That thought alone sent a shiver through his chest. It was not fear. It was anticipation. A slow, rising certainty that something fundamental had shifted. Perhaps the rules no longer applied. Perhaps the world had bent. Cracked. Opened. What could the Betrayer do, really? Elan Morin was a name from a fantasy series, a villain thought up by an author who had died years ago.
And Ethan Kai was back in the real world. He only needed to understand how it had happened. How he had crossed over. And more importantly. . . .how to do it again.
The cruiser slowed as the First City Police Department came into view. The vehicle turned into a gated entrance lined with black fencing and washed in harsh floodlights. The rain had thinned to a steady mist. The pavement shimmered beneath the strobe of red and blue lights. The gate opened as they approached. It shut behind them with a mechanical clank that echoed in Ethan's ribs.
They rolled into the sally port. Reinforced walls lined with steel comprised it. The concrete floor was marked by yellow hazard lines. Security cameras rotated overhead. The air inside was dry and cold, filled with the sterile scent of ozone, latex, and long-cleaned blood.
A steel door to their right opened with a hiss. Painted in flat gray, the lettering above read: Detainee Intake – Authorized Personnel Only.
Ethan was led out of the cruiser. He stepped onto the wet concrete without resistance. His clothes were damp but no longer dripping. His fingers ached from the cold. The booking area lay beyond the steel door. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The floor was pocked and scuffed. A desk sat at the far end, staffed by a middle-aged officer tapping at a keyboard with one hand and holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other.
The buzz-cut officer guiding Ethan spoke first.
"Male suspect, late thirties. Picked up at the Transit Training Center. ID on him confirms him to be Ethan Kai. No weapons. Didn't resist, but hasn't spoken."
The desk sergeant looked up. "Kai? What kind of last name is that?"
The buzz-cut officer shrugged. "The staff confirmed it on-site. He works in Communications as a Dispatcher."
The sergeant nodded and pointed to the camera station. "Put him through."
The cuffs came off. Ethan was silent. His face he kept carefully neutral.
A camera flash marked each photograph—front, side left, side right. His fingers were scanned. Each hand pressed firmly onto the glass. The bandaged right hand drew attention. There were scorch marks on it from where he had grabbed at the handle of the door that had led him back from the madness.
A plainclothes officer stepped forward. "What is this?"
"Wrapped when we picked him up," the arresting officer said. "No signs of bleeding. But he's got a nasty burn."
The plainclothes man lifted the bandage edge slightly, just enough to see the texture of the scar beneath.
"That's weird," he said. "It looks like a key or something. Self-branded maybe. You do this to yourself. You into that kind of shit?"
He looked at Ethan who kept his mouth closed but met the officer's gaze until the other looked away.
They logged his belongings—soaked hoodie, black cargo pants, a black wallet with his ID, one silver bracelet with unusual sigils. The desk officer held it up between two fingers, frowning.
"Bit fancy for a guy dressed like this," he said. "Looks old. You think he stole it?"
The buzz-cut officer shrugged. "Could be. Was in his pocket, not on his wrist. Might not even be his."
The desk officer dropped it into a clear evidence bag and sealed it without another word.
Ethan was then cuffed at the ankle and chained to a floor ring beside a steel bench. He sat without argument. The station moved around him, indifferent. He watched. No one asked him anything more. Time passed. The details blurred. Eventually, a decision, seemed to be made.
The sergeant glanced up from his screen. "Still not talking?"
"No, sir."
The sergeant glanced up from his monitor, then leaned back with a tired sigh.
"Fine. Put him in Three. Let him stew for a bit. It'll give the detective and the captain time to figure out what the fuck happened. Then they can serve him up for the judge."
He looked over at Ethan, eyes narrowing.
"Too bad, buddy. Judge ain't in till Monday. You think you're hard, not sayin' nothin'. Let's see how you feel after forty-eight hours in the tank."
He waved a hand toward the hallway. "Go on. Escort Mr. Kai to his cell."
A deputy arrived with keys in hand.
"On your feet."
Ethan rose. The holding corridor was short and narrow. Six cells lined the left side. All identical. Steel-framed doors with wire-reinforced plexiglass. A soft red light above one side panel marked the locked latrine access. No toilet in any of the cells. Prisoners needed to request escort.
The deputy opened the third door. "In."
Ethan stepped inside. The cell was ten feet square. He assessed the room. One bench. A bunk bed. No toilet. No corner. Just steel and concrete. He moved toward the top bunk.
One man sat on the bench. Bald. Mid-forties. Muscular. Prison tattoos climbed both arms—some faded, some raw. A broken chain art wrapped his left wrist. He watched Ethan enter without a word, expression unreadable.
The man stood. Taller than Ethan by at least four inches. Broader through the chest and arms. His presence filled the cell like he expected it to mean something.
"Top bunk's mine," he said. "Everything in here's mine."
Ethan kept moving.
"You want to stay up there," the man added, stepping in close, "you pay me rent."
A grin followed. The implication did not need explaining. Ethan did not flinch. Maybe he wanted to prove something to himself. He had ran from the Betrayer in a story made real. This was a far cry from that.
The space between them shrank to inches. He felt the heat off the man's chest, smelled dried sweat and old cigarettes beneath the surface cleaner on his shirt. The man stepped closer to Ethan as he approached.
Too close.Too square on his feet.Stupid.
The decision made itself. Ethan moved. Left hand latched the wrist. He turned it and pushed high. His body pivoted behind the man's bulk as his right arm hooked under the jaw and guided the fall.
They hit the floor. Ethan came down on top with one knee driving into the spine, angled high enough to force compliance, low enough to avoid a break. He pinned the wrist in a lock, hand twisted backward, shoulder trapped beneath its own weight.
The man choked out half a breath. Sputtered. Tried to speak. Only a wet cough came out.
Ethan's voice was calm. Flat. He had seen this play out before—dozens of times in Afghanistan, maybe more. The setting changed, but the rhythm stayed the same. Assert dominance. End it quickly. Make it neat.
This was real. Not abstract. Not domestic failure or paperwork or counseling sessions that went nowhere. This was who he had been before he left the uniform behind to salvage a marriage that had never been worth the fight. He was surprised by how good it felt. Not the pain. Not the control.
The clarity. The discipline. The old reflexes firing like they had never gone dormant.
And the quiet voice in the back of his mind asked the question he had been avoiding for five years. Why did I pretend this was not who I am? In the military there had been rules. In this cell, the rules where what he made of them.
"I do not pay rent."
He tightened the wrist just slightly—bones grinding under the pressure. The tendons in the man's arm jumped.
"We good?" Ethan asked.
The man wheezed, trying to answer.
Ethan leaned in, dropped his voice further.
"Because if we're not, and you fuck with me again, I will break this," he gave the wrist another precise twist until the bones creaked audibly, "and both your ankles."
The man let out a gasping cry, half-scream, half-growl. It was pain with no air behind it.
Ethan held the pressure a moment longer. Then released. He stood, turned, and climbed the bunk. The cot creaked beneath his weight. He lay back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
The man on the floor did not move. He curled in on himself, cradling the arm. Ethan exhaled slowly. Not satisfaction. Just confirmation. The muscle had softened. The instincts had not. He watched the ceiling. And waited for sleep.
The man stayed on the floor for a while, curled around the pain, his breathing shallow. Ethan did not look down. He lay on the top bunk with his hands behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. His heartbeat had already returned to baseline.
Three minutes passed. Maybe four. Then the man stirred. A rustle of fabric. A soft grunt. He pushed himself up slowly, joints stiff, favoring the wrist Ethan had nearly torn apart. He sat on the bench for a moment, rubbing the joint with the palm of his other hand, jaw tight.
Then he stood. He stared up at Ethan. Not a glare. Not a challenge. Something else. A few seconds passed in silence. Then the man let out a short laugh—low and dry.
"Just fuckin' with you, man."
Ethan did not answer.
The man flexed the sore wrist again, winced slightly, then gave a small nod of acknowledgment.
"That was some clean shit you just did," he said. "The name's Tom. I guess I'll let you hang out in my house for a while."
He grinned again, but this time it held more amusement than threat.
"What was that, anyway? Some Krav Maga shit?"
Ethan allowed himself a faint smile. It barely moved the corners of his mouth.
He looked down at Tom. "Close enough."
Tom chuckled again, shaking his head. "Fuckin' clean. I thought you were soft."
Ethan said nothing. A few more seconds passed. Then he added, quietly, "Ethan."
Tom nodded again, the tension between them shifting—no longer predatory, now something more level. "Alright, Ethan," he said. "You take the top. I'll try not to snore."
He sat back down on the bench and leaned against the wall, massaging his wrist with the slow, steady motion of someone who had been in a lot of fights and lost more than a few.
Ethan settled in, the cot groaning slightly beneath him. The ceiling stared back. It was gray, silent, and unchanged. And slowly, he closed his eyes.
His thoughts moved slowly. What triggered it?The door.The old man.
He had felt something…when it first happened. Something real. Not dream, not hallucination. The burn on his hand had flared with cold when he had first opened the door from the Dispatch Center to the other world. Then it had burned when he had escaped back to the real world from another door.
Was that beggar a god?
Or a demon?
Ethan had believed in neither. Not truly. Religion had always felt distant. Decorative. A system for softer minds. But this… This had weight. He had wanted to believe. His mother had wanted him to believe, but without the evidence of the senses it was difficult to take anything on faith.
The chill clung to him, but he no longer noticed. His breathing slowed. His thoughts flattened into rhythm. The bench below creaked once as the other prisoner shifted but said nothing.
Then…A jolt. It came without announcement. A sudden drop, like the mattress had vanished and gravity had twisted sideways. Ethan's eyes opened.
The ceiling above him burned.
Two eyes. Flame without smoke. Motion without breath. They stared down from the concrete as if it were glass. Not eyes that watched the surface…but something deeper. Something beyond.
Then the light in the cell vanished. A darkness dropped onto him like an ocean wave. And sudden sleep pushed him under. In the dark, a voice spoke through the submerging pressure of the sleep. Not loud. Not distant. Just there.
"WHERE ARE YOU?"