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

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what

She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her

a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage

“You saying you're getting

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

“So?”

your only

“Friend? 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

why do you keep

chewing, mouth

coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot,

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to

potatoes and come once a week. Or

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

swings her head, giggling. “So,

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 the others you did the same to. You’ve not changed. And I’m going to make you

seat, arches

I keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my

“Solana…” she hisses.

concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour has

heel, she

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

the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My

untouched, only a single bite taken from the

eaten anything like this

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time

I had

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram

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

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

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