"Ouch! [i]Hey![/i]" Ghent expected payback. What he didn't expect was Elayra to punch with the strength of a trained black belt.
	[i]How could someone so small pack such a wallop? [/i]"I was only trying to throw him off our trail!" 	 
	This wasn't true, for Ghent hadn't tired of making himself a nuisance. Elayra's hot-tempered reactions fueled his antics and he got a thrill out of seeing how far he could go. For the sake of his own well being, Ghent decided to tread lightly again if she was going to retaliate with physical blows.
	"So I can shoot bolts of lightning from my hands, but a portal can't meet up with us?" Grumbling, he rubbed his arm where he'd been socked, convinced that Elayra had used magic to hit him.[i] No way she could punch that hard.[/i] 
	"I guess in Wonderland, you'd call cops 'guards.'" Continuing to rub his arm, Ghent observed a car turning down their street, the driver an elderly woman. "And punks, well, that'd be us. We kinda broke the law." 	
	Breaking and entering wasn't the best of ideas, but Ghent thought they could get away with it. He'd justified it to himself; Frank wouldn't have minded them borrowing the back room, it was the Shadowmire attack that made things messy. 
	"Just for the record, no one would've known we were there if you hadn't brought those ghouls along." Ghent wasn't taking accountability for his role in this -- why should he admit that his plan had been a bad one?
	"Well, if the portal's not gonna meet us, we'll just have to risk it." With a sigh, he unzipped his backpack and held it out to Elayra. "Miles may be crazy, but he's got a point. If the cops see that you're armed, we're in for some trouble." With a nod, he gestured to her dagger. "We'll start by hiding that."