feed you? We can always change that you

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

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

swings her head, giggling. “So, you're my friend are

think someone's going to come and save you, Larry? You believe you're worth saving? That there's 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 bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along with all

arms, sits back in her seat,

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 under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed. White-faced, white-lipped, scarlet spots

her heel, she stalks

as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab

blink of the camera. It hardly matters.

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

anything like this for…

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is out of the

I had a

empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

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

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