Dirty Laundry

"There's no etiquette book for the morning after you've become a monster. No script for making small talk with someone whose blood is still on your hands. You just stand there hoping your stomach doesn't growl loud enough to fill the silence."

Sleep came in fragments, broken shards of unconsciousness that cut more than they healed.

I'd surfaced three times during the night, each emergence accompanied by the same sickening lurch of memory — what I'd done, what I'd become — before exhaustion dragged me back under. My leg had throbbed throughout, not the screaming agony of before but a persistent ache that seemed designed specifically to prevent rest, a metronome of discomfort counting off the hours until dawn.

When I finally gave up the fight and accepted that more sleep wasn't coming, the light filtering through the tent canvas had shifted from grey to gold. Morning. Another day in this place, another twenty-four hours to survive while carrying the weight of secrets that threatened to crush me.

I rubbed at the crusty residue that had gathered in the corners of my eyes — dried tears, probably, leaked during whatever nightmares had chased me through the darkness. My fingers came away gritty, and I wiped them absently on the sleeping bag.

Voices drifted in from outside.

Paul and Nial, I realised after a moment of straining to identify them. My stomach clenched with reflexive panic, heart slamming against my ribs before my brain could catch up and recognise that their tone carried excitement rather than accusation. They weren't talking about me. Weren't discussing what had happened at the lagoon. Whatever had captured their attention, it seemed to be something else entirely.

Small mercies.

I stretched, arms reaching toward the canvas ceiling, trying to work the stiffness from muscles that had spent the night coiled tight as springs. The tent felt emptier than it should have, the silence a hollow reminder of absences that went beyond the physical.

"Three members," I murmured, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

Three people had left the camp to hunt a Portal pirate. Glenda, with her medical knowledge and her inexplicable certainty that her father was alive somewhere in this dimension. Uncle Jamie, driven by a father's desperate need to find his missing son. And Charity, the warrior from another century, leading them into dangers I couldn't imagine.

Henri snorted from his bed in the corner, fixing me with a look that managed to convey disapproval despite coming from a dog. I'd moved his bed into my tent sometime during the night — partly out of pity for the abandoned creature, partly because the thought of sleeping alone with only my guilt for company had been too much to bear.

Lois, by contrast, had attached herself to Paul like a furry shadow. The golden retriever seemed to have decided that the camp leader was her new person, at least until Glenda returned. If Glenda returned.

I pushed that thought aside before it could take root.

The sleeping bag had become a cocoon of reluctant warmth, and I found myself lingering in its embrace longer than necessary. Out there, beyond the thin walls of my tent, the world waited. Chris waited. The man I'd assaulted, violated, used as a tool to fulfil Clive's demands — he was somewhere in that camp, and eventually I would have to face him.

The thought made my stomach rebel.

But I couldn't hide forever. Couldn't spend the rest of my time in Clivilius cowering in a tent, avoiding eye contact and pretending that nothing had happened. That wasn't survival; that was just slower dying.

I changed into fresh clothes with movements that felt disconnected from my body, as if I were watching myself from a distance. The fabric was stiff, slightly damp from the humidity that seemed to permeate everything in this place. But it was clean, or at least cleaner than what I'd been wearing, and that small improvement felt like an anchor to normality.

When I finally pushed through the tent flap and stepped into the morning light, the smell hit me first.

Food. Actual food cooking over the campfire, the aroma drifting across the camp with a tantalising promise that made my empty stomach cramp with need. I'd barely eaten in... how long? Since before the lagoon, at least. My body had been too focused on other things — pain, fear, shame — to remember that it required fuel to keep functioning.

But even as the scent teased my hunger, my gaze was drawn to the figure tending the fire.

Chris.

He crouched beside the flames, stirring something in a pot with the focused attention of someone who was very deliberately not looking at anything else. The cut on the side of his head was visible even from this distance — a dark gash that stood out against his skin like an accusation made flesh.

I did that, I thought, and the food-smell turned to ash in my mouth.

I watched him for a moment longer than I should have, unable to tear my eyes away from the evidence of my violence. His movements were careful, controlled, the motions of a man who knew he was being observed and had decided to pretend otherwise.

What was he thinking? What memories had he carried through the night, what questions had chased him through dreams that might have been worse than mine? Did he remember everything? Did he remember nothing? Did he lie awake in his tent with Karen beside him, trying to reconcile the man he'd known me to be with the monster I'd revealed myself as?

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the spiral of speculation before it could drag me down. None of those questions had answers I could access. None of them changed what I'd done.

I'd barely taken three steps toward the fire when his voice stopped me cold.

"Kain."

Just my name. No emotion attached, no indication of what might follow. The word hung in the air between us, simple and devastating, a summons I couldn't ignore no matter how desperately I wanted to turn and flee.

I bit the inside of my cheek — hard enough to taste copper — and forced myself to pivot.

He was looking at me now. That balding head turned away from the fire, those eyes that had seen things I'd rather forget fixed on my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl. I couldn't read his expression. Couldn't tell if it was anger or hurt or something else entirely lurking behind that carefully neutral mask.

What the fuck am I supposed to say to him?

The question ricocheted through my skull, bouncing off walls that offered no answers. There was no script for this. No etiquette guide for apologising to someone you'd sexually assaulted while they lay unconscious on a rock. "Sorry" seemed laughably inadequate. Silence seemed like cowardice. Everything in between seemed like deflection.

I said nothing.

The awkwardness stretched between us, thick and suffocating, filling the space with a tension that had its own weight. My eyes kept darting to the cut on his head, that dark line of damaged flesh that would scar and heal and remain as permanent evidence of the moment I'd become something I couldn't forgive.

Sweat had begun to trickle down my left temple despite the relative cool of the morning. I wiped it away with a hand that trembled slightly, the moisture leaving my palm clammy and unpleasant. My heels pressed into the soft earth, shifting my weight from foot to foot as the silence grew teeth.

I couldn't do this. Couldn't stand here and pretend that a conversation was possible when every word I might say would be a lie or an inadequacy or both. I pivoted on my heel, prepared to flee back to the tent where at least Henri's judgmental snort would be the only accusation I had to face.

A small cloud of dust rose from my movement, fine particles finding their way into my shoe and deepening the frown that had become my default expression.

"Do you want some food before you run away?"

Chris's words landed like a blade between my shoulder blades. The emphasis on those final two words was impossible to miss — run away — a pointed observation that I was doing exactly what he'd named. Running. Fleeing. Behaving like the coward I'd proven myself to be.

My stomach chose that moment to betray me, releasing a growl loud enough to be heard across the campfire. The sound was almost comical in its timing, my body's needs asserting themselves despite the war being waged in my head.

I swallowed against the dryness in my throat.

Turned back.

Chris was already ladling slop into a bowl, the motion casual, domestic, utterly at odds with the circumstances that surrounded us. Steam rose from the pot, curling through the morning air, and I found myself salivating despite everything — my body responding to the promise of sustenance with an enthusiasm my mind couldn't share.

I approached cautiously, acutely aware that I was probably drooling like a dog presented with a steak. My hand swiped at the corners of my mouth, trying to preserve some dignity in a situation that had precious little left to offer.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, the question emerging before I'd consciously decided to speak.

The camp did seem emptier than it had sounded earlier.

"Paul and Nial have gone to the Portal," Chris replied, his attention fixed on the bowl he was filling. "Apparently, they have some wild theory they want to test."

"Really? A theory about what?"

The question came out more eager than I'd intended, hope flickering to life despite my best efforts to suppress it. Any theory, any plan, any possibility of understanding this place better — or escaping it — was worth considering.

"I'm not exactly sure, but it had something to do with Nial's laptop."

I furrowed my brow, trying to construct a logical connection between a fence-builder's computer and the mysteries of inter-dimensional travel. Nothing came. The variables didn't align, the equation refused to balance, and I was left with only questions and the growing certainty that I was missing something important.

"I assume Lois is with them?" I asked instead, redirecting to safer ground.

Chris actually chuckled — a short, surprised sound that seemed to catch even him off guard. "Of course."

The laugh was foreign in the tension that surrounded us, a note of normality that rang almost painfully false. But I clung to it anyway, grateful for any evidence that conversation might still be possible, that we might be able to exist in the same space without the weight of unspoken truths crushing us both.

"And Karen?"

My gaze swept the camp, searching for the lanky woman who had been Chris's constant shadow. Her absence felt significant somehow, a variable that needed accounting for.

As if summoned by her name, Karen emerged from her tent.

Her arms were laden with clothes — a pile of fabric that threatened to topple with every step, a tower of dirty laundry that spoke of the practical concerns that continued despite trauma and terror. She moved with purpose, her long strides eating up the distance between her tent and the fire with the efficiency of someone who had tasks to complete and no time for emotional complications.

I eyed her suspiciously.

Her timing seemed too perfect, her appearance too convenient. Had she been watching? Waiting for some signal to make her entrance, positioning herself to observe the awkward exchange between her husband and the man who'd... who'd...

I couldn't finish the thought.

"Kain," Karen called out, striding toward me with determination written in every line of her body. "Get me your dirty clothes, and I'll wash them with ours."

The request landed with the force of an order, and I found myself staring at her, trying to decode the implications hidden in the simple instruction. Was she being helpful? Was this an attempt to get me alone, to corner me somewhere private where she could demand answers to questions I couldn't possibly answer?

Does she know? The thought wormed through my brain like a parasite. Did Chris tell her? Did she hear something, see something, suspect something?

"The camp is starting to stink," Karen continued, her gaze fixed on me with an intensity that made me want to retreat. "I think everything around here could do with a good scrub."

The words were practical. Mundane. Exactly the kind of thing someone might say when organising household chores in the middle of an inter-dimensional nightmare. But they also carried an edge I couldn't quite identify — a sharpness that might have been accusation or might have been nothing more than the stress we were all carrying.

"Of course," I heard myself say, capitulating to the tension that had begun throbbing behind my eyes. "I'll go and get my clothes."

I retreated to the tent with more speed than dignity, grateful for any excuse to escape Chris's presence and Karen's scrutiny. Henri greeted me with another disgruntled grunt, his eyes tracking me with the weary patience of a dog who had already judged his temporary caretaker and found him wanting.

"Karen's right, it is beginning to stink in here," I muttered, more to fill the silence than to address any actual concern.

I gathered clothes with frantic haste, grabbing everything I could reach regardless of its actual state of cleanliness. Uncle Jamie's shirts went into the pile alongside Joel's smaller garments, a jumble of fabric that represented people who weren't here, who might never be here again. The collection grew until my arms could barely contain it, the mountain of laundry threatening to avalanche with every movement.

When I emerged from the tent, struggling to see over the precarious stack, Karen was waiting.

"You're going to have to accompany me," she sighed, her eyes widening at the sheer volume of fabric I'd accumulated. "I didn't realise you had so much washing already."

I poked my head around the pile, my voice muffled by the layers of cotton and synthetic blends. "It's not all mine."

A sock made a break for freedom, and I clutched at it with fingers that had begun to cramp from the effort of maintaining my grip.

"Probably just as well," Karen said, taking a step toward me before quickly retreating. Her nose wrinkled, her expression shifting to one of barely concealed disgust at whatever aroma was emanating from my burden.

"To the river?" I asked, my arms beginning to tremble under the weight.

"No."

The single word landed in my stomach like a stone.

"I thought I'd go to the lagoon," Karen continued, already turning toward the path that led away from camp. "There are more rocks there to lay clothes on to dry, seeing as we don't exactly have anything to hang them on here."

The lagoon.

Of course.

Of course she wanted to go there, to that place where everything had gone wrong, where I'd committed acts that still made my skin crawl when I let myself remember them. The water that did things to my body. The rocks where Chris had hit his head. The shore where I'd—

I gulped, my gaze darting involuntarily to Chris.

He was staring at the pot again, stirring with renewed focus, his attention deliberately fixed anywhere but on me. The message was clear: he wasn't going to save me from this. Wasn't going to intervene, suggest an alternative, do anything that might spare me from returning to the scene of my crimes.

As long as I don't touch the water, I told myself, the reassurance feeling thin and desperate. Everything should be fine.

Karen was already walking away, her long strides carrying her toward the lagoon with the confidence of someone who had no idea what horrors that water concealed. I had no choice but to follow, my arms full of laundry, my heart full of dread.

"I'll eat when I get back," I called out to Chris as I passed, the words carrying more disappointment than I'd intended.

My stomach cramped in protest at being denied the food it so desperately needed. But a small, shameful part of me was relieved — relieved to escape Chris's presence, to delay the inevitable conversation that would have to happen eventually, to buy myself a few more hours of pretending that everything might somehow be okay.

Chris shrugged, the motion casual, noncommittal. He turned back to his cooking without a word, the spoon scraping against the pot's bottom with a sound that felt like dismissal.

"Oh, and feed Henri for me, please?" I added, the request emerging before I could stop it.

The reminder of my responsibilities — to the dog, to my tent, to the small routines that anchored me to something resembling normality — brought a fresh wave of complicated emotion. Henri deserved better than a caretaker who was falling apart at the seams.

"Sure," Chris replied, his brow furrowing with something that might have been concern or might have been irritation. "I'll make sure he eats something."

I swallowed the acidic taste that had risen in my throat and turned away.

Brianne's face flickered through my mind — her smile, her laugh, the way she'd looked at me when everything had been simple and possible and good.

I pushed the thoughts down. Buried them beneath the immediate need to put one foot in front of the other, to follow Karen toward the lagoon, to survive whatever this day had in store.

One crisis at a time.

That was all I could manage.