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,

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a nose

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know

Interest flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox,

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

sniggers. “You saying you're

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 to empathise with the

“So?”

I your only

brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into

why do you keep

in her chewing, mouth hanging a

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

do want me to feed you? We can

bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as

speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone

giggling. “So, you're my friend

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

arms, sits back in her seat, arches her

to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze

“Solana…” she hisses.

lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this

on her heel, she stalks

no supernatural 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

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

taken from

eaten anything like

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time

had a

of empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing

to swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated

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