Page 93 of Burn

Caleb lives on the fifth floor. I have to stop her. She’ll kill herself.

“Jesus, she’s like a damn spider monkey,” Scarlet notes.

I get out of the car and point to the ground. “Get down here!” My order falls on deaf ears.

Between the traffic and the steady mist of rain, I doubt she even heard me.

This is just crazy.

I glance over at Scarlet, who’s gotten out of the car now too and resting her chin on the top of the door and drinking from her water bottle. “She’s going to fall from that thing and break her neck. Then you’ll have an excuse to go up to his apartment.”

While Scarlet makes a valid point, I can’t have Izzy breaking her neck on my conscience. Mostly because Gigantor would probably hunt me down and kill me. Stab me to death with his hockey stick or slit my throat with his skates.

Reaching into the pocket of her hoodie, Scarlet pulls out my keys and dangles them in my face. “I have the getaway car, butt crack. You suck at this stalking thing.”

My eyes narrow at her. “I should have never invited you.”

“Mila?” Izzy yells out, but it’s more like a distant plea with how far up she is. I thought for sure she would slip on the metal and come crashing down by now, but hasn’t.

Izzy yells something else, but I can’t hear her. Frantically counting the windows, I try to see if she’s even close to the fifth floor and she’s not. Maybe like the second, but that tower crane isn’t going to work out.

“I don’t see why we don’t just go knock on the door,” Scarlet asks, watching a homeless man across the street who seems to be looking at Izzy on the tower crane like she’s Wonder Woman. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

Yes.

“No.” I refuse to admit failure. “It wouldn’t.”

For a good two minutes, Izzy yells at Scarlet and me from her third-floor climb. We have no idea what she’s saying.

“I wonder when she’s going to figure out that we can’t actually hear her?” Scarlet pulls her hood over her head. “Do you think she’s been giving Gigantor too many blow jobs and he’s pounded the shit out of her brain so much that part of it’s dead?”

I have to think about that one for a second. There’s actually some logic to it.

I keep glancing up at the apartment and Izzy dangling from a tower crane. The realization that I’m twenty-six and stalking someone like some kind of jealous high school girl isn’t lost on me.

In fact, it’s all I can think about. What have I become? All this for what? What am I proving here? That I’m certifiably crazy?

Rain hits the side of my face as I let out a heavy sigh. “Come on, Izzy! Let’s go!”

She must have heardthatbecause she starts to come back down. And I might add here a police car has pulled over two blocks up and a cop’s getting out of his car.

Busted.

Scarlet smiles. “This could get interesting. He looks hot.”

When he begins to walk toward us, that’s when I really start to panic. Scarlet’s completely calm, she even waves at him.

Cupping my hands around my mouth, I yell, “Izzy,hurry!”

Don’t think I wouldn’t have left her if it came down to it. She chose to climb that damn thing. That’s her problem.

Just as I’m about to run away, Izzy’s about ten feet from getting off the yellow monstrosity, she slips and nails her chin.

And you would think right about now, we’re gonna have to head to the ER, right?

Nope. Just wait.

“Son of a bitch!” Izzy cries out, but she sees the cop and knows we have to scramble.

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