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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching.

gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

my case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

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

“You saying you're

misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome,

“So?”

your

flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin

do you

her chewing, mouth

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

want me to feed you? We can always change

could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even,

simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola?

head, giggling. “So, you're my

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

her arms, sits back in her seat, arches

have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have

“Solana…” she hisses.

of it dropping just this side of that

her heel, she stalks

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 winks out and

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the

not eaten anything

For how long?

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

I had a

of empanada, then another, I

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and

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

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