Losing It: A Collection of VCards

by Nikki Jefford

  He inspects the hole and then he pulls a few more stones free. Light streams in, coating the walls. He smiles at me.

  The cave wall is blistered. I touch it and the crust falls free. Dark brown beneath. What are we doing here?

  “Maybe we’re still in the Core?” I whisper, going to his side.

  “I don’t think so. We went through the door. We’re somewhere, but I don’t think it’s where we were before.”

  Together, we start yanking rocks, widening the hole, the light gushing in.

  “Be careful which ones you pull,” he says. “It could cave in on us.”

  We work slowly then, pulling out each one like pieces in a Jenga tower. I rise up on tiptoe to look out of the hole we’ve made, squinting at the scenery outside.

  It is late in the day and the sun is shining, but nothing looks as it should. The ground is black and loose. Black ash, I think, as far as my vision will travel. As if the whole world’s been burned, except that there is a forest outside with super weird trees-as if they’re made of plastic.

  The branches droop; the leaves are huge and jagged. There are sprouts of something around the tree trunks too, lots of weird foliage. A bizarrely large squirrel with no tail scurries out from beneath one leaf and leaps under another. It carries a hunk of something in its clutches and stops, poking up like a gopher to chew on the prize. But it’s not a gopher either. I jump back at the sight of it. It’d be fairly adorable, if it didn’t have meat hooks for claws.

  “What is that thing?”

  Garrett still peers out the opening. “I have no idea.”

  I swallow hard. “We can’t let it get in here.”

  “It won’t.” He sounds so resolute. “But let’s see what it’s eating. Maybe we can eat it too, if we need to.”

  I stretch up to watch with him. The animal looks like an adorable guinea pig on steroids, with frightening spikes for claws. It finishes its meal and scuttles back under the low hanging leaves. Stopping at the stump of a tree, it tears off a chunk of the bark as if it is crusty bread. That tree isn’t one of the plastic ones. It’s one of the lowlying, light brown ones, the color of cardboard or honey graham crackers, and when the animal rips off a chunk of bark, the plant sheds fine, sawdusty crumbs.

  Garrett turns from the opening and looks back into the deepest part of the cave. He squints at the far wall. The cave doesn’t seem to go in very far, but it is dark. There could be a huge cavern behind us, for all I know. Best I can tell, three walls are solid and the mouth of the cave is what is blocked by the rocks and little monster pigs, bumbling around on the other side.

  “I don’t think there is any other way out and I don’t see anyone else out there,” Garrett says, angling himself in different directions to see out of the hole more clearly. He puts his face right up to the hole and shouts in quick succession, “SEAN! MARK! BRANDON! ZANE! MOM! DAD! ADDO! IRIS!”

  No one answers, but he jumps back, nearly knocking me down.

  “Cover the hole!” he says. I don’t question him. We both hunch down at once, grabbing rocks and stuffing them back into the hole we took them from. As we push the stones in, I can hear claws climbing up, displacing the rocks outside.

  All I can think of is rats.

  Huge rats with five razor-sharp butcher knives on each paw.

  I shove another rock into the opening and Garrett slams the last one in place, generating a sharp squeak from the other side of the rock wall.

  We both jump back from the barrier. The arrangement of rocks has left us with only pinpoints of light. They fall like constellations across Garrett’s chest.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  “Wait,” he says. “When those things out there leave, we’ll try to go out and get some of what they were eating, if we can.”

  He’s all sense and intelligence, but I realize I’m staring.

  Garrett’s bare chest is right in front of me. I haven’t seen it since we were bound, when we used the cisoras to remove each other’s clothing. I forgot how hard and smooth his lines are. Skin like velvet. His amazingly smooth nose. But nothing could ever compete with the aphrodisiac of his smile.

  I look down, expecting to see the tatters of our bindings. They aren’t there.

  “The bindings are gone,” I say, lifting my wrist into a dot of light. My throat closes up. I’m flooded with absolute joy and utter panic.

  “It means we’re bonded,” he says. “The Addo said he saw us.”

  “We’re married?” I squeak.

  “Yes.” His voice is the way I first heard it, that day when he walked into the library and asked to sit with me. Deep and lovely, Garrett’s voice is the only one in the world that can make me feel safe and even excited to be stuck who-knows-where, in a cave with him.

  The clawed pig sniffles at the hole we just filled and then makes its way back down the rock pile outside. Taloned hampigs…yes, that’s what they look like—guinea pigs, but bigger and rounder, and more hammy. With the thing gone from the hole, I finally exhale.

  And notice Garrett’s eyes, fastened to one of the pinpoints of light that touches my right nipple. It spotlights the small pink peak. Garrett’s arm skims through the thin beams as he reaches for me. His fingertip grazes my collarbone and I curl my shoulders, pulling my chest back with an awkward laugh.

  “Don’t be ashamed,” he says softly.

  I laugh again.

  He reaches out once more. This time, I don’t move away.

  Why should I?

  This is Garrett. My Garrett.

  I step in closer.

  There’s only us. Garrett and I are literally the last two people on Earth, if that’s even where we’re at right now. I’m grateful we didn’t let go of each other.

  He softly touches his finger down on my collar bone, trailing it to my chest. Then he moves his fingers in a way I don’t expect—not toward my breast, but toward my arm instead. He grips my bicep, tugging me gently toward the largest saturation of light. He moves me into the points of light, so they glow over my body, his fingertip tracing a soft path down to my hand, which he takes and raises over my head. He turns me in a slow pirouette.

  Back in the hotel’s prison cell, when we performed the bonding ceremony and he cut my clothes off, I was terrified to look at him or let him look at me. That’s not the way it is now. I’m not afraid anymore and can’t imagine I ever will be again when it comes to anything about Garrett.

  “Us,” he says as he steps in close, catching me on the turn, sliding his arms around me. Our energy tingles between us, live wires just waiting to touch. And then we do.

  His kiss is an entire world. A million generations, all proud, whisper in the air around us, waiting to begin again. Garrett still tastes like citrus, a whole garden of it that I may never taste anywhere again, except for here, on his tongue. I can live with that, as long as he keeps kissing me.

  I smooth my hands over his broad shoulders, down the velvet-covered muscles of his arms. I feel the thick belt of muscles around his stomach, but I can’t move my hands any lower. I’m intrigued, but not brave enough to make the first move that will set everything in motion. Despite my love and desire and resolve, my face burns like a boiled plum.

  “Is this okay?” Garrett whispers, as his fingers slip down my stomach, to the soft spot between my legs.

  I startle again, not meaning to and kind of embarrassed that I keep doing it. His fingers still, patiently waiting for me to catch up to what we are doing. I get up my guts and scoot toward him again.

  He kisses me first. Then his hands move over my thighs and he tells me, “I love you, Nalena.”

  I would laugh and tell him my mother always warned me about boys that said that while I was naked, except I know he isn’t lying.

  And he is my husband.

  How wild and awesome is that?

  “I love you more,” I say.

  “Impossible.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “I love you to the moon and back.”


  “I love you from dirt to Pluto,” I tell him.

  He kisses me in earnest, a kiss so deep and so moving that my whole body quivers from it. I wrap my arms around him, pulling him closer so I can feel every inch of him—especially that part of him that has always made me feel a little shy and nervous—and excited. It twitches against me as Garrett lays me down on the ground.

  The dirt is soft as sand, but I hardly want to think of the ground when Garrett is raising me up so high above it all, erasing gravity with just his kiss. It’s the closest thing my spirit can get to flying again, while trapped inside this body.

  Garrett moves over me, kissing my neck.

  “Are you okay?” he murmurs in my ear, “do you want to, Nalena?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. It feels like a crime to admit that I want him as much as he wants me. To consent willingly to what I’ve always been encouraged to avoid. But we belong to each other now. We’ve crossed that distinct line between the black-and-white world of utter, unfulfilled misery and the magical land where having sex isn’t wrong anymore. Where it is even—kind of—expected.

  We kiss and he moves his hips against me, spreading my legs further apart. I feel about as helpful as a CPR dummy.

  “What do I do with my hands?” I ask.

  “Whatever you want,” he says. It would help if he could give me some direction. I try to recall love scenes from movies…but can’t. I’m sure none of the leading heroines did what I am doing right now—fumbling and fidgeting and sort of freaking out.

  Garrett guides himself to my opening with one hand. The pressure there makes me bite my lip.

  “Tell me if it hurts,” he says. I don’t want to tell. I want to do this with him. Make him mine and make myself his.

  I hold my breath as the pressure intensifies. I can do this…I can do this…everyone says this is fun…

  I reach up, to put my hands in his hair, and jab him in the cheek with my nail.

  “Ow,” he jerks back a little, laughing. I feel hopeless. I’m going to slice him to bits or bore him to death by laying here like a mauled dog, before I get the chance to lose my virginity.

  Garrett takes my hand and places it on his shoulder. The muscles beneath his skin make me think of a satin bag stuffed with mallets.

  Garrett smoothes his thumbs against my temples. He kisses my chin. He lowers his mouth to mine. His kiss pulls me completely loose of gravity. I move my tongue in his mouth, tasting his familiar citrus, feeling his body in my hands, filling my nose with his clean scent. I relax. The awkward part of the dance is suddenly done, and then it’s just me and Garrett and our bodies.

  Something else strange happens too. As I kiss him, I feel my spirit press up inside my skin, squeezing flat against the muscle and fat and cutaneous layers, like my soul is trying to seep out wherever it can, to be closer to his. To join it. I open my legs a little more and Garrett pushes the whole way into me.

  A sharp streak of pain makes me suck in another breath on top of the one I’m already holding. It seems like the slice of pain should be enough to separate my spirit from my skin, free us both to join together as one in the air, but we’re still trapped. Our bodies begin to move together, taking what little togetherness we can from one another.

  I don’t have to say a word. From the way Garrett moves inside me, I know he feels it too. I wrap my arms and legs around him, every shred of pain fills me with hope that this pairing will break us both open and let our spirits flood out. Having felt that freedom before, it’s hard to feel him so singularly between my legs. I can’t read his thoughts this way. His emotions don’t run through my mind. Everything is muddled by our scents, and how our skin moves against one another, and the sounds that we make.

  The desire to be part of him so completely again aches inside me.

  My spirit searches for an escape hatch, but only bumps against my skin. It’s a misery, not being able to get close enough, but this slightly heightened pleasure is the closest we can get to flying again.

  I feel his soul buck against the bones that hold it firm. Mine rises up to catch him. My heart pounds as my body tightens up all over, holding him in, even as I stretch to my max—

  We’re almost there—

  almost free—

  His kiss is crushing and intense as his body releases inside me. Our moans break from us instead of our spirits, combing out the silence with sharp teeth. A beautiful sound. The release is incomplete, but it has to be enough.

  My body grips him, trying to pull him deeper. The roar of our raw current races through my arms and legs. The ends of our wires are touching and I moan again. It has to be enough.

  We collapse together, his chest to mine, our gasping breaths synchronized.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. I laugh.

  “Did I hurt you?” I ask. He laughs.

  “Did you feel that?” He kisses my cheek.

  “We were almost flying,” I say. “I miss being part of you.”

  “I do too,” he says.

  “This can be enough, for now,” I say and then he finishes the conversation with another long kiss. We finally separate, although we don’t move away from each other. Laying together in the ash, it’s only a matter of time before we have to rise up and take the stones from the opening again, but for now—

  From a far distance, we hear the shouting.

  Our names being called by familiar voices. Sean ,Mark, and Brandon are hollering.

  We scramble up, unsteady from such a fast landing. Gravity fastens our legs to the dirt. Garrett pulls a stone from the cave entrance.

  “We’re in here!” I shout, pulling off another. The animals outside scatter in the opposite direction. A few more stones and, on tiptoe, I see our family walking toward the cave. Iris, holding Sean’s hand. Sean and Brandon cup themselves discreetly. Iris walks along, oblivious to her nudity and plucking at fronds of plants as she passes. Mark, taking up the rear, guides a huge animal toward the cave.

  “What in the world is that?” Garrett wonders aloud, both of us throwing off stones as fast as we can. Sean notices the falling rocks first. They race to help us clear the rest away.

  Garrett and I emerge, covering ourselves as best we can.

  “We need some bendable leaves in the worst way,” Brandon says.

  “Look what we found!” Iris shrieks, gesturing wildly to the animal lumbering beside Mark. “We found a dinosaur!”

  “It’s stranger than that, Princess. It’s a dragon,” Sean corrects. His gaze meets Garrett’s eyes first, then mine.

  “Where in the world are we?” I ask. Sean shrugs.

  Garrett squeezes my hand.

  “This must be…” He pauses to look at his siblings, the dragon, the weird trees around us, and then back to me. He quirks an eyebrow. “Heaven?”

  I look around too. The taloned pigs are gone, the sawdust from their tree-meal scattered all over the ground. The leaves around us are huge, thick, hard.

  “We’re all together.” I say. Garrett’s skin is warm and soft as I give his hand an agreeing squeeze. “I think you’re right. It must be Heaven.”

  Extended scene from CAPSTONE, the final book in The Cornerstone Series

  About the Author

  Misty Provencher is a long-term wife, mama, and author. The first two are a bit more recent, but Provencher’s writing dates back to the hieroglyphics she left in her mother’s womb.

  While Provencher can ride a motorcycle, knows how to Karate chop, and has learned enough French, Spanish, and Sign Language to get herself slapped, Misty’s life is actually just the ruse she uses to connect with people. She is totally enchanted with them and spends her days trying to translate the soul-bouquets of her muses into words.

  Misty Provencher lives in the Mitten. Knock on her internet blog door at: Misty Provencher’s Books, or find her on Facebook and Twitter as Misty Provencher.

  More Books by Misty Provencher

  The Cornerstone Series, YA Paranormal Fantasy

  Corners
tone

  Keystone

  Jamb

  Capstone

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  Selfish

  By Ginger Scott

  A bonus scene in Reed’s point of view from Waiting on the Sidelines

  Nolan Lennox has loved quarterback Reed Johnson from the moment she set eyes on him. She’s earned every scar he’s left on her heart. She’s also earned his love…finally. In this scene, the reader is shown how things play out from Reed’s perspective—when the couple has sex for the very first time.

  ***

  This trip—everything about it—needs to be perfect. Nolan’s birthday…the gift I’m giving her…the lie we’re telling her parents so she can spend the night away from home…

  It all needs to be perfect.

  Near the end of the season, when Nolan asked me about other girls during our bus ride home from the track meet, a shift happened. My honesty with her was key, and I know it left a scar. But that scar—it was going to happen eventually.

  The minute I slept with those other girls, I knew what I was risking. I was gambling away my chances to ever be with Nolan. When she asked me—point-blank, to my face—to tell her every girl I slept with, I knew I was rolling dice again by telling her the truth. I was aware that some details were more painful than others—some girls more of a betrayal than others. One girl in particular was going to break her heart.

  I broke it.

  I saw it break; I watched it fall into a million tiny pieces with the tear that slid down her face before she tried to wipe it away. Seeing that…it broke me too. But I felt the odds in my gut; somehow, I knew that not telling her—lying to Nolan—would be the fatal error.

  I made my decision; I confessed. I confessed, and then I held her, begging her not to run. She hasn’t, not yet. But every time I’m with her, I feel her urge—her questioning of herself, wondering if she’s worthy, wondering if this is a trick, wondering when I’m going to drive the knife into her heart. She’s been questioning herself, questioning us, for a month. That…that is no one’s blame but my own.