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.

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

you know

from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

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

saying you're getting attached to

misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's

“So?”

I your only friend,

cracks off the small round cake, dropping back

do you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging

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

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

only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far

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

head, giggling. “So,

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

seat, arches her

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour

on her heel, she stalks

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

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

untouched, only a single bite taken from the

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is out

I had a

empanada, then another, I ram the food

Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no

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

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