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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching.

if you gaze long enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle

*****

do you know

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

the label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage

you're getting attached

mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called

“So?”

your

You think you’re my friend?” The napkin 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

do you keep coming

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to feed you? We can always change that you

once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're here every

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

“So,

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

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.

mouth working, she says no 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 side of that painted line, now less

heel,

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 a click, the light

green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the

anything like this

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time

had a

of empanada, then another, I ram the food into

way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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

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