Still Here

"There's a special kind of lonely that comes from being left behind. Not because people don't care—but because you're the one thing they can't carry with them."

The portal stood before me like a door slammed in my face.

Its massive translucent screen stretched toward the sky, five metres of shimmering nothing that had swallowed Beatrix whole and refused to give her back. I stared at its blank surface, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my wounded leg screaming obscenities at me for the punishment I'd just inflicted on it.

She was gone. Vanished through that impossible membrane before I could reach her, before I could beg for the crutches that might have let me follow Jamie, before I could do anything except stand here bleeding into the dust like an idiot.

I scanned the screen with desperate eyes, searching for some sign of her, some ripple or shimmer that might indicate she was coming back. My fingers trembled at my sides, useless appendages attached to a useless body that couldn't even walk properly, couldn't even catch up to a woman carrying a dead dog.

Nothing. The portal offered nothing but its own emptiness, a mirror reflecting my failure back at me with perfect, mocking clarity.

"Kain, your leg is bleeding."

Karen's voice materialised beside me, and I turned to find her face creased with the kind of concern that bordered on exasperation. She'd followed me, apparently. Had watched my pathetic hobbling pursuit across the dunes and arrived in time to witness its equally pathetic conclusion.

I looked down.

She was right, of course. Blood had soaked through the fresh bandages, crimson blooming across the white fabric like flowers opening in fast-forward. The wound had likely torn open again — probably during my graceless scramble to reach the portal, probably at some point when I'd been too focused on catching Beatrix to notice that my body was staging a mutiny.

The sight of it drained whatever strength I had left.

I limped to the base of a sandy hill and collapsed, my legs giving out beneath me with a finality that felt almost peaceful. The ground was warm against my back, heated by the sun that continued to shine with complete indifference to my suffering. I stared up at the sky and tried to remember what it felt like to have a body that worked, a life that made sense, a future that extended beyond the next painful breath.

"Come on, Kain. We should head back to camp," Karen urged, her hands finding my arms and pulling with a gentleness that couldn't quite mask her impatience.

I shook my head.

The motion was small, almost imperceptible, but it carried the weight of absolute refusal. I wasn't going anywhere. Beatrix had gone through that portal, and Beatrix would come back through it eventually, and when she did, I would be here. Waiting. Ready to make my case for crutches, for help, for any scrap of assistance that might let me be something other than dead weight.

"I'm staying," I said, the words coming out flat and final.

Karen's sigh carried years of dealing with stubborn men who wouldn't listen to reason. I'd heard that sigh from my mother, from Brianne, from every woman who'd ever tried to talk sense into me when I was determined to do something stupid.

"Fine," she said, resignation settling over her features like a mask. "But I'm going to bring Glenda and some supplies back to look after that wound."

Glenda. Right. The doctor. The one person in this camp who might actually know how to keep my leg from rotting off my body. The mention of her name sparked a tiny flame of hope in my chest — quickly extinguished by the memory of her screaming Clivilius's name, pounding her fists into the dirt, claiming her father was alive somewhere in this dimension.

Whatever had happened to Glenda, I wasn't sure she was in any state to practice medicine.

But I nodded anyway, because arguing would require energy I didn't have.

Karen cast one final worried glance in my direction — the kind of look you give a child who insists on touching the hot stove despite being told it will burn — and then turned away. I watched her figure shrink as she walked back toward camp, her silhouette wavering slightly in the heat that rose from the sand.

Then I was alone.

The silence pressed against me from all sides, thick and heavy, broken only by the whisper of wind across the dunes and the persistent throb of pain radiating from my leg. I adjusted the bandages with clumsy fingers, trying to apply pressure to the wound, trying to stem the slow leak of blood that was painting the sand beside me in abstract patterns.

My mind refused to stay still.

It circled back to Beatrix, to the way she'd walked toward the portal with Duke's body in her arms, her destination apparently more important than the wounded man calling out behind her. It circled to Luke, absent and unreachable, the only other person who supposedly controlled access to the things I needed. It circled to Uncle Jamie, gone now, hunting something called a Portal Pirate through a landscape I couldn't imagine, leaving me behind like a broken tool that had outlived its usefulness.

I'm not useless, I told myself, but the words rang hollow even inside my own skull.

Time crawled.

Minutes stretched into something that felt like hours, each second weighted with the particular agony of waiting for something that might never come.

I was alone in a world that wanted to eat me, and I couldn't even stand up without help.

Karen's return came just as despair threatened to swallow me whole.

I heard her footsteps before I saw her, the soft crunch of sand beneath shoes, and something in my chest unclenched at the sound. Company. Even unwanted, worried, exasperated company was better than the alternative.

"Where's Glenda?" I asked, my voice emerging hoarse and cracked from disuse.

Karen's face told me the answer before her words did. Something had changed. Something had gone wrong. The concern in her eyes had deepened into something closer to alarm.

"Kain," she began, and the way she said my name — soft, careful, like she was delivering bad news to a patient — made my stomach clench. "Glenda, Charity, and Jamie have all left the camp. They've gone portal pirate hunting."

The words landed like punches, each one driving the air from my lungs.

"Glenda's gone with them?" I heard myself ask, my voice rising with disbelief.

It didn't make sense. Glenda was a doctor. A healer. What possible use could she be on a hunting expedition through hostile terrain? And why would Uncle Jamie take her when he had Charity — the warrior, the tracker, the woman who'd emerged from darkness covered in blood and competence?

"Paul didn't seem like he had much say in the matter," Karen replied, her fingers fidgeting with something in her hands. A bandage, I realised. Fresh supplies, carried across the dunes to tend to a patient whose doctor had abandoned him.

The frustration boiled up from somewhere deep, mixing with the fear and the pain and the bone-deep exhaustion to create something volatile and ugly.

"You mean to tell me that I have a gaping hole in my leg and our only doctor has left us?" The words came out sharp, accusatory, even though Karen wasn't the one who deserved my anger. "Why would she do that?"

Karen stood silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on the bandage in her hands. When she spoke, her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"I don't know."

The admission hung between us, a confession of helplessness that somehow made everything worse. We were all lost here. All fumbling through a nightmare we didn't understand, making decisions based on impulses we couldn't explain, following paths that led to destinations we couldn't see.

"But here," Karen said, kneeling beside me with a determination that seemed to draw on reserves I couldn't fathom. "I've brought some fresh bandages. Let's get your leg cleaned up."

I nodded, too tired to argue, too broken to do anything except submit to her ministrations.

She worked quickly, her touch gentle but efficient as she peeled away the blood-soaked bandages and exposed the wound beneath. I didn't look. Didn't want to see the damage, didn't want to confront the physical evidence of how thoroughly this world had chewed me up and spat me out.

There's always a choice, Kain Jeffries.

The voice slithered through my consciousness, cold and familiar, and I shuddered despite the warmth of the sun on my skin. Clive. Still watching. Still waiting. Still whispering poisonous suggestions into the spaces between my thoughts.

I tried to push it away, tried to focus on Karen's hands and the sting of antiseptic and the simple, grounding reality of being touched by another human being.

"It's not looking great," Karen commented, her brow furrowed with concentration.

No shit, I thought, but what I said was: "I'll be fine. Once I get crutches, I'll be able to walk properly."

The optimism in my voice was tissue-paper thin, a facade so flimsy that a strong breeze could have torn it apart. But I clung to it anyway, because the alternative was admitting that I was trapped here, dependent on entities I couldn't trust and people who had their own concerns that ranked far above my wellbeing.

Deep down, I knew the truth.

If Clive decided to take my leg — really take it, not just threaten — there was nothing I could do to stop it. The entity had demonstrated its power over my body, had shown me exactly how little control I had over my own nervous system. And the price it demanded for healing...

My stomach churned at the memory. Chris's body above mine. The taste of him. The violation dressed up as bargain, the rape wrapped in the language of choice.

Would I do it again?

The question rose unbidden, and I didn't have an answer. Didn't want to have an answer. Didn't want to admit that some part of me might sacrifice anything — dignity, identity, the love I'd sworn to Brianne — just to keep walking on two legs.

Karen finished her work, tying off the fresh bandage with a neat knot. She looked at me with eyes that held too much understanding, as if she could see the war being waged behind my expression.

"I'll be back soon," she said, patting my shoulder with a reassurance that felt more like goodbye. "I have to get some things done back at camp. Are you sure you'll be okay here by yourself?"

I nodded, attempting to project a strength I didn't feel.

I'll be fine, I told myself as Karen walked away, her figure growing smaller against the backdrop of sand and sky.

I have to be fine.

There's no other choice.

But even as I thought the words, Clive's voice echoed in my memory, mocking and certain:

There's always a choice, Kain Jeffries.

The sun beat down. The portal stood silent. And I waited, alone with my wounds and my fears and the terrible knowledge that the entity in my head was patient enough to wait forever.