Jamb (The Cornerstone Series)

by Misty Provencher

  “How do you know your way around so well?” I ask as Milo turns another corner.

  “I am one of them,” Milo shrugs and it’s hard to tell if he means he was or still is, if he really is just playing a game to fit in or if the game’s really on me. “I lived here for a few weeks before I went to your Cura as a spy.”

  I shouldn’t need to be constantly reassured, but I do. It’s just that his expression is so seriously honest when he tells me he’s on the Ianua’s side and then his face is just as seriously honest when he says he’s on The Fury’s side. I can’t help but to re-wonder, over and over again each time, which of his seriously honest faces is telling me the truth. He could wink or squeeze my hand to reassure me when he’s lying, but he doesn’t do that. And the itch to know the real truth is just about turning me inside out.

  But it’s not like I could even believe him, if he gave me the answer I want to hear. The only thing I would actually buy at this point is that he’s with The Fury and planning to roast my liver at dawn. I’d actually believe that easier than anything else.

  But not knowing for sure means exactly that: I don’t know for sure. I could totally be paddling down the screwed stream. Or paddling up the stream, with him, against The Fury’s current. I just don’t know. So far, he’s kept me kind of safe, besides letting me go into the Jamb. At this point, all I can do is keep paddling and hope he’s steering me in the right direction.

  It’s a whole lot of hope.

  “In here,” Milo says, “Stay close to me, and watch for guns. If you see any, just get down or get out. Don’t try to get the gun.”

  We walk into a large room that reminds me of my high school gymnasium, except that there’s all sorts of unmatched furniture scattered all over the place, with all kinds of people draped on the couches and chairs and all of them doing all kinds of things. A lot of them are making out as if they’re in a private room. Some of them are betting on dice, on cards, on who knows what. One girl is twirling around in a really tiny bikini while she does really weird ballet positions in front of a growing crowd of guys. Small fights break out and end with someone unconscious. A man on the edge of one of the couches just stares at himself in a handheld mirror, never moving.

  Milo walks up to one of the chairs and taps the arm of a guy who has a big girl in his lap, and from what I can see, glued to his lips.

  “Go away,” the guy says when he comes up for air.

  “Lipstick,” Milo says. The girl comes unglued.

  “What kind?” she asks. The guy under her says, “It don’t matter, honey. You don’t need none of that. All you need is me.”

  “Shut up, Kevin,” Honey says and then she looks back at Milo. “What color you got?”

  “I’ve got a crimson red that’d make any guy in this place fall in love with you.”

  “What’re you tryin’ to do?” Kevin barks, but Honey puts one long, fake fingernail over his lips and Kevin sinks back into the chair obediently.

  “How much?” she asks. Milo looks away.

  “Trade. You can have the whole tube for a door lock. A good one.”

  “Screw him,” Kevin says. “We can go looting and get you a pile of lipstick.”

  “Not this kind, you can’t.” Milo shakes his head. “I stole mine from a make up artist that worked for the stars. If you want Shakira’s lip prints, you can just about see them in this lipstick.”

  “Shakira? For real?”

  “As real as it gets,” Milo says. Honey whips back to Kevin, who is still spread back on the chair beneath her, his jaw waiting in his hand.

  “Baby, get me a door lock for that Shakira lipstick,” Honey purrs.

  “Where you think I’m gonna get a door lock?”

  “Wherever you need to.” Honey’s tone changes from cotton candy to jaw breaker. “’Less you don’t want my lovin’ no more.”

  “Aww, honey…”

  “Don’t aww honey me nothin’ ‘til you get me some of that Shakira lipstick.”

  “Fine, woman,” Kevin groans. Honey gets off his lap and Kevin stands up out of the chair. He’s got to be the tallest, broadest man I’ve ever seen. He lumbers away, across the room, as Honey opens her palm to Milo.

  “Give it,” she says.

  “Oh no. Not until I get the lock.”

  “He’ll get you your lock.”

  “And that’s when you’ll get the lipstick.”

  “Shakira lipstick.”

  “That’s right.”

  “’Cause if I find out you playin’ me,” Honey steps closer to Milo and places the edge of her fake, three-inch-fingernail at his neck. “If that’s what you’re doin’, then all I gotta do is call Kevin, and you know that man would kill for me.”

  “Hands off my man,” I say, flicking Honey’s finger off of Milo’s jugular. “Maybe I’ll just keep that Shakira lipstick for myself. I knew the girl that put it on Shakira. That lipstick’s got sentimental value.”

  “You knew the girl? You saw her put it on Shakira?” Honey asks. Milo is expressionless, as usual. He could be choking on his own tongue and no one would ever know. I just keep talking.

  “That’s right, honey,” I drizzle the words. And Honey buys everything I’m selling her, plus the accessories.

  “Kevin!” she booms. “You best hurry up if you want me to be here when you come back!”

  Three long minutes later, we’ve got our lock, and Honey is smashing Shakira lip prints all over Kevin’s face.

  The other trades go pretty fast. The toothpaste for a jar of peanut butter, the eye shadow for blankets, the two eyeliners get us each a tee-shirt, and the mascara surprisingly nets us a microwave. Milo trades the toothbrushes to a woman who is definitely sliding down the wrong side of the sanity slope. But he gets a whole grocery bag of food from her.

  We’re down to the three lipsticks and I’m sitting on the arm of a chair that Milo pulled over after a fight enticed the man who was sitting on it. He’s sitting on the cushion and my feet are buried beside him. All the other stuff we’ve collected is piled up on the opposite side, closest to the wall. By now, the other Fury know we’re trading and they circle like sharks, stopping off to ask what we have to trade and letting us know what they have in return. The conversations are short and direct.

  A person will walk by us and ask, “Whach you got to trade?”

  “Lipstick,” Milo will say and the person will either shake their head and walk away or tell Milo what they have to trade. So far, Milo’s turned down books, a dog, a lamp, and an oil painting of someone’s Aunt Kathryn.

  And then Mark walks by and asks what we have to trade. My heart springs at the sight of him and then sinks deeper when he frowns at me. The Mark I knew never frowned.

  “Lipstick,” I say with a sad shrug. But Mark comes closer and Milo takes over the talking.

  “What have you got?”

  Mark’s eyes dart side to side. “A map. Of the entire Cache.”

  “Oh really,” Milo drawls. “Let’s see it.”

  “Like I’m going to show you anything without a trade.”

  “Like I’m going to trade without knowing if you’ve really got a map.”

  I eye Mark carefully. “Who’s the lipstick for?”

  “Why do you care?” he snaps, but then he adds, “A girl.”

  I swat Milo’s arm. “Give him the lipstick.”

  “I’m not giving him anything.”

  “Just give it to him. I want the map.”

  “Do you know how much these things are worth?” Milo complains, but he still reaches into his pocket and retrieves a tube. I take it from him and hold it out to Mark, but when he tries to take it, I hold on tight.

  “Map,” I say, holding out my other hand. Garrett’s little brother extracts a folded piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. I let go of the tube.

  “This map better be worth my lipstick,” I say, opening the paper. It’s a sketch of the Cache alright, with lines showing all the doors, but there’s no
thing that says what’s in any of the rooms. I frown at Mark.

  “What good is this? I know there are a ton of rooms. How do I find out what’s in them?”

  Mark raps his knuckles twice on the microwave beside me, as if he’s knocking on a door. He pauses. “You want to make it around here, you’ve got to have balls.” And then he bolts with my lipstick. Twerp.

  “Let me see that.” Milo holds out his hand and I give him the paper. He studies it long enough that I lean over his shoulder and try to see what he’s seeing. But mostly what I see is a sketch of hallways, and doors, some closets or windows inside some rooms. Milo flips over the paper. Mark’s written who’s there on the back. The minute I see it, my Tralate abilities kick in and a letter at a time blasts up and explodes in my face.

  W-pop!-H-pop!-O- pop!-S- pop!-T- pop!-H-pop!-E- pop!-R- pop!-E-pop!

  I collect the letters and spell them out in my head until I get it: Who’s there. It’s the same thing Mark wrote, nothing different, but the only reason the words burst in my face like that is because the universe is trying to help me or warn me of something.

  Who’s there? I tap my nail on my front teeth. Who’s there?

  And then I suck in a breath.

  Nok, Nok.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “What’s wrong?” Milo puts a hand on my shoulder and I shrink back from it. If he’s a Contego because of the Cusp like I am, then maybe he’s a Tralate too. But when I look at him, his expression is open and searching as if he has no idea what made me gasp.

  “Nothing,” I say. I’m a crappy actress, so maybe I’m blessed with the worst luck in the world that the person who enters the room next, makes the shock on my face completely real. Garrett walks in like a fantasy. Every girl in the room turns her head to stare at him. The men notice him with a scowl.

  Garrett’s broad shoulders are thrown back, his body relaxed, and I notice. In three days, he has changed so much that I have to look twice to be sure it is him. There is a tattoo running from the edge of his neck, disappearing under his t-shirt and reappearing down his left bicep. And he’s cut his hair. The thick locks that used to touch his shoulders, and curl into the hollows of his cheeks, are gone. His hair is short and close, the layers precise. The hard, angular line of his jaw is more obvious now. I don’t think anything could make Garrett look cruel, but the sharp cut of his jaw, paired with his drilling gaze, gives off a don’t-mess-with-me vibe that is powerful enough to make The Fury back away as he moves through the room.

  And Teagan’s hand clasped in his.

  The two of them cross to a couch. Garrett halts in front of it and one of the two couples, after glancing up at him, jump off the end and leave. There’s enough room for Garrett and Teagan to sit, but Garrett waits. He kicks the foot of a guy with a brush cut, who hasn’t taken a breath or a break from feeling up the girl in his lap, at the other end of the couch. When Brush Cut finally looks up, Garrett just stands there, staring down at the guy. But Garrett’s as relaxed as a cat in the sun. Which means he’s about a million times more dangerous than a starved lion at the moment.

  Brush Cut says something stupid and Garrett is on him. Garrett pulls the guy up from under his girlfriend and head-butts him right in the nose. Brush Cut howls on impact. His nose gushes. Garrett throws the guy off to the side and turns back to Teagan, holding his hand out to her. Like he’s inviting her to dance. Then, he drops onto the couch and pulls Teagan into his lap. She climbs across him, resting a knee on either side of his hips, before she dips her face to his and hides their kiss under the curtain of her hair.

  Milo grips my arm as my left foot hits the ground.

  “Look away,” he mutters. I can’t. Teagan’s head comes up from the kiss. She shakes back her hair, laughing. Garrett smiles up at her before his eyes travel around the room and lock on my eyes. His gaze is flat, indifferent, thoughtless, mindless. I can’t find a trace of the Garrett who loves me in his stare.

  Teagan notices him staring and traces it back to me. She turns back and her head twitches in short, aggravated bursts as she speaks to him. He shifts his gaze back up to her, still perched in his lap and straddling his hips. He grips her and smiles, moving up as she moves down, their bodies touching where they shouldn’t. She stops complaining and laughs again. I watch his lips move, how gentle his face is as he talks to her. It should be me.

  She looks back at me and then bends down close to him, whispering and kissing his neck. My lips tingle, remembering how soft his flesh is beneath his ear lobe. How the citrus smell of him is stronger there.

  He glances up at me the second she’s done talking. A smile spreads across his face and my heart almost jumps, but this smile doesn’t look anything like the Garrett I know. This smile is thick and heartless. He holds up his middle finger, aimed right at me.

  My stomach falls into my shoes, pulling my esophagus until it’s stretched so tight, I can’t breath. Teagan giggles and throws her arms around him in a crushing, giggling hug. He turns his gaze back to her.

  Then he slides his hand into her hair and brings her mouth slowly down on his. Her muscles melt against him as he slides his other hand up her back. I watch his lips opening, the kiss deepening, my whole world unhinging and falling on me like a metal drawbridge. Misery spreads into every inch of me.

  It’s one thing to play the game and work to convince The Fury that he’s with Teagan. But it’s a whole other thing for him to work this hard to convince me. I feel the jagged crack of our separation as it cuts into the part of my heart that was only for Garrett. And all it takes is one crack to crumble everything else I believed we had.

  When he releases Teagan, I look away quickly, even though I can see both of them in my peripheral, staring at me. Milo squeezes my arm, as if I’m still going to jump off his lap, but I surprise him by pulling my foot up off the floor. I swing my leg over him, placing one knee on either side of his hips, just like Teagan is doing to Garrett. I feel the muscles in Milo’s legs tense as I draw his mouth to mine, his tiny groan of surprise smothered, as I kiss him like he’s the only man left in the world for me.

  Milo doesn’t resist. He tastes like cinnamon chewing gum and the patchouli stings my nose as I inhale it against his skin. There is no excitement, no flitter in my stomach, no heat moving up my legs. I will get used to it. I can get used to anything, if I have to.

  The kiss ends and the aftershock on Milo’s face disappears quickly. He pulls me down close and I rest my back on the arm facing Garrett, even though I don’t look at him. I stretch out my legs so I’m sitting on Milo’s lap and my ankles dangle off the other arm. He slides his hand over my leg, resting the tips of his fingers on the inside of my thigh. I let him.

  As I giggle and smile at Milo, all that’s going through my head is Garrett. He couldn’t have changed and gone to The Fury so fast. And if Garrett is still Garrett, whether or not he’s trying to convince the whole Fury that he’s not with me, I know he won’t allow Milo to touch me like this. He hates Milo. He’ll find a way over here, to rip off Milo’s hand and stuff it down his neck.

  But Garrett doesn’t come.

  Not until we’re down to the very last lipstick.

  He comes with Teagan behind him, dangling from his fingertips. Milo has enough sense to casually move his hand off my inner thigh. I look up when they stop in front of us and I figure I better beat Garrett to the conversation.

  “How are you two doing?” Garrett stops and holds his arm out, so Teagan can settle in close to his ribs. I dance a caress over Milo’s collarbone. “You two got a date night without the baby?”

  “My brother’s watching her, so we could get some time alone.” So he knows Mark is here. I wonder if he knows what Mark is now, or if he knows what Mark isn’t. Either they’ve both gone to The Fury or neither one has. Or maybe Mark has and Garrett hasn’t caught on. Or vice versa. Oh God. As my gaze crosses Garrett’s, his eyes are the bluish gray of a cement wall and he doesn’t let me in any further.

  “We’
re on our way back right now.” Teagan fidgets her fingers at Garrett’s waist. “Right, babe? We should get back. I already miss Miki.”

  “She’s fine, babe.” Garrett reassures her with his trademark grin and I cringe. Babe. The way he says it, with the gentle lift of his lips over his crooked tooth, there’s only room for Teagan in his spotlight and she’s soaking it up.

  Milo must feel my muscles tensing up all over his lap because he rubs a palm up my back and says, “We’ve got a never ending date, don’t we, sweety?”

  And all I can think is: Ugh, just shut up, Milo. But instead, I force a grin to be as realistic as I can make it, while resisting the urge to yak all over him.

  “You are so incredible,” Milo coos to me. Then, to Garrett and Teagan, “Isn’t she the most incredible girl you’ve ever seen?”

  Garrett squeezes Teagan’s shoulders, crushing her to him.

  “No.” His answer is solid and delivered with such a disgusted sneer that it would be less effective if he stomped all over my heart in combat boots. I don’t know why Garrett dragged Teagan over here to do this in front of me. It doesn’t even matter anymore if he’s just trying to convince The Fury or if he’s actually folded and become a traitor. The way he’s smiling at Teagan, and calling her babe, and lifting the edge of his lip at me, makes me feel so hollow I can’t stand it. Going into the Jamb and having my field ripped in two hurt a lot less than having Garrett stand in front of me with Teagan tucked under his arm. I bury my face with a giggle against Milo’s neck, so no one sees the tears bubbling up in the corners of my eyes.

  “He’s right. You are more than just incredible,” Milo’s voice, serious and all business, rumbles in my ear.

  “Whatever.” Garrett shrugs. He’s heading off what is about to bloom into a massive fight that I’m pretty sure Milo would lose. Epically. Because even though I wouldn’t mind it if Milo could give Garrett a good beating right now, I know that’s not what would happen. I’ve seen Garrett fight and I don’t believe he’d ever lose. “I heard you’re trading.”