Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(11)

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 f*ck 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 help but glance at apartment 142 as I went by and realized I was kind of hoping to run into the new neighbor as I took off for my mid-morning run. It had been a week since we met in the street, but I hadn’t seen her again. Sometimes when I would get home, I’d see her lights on but never actually saw her.

I took off running across the street, checking for cars as I went. It was good weather for running, at least. It wasn’t as hot as it had been just a few weeks ago. I turned left and headed out of the neighborhood on my typical route.

My usual three-mile run took me out of the slums and into an industrial district. There were a lot of warehouses and factories that had shut down in the recession, but a few were still open. I knew at least a couple people in my building who sometimes got work in one of them, but the layoffs were frequent, and they’d be right back on welfare a few months later.

At least I wasn’t that bad off.

I had a good deal working for Dordy and Yolanda. I got paid a hundred a fight, win or lose. If I won, I got more. Fighting twice a week put me at just enough to live on and not much more. I could make rent on my crappy apartment, feed myself, and pay for the utilities. I usually had a little left over for smokes and weekly pizza delivery.

I did better than a lot of people I knew, and having any extra money was dangerous for someone like me.

Thinking about my own livelihood made me wonder just how Tria was doing. She had only been around a few weeks; she had told me the night I met her. I wondered how she was adjusting to school, work, and living in a shit neighborhood that was probably very unlike whatever she had at home.

There was a scrawny little tree surrounded by the only patch of real dirt for a mile in any direction. It was the spot that marked my halfway point. I circled wide and then at a slightly faster pace headed back in the direction of my building. Once I crossed the street, I checked my time and walked around the block to cool off before going back inside to down three large cups of water.

I looked over at my hand-me-down rowing machine in the corner of the living room and sighed. I didn’t work out much on fight nights. I’d run early in the day to loosen up but keep myself from doing too much right before a fight. Tonight was going to be a challenge night, too, which always took a lot out of me.