Locked Liability

"Hangovers are honest—they tell you exactly what last night cost. It's the other debts that compound in silence."

Consciousness returned like an unwelcome debt collector—insistent, unpleasant, and impossible to ignore.

My temples pulsed with a rhythm that seemed designed to punish me for every drop of whiskey I'd consumed the night before. Each heartbeat sent a fresh wave of pain radiating through my skull, as though someone had installed a percussion section behind my eyes and was conducting an enthusiastic rehearsal. I lay there for a moment, unwilling to move, cataloguing the various ways my body had decided to betray me.

Dehydration had turned my mouth into something resembling a dried riverbed—tongue thick and foreign against teeth that felt furry with neglect. My muscles ached with the particular heaviness of alcohol still working its way out of my system, and somewhere beneath all of that physical discomfort lurked something worse: memory.

Rubbing gingerly at my pulsing temples, I reached toward the phone resting on the bedside table. The cool, smooth surface under my fingertips triggered an avalanche I wasn't prepared for—images flooding back with the particular vividness that shame seemed to enhance.

Whiskey. The amber liquid catching kitchen light.

Blood. The iron tang of it on my tongue.

Cody's mouth against mine. The convulsion that had torn through me when I'd tasted him.

Jamie. His hands pushing against my chest. What the fuck are you doing, Luke?

Each memory amplified the throbbing in my skull, punishment delivered on schedule for sins I was only beginning to catalogue.

"Jamie," I whispered, the name escaping as barely more than breath, dissipating into the wintry morning air that had crept through the bedroom overnight. The cold was indifferent to my suffering, offering nothing resembling comfort, leaving me to lie there in my own pathetic whimpering as penance for my adulterous night.

But was it really adultery?

The question surfaced unbidden—my mind already beginning its defence, already constructing the arguments that might absolve me of guilt I hadn't yet decided I felt. I pushed myself upright, the motion sending fresh waves of nausea through my stomach, and reached for a fresh t-shirt draped over the bedside table.

My movements were clumsy as I pulled the fabric over my head, arms feeling like they belonged to someone else. A blue sweater hung waiting, and I paused mid-reach, the garment suspended in air as I caught my own reflection in the mirror across the room.

I looked like shit. Dark circles beneath bloodshot eyes. Skin carrying the particular pallor of dehydration and regret. Stubble that had passed attractive and was well on its way to unkempt.

"It was only a kiss," I reasoned with the haggard figure staring back at me, trying to diminish the gravity of what had passed between Cody and me. Only a kiss. Except it hadn't been, had it? It had been blood and visions and convulsions of pleasure that had left me harder than any simple kiss should have. It had been connection of a kind I didn't understand and couldn't explain.

But Jamie didn't need to know any of that.

I pulled the sweater over my face, letting the fabric settle around my torso, muffling the words I spoke to the empty room: "Jamie has done much worse to me."

The accusation felt satisfying for exactly three seconds before guilt rushed in to fill the space it had created. Ben. The suspicion that had been eating at me for months. The particular flavour of betrayal that came from knowing your partner's body responded to someone else whilst consistently rejecting you. Did Jamie's infidelity justify my own? Did two wrongs perform the mathematical magic required to produce a right?

Does that make it right though?

The voice emerged soft in my consciousness—Clivilius's whisper, that strange guidance that had become an increasingly regular presence in my thoughts. The boundary between my own internal monologue and the dimension's influence had grown porous enough that I sometimes couldn't tell which thoughts were truly mine.

The cold of the kitchen tiles bit at my feet the moment I stepped off carpet, sending involuntary shivers racing up my calves and into my thighs. The physical discomfort was almost welcome—a distraction from the internal turmoil that showed no signs of abating. I padded toward the kettle, my body operating on autopilot whilst my mind churned through questions I couldn't answer.

"Right?" I found myself scoffing aloud, addressing the empty kitchen as though it might offer counsel. The camping equipment still cluttered my living room beyond the doorway—kayaks and gear creating an obstacle course I'd have to navigate eventually. But not now. Now, there was coffee to make and rationalisations to construct. "What does that even mean?" I muttered, setting the kettle on with a click that seemed too loud in the morning quiet.

If you hadn't been distracted by a more powerful connection, would you have gone further?

The question landed with the particular accuracy of something designed to wound. I stared at the kettle, watching tiny bubbles begin to form along its base, and felt the question sink into the soft tissue of my conscience.

Would I have gone further?

Cody's mouth. The taste of his blood. The hardness that had strained against my trousers whilst visions of his life flooded through me. If the blood-bond hadn't overwhelmed my senses, if the convulsions hadn't rendered me too incapacitated to continue—

"Further?" I echoed the word, my voice tapering off as I grappled with implications I didn't want to examine. The kettle's rumble grew louder, filling the silence I couldn't bring myself to break.

"You're right," I finally conceded, the admission carrying a strange quality of triumph alongside the guilt. Whatever had happened with Cody—whatever the blood had done—it had created something genuine. Something powerful. "We made a very powerful connection."

Are you sure it was 'we'?

That question halted my hands mid-motion, the coffee cup suspended in air as the implications registered. The visions I'd received. The knowledge of Belkeep that had arrived through taste and touch. The overwhelming flood of Cody's memories and experiences.

Had any of that flowed the other way?

Had Cody seen my life whilst I was seeing his?

"No," I admitted, the word emerging barely louder than breath. "I don't think Cody knows."

The realisation settled over me with weight I hadn't anticipated. Whatever the blood had done, whatever connection had formed—it might be entirely one-directional. I had received something from Cody that he hadn't given consciously, hadn't consented to, didn't even know had been taken.

There's a way to be sure, the voice offered, gentle guidance threading through my muddled thoughts.

"There is?" My question was directed at air, a verbalisation of the internal dialogue that had become so natural I no longer questioned its strangeness.

Trust your intuition, Luke. It is the most valuable asset you have.

"It is?" Scepticism coloured the echo, but even as I spoke, the advice was settling into something that felt like truth. My intuition had been guiding me since the Portal first revealed itself. My intuition had led me to bring people to Clivilius, to build something that was beginning to look like a settlement. My intuition had—

Had led me to kiss a man whose blood now lived in my veins, creating connections I didn't understand.

Perhaps intuition wasn't the infallible guide the voice was suggesting.

The kettle reached its boiling point, steam rising in curls that caught the morning light filtering through the kitchen window. I poured the water over instant coffee—no time or mental capacity for anything more elaborate—and watched the brown granules dissolve into something approaching beverage.

The toast sprung from the chrome toaster with a violence that made me flinch, my hangover-sensitised nerves registering the sound as assault. I snatched the slices from their heated confines too eagerly, the bread's heat searing my fingertips before landing on the plate with soft thuds.

Butter. Knife. The motions were automatic, my attention elsewhere, lost in the labyrinth of last night's events whilst uneven strokes spread melting butter into blackened edges. The toast was overdone—another casualty of my distracted state—but eating seemed like a reasonable idea given the alcohol still working its way out of my system.

Outside the kitchen window, the world continued its ordinary dance, indifferent to the storm still brewing inside me. Winter sunlight fell across the neighbour's garden with the particular quality of Tasmanian mornings—crisp and clean in ways that made my hangover feel even more deserved.

I took a hasty bite, the toast's crunch obscene in the quiet kitchen. The texture was wrong—too hard, too burnt—and crumbs scattered across the bench like my scattered thoughts.

Then my eyes found the clock on the microwave, and everything else ceased to matter.

"Shit," the word escaped in a frustrated whisper as the numbers registered. Half past eight. "I've got breakfast with Karen."

The realisation hit with force comparable to the morning's earlier revelations, adding urgency to my already chaotic state. I'd arranged this—had called her yesterday, secured the invitation, laid groundwork for the recruitment I was planning. Chris was probably already preparing that duck egg omelette. Karen was probably already wondering whether I'd actually show.

And I was standing in my kitchen with burnt toast crumbs on my chin and the taste of another man still somehow present in my memory.

In a flurry of motion, I discarded the toast—now an unwanted casualty of my morning's disorganisation—tossing it into the bin without ceremony. The plate followed, clattering into the sink with a sound that made my temples throb in protest. The coffee sat abandoned on the bench, steam still rising from its surface in gentle accusation.

I scrambled for shoes, barely registering the clutter of camping gear that transformed my living room into an obstacle course. Kayaks and sleeping bags and boxes of supplies that Gladys had apparently deposited whilst I was busy preparing to taste Cody's blood—the thought arrived with dark humour I didn't have time to appreciate.

One last glance at the disarray that mirrored my internal state, and I burst through the front door, pulling it shut behind me with a bang that echoed down the quiet street.

The cold air hit my face like a slap, sharp and clarifying in ways the coffee hadn't managed. I sucked in a breath, tasting winter and eucalyptus and the particular freshness that Tasmanian mornings carried, and felt something in my chest unclench slightly.

Then my eyes found the driveway, and the unclenching reversed itself with interest.

Kain's ute sat there like an accusation made manifest—a physical reminder of the young man I'd pushed through a Portal without consent, whose life I'd stolen in service of my own designs. The white utility vehicle with its accumulated dirt was impossible to miss, impossible to explain if anyone came looking.

A growl escaped my throat before I could stop it. It's too obvious. Louise is bound to come looking for it, I'm certain of it. Kain's mother would notice her son's vehicle missing from wherever it was supposed to be. Would notice that he hadn't come home. Would start asking questions I couldn't answer without exposing everything.

Perhaps I have them working too hard to notice, I mused, a dark chuckle escaping despite my predicament. The people in Clivilius were focused on survival, on building shelter and establishing routines. They weren't sitting around dwelling on the Earth lives they'd left behind—they didn't have that luxury.

But Louise wasn't in Clivilius. Louise was here, in Tasmania, and her son's ute was parked in my driveway where anyone could see it.

Motivated by desperation more than hope, I approached the driver's side door. The handle was cold under my fingers, winter metal biting at skin still sensitive from the morning's various abuses. I pulled, and the door remained resolutely closed—locked against my attempt with the particular stubbornness of vehicles that weren't mine to take.

The passenger side offered no more success. I circled the ute with diminishing optimism, already knowing what I'd find, the locked doors confirming what logic had suggested from the start.

"Damn it!" The frustration boiled over, my fist meeting the top of the door with force that sent pain shooting through my knuckles and a metallic echo bouncing off my head.

I stood there for a moment, palm throbbing where I'd struck the vehicle, and let the reality of my situation sink in. The keys were nowhere in the house—I would have noticed them during my frantic morning preparations. Which meant Kain had taken them with him when I'd pushed him through the Portal, keeping them in a pocket or on a keyring that was now in another dimension entirely.s

The conclusion was inescapable. The ute couldn't be moved without the keys. The keys were in Clivilius. And I was already late for a breakfast meeting that might determine whether Karen and Chris would eventually join our settlement or not.

I glanced toward the street, then back at the ute sitting there like a beacon for anyone who might come looking. Louise. The police. Anyone who knew Kain was missing and might recognise his vehicle parked in the driveway of a man he'd had no obvious reason to visit other than to search for his missing uncle.

Karen could wait. A late arrival was awkward but explicable—traffic, oversleeping, the mundane excuses that smoothed over minor social failures. But this ute sitting in plain sight was a liability that grew more dangerous with every hour it remained visible. If Louise came looking, if she reported her son missing and someone connected the dots—

Get the keys. Move the ute. Then Karen.

The priority restructured itself with the particular clarity that panic sometimes provided. I could Portal to Clivilius, find Kain, retrieve the keys, and be back within minutes. Karen's omelette might go cold, but at least I wouldn't have a missing person's vehicle advertising my involvement in his disappearance.

I turned away from the ute and headed back inside, already focusing my thoughts on the Portal location waiting in my study.

Breakfast would have to wait.