Read Takedown Teague (Caged #1) for Free Online Page A

been pretty damn entertaining more than once.  Most people just ignored her, but I sometimes kind of liked talking to someone who almost never said anything back, and she didn’t seem to mind me sitting out here with her.
    I never knew what she would be doing when I crawled out the window.  Sometimes she’d make a lot of strange sounds.  Sometimes she’d spend the afternoon pushing her finger into each and every hole in the fire escape grate, one-by-one.  Sometimes she’d take off her clothes and just lie up there in her underwear until the landlord or police made her put her clothes back on.  Sometimes she ditched the underwear, too.
    Tonight she was stacking cigarette butts into a little pyramid of sorts.  She had done this before, and at least her timing was a little better.  When she did it during the day and a door in the building slammed shut, they would all tip over, and she’d go ballistic.
    “Pretty,” Krazy Katie said.  She took a long draw on her cigarette, which brought it all the way to the filter.  I cringed a little at the smell, knowing what that tasted like, and shook my head.
    “You saying I’m pretty?” I asked with a quiet chuckle.  “I didn’t know you were into guys.”
    She didn’t respond, and I didn’t try to get her to do so.  I had been around her enough to know that random shit just came out of her mouth for no particular reason.  I used to try to figure out what she was talking about, but I never got very far, so I didn’t try any more.  She could have been talking about me, the stack of butts, or the crabgrass growing in the gutter, for all I knew.
    I leaned back against the brick wall behind me, then hissed and pulled away.  It was damn cold.  I decided to sit up with my knees against my chest instead.  I took a long draw on the smoke and watched the ash fall between the holes in the grate below me.  Krazy Katie lit up another cigarette off a little butane lighter she kept shoved in the center of her bra and actually looked at me for a minute.  As soon as I looked at her, she looked away.  She never looked me in the eye.
    I shivered a little, wondering if it would be warmer inside than it was outside.  I concluded it was probably about the same.  At least inside, there was a blanket on the bed and no wind.  I sucked down my cigarette and started to climb back inside.
    “Don’t stay out here all night, Krazy Katie,” I said on my way in.  “And eat something, for Christ’s sake.  I’m afraid you’ll fall right through the grate.”
    She didn’t respond or even look at me.
    Rubbing at my eyes, I clambered onto the queen-sized mattress and dropped onto my back.  I sighed heavily and pulled the sheet and blanket up to my chest before I rolled over to my side.  It was too cold to sleep comfortably but too warm to actually crank up the heat.  I had already had the electricity turned off once when I couldn’t cover the bill.  Now I tried to economize as much as possible on heat and lights.
    Physically I was exhausted, but my mind wouldn’t turn off.   Images of the girl in the street with her ridiculous purse-slash-Bag of Holding ran through my mind.
    Tria.
    She just didn’t seem to be the kind of person who would be living in this area, working at that nasty bar and grill, and having a bunch of guys ogle her for tips.  And studying economics?  Really?  Who does that, other than the Northsiders and their high society business and bullshit majors?  People didn’t study economics because it sounded interesting—they did that because Daddy told them that’s what they needed in order to take over as CEO.
    “Just your yearly reminder that you don't have to live like this.”
    “Fuck you, Michael,” I mumbled into my pillow.  I told my mind to shut the fuck up as I brought the blanket up a little higher and dropped off to sleep.
    *****
    Still bleary-eyed, I laced up my running shoes and carefully locked my apartment behind me.  I couldn’t